Thomas Drayton

Thomas Fenwick Drayton (August 24, 1809 – February 18, 1891) was an American planter, politician, railroad president, slave owner and military officer from Charleston, South Carolina. He served in the United States Army and then as a brigadier general in the Confederate States Army during the American Civil War. His brother, Percival Drayton, was a Naval Officer and fought on the Union side during the war.

Early life and career Drayton was a native of South Carolina, most likely born in Charleston. He was the son of William Drayton, a prominent lawyer, soldier, and US Representative. Thomas' grandfather, William Drayton Sr., was a judge for the province of East Florida (1763–1780) and appointed as the first Federal judge of the new United States District Court for the District of South Carolina. In 1833, following the Nullification Crisis, William Drayton (who was a unionist) took all the family to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, except Thomas, who chose to stay in the South.

Drayton graduated in 1828 from the United States Military Academy, where he was a classmate of Jefferson Davis, who became his lifelong friend. Drayton was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the 6th U.S. Infantry.

Four years later, Drayton resigned from the US Army and became a civil engineer for railroad construction in Charleston, Louisville, and Cincinnati for two years before he returned to plantation life. He was a captain in the state militia for five years.

Drayton was elected to the South Carolina state legislature and was an outspoken supporter of states rights and slavery. He eventually owned 102 slaves at Fish Haul Plantation, which his wife had brought to their marriage. While a member of the South Carolina State Senate, Drayton also was President of the Charleston & Savannah Railroad from 1853 until 1856. Drayton subsequently used Coggins Point Plantation and Fish Haul Plantation, which his wife owned, as headquarters in the defense of Hilton Head Island. Drayton assigned many of his own 102 slaves on the island to construct defenses and do other work to support the Confederates.

At the Battle of Port Royal later that year, troops under his command at Fort Walker and Fort Beauregard came under attack by ships of the Union Navy, including the USS Pocahontas, commanded by his brother, Percival Drayton. Thomas Drayton's son, Lieutenant William Drayton, also fought with the Confederates in defense of the forts. After a lengthy bombardment, both forts fell to the Union attackers, who subsequently occupied much of the region. They gained an important deepwater port in coastal Carolina. For the remainder of the war Union naval operations against First Battle of Charleston Harbor and the Union Blockade were both supported by the port.

In 1862, Drayton was assigned command of an infantry brigade composed of the 15th South Carolina Infantry, the 3d Battalion S.C. Inf. and three Georgia infantry regiments: the 50th and 51st and Phillips' Georgia Legion. The brigade joined the Army of Northern Virginia after the Seven Days Battles and became part of the Right Wing of the Army of Northern Virginia under Lt. Gen. James Longstreet. Drayton led his brigade at Second Bull Run and in the Maryland Campaign. He was buried in Elmwood Cemetery in Charlotte.

Drayton is mentioned in an explanatory panel erected in 1985 by the state of South Carolina near Hilton Head in Beaufort County.