Martin Witherspoon Gary

Martin Witherspoon Gary (March 25, 1831 – April 9, 1881) was an attorney, soldier and politician from South Carolina, advancing to the rank of brigadier general in the Confederate States Army during the American Civil War. He played a major leadership role in the 1876 Democratic political campaign to elect Wade Hampton III as governor, planning a detailed campaign to disrupt the Republican Party and black voters by violence and intimidation.

Gary was first elected to office as a state representative in 1860. He was elected to the State Senate in 1876 from Edgefield, South Carolina, serving two terms. He fell out with Hampton after failing to get appointments to the US Senate in 1877 and 1879, and left politics in 1881 after finishing his second term. He returned to his home in Cokesbury and died in April of that year.

Born in Cokesbury, South Carolina, to Dr. Thomas Reeder Gary and Mary Ann Porter, the young Gary received his primary education at Cokesbury Academy before enrolling at South Carolina College in 1850. His participation in the Great Biscuit Rebellion in 1852 resulted in his withdrawal from the state college. He later returned to his studies and graduated from Harvard in 1854. In 1855, Gary was admitted to the bar in South Carolina and began practicing as a lawyer in Edgefield.

Gary was elected in 1860 to the South Carolina House of Representatives as a secessionist. His time in office was short.

When South Carolina seceded in 1861, he joined Hamptons Legion as a captain of infantry. At the First Battle of Manassas, he was given control of the Legion after his superior officers were disabled. By 1862 Gary had been elected as lieutenant colonel of the infantry battalion in the Legion and was promoted to colonel when given control of a regiment. Hampton's Legion came under the command of General Longstreet and was active in the battles of Virginia through mid-1863 before being transferred to help the Army of Tennessee in the latter part of the year.

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