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The Battle
of South Mountain
Lt. Col. James
Lieutenant Colonel George Sholter James, CSA (1829-1862)
James was born in Laurens County, South Carolina. At age 17 he ran off to fight in the
Mexican War with the Palmetto Regiment. Upon his return home he entered the South Carolina
College. Unsatisfied with student life, James soon left college for the United States
Army. He served in the U.S. Artillery from 1856 to 1861. When South Carolina seceded from
the Union, James resigned his commission and offered his services to his native state. In
April 1861, Captain James commanded two Confederate batteries of 12-inch mortars at Fort
Johnson on James Island in Charleston Harbor. On the morning of April 12, 1861, James
received and executed orders to open fire on Fort Sumter. He had, in effect, started the
American Civil War.
On September 14, 1862, Lieutenant Colonel James commanded the 3rd South Carolina
Infantry Regiment at Fox's
Gap. As a part of Drayton's Brigade, his
severely outnumbered men made a last desperate stand that afternoon. Just as night
approached and the firing began to cease, James received a fatal chest wound. His body was
buried near Wise's Cabin, but the wooden headboard noting the site was missing in 1874
when South Mountain's Confederate dead were re-interred at Hagerstown, Maryland. It is
assumed that James rests with the unknowns in the city's Rose Hill Confederate Cemetery.
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