Brigadier-General Ellison Capers, Confederate Military History, a library of Confederate States Military History: Volume 5, South Carolina
Clement Anselm Evans, Ed.

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[815] in Congress and was elected governor in 1840. The latter was the son of John Peter Richardson, son of Gen. Richard Richardson, a native of Virginia who removed to Clarendon county in colonial times, exerted great influence during the Revolution, and at eighty years of age was arrested by Tarleton, carried to Charleston on a horse behind a trooper and kept on a prison ship until his release gave him only the privilege of dying at his home. The eldest son of Gen. Richard Richardson was James Burchell Richardson, who was elected governor of South Carolina in 1804. Two other descendants of General Richardson have held the same high office, Gov. Richard I. Manning and Gov. John L. Manning, while many more have won distinction in the councils of the State and nation. The subject of this sketch was graduated at the South Carolina college in 1849, and afterward gave his attention to the care of his agricultural interests. He served in the legislature from Clarendon county during the exciting period of 1856 to 1862, and in the latter year entered the Confederate service, as inspector-general on the staff of Brig.-Gen. James Cantey, of Alabama, who was in command of a division of a department of the gulf. After being stationed at Mobile and various other points in Alabama and Mississippi, he served with General Cantey throughout the entire campaign under General Johnston in 1864, from Dalton to Atlanta, being under fire about ninety-three of the hundred days. He continued on duty until after the surrender of General Lee's army, when he returned to his home in Clarendon county, and amid changed conditions, which involved great hardships, began an attempt to retrieve what had been destroyed by war. Few, even among his friends, are aware of the privations of this period of his life, when he made his home in a cabin and worked manfully in his fields. He was chosen to serve in the convention of 1865, called by President Johnson, and was elected a member of the succeeding legislature. He continued to serve both in the house and senate until the military government was inaugurated. In 1876 he greatly reduced the adverse majority in his county as a candidate for the legislature, and in 1878 he was triumphantly elected. Two years afterward he was nominated without opposition for the office of State treasurer, elected, and twice re-elected in 1882 and 1884. In 1886 he was elected governor, as which he