Thomas Pinckney (American Civil War)

Pinckney was the fourth child and second son born to father Charles Cotesworth Pinckney (1789-1865) and mother Phoebe Caroline Elliot Pinckney (1792-1864) . He grew up in the family house in Charleston SC and on the family rice plantations on the South Santee River Delta, which included Fairfield Plantation, El Dorado Plantation, Echaw Grove, Fannymead Plantation and Moreland Plantation. He frequently also spent time in the upcountry of South Carolina and western North Carolina to escape the summer heat and disease of the South Carolina Lowcountry. He attended the University of Virginia but left to study medicine back in Charleston and then New York.[2]

Pinckney helped form and then lead the St James Mounted Riflemen whose purpose was to defend the various plantations on the Santee River delta from Northern raids. He further used his land at Echaw Plantation to build Battery Warren to protect a Confederate railroad bridge over the Santee. Over time he and his men were re-organized under the command of then-Major Arthur Middleton Manigualt in McClellanville and then, later, under General M. C. Butler they were sent to Virginia. At the Battle of Haw's Shop Pinckney was captured. As a prisoner-of-war, he was nearly starved to death and held in the line of fire at Morris Island by Union soldiers in retaliation for the treatment of Union soldiers held by the Confederacy. He and the others so treated became known in the Confederacy as the Immortal Six Hundred for their refusal to take an oath of allegiance to the United States. Eventually, Pinckney was exchanged for Union soldiers and paroled.[3]