Milledge Luke Bonham

U. S. House of Representatives, South Carolina, 1857-1860
Brigadier General, CSA, 1861-1862
Confederate Congressman, South Carolina, 1862
Governor, South Carolina, 1862-1864
Brigadier General, CSA, 1865

Born: December 25, 1813, near Red Bank (now Saluda), Edgefield District, South Carolina.

• Attended private schools in Edgefield District and at Abbeville, South Carolina.
  
• South Carolina College (now the University of South Carolina), Columbia, South Carolina, graduate, 1834.
  
• Studied law, was admitted to the bar, and commenced practice in Edgefield, South Carolina, 1837.
  
• Served as Major and Adjutant General of the South Carolina Brigade in the Seminole War in Florida, 1836.
  
• During the Mexican War was Lieutenant Colonel and Colonel of the Twelfth Regiment, U. S. Infantry.
  
• Major General of the South Carolina Militia.
  
• Member of the South Carolina State House of Representatives 1840-1844.
  
• Solicitor of the southern circuit of South Carolina, 1848-1857.
  
• Elected from South Carolina as a State Rights Democrat to the Thirty-fifth and Thirty-sixth U. S. Congresses, serving from March 4, 1857, until his retirement on December 21, 1860.
  
• Appointed Major General and Commander of the Army of South Carolina by Gov. F. W. Pickens, February 1861.
  
• Appointed Brigadier General in the Confederate Army, April 19, 1861.
  
• Commanded in the center of General Beauregard's Army in the First Battle of Manassas (Bull Run).
  
• Resigned his CSA commission January 27, 1862, to enter the Confederate Congress.
  
• Elected Governor, South Carolina, December 1862, serving until December 1864.
  
• Appointed Brigadier General of Cavalry, Confederate Army, February 1865.
  
• Again a member of the South Carolina State House of Representatives, 1865-1867.
  
• Delegate from South Carolina to the Democratic National Convention at New York City, 1868.
  
• Member of the South Carolina Taxpayers' Convention, 1871 and 1874.
  
• Delegate to the South Carolina Democratic State Convention, 1876.
  
• Resumed the practice of law in Edgefield, South Carolina, engaged in planting, and also conducted an insurance business in Edgefield, South Carolina, and Atlanta, Georgia, 1865-1878.
  
• Appointed South Carolina State Railroad Commissioner, 1878, serving until his death in 1890.

Died: August 27, 1890, White Sulphur Springs, North Carolina.
Buried: Elmwood Cemetery, Columbia, South Carolina.

(Source: U.S. Congress. House. Biographical Directory Of The American Congress 1774-1949, 85th Cong., 2nd sess., H. Doc. 607 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1950), pp. 759-2057.)