Encyclopedia

The Confederate torpedo boat David was a small, steam-driven, surface vessel armed with a pole-mounted explosive charge called a spar torpedo.

An active member of the South Carolina Agricultural Society, Davie also assisted in negotiating the boundary dispute between North and South Carolina.

Although he learned some of Walker’s repertoire, Davis crafted his own style and is considered to be a progenitor rather than a follower of the “Piedmont” blues sound that developed in the Southeast.

Davis’s most significant public undertaking was his involvement in the campaign to establish a public lunatic asylum in Columbia.

In collaboration with various visual artists, Dawes published in the following year Bruised Totem, a series of ekphrastic poems that respond to an exhibit from the Bareiss Family Collection of African Art.

The energetic Dawson and the News and Courier became known for speed in news gathering, accuracy, and far-flung coverage, with correspondents in Washington, D.C., and Columbia.

Not satisfied with his new profession, De Bow began contributing political essays to the Charleston-based Southern Quarterly Review and soon became one of its editors.

On October 20, 1757, De Brahm’s fortunes rose with the publication of his cartographic opus, “A Map of South Carolina and a Part of Georgia.” The elegant and precedent-setting map brought De Brahm to the attention of Europe.

His military career in Europe culminated in 1776, when he was commissioned a brigadier general in the French army. De Kalb subsequently decided to seek his military fortune in America, where he was contracted as a major general in the Continental army.

After the war De Leon returned to America and worked to reestablish the Democratic Party in the South, campaigning for Horatio Seymour for president in 1868 and Horace Greeley in 1872.

Despite his ability and accomplishments, however, De Leon had the reputation of being difficult and imperious. He lost his eyesight in 1903 and was thereafter referred to as “The blind laureate of the Lost Cause.”

De Soto entered the territory of present-day South Carolina in search of the chiefdom of Cofitachiqui, reported to contain great wealth. Indians in present Georgia confirmed the account De Soto had heard but warned him of the great wilderness that lay between them and this powerful chiefdom.

Engraving depicting the death of British Major Patrick Ferguson at the Battle of Kings Mountain during the American Revolutionary War, October 7, 1780. Published 1863

South Carolina is one of thirty-eight states that authorize the death penalty. Murder is the only state crime for which one may be executed.