"M" is for Magrath, Andrew Gordon [1813-1893]. Governor, jurist. After graduating from the South Carolina College, Magrath (pronounced like McGraw) studied law at Harvard and with James L. Petigru. In 1856 he was appointed a federal district judge and, in the cases surrounding two ships seized for as slave traders—the Echo and the Wanderer—declared that the federal statues on piracy did not apply to the slave trade. His decision was hailed in the South and condemned in the North. With Lincoln's election, he resigned from the bench and was a member of the Secession Convention.
Appointed a Confederate district judge, he vigorously opposed the concentration of governmental power in Richmond. In December 1864, he became the last governor elected by the General Assembly. After the war Andrew Gordon Magrath was imprisoned at Fort Pulaski in Savannah.
