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“R” is for Robertson, Thomas James

“R” is for Robertson, Thomas James [1823-1897]. U.S. senator. After graduating from the South Carolina College, was a successful and prominent planter. During the Civil War, however, he sided with the Union and was said to have entertained General Sherman in his Columbia home. As a member of the Constitutional Convention of 1868, he advocated the punishment of former Confederates. In return for his loyalty to the Union and the Republican Party, he was bitterly denounced by most white Carolinians. In 1868 the General Assembly elected him to the U.S. Senate and he was re-elected in 1870 and served until 1877.  By 1877, with his commitment to Reconstruction, eroded, Thomas James Robertson advised President Ulysses S. Grant to allow the election of Democrat Wade Hampton as governor—effectively ending Reconstruction in South Carolina.

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Dr. Walter Edgar has two programs on South Carolina Public Radio: Walter Edgar's Journal, and South Carolina from A to Z. Dr. Edgar received his B.A. degree from Davidson College in 1965 and his Ph.D. from the University of South Carolina in 1969. After two years in the army (including a tour of duty in Vietnam), he returned to USC as a post-doctoral fellow of the National Archives, assigned to the Papers of Henry Laurens.