Downtown / Main Street USA: Kershaw, SC
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Difficulty:
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Terrain:
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Size: 
(micro)
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A simple micro.
Renamed this cache on 5-09-2008 to link it up with the Downtown / Main Street USA: cache series, enjoy!
The town of Kershaw, known in its earliest days as
Welsh's Station~ derives its name from General Joseph
Brevard Kershaw (1822-1894), a much admired South
Carolinian in the post-Civil War years because of
his reputation as leader of the famous Kershaw's
Brigade, CSA. General Kershaw was a native of Cam-
den, a lawyer, and a man who lived up to his prom..
inent lineage. His grandfather, Joseph, had come
from England in 1748, settled at Camden, and acquir-
ed prominence and some fortune, He was active in
the American cause during the Revolution. The Gen-
eral's father, John, was several times Camden's mayor,
a state legislator, and a United States Congressman
for one term.
Joseph Brevard Kershaw as a young man of twenty-
one saw active duty in the Mexican War in 1843 as
a lieutenant in the Palmetto Regiment. Returning to
Camden because of illness, he took up the practice
of law and in time became a leading citizen. He was
elected to the legislature in 1852 and 1854 and was
a member of the Secession Convention of 1860. In
April, 1861, he was commissioned a colonel and took
command of the Second South Carolina Volunteer
Regiment, an organization which he had recruited.
In 1862, when he was promoted to brigadier, his
command became known as Kershaw's Brigade and
was made an element of Longstreet's Corps, Army
of Northern Virginia. Kershaw and his men engaged
in some of the most vicious fighting of the war-at
both battles of Manassas, at Antietam, Fredericks-
burg, and Chanceilorsville. At Gettysburg the Brigade
led the attack of Longstreet's Corps and lost over
half its personnel. Its most notable feat was accom-
plished at Chickamauga, when in a surging charge
it crushed the right wing of the Federal Army and
drove it from the field. Kershaw was promoted to
Major General in May, 1864, and thereafter com-
manded a division through the declining days of the
Confederacy. Captured at the end of the war, he was
held a prisoner for several months at Fort Warren,
Boston. On his release he returned to Camden, again
took up the law, and was elected to the State Senate,
In 1870 as a member of the Union Reform Party Con-
vention he prepared the resolutions recognizing the
Reconstruction acts. From 1877 to 1893 he was judge
of the fifth circuit court, and in 1894, at the time of
his death, he was Camden's postmaster.
Behind the perpetuation of General Kershaw's
name in the present town is another Confederate
soldier, only a private during his years of service,
who was also at one time a Federal prisoner of war,
This man was James V. Welsh (1845-1906), known in
the post-war years to everyone by the courtesy title
of "Captain." He, too, came of a family that had
figured in the history of the region. His great-great
grandfather and great-great uncle, John and William
Welsh, were prominent members of the pre-Revolu-
tionary Regulators, those early rebels who rose against
the Charleston authorities whom they accused of
managing all the affairs of the Colony for the benefit
of the Low Country. Their names exist in the State
Archives as being pardoned after the Regulators had
carried their point and wrung concessions from the
government.
A second John Welsh, James V.'s great-grand-
father, was a young soldier in the Revolution in the
company of Captain John Blakeney, prominent citi-
zen of the Cheraws and vestryman of Saint David's
Church, Captain Blakeney had raised a company,
petitioned the Provisional Congress to accept its
services, and had been commissioned in November,
1775. His company was subsequently a component
of the brigade of General Francis Marion, Young
John Welsh married his captain's daughter, Jane
Blakeney, and, taking an indent of pounds sterling
issued him by the state for his services, expanded
this into large land holdings in Chesterfield and Lan-
caster Districts, This indent is extant in the State
Archives, There also exist records of John Welsh's
purchases of land, the largest single transaction
among them one of 3,500 acres bought from General
Thomas Sumter.
At the beginning of the Civil War James V, Welsh
was sixteen years of age but before he was eighteen
he was in the Confederate service. His father, John
R. Welsh, and a brother, Thomas J., joined the Lan-
caster Invincibles, the father as a private. This organ-
ization became Company H of the Second Regiment
of South Carolina Volunteers, Kershaw's Brigade,
Another brother, C, C., became a lieutenant in Com-
pany E, Twelfth South Carolina Infantry. Eventual-
ly, both Thomas J. and James V. were members of
Company D, First South Carolina Infantry.
And so Kershaw wasn't always Kershaw. I love history.
Additional Hints
(Decrypt)
Va cynva ivrj sebz gur evtug natyr.