Bonham was born near Redbank (now Saluda), South Carolina, the son of Maryland native Capt. James Bonham and Sophie Smith Bonham, the niece of Capt. James Butler, who was the head of an illustrious South Carolina family. Milledge was a 1st cousin once removed to Andrew Pickens Butler. He was a descendant of an Englishman named Thomas Butler, who arrived to the American colonies in the 1600s.[1]
Bonham studied law and was admitted to the bar, in 1837, and commenced practice in Edgefield. During the Mexican–American War, he was lieutenant colonel (from March 1847) and colonel (from August 1847) of the 12th US Infantry Regiment. Two other members of his regiment, Major Maxcy Gregg and Captain Abner Monroe Perrin, would also become generals in the Civil War. After he returned home, Bonham was the major general of the South Carolina Militia. Entering politics, he served in the state house of representatives from 1840 to 1843. He married Ann Patience Griffin on November 13, 1845. Bonham was solicitor of the southern circuit of South Carolina from 1848 to 1857. He was elected as a Democrat to the Thirty-fifth United States Congress (succeeding his cousin, Preston Smith Brooks) and the Thirty-sixth United States Congress, and served from March 4, 1857, until his retirement on December 21, 1860.
Gen. Milledge Luke Bonham
Civil War
In early 1861, the Southern states that had seceded from the Union appointed special commissioners to travel to those other slaveholding Southern states that had yet to secede. A slaveowner,[2] Bonham served as the Commissioner from South Carolina to the Mississippi Secession Convention, and helped to persuade its members that they should also secede from the Union.
He resigned his commission January 27, 1862, to enter the Confederate Congress. On December 17, 1862, the South Carolina General Assembly elected Bonham as governor by secret ballot. He served until December 1864. During his term, the General Assembly enacted a prohibition against distilling in 1863 and also that year, it demanded that more land be used to grow food instead of cotton to increase the supply of food in the state. Bonham rejoined the Confederate Army as brigadier general of cavalry in February 1865, and was actively engaged in recruiting when the war ended.
Near Greenville, South Carolina a group of troops positioned there, because of worry of federal invasion from North Carolina, named their emplacement, Camp Bonham, in his honor.
Dates of rank
Major General (South Carolina Militia), February 10, 1861
Brigadier General, April 23, 1861
Brigadier General, February 20, 1865
Postbellum activities
Bonham owned an insurance business in Edgefield and in Atlanta, Georgia, from 1865 to 1878. Returning to politics, Bonham was again a member of the South Carolina House of Representatives from 1865 to 1866 and a delegate to the Democratic National Convention in 1868. He was a member of the South Carolina taxpayers' convention in 1871 and 1874. Retiring from public service, he resumed the practice of law in Edgefield and engaged in planting. He was appointed state railroad commissioner in 1878 and served until his death at White Sulphur Springs, North Carolina. He was buried in Elmwood Cemetery in Columbia.[3]
Two newspaper obituaries (Fisherman and Farmer, Edenton, North Carolina 12 September 1890 and Swain County Herald, Bryson City, North Carolina from 11 Sep 1890) report General Milledge L. Bonham, railroad commissioner, was found dead in his bed in his room at Hawood, White Sulphur Springs, North Carolina from hemorrhage during the night. WSS, North Carolina was a late-nineteenth resort in Surry County near Mount Airy, N.C.
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