Brigadier-General Ellison Capers, Confederate Military History, a library of Confederate States Military History: Volume 5, South Carolina
Clement Anselm Evans, Ed.

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[880] a soldier in the Revolution. His father, Samuel S. Tompkins, born in Edgefield county, in 1819, was one of eight brothers in the Confederate army, and after his first service under General Bonham, raised a company of which he was elected captain and which was assigned to the regiment of Col. Ellison Capers, with which he was on duty until physical disability compelled his resignation in 1862. Daniel H. Tompkins was educated at Edgefield and in the famous schools of James L. Leslie at Clear Springs and of John L. Kennedy at Williamston until he abandoned his studies in December, 1863, to enlist in the Confederate service. Becoming a private in the Hampton legion he was identified with the record of that gallant command in Virginia during 1864, serving in all the engagements north of the James river, in defense of Richmond, and in 1865 participating in the numerous skirmishes which attended the retreat to Appomattox. Returning home after the close of hostilities he went to Edinburgh, Scotland, in the fall of 1866, and remained there until the summer of 1868 as a student in the Edinburgh university. Since then his occupation has been that of a cotton planter in his native county. He held the position of private secretary to Governor Tillman from 1890 to 1894, and in the latter year was elected secretary of state, an office in which his honorable career is familiar to the people. In 1869 he was married, in Laurens county, to Louisa R., daughter of Dr. William Rook, and they have five children: Louise, wife of John T. Duncan, of Columbia; Frank G., Amelia, Evelyn and Elizabeth.

Samuel A. Townes, ex-mayor of Greenville, was born at Marion, Perry county, Ala., May 27, 1844. His father, Maj. Samuel A. Townes, was a graduate of the university of Virginia, a journalist and lawyer and a major of South Carolina militia. He practiced law in South Carolina, his native State, and in Alabama, returning to South Carolina with his wife, Joanna Lois Hall, a native of Charleston, to rear his children. In April, 1861, Mr. Townes enlisted as a private in the Butler Guards at Greenville, and as private and later as sergeant in Company B, Second South Carolina regiment, was a continuous participant in the record of that regiment and of Kershaw's brigade, until the close of the war. Blessed with