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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[588] In February, 1863, he returned home on a furlough, and his father, being old and in need of his son's presence at home, secured a substitute for him. After the war he practiced law for a number of years, but latterly he has given his attention to planting and now resides on his farm near Laurens. He is a member of Camp Garlington, U. C. V., which was named in honor of his brother, Lieut.-Col. Benjamin Conway Garlington, killed in the battle of Savage Station. He was married, December 17, 1857, to Elizabeth J. Fleming, daughter of Samuel Fleming, a merchant, and they have two sons and one daughter.

Lieutenant-Colonel Benjamin Conway Garlington, third son of John and Susan W. Garlington, of Laurens Court House, S. C., was born November 4, 1836. He received his early education in the village academy at Laurens, taught first by Prof. Robert Garlington and afterward by the Rev. T. E. Wanamaker, who prepared him for the sophomore class in the South Carolina college. Entering this institution at an early age he was a diligent student and gave promise of graduating with distinction, but in 1856 an unfortunate collision occurred between some of the students and the police which resulted in a temporary suspension of college exercises. With this disturbance, however, young Garlington was in no way connected, and accordingly, wishing to pursue his studies quietly, he sought and obtained from the faculty a certificate of honorable withdrawal. In the fall of 1857 he became a student in the academic course in the university of Virginia, where he enjoyed the full confidence and respect of his professors and fellow students. After spending a pleasant vacation at his home during the following summer, he returned at the opening of the session of 1858-59 and devoted himself to the study of law. He had just been admitted, in Columbia, to the courts of South Carolina and had returned home with the intention of opening an office in his native village, when a call was made by the governor of the State for soldiers to defend her borders from an invading foe, and this gallant young man was among the first to offer himself and the noble company of State Guards, of which he was captain. The offer was of course accepted and the State Guards became, when mustered into the service of the Confederate States,