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MAXCY GREGG: Political Extremist and Confederate General Robert K. Krìck In the midst of the Federal disaster at Fredericksburg the Confederacy suffered the loss of one of its best battle commanders. Somehow, a gap had been left open along the line and Federal troops making an abortive drive into the opening had mortally wounded General Maxcy Gregg. The dying South Carolinian, in a deathbed message to the governor of his state, reflected the guiding spirit of his political and military life. "If I am to die at this time," he said, "I yield my life cheerfully, fighting for the independence of South Carolina."1 Maxcy Gregg had started down the road to Fredericksburg many years before as one of the first ardent advocates of secession and one of the earliest volunteers in support of South Carolina when that state made secession more than a political principle. Maxcy Gregg's ancestors were a most unlikely group of forebears for a fire-eating Southern politician. His maternal grandfather was Jonathan Maxcy of Massachusetts, who resigned the presidency of Brown University to become the first president of the school which became the University of South Carolina. Jonathan Maxcy's wife came from a prominent Rhode Island family. Maxcy Gregg was born to a daughter of this New England couple in 1814.2 The young man had enough intelligence to tie for top honors in his college graduating class, and enough pride and stubbornness to refuse to share the prize.3 In 1839 Gregg was admitted to the bar and began to practice law in Columbia. For the next two decades this practice and an extensive involvement in state and regional politics occupied his interest. Gregg also became immersed in the study of botany, ornithology , astronomy, and Greek literature and philosophy. His library and observatory became well known.4 For a brief period he abandoned these satisfying pursuits to accept a major's commission in one of the 1 Richmond Dispatch, Dec. 16, 1862; Charleston Daily Courier, Dec. 17, 1862. 2 Dumas Malone (ed.), Dictionary of American Biography (New York, 19281944 ), XII, 433-4; Ezra J. Warner, Generals in Gray (Baton Rouge, 1959), p. 119. 3 Clement A. Evans (ed.), Confederate Military History (Atlanta, 1899), V, 39T; Charleston newspaper of Dec. 1862 quoted in Douglas S. Freeman, Lee's Lieutenants (New York, 1944), II, 385. * Malone, DAB, VII, 598-9. 293 294 CIVIL WAR HISTORY volunteer regiments raised for the Mexican War. Although he saw no battles he gained valuable experience in organization and drilling of raw levies.5 The bloodless experience in the Mexican War was perhaps less exciting than a duel in Charleston in which Gregg served as a second . He was struck in the side by a ball but only slightly wounded, because portions of his clothing deflected and held the bullet.6 Many years later, in 1862, Gregg was similarly saved by a freak deflection during the rather more serious mayhem along Antietam Creek. Gregg's early support of secession evolved into an even more extreme advocacy of disunion.7 In 1850 he wrote that "the exclusion of slavery from California would justify the South in seceding, seizing California, and closing the Mississippi." Furthermore, he added, "The Northern man who denounces this as treason, I would simply meet with defiance. The servile Southern sychophant who raises the cry, invokes inexpressible scorn."8 When the Compromise of 1850 received widespread acceptance, and Southern efforts at joint action failed with the Nashville Convention, Gregg demanded that his state secede, without support from the rest of the South if necessary. In fact, he wrote that he regarded "consolidation with Georgia and Tennessee ... as only not quite so great an evil as consolidation with New York and Ohio."9 Gregg soon found that his was a minority opinion even within his state, but compromise was not acceptable to a man of such firmly held opinions. At one convention he filed a minority report which none of the other twenty members of his committee would support. Among its measures was a call to guard against "the corrupting influence of the federal government." Later in the 1850's he actively led the radical party in...

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