Pvt. Samuel Pharis Templeton, 3d Regt., S.C.V.

Today is Confederate Memorial Day in North and South Carolina.

Today I honor my great-great grandfather, Samuel Pharis Templeton, of Laurens County, SC, who, though owning no slaves, went to war to defend his home and family from the invasion of Northern U.S. Forces. He served in Company A, "Laurens Briars," later Company I, Third Regiment, South Carolina Volunteers, Kershaw's Brigade, McLaw's Division, Longstreet's Corps, Army of Northern Virginia.

S. Pharis Templeton late in life (d. 1906, buried at Rocky Springs Presbyterian Church, Laurens, SC)

Private Samuel Pharis Templeton 

• Enlisted at Laurens, SC, April 14, 1861
• Mustered into Confederate service June 6, 1861
• Discharged by the Surgeon July 2, 1861.

• Was re-enlisted at Clinton, SC, by Colonel Preston July 1, 1862.
• Participated in battles at 
• Maryland Heights, September 13, 1862
• Sharpsburg (Antietam), MD, September 17, 1862
• Fredericksburg in front of Marye's House, December 13, 1862
• Chancellorsville, May 1863
• Gettysburg, July 2, 1863
• Antietam Creek, July 10, 1863
• Chickamauga, GA, Sept 20, 1863, (wounded)
• Knoxville, TN, November 17-18, 1863
• Beans Station, TN, December 13, 1863
• Wilderness Campaign, VA, May 6, 1864 (with heavy loss)
• Spotsylvania CH, 8 May, 1864
• North Anna River, VA, May 23, 1864
• Cold Harbor, VA, June 1, 1864
• Petersburg, VA, June 19, 1864
• Rivers Bridge, SC, February 1865
• Bentonville, NC, March 1865

• Wounded at Chickamauga, GA, September 20, 1863.
• Reported on the muster roll of December 31, 1863, as having been sent to general hospital.
• Reported on the muster roll of December 17 1864, as having been sent to hospital June 16, 1864, and as since furloughed.
• Paroled at Greensboro, NC, May 2, 1865. 

Source: A.S. Salley, comp., South Carolina Troops in Confederate Service (Columbia, SC: The State Company, 1914), 2:316, 540.