Stephen A. Swails House

Stephen Atkins Swails (1832-1900), a U.S. Army officer and state senator, lived in a house on this site from 1868 to 1879. A free black man from Pennsylvania, he came to South Carolina in 1863 as a 1st Sgt. in the 54th Massachusetts Volunteers (Colored), the first black regiment organized in the North during the Civil War. Wounded twice, he was commissioned 2nd lt. by Massachusetts Governor John Andrew in early 1864. One of only about 100 black officers during the Civil War, he was promoted to 1st lt. in 1865. Afterwards he was an agent for the Freedmen's Bureau, practiced law in Kingstree, served as a state senator from 1868 to 1878 and three terms as president pro tem, was intendant of Kingstree from 1873 to 1877, edited the Williamsburg Republican, and was buried in the Friendly Society Cemetery in Charleston.

Kingstree, South Carolina · United States