Captain John Hampden Brooks
History of Kershaw's Brigade by G. Augustus Dickert

Pgs 481-482 CAPTAIN JOHN HAMPDEN BROOKS. John Hampden Brooks was Captain of Company G, Seventh South Carolina Regiment, from its entry into State service to the end of its twelve months' enlistment. At the reorganization of the regiment he declined re-election, and served for a short time as Aid-de-Camp on General Kershaw's staff. At this time, upon recommendation of Generals Kershaw and Jos. E. Johnston, he raised another company of Partisan Rangers, and was independent for awhile. Upon invitation, he joined Nelson's Seventh South Carolina Battalion, Hagood's Brigade, and served with this command (save a brief interval) to the end of the war. He was in the first battle of Manassas and in Bentonville, the last great battle of the war. At Battery Wagner his company was on picket duty the night of the first assault, aud it was by his order that the first gun was fired in that memorable siege, and one of his men was the first Confederate killed. At the battle of Drewry's Bluff, Va.,Captain Brooks was three times wounded, and lost sixty-eight out of the seventy-five men carried into action, twenty-five being left dead upon the field. Upon recovery from his wounds he returned to his command, but was soon detached, by request of General Beauregard and order of General Lee, to organize a foreign battalion from the Federal prisoners at Florence, S. C, with distinct promise of promotion. This battalion was organized and mustered into Confederate service at Summerville, S. C, as Brooks' Battalion, and in December, 1864, Captain Brooks took a part of the command to Savannah (then being invested by General Sherman) and they served a short time on the line of defense. In consequence of bad behavior and mutiny, however, they were soon returned to prison. Captain Brooks was now placed in command of all unattached troops in the city of Charleston, but he became tired of inactivity, at his own request was relieved, and upon invitation of his old company, ignoring his promotion, he returned to its command. Captain Brooks was born at Edgefield Court House and was educated at Mt. Zion, Winnsboro, and the South Carolina College. His father, Colonel Whitfield Brooks, was an ardent nullifier, and named his son, John Hampden, in honor of that illustrious English patriot. That Captain Brooks should have displayed soldierly qualities was but natural, as these were his by inheritance. His grandfather, Colonel Z. S. Brooks, was a Lieutenant in the patriotic army of the Revolutionary War, and his grandmother a daughter of Captain Jas. Butler, killed in the "Cloud's Creek massacre." His brothers, Captain Preston S. and Whitfield B. Brooks, were members of the Palmetto Regiment in the Mexican War; the latter mortally wounded at Cherubusco and promoted to a Lieutenant in the Twelfth Regulars for gallantry in action. Captain Brooks is the sole survivor of the first Captains of the Seventh Regiment, and resides at Roselands, the old family homestead, formerly in Edgefield, but now Greenwood County.

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