He served in the military during the War of 1812, becoming a lieutenant of dragoons in 1813. He served as acting inspector general and aide to General Andrew Jacksonat New Orleans in 1815. As an adult, Hampton attended mostly to his extensive holdings, as his numerous plantations and houses in two states, overseers and managers, and thousands of slaves, all required extended management. He had several plantations in Issaquena County, Mississippi, where he held a total of 335 slaves by 1860, as well as properties in South Carolina and his summer home in the western mountains of North Carolina.
Marriage and family
Hampton married Ann Fitzsimmons on March 6, 1817, from a wealthy family in Charleston, South Carolina. They had several children, as listed:
Wade Hampton III ;
Christopher Fitzsimmons Hampton ;
Harriet Flud Hampton ;
Catharine P. Hampton ;
Ann M. Hampton ;
Caroline Louisa Hampton ;
Frank Hampton ;
Mary Fisher Hampton.
Hampton's sister-in-law Catherine Fitzsimmons, a shy girl, at age 17 married James Henry Hammond, making him a wealthy man with her large dowry. He eventually owned more than 20 square miles of property and hundreds of slaves through wealth gained by this marriage. The families saw each other socially because of this relationship. In 1843 Hampton learned that Hammond had sexually abused his daughters as teenagers and accused him when he was still governor, although nothing was written publicly. As rumors of Hammond's behavior spread, he was socially ostracized and his political career was derailed for a decade. But, he recovered sufficient political standing to be elected in 1856 by the South Carolina legislature as US senator from the state. The Hampton daughters' reputations were irrevocably tarnished. None of the daughters ever married. Anne and Wade's son Wade Hampton III entered the Confederate Army, becoming a prominent Confederatecavalry general in the American Civil War. After restrictions against former Confederates were lifted, he entered politics. During the end of Reconstruction, he was elected as Governor of South Carolina in 1876 as white Democrats took back political control of the state through use of paramilitary groups, such as the Red Shirts. They publicly disrupted Republican meetings, intimidated and attacked black voters and suppressed their voting during this campaign, and again in the gubernatorial campaign of 1878. Historian George C. Rable said these groups acted as "the military arm of the Democratic Party."
