Samuel Adams was a lawyer and colonel in the C. S. Army. He was born, March 5, 1829, near Abbeville, S. C., and died July 21, 1864, at Atlanta, Ga. No ancestral data is available other than that his maternal grandfather, a Mr. Vann of Abbeville County was a Revolutionary soldier, who at the age of eighty cheered the Abbeville company as it was leaving for the Mexican War in 1847, and who expressed keen regret that he could not enroll for service.
Col. Adams received his early education in the schools of his native county; was graduated from the South Carolina college in 1850; and removed to Greenville, where he taught two years as principal of the male and female academy. He read law under John K. Henry and was admitted to the bar in Montgomery, 1852.
He first practiced his profession in Conecuh County, associated with a relative, James A. Stallworth, but in 1854 returned to Greenville, where soon afterward he formed a law partnership with his brother-in-law, Hilary A. Herbert. He was twice chosen as a Whig to the house of representatives first in 1857, and again in 1859.
In 1861 he enlisted in the C. S. Army and was elected 2nd lieutenant of the “Jefferson Davis Rangers,” Ninth Alabama infantry regiment, Army of Northern Virginia. In February 1862 he came home to recruit his company, and while there he was chosen colonel of the 33rd Alabama infantry regiment. He was wounded in the foot at Perryville while in command of a brigade; led his regiment from Murfreesboro to Atlanta; was fatally wounded by a sharpshooter at Kennesaw Mountain, July 21, 1864. He sustained an unimpeachable record as a brave and trustworthy officer, and at time of his death had been recommended for promotion by both Generals Hardee and Cleburne. He was an Episcopalian. Samuel married: in Greenville, to Dora Eliza Herbert, daughter of Thomas E. Herbert and Dorothy (Young) Herbert, and sister of Col. Hilary A. Herbert. They had no children.
Samuel Adams is buried in Pioneer Cemetery in Greenville, Butler County, Alabama.
SOURCES
History of Alabama and dictionary of Alabama biography, Volume 3 By Thomas McAdory Owen, Marie Bankhead Owen
