Thomas Patterson Brockman

Colonel Thomas Patterson Brockman (December 4 1793 (some sources say 1797)-August 20, 1859), the son of Henry Brockman and Susannah Patterson. He was born in the Greenville District (now Greenville County), South Carolina. Brockman was a merchant and planter in the Greenville District and also owned land in the Spartanburg District. He was also a long time member of the South Carolina House of Representatives and the South Carolina Senate.

Title of Colonel

Brockman was listed as a noted member of the community in Greenville as early as 1831, when he served as a parade marshal on the fourth of July, as appointed by Perry E. Duncan and committee. At that ceremony he lead 3 companies of militia accompanied by thirteen rounds of artillery fire and Colonels Barron, Greene, and Major Goodlett. [Greenville The History of the City and County in the South Carolina Piedmont, Archie Vernon Huff, Jr., University of South Carolina Press, 1995, pg.101] Brockman was colonel of the Third Regiment of the state militia (1831-1834).

Political life

Brockman was a prominent Unionist member of the South Carolina Senate during the years leading to the American Civil War and the 1828 Nullification Crisis in particular representing district in the 32nd, 33rd, and 39th General Assemblies. According to the 1850 slave schedules, he possessed thirty slaves in Greenville. [Biographical Directory of the South Carolina Senate, pg. 197]

By 1850 the slavery issue was ever more contentious and came to a head with the Compromise of 1850. John C. Calhoun opposed the compromise, but his death in March decreased secessionist momentum. Be that as it may, South Carolina secessionists were planning to call for the state to withdraw from the Union if the compromise passed. Brockman's town of Greenville had long been a Unionist stronghold. In the October state elections of 1850, Unionists Brockman, Benjamin Perry, and Perry E. Duncan were easily re-elected to the legislature. The Southern Patriot newspaper was initiated to support the Unionist cause, rallying the Unionists from the days of the Nullification Crisis, that had occurred some 22 years earlier. By the time the state convention delegates were to be elected in 1852 the Greenville delegation Unionists and the Cooperationists around the state joined forces to delay the state convention. When the delegates were finally elected the cooperationists defeated the secessionists 25,062 to 17,617. The Union was safe (for the time being) thanks in large part to the efforts of Brockman and the other Unionists of Greenville.

Civil war eventually came to South Carolina despite Brockman's efforts as a Unionist. Both of Brockman's sons Benjamin T. Brockman and Jesse Brockman were killed in the process of fighting for the 13th regiment of South Carolina for the Confederacy. Brockman's grandson William Brockman Bankhead served 23 years in the US House of Representatives for the state of Alabama including terms as the Speaker of the House. Brockman's great-granddaughter, Tallulah Brockman Bankhead, would eventually audition for a role commemorating the confederacy in the movie Gone with the Wind.

Positions held

tate Senate Committees

*State Senator Greenville District (1836-1839), (1850-1855)
*Committee on accounts and vacant offices (1836-1838), (1854-1855)
*Internal Improvements (1836-1839)
*Privileges and Elections (1836-1839)
*Incorporations (1838-1839)
*Pensions (1850-1851)
*Roads, Bridges, and Ferries (1850-1851)
*Claims and Grievances (1852-1853)

Other positions

*Colonel Third Regiment State Militia (1831-1832)
*South Carolina Representative to South Western Railroad Bank Stockholder's Meeting (1839)
*Commissioner of Roads (1844, 1851, 1854)
*Commissioner of Public Buildings (1844, 1851, 1854)
*Presidential Elector (1852)

Activities against secession

Brockman, Benjamin Fanklin Perry, and Perry Emory Duncan were all prominent Unionists.
*Represented Greenville at Nullification Convention, voted against (1832-1833)
*Authored a pamphlet advocating a Southern Convention against a state convention (1851)
*Southern Rights state convention(1852)

References

ources

*Benjamin F. Perry, South Carolina unionist, (Duke University publications)(1946) by Lillian Adele Kibler
*Taylor, C. R., Morgan, M. L, Bailey, N. L., Biographical Dictionary of the South Carolina Senate, 1776-1985, Vol I Abbott-Hill (1986), University of South Carolina Press, Columbia South Carolina pp.196-197.