years old he was elected Major of the Thirty-eighth Regiment of State
Militia, and in 1843 took the Captaincy of the McDuffie Artillery, a
crack volunteer company of Newberry. In 1846 he organized a company
for the Mexican War, and was mustered into service in 1847 as Company
L. Palmetto Regiment. He was in all the battles of that war, and,
with the Palmetto Regiment, won distinction on every field. After his
return from Mexico he was elected Brigadier General and then Major
General of State Militia. He served as Mayor of his town, Commissioner
in Equity, and in the State Legislature.

Before the breaking out of the Civil War, he had acquired some
large estates in the West, and was there attending to some business
connected therewith when South Carolina seceded. The companies that
were to compose the Third Regiment elected him their Colonel, but
in his absence, when the troops were called into service, they were
commanded for the time by Lieutenant Colonel Foster, of Spartanburg.
He joined the Regiment at "Lightwood Knot Springs," the 1st of May.
He commanded the Third during the term of its first enlistment, and
carried it through the first twelve months' campaign in Virginia.

At the reorganization of the regiment, the men composing it being
almost wholly young men, desired new blood at the head of the
volunteer service, and elected Captain James D. Nance in his stead.
After his return to the State, he was placed at the head of the Fourth
and Ninth Regiments of State Troops, and served as such until the
close.

After the war, he returned to Arkansas and continued his planting
operations until the time of his death, August 21st, 1892. He was a
member of the Constitutional Convention of that State in 1874.