I had a number of ancestors that were in Hamptons Legion, so it was a natural interest early on to learn of their activities. There are quite a few lessor known very old publications out there in rare book collections if one can find them. Many of these were written based on war time journals and personal experiences... These tend to "put you in the saddle" so to speak much better than majority of the contemorary modern writers generic collective accounts... and give one different perspectives and even more witnessed accounts...

A hard one to locate is "Sketches of Hamptons Cavalry" a published daily journal of their campaigns covering 1862 and 1863, it was published during the war in 1864... A rare one to find....

Another very colorful account can be found in "Autobiography of Arab"... by E.Prioleau Henderson. Henderson was in the 2nd SC Cav and one of Hamptons "Iron Scouts". A very interesting work since the author actually wrote the book as if an eye witnesssed account of his horse, which was named "Arab"... he flips back and forth between first and second person narrative, depending on the excitment and actions occuring at the time... But very detailed in his acounts as to time and place... events occuring etc.. I have found various accounts and details of actions in this book that are missing from most others. Ironicly two of the authors close pards and fellow scouts were ancestors of mine... that he spoke of quite frequently in the book, thus also found a wealth of additional information on them that otherwise wouldnt exist. Including the location of where one of them was buried after being killed in an ambush in Dec 1862, which I went and tracked down last year. The book was originally published in about 1901, and is quite rare to find. In about 1991 there was a small number of reprints made. Also if one is a fan of Mosby... he is also frequently mentioned since Hamptons scouts and Mosbys men frequently worked together in that theater in 1862-63 era... I you like to read good first person accounts... both of these are great fodder...

Im also one of the authors/writers for the new South Carolina Regimental History series by Broadfoot Publishing... So have quite an extensive collection of books on SC units, activities, and related materials...

Respects
Frederick