DeSaussure, Charles Alfred, 1846-

Charles Alfred DeSaussure was born on 21 September 1846 into a prominent Huguenot family of South Carolina. His mother was Jane Hay Hutson, the second wife of Louis McPherson DeSaussure. His father owned a 780-acre plantation known as Woodstock in Beaufort County, S.C. Charles lived at Woodstock for part of the year and spent the other part at the family's summer home in the pinelands of McPhersonville, S.C. When Charles was eleven, his father sold the summer home and bought another one in the town of Beaufort, S.C., so that Charles and his brother Tom could receive a better education. Charles and Tom attended the College of Beaufort, which was founded in 1795 as a preparatory school and junior college for local planter families. Charles was raised in the Episcopal Church. In 1863, he joined the Beaufort Volunteer Artillery Corps and stayed with the unit until the end of the Civil War. After the war, he appears to have married and had children.

Resident of McPhersonville, Woodstock Plantation, Beaufort, and surrounding areas in South Carolina during his youth. Charles Alfred DeSaussure was the son of Dr. Louis McPherson DeSaussure. DeSaussure joined the Confederate Army, Company C of Captain Columbus Haile, in 1863 when he was 16 years old. He later transferred to the Beaufort Artillery. In 1931 DeSaussure wrote about his life when living in Memphis, Tennessee.

Charles Alfred DeSaussure was born on September 21, 1864, into a prominent Huguenot family of South Carolina. In 1863, he joined the Beaufort Volunteer Artillery Corps and stayed with the unit until the end of the Civil War.

Charles Alfred DeSaussure, son of planter Louis McPherson DeSaussure, grew up on his family's plantation in Beaufort County, S.C., at the family's summer home in McPhersonville, S.C., and in the town of Beaufort, S.C. In 1863, he joined the Beaufort Volunteer Artillery Company and fought with them until the end of the Civil War.