When George D. Tillman first went to Edgefield Court House to live and to practice law, he made himself very unpopular in the town, whatever he may be now, and had many enemies. What he was, or is, I know not, for my acquaintance with him personally is nothing. When the quarrel occurred, that is its date, I do not know, but he once had a serious difficulty with General John R. Wever and gave him a dangerous pistol wound in the side. Some time after that he killed a man named Henry Christian. He fled the country and went to Central America, where he joined General Walker, of Filibuster fame, was wounded, and taken prisoner, but was releasted after promising not to meddle any more with the institutions or government of that country. He then returned home, was tried at Edgefield for murder, found guilty of manslaughter, and sentenced to two years imprisonment in the District Jail, which penalty he suffered. After the War of Secession he was a member of the Constitutional Convention, which met in Columbia in 1865. In a book, "The South Since the War," published in 1866, the writer of that book thus speaks of Mr. Tillman as he appeared in that convention:

"George D. Tillman, a man of immense frame and very considerable abilities, genial and offhand, who has lived in South America and California, and now hails from Edgefield District, who has served six years in the State Legislature for honor, and two years in the State Penitentiary for manslaughter, (South Carolina had no Penitentiary at that time,) who quotes philosophy from DeTocqueville, and historical maxims from Gibbon - the man who makes friends with everybody, and at whom, the gentlemen, so called, of the low country, affect to sneer, is a genuine Red Republican in his disregard of what is called ancient rights and privileges. Sitting with great blue-gray eyes, that seem always half asleep, he is always alert and wide awake, slouching along with a rolling gait, he is careful and earnest; utterly wanting in the power of oratory or rhetoric, he has made more points than any other member of the Convention, and has carried all of them but one, and that of minor importance. He is the leader of the advance line of the up-country, delegated, not so much by any election as by the inherent force of necessity, for he fights independently, and leaves them no choice but to follow. He is fairly entitles to the honors of the day in the open field fight against the Conner resolution; and has been from the first the restless and untiring and self-possessed and good humored enemy of the parish system, or to use his own phrase, the Chinese conservatism of Charleston. His object has been, and still is, to cripple the power of the low-country in every possible way. He will take no bond of fate, but builds his walls of offence and defence in the constitution itself. "On the tenth day Tillman smote the routed enemy once more; he called it reaping the `first fruits of victory." His blow came in the form of an amendment to the Constitution, providing that after 1869 no district in the State shall have more than twelve Representatives. This was aimed at the city of Charleston, which now has twenty. The low country was exhausted and the amendment was adopted after a brief debate by 61 to 43. Another estimate of Honorable G. D. Tillman, written twenty-five years after the publication of the `South Since the War.' This, too, is the estimate of a Northern man, Amos, J. Cummings. At the time of the writing Mr. Tillman was Chairman of the Committee on Patents, and the writer says of him: "He is quaint and honest and makes speeches that touch the marrow. In appearance he somewhat resembles Horace Greeley. But there is a manly ring to his voice, as well as virility in his arguments. Once convinced that he is right, neither persuasion nor force can drive him from his position. He is a borther of the Governor of the Palmetto State, and has all his brother's characteristics. Detecting jobbery in legislation, he flies at it like a bulldog, and there is nothing left of it when he gets through with it.

"Mr. Tillman was 65 years old last August, (1891). Born in South Carolina, he received an academical education in Georgia. He afterward entered Harvard, but did not graduate. He studied law, and was admitted to the Bar in 1848. He served as a private in the ----------South Carolina Infantry and in the Second Regiment of Artillery. After the war he became a cotton planter. In the ante-bellum days he had been a member of the State Legislature. He was elected to the State Constitutional Convention under the reconstruction proclamation of President Johnson. Afterward he became State Senator under the new Constitution. He was a candidate for the Forty-fifth Congress, and unsuccessfully contested the seat of Robert Smalls. The Committee on Elections reported in favor of vacating the election, but the House failed to act on the report.

"This is Mr. Tillman's seventh term. In the Forty-seventh Congress he first took his seat. J. Warren Keifer was elected Speaker and Mr. Tillman was a member of the Committee on Patents in the Fiftieth and Fifty-first Congress. It is safe to say that no patent will ever be renewed while he is Chairman of that Committee. He usually makes two or three speeches each session, and they are speeches that command, not only the attention, but the admiration of the House. He belongs to the old school of statesmen, now almost extinct. "South Carolina may well be proud of him."

He was a candidate for re-election in 1892 and was beaten by W. J. Talbert, a native and citizen of his own country, Edgefield.

This generation is retiring all its old sevrants, whether wisely or not it is impossible to say - not for this historian to say.

The progress of events recently has made it necessary to write more fully of B. R. Tillman. In 1890 he was elected Governor of the State; in 1892 he was re-elected; in 1894 he was elected to the Senate of the United States to succeed General M. C. Butler, who was retired to private life.

Whatever may be said of B. R. Tillman for or against, he is certainly one of the most remarkable men the County of Edgefield - I might say the State has ever produced. Without any prelimanary political training whatever, never even having held any office except that of Captain of a cavalry company to which he was elected in 1882, he passed at one bound to the position of Governor of the State. From Govenor he was elected to the United States Senate. By the Democratic Convention which was held in Columbia in May, 1896, he was endorsed as a candidate for President of the United States, that is for his name to go before the General Democratic Convention to be held in Chicago. He stands squarely for the free coinage of silver, according to the old standard of value of 16 to 1, as compared with gold.

Mr. Tillman has the great power of binding his friends to him as with hooks of steel, and of making his enemies hate him. He seems to be fond of political battles and wants no one to be indifferent.