Ellerbe Boggan Crawford Cash was born near Wadesboro, Anson County,
North Carolina, on July 1st, 1823. His father was Boggan Cash, a
Colonel in militia of that State, merchant, and member of Legislature.
His mother was Miss Elizabeth Ellerbe, of Chesterfield County, S.C.
He was the only child. His father died when he was near two years old,
and his mother returned to her father's, in South Carolina. He was
educated at Mt. Zion Institute, Winnsboro, S.C., and South Carolina
College. He read law under General Blakeney, at Cheraw, S.C., and
practiced in partnership a short while with Alexander McIver, Esq.,
the Solicitor of the Eastern Circuit, and father of Chief Justice
Henry McIver, of South Carolina. But his mother owning a large landed
estate, and several hundred negroes, he soon retired from the Bar to
look after her affairs, and devoted himself to planting and raising
fine horses and cattle. He married in 1847 his cousin, Miss Allan
Ellerbe, of Kershaw, S.C. He was elected to the Legislature from his
County, Chesterfield. He was elected Colonel, Brigadier General, and
Major General of State militia.

When the war commenced he was one of the Major Generals of the State.
He volunteered and was elected Colonel of the Eighth South Carolina
Regiment. At the reorganization he did not offer for re-election, but
came home and was made Colonel in State troops. He was kind to the
poor the whole war, and gave away during the war over 50,000 bushels
of corn and large quantities of other provisions to soldiers'
families, or sold it in Confederate money at ante bellum prices. After
the war all notes, claims, and mortgages he held on estates of old
soldiers he cancelled and made a present of them to their families.
In one case the amount he gave a widow, who had a family and small
children, was over $5,000, her husband having been killed in his
regiment.