was retained in Mexico as Military Governor of one of the provinces
for about a year. Being then honorably discharged, he returned to
Edgefield and resumed the practice of law. In 1848 he was elected
Solicitor of the Southern Circuit, composed of Edgefield, Barnwell,
Orangeburg, Colleton, and Beaufort Districts. The Bars of the various
Districts composing this Circuit counted among their members many of
the ablest and most distinguished lawyers of the State, and hence
it required the possession and industrious use of talents of no mean
order to sustain one's self as prosecuting officer against such an
array of ability. But General Bonham continued to hold the office
until 1856, when, upon the death of Hon. Preston S. Brooks, he was
elected to succeed that eminent gentleman in Congress, and again in
1858 was elected for the full term. Those were the stirring times
preceding the bursting of the cloud of civil war, and the debates in
Congress were hot and spicy. In all these he took his full part. When
South Carolina seceded from the Union, he promptly resigned his seat
in Congress, and was appointed by Governor Pickens Commander-in-Chief
of all the forces of South Carolina with the rank of Major General. In
this capacity, and waiving all question of rank and precedence, at the
request of Governor Pickens, he served on the coast on Morris' Island
with General Beauregard, who had been sent there by the Provisional
Government of the Confederacy to take command of the operations
around Charleston. On the permanent organization of the Confederate
Government, General Bonham was appointed by President Davis a
Brigadier General in the Army of the Confederate States. His brigade
consisted of four South Carolina regiments, commanded respectively by
Colonels Kershaw, Williams, Cash, and Bacon, and General Bonham used
to love to say that no finer body of men were ever assembled together
in one command. With this brigade he went to Virginia, and they were
the first troops other than Virginia troops that landed in Richmond