Sorry, Robert, but your information is not backed by our family records. There is absolutely no record or mention of his returning to SC during the war. We have anecdotal evidence that he visited SC once for a funeral in the latter part of the 19th century.

He is not listed as a member of any unit even conscripts in his home county, Marion.

No units in Hampton's Legion came from that district as far as I know.

He is not mentioned by W.W. Sellers, author of the History of Marion Co. SC except to say that he moved to Mississippi before the war, raised a family, practiced medicine, was a local Methodist minister and that was what he knew. Sellers died in 1902 and I assure that if grandpa Bethea had made a return trip to Marion, SC and joined a confederate unit there, all of his brothers and relatives would have made sure it was passed on to Sellers who died in 1902.

Our family records indicate that he practiced medicine in Meadeville, Franklin County where he joined the 7th Miss in May 1861 as a member of the "Franklin Beauregard's" of Capt. Daniel H. Parker's company of the 7th Miss. Vols. He served his year of volunteer service and was not re-elected and was dropped in May 1862. Family records say he came home sick. Since he was not a soldier by trade, I doubt he ever stood for or attempted the examination therefore he was dropped after he was discharged.

He returned to Meadville after his discharge where he practiced for some time. Then he moved to Caseyville,MS and stayed there ten yrs, then back to Meadeville two years, then to Brookhaven MS. [Supplied as Methodist Preacher-Pleasant Grove and Meadeville from Brookhaven]. He then moved to Summit and practiced medicine and pharmacy as well as providing supply preacher to small communities in Sharkey and Issaquena Counties until his death in 1913.

If you delete all of the facts about my grgr grandfather Dr. Robert Cochran Bethea from the profile of the R.C. Bethea you seek in Hampton's Legion and then try to find another R.C. Bethea who actually fits "all" of the Military facts you have about the R.C. Bethea in Hampton's Legion, you might be able to confirm that it is only a very remote possibility that my Grgr grandfather would have left his wife and children to go to SC at all during a war that was actively engaged in his adopted home in Mississippi.

Then you would have to prove why if he did, that no one in the family ever mentioned it. I doubt knowing my family that the story would have missed the cut in our family history. It is most likely that he quietly returned home from the service and served as a physician and minister in Southwest Mississippi until he died.