[516] 5, 1897, then being a resident of Greenville. Five of his children survive him: Thomas Perrin, Wade S., Hannah Clarke, James S., Jr., and William Coulter. Thomas Perrin Cothran, eldest son of the foregoing, was born in Abbeville county, October 24, 1857, and completed his education at the university of Virginia. In 1878 he was admitted to the practice of law, a profession in which he has become distinguished. Since 1892 he has held the position of assistant division counsel of the Richmond & Danville, now the Southern, railroad system. In 1886 he was married to Ione Smith, of Abbeville, who died in 1887.
Colonel Asbury Coward
Colonel Asbury Coward, of Charleston, a gentleman who has given his life almost entirely to the military service of his State, either as an officer in the field or as an instructor of her gallant youth, was born in old Charleston district, 36 miles from the city, in 1835. In the fall of 1854 he was graduated at the South Carolina college, and in the following January, in company with a classmate, Micah Jenkins, later one of the most illustrious of South Carolina generals, he went to Yorkville, and established the King's Mountain military school. The two conducted this institution until the secession of the State, when they entered the service. Coward volunteered as an aide-de-camp on the staff of Gen. D. R. Jones, in June, 1861, at the request of that gallant commander, and served in that capacity at the engagements of Blackburn's Ford and First Manassas, after which he was commissioned assistant adjutant-general with the rank of captain, and regularly assigned to the staff of General Jones. When the latter was given division command after the battle of Malvern Hill, Captain Coward was advanced to the rank of major in the same line of duty. After the battle of Sharpsburg, when General Jones was compelled by failure of health to return to his home, Major Coward accepted the position of colonel of the Fifth South Carolina regiment, which had been tendered him in August, 1862, and was commissioned on that date. During the campaigns of 1862, as staff-officer, he took a gallant part in the battles of Goldie's Mill, Savage Station, Malvern Hill, Second Manassas, Boonsboro Gap, and Sharpsburg, in the latter engagement being severely bruised and narrowly escaping death from
