Thomas Sumter

Thomas Sumter (1734-1832), sometimes known as "The Gamecock," was a South Carolina soldier and statesman who distinguished himself as a leader of partisan resistance to the British during the American Revolutionary War. He later was a prominent member of the South Carolina legislature and of the U.S. Congress.

Sumter was considered a spokesman for his state and for the South in general, not only because of his wartime heroism but also from his devotion to state sovereignty and decentralized government. He was a prominent Anti-Federalist and later Jeffersonian Republican, and toward the end of his life backed South Carolina's doctrine of nullification. Fort Sumter in South Carolina was named in his honor.