General Hampton

Wade Hampton III (1818-1902) was a Lieutenant General in the Confederate army and a South Carolina politician who served as Governor and also represented his state in the U.S. Senate for two terms. In 1893, after losing a bid for re-election to the Senate in 1890, he was appointed to the position of U.S. Railroad Commissioner by President Grover Cleveland. In order to assess the status of the railroads across the country Hampton rode in a private railroad car with his daughter, granddaughter, two of their young friends, and several reporters on a cross-country tour. On June 7, 1893, they stopped in Menlo Park and visited the estate of Leland Stanford, just two weeks before Senator Stanford died.