Thurmond funeral reminiscent of Byrnes memorial

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His body lay in state in the Statehouse rotunda for about 24 hours and Gov. John West ordered flags lowered to half-staff.

Historians said the Thurmond funeral likely will be the biggest such event in the capital since Byrnes was laid to rest.

Byrnes had been out of office for two decades when he died a month short of his 93rd birthday. Many reporters who covered his death probably did not regard him as a contemporary leader, said University of South Carolina historian Walter Edgar.

Thurmond, 100, served in office until six months before he died, and will be covered as a contemporary leader, Edgar said.

Newspaper accounts said "thousands" passed by Byrnes' casket in the rotunda. In addition to governor and U.S. senator, Byrnes served as a Supreme Court justice and secretary of state. He also was war mobilization director under President Franklin D. Roosevelt.

Byrnes last appeared in public on his 90th birthday, when President and Mrs. Nixon traveled to Columbia to honor him.

During services at the Statehouse, eulogies were delivered by retired Gen. Lucius Clay, a World War II and Korean War era military leader, and the Rev. Billy Graham. The South Carolina National Guard escorted the casket across the street, where a religious service was held in Trinity Episcopal Church. Burial was in the churchyard.

Five former governors attended Byrnes' funeral, along with Mrs. Richard M. Nixon, Supreme Court Chief Justice Warren Burger, Army Chief of Staff William Westmoreland and about 50 Washington dignitaries.

President and Mrs. Nixon had visited Byrnes in 1969, three years before he died, according to "Sly and Able," a biography of Byrnes by David Robertson.

Combining a stop in Columbia with a trip to the Kentucky Derby, Nixon called on Byrnes and his wife, Maude, at their home the day after the May 2 anniversary of their marriage and of Byrnes' birth.

The visit was in part a thank-you to the former Democratic governor for his support of Presidents Eisenhower and Nixon. Although Byrnes' own Democratic Party political career was near its end, his endorsements helped usher in the Republican era in South Carolina and across the formerly solid Democratic South.

After singing "Happy Birthday" to Byrnes, Nixon said, "I have kept my promise. You couldn't come to us so we came to you," according to Robertson.

Three months later, Byrnes entered the hospital for a heart attack, and was hospitalized often for the next three years, according to Robertson.

Robertson wrote that Byrnes died peacefully at his home on April 9, 1972. Nixon, vacationing in Key West, said, "No man in American history has held so many positions of responsibility in all branches of our government with such distinction," according to Robertson.

Pedestrians can easily see the Byrnes grave from the Gervais Street sidewalk, across the street from the Statehouse grounds.

Prior to Byrnes' funeral, one of the biggest outpourings of public grief was for Confederate Army Gen. Wade Hampton, who later served as governor and U.S. senator.

Just eight months before Strom Thurmond was born in 1902, South Carolina mourned the death of Hampton, the state's premier symbol of The Lost Cause.

At the time, there was little precedent for a state funeral in South Carolina. The first to be marked by the trappings of official state pageantry was the funeral of Gov. Robert Johnson, who died in 1735.

According to Edgar, author of "South Carolina, a History," Johnson's burial was preceded by an honor guard comprising two companies of militia, royal councilors as his pallbearers, and members of the Commons House as his official mourners. Johnson was interred near the altar of St. Philip's Church in Charleston.

Hampton's was perhaps the most emotional and widely mourned death of a state leader in the 20th century. An estimated 20,000 people attended the funeral, including hundreds of Confederate Army veterans.

Flags were lowered to half-staff and the Statehouse draped with black bunting. The local United Confederate Veterans post sent an honor guard, dressed in Confederate gray.

In Greenville, the City Hall bell tolled 84 times, marking Hampton's age. Cities across the state held similar observances. The railroads ran special trains to transport people to the state capital for the funeral.

The funeral procession from his home on Senate Street to Trinity Church included a 25-piece band, 600 survivors of the original Hampton Legion and other veterans, the governor and other state officials. Businesses and state offices closed for the day.

His funeral service was conducted by Ellison Capers, the Episcopal bishop of South Carolina and himself a former Confederate general. Hampton was buried with his ancestors in Trinity churchyard, just yards from where Byrnes would later be buried.

Not all of South Carolina's most revered leaders had such public and celebrated funerals.

The death of Cole L. Blease, a populist former governor and U.S. Senator, in 1942 was noted on the front page of the State newspaper, but coverage two days later of his funeral at Rosemont Cemetery in Newberry was relegated to a six-inch story on page seven. He had been out of the U.S. Senate for 11 years when he died at age 73.

When U.S. Sen. Ben Tillman died in Washington in 1918, still serving in the U.S. Senate 24 years after he was first elected, his body was taken directly by train for burial at Trenton, near Edgefield.

Tillman had dominated South Carolina politics for three decades, and presided over rewriting the state Constitution in 1896.

Fifteen U.S. senators accompanied his body to its final resting place. Arriving at 1:30 p.m. at Trenton, the body was buried at 4 p.m. at the Presbyterian Church and newspaper accounts said about 3,000 people attended. The Senate delegation was eager to return to Washington and a special train took them directly back to the nation's capital.

U.S. Sen. Burnet R. Maybank died in office in 1954, after serving as governor, and for 13 years in the U.S. Senate. After his death at a home in Flat Rock, N.C., Maybank's funeral was held in St. Michael's Episcopal Church in Charleston, with about 1,000 people attending.

Mourners included then-Gov. Byrnes, 16 U.S. senators including Lyndon B. Johnson and John Stennis, and U.S. Army Gen. George C. Marshall. Donald Russell, who would later serve as governor, senator and U.S. Appeals Court judge, was a pallbearer.

Maybank was buried at Magnolia Cemetery, one of Charleston's oldest buriel grounds and last resting place for many Civil War dead.

In 1965, U.S. Sen. Olin Johnston died in office on Easter Sunday. His body lay in state in the rotunda of the Statehouse, where a memorial was attended by President and Mrs. Lyndon Johnson. In all, an estimated 10,000 people viewed the casket at the Statehouse.

Vice President Hubert Humphrey and 16 U.S. senators attended the church service at Spartanburg's Southside Baptist Church. Johnston was buried at Barker's Creek Baptist Church near Honea Path, where Johnston grew up.

Johnston's remains were the first in many years to be honored by display in the Statehouse. Contemporary newspaper accounts said Gov. Joseph Emile Harley lay in state "in his office" after he died on the job in 1942. Adjutant General Robert D. Craig's body had rested in the Statehouse after his death in 1926.