Edgefield The horse-drawn wagon carrying Strom Thurmond's casket turned off the town square, and with thunderheads looming to the west, 600 mourners fell silently in line behind.

The legendary Thurmond was leading his people one final time.

The town square, with its quintessential Confederate memorial, brick courthouse, cafes and shops, had been nearly deserted just hours earlier, when the rain threatened.

But by 4:20 p.m., when the funeral caisson stopped between the courthouse and Thurmond's statue on the square, the broad sidewalks and green expanse of the plaza were lined with mourners and the curious.

A few men were in military dress uniforms. Boys and girls wore T-shirts and flip-flops. Middle-aged men and teen-age girls carried cameras around their necks. Some were in their Sunday best and sat on camp chairs and open tailgates.

Earlier, a paradelike atmosphere had floated across the square, but quiet followed the coming of the horses. There was no traffic, little conversation and even less laughter. While it was not morose, it was solemn.

Nearby, a bank's sign rotated: 72 degrees, 4:45 p.m. Sirens roared up the street toward the crowd. Two police motorcycles and a gleaming black Cadillac carrying the former senator's body stopped behind the caisson.

Minutes later, the military honor guard placed the flag-draped coffin onto the wagon.

They ordered the horses forward, and the slow parade around the square began, with one riderless, leggy black horse in the rear, a pair of boots reversed in the stirrups. Around the square it went, left on Courthouse Street, left on Folk Street and then right off the square toward the cemetery.

"South Carolina lost a really good friend today," said Sybil Jones, 74, who came to watch Thurmond's last ride. "We're going to miss him. I already do."

Nearly 1,200 people attended the graveside ceremony at Willowbrook Cemetery, sometimes under heavy rainfall. The family was shielded by umbrellas.

Thurmond's daughter, Julie Thurmond Whitmer, brought the former senator's 15-day-old grandchild, Tate, to the graveside.

S.C. Adjutant General Stan Spears presented the coffin's folded American flag to Nancy Thurmond.

But at midday in Edgefield, it was hard to tell something extraordinary was in the offing.

At Mims' Corner Store, Louise Mims, 54, held court outside. Thurmond had last been there four years ago.

"He just came in and he got a snack," Mims said. "But I told him it was on the house."

Mims hoped the rain wouldn't keep people away later.

"It makes us sad with it raining," she said, "but it's like tears from heaven."

Herbert Oliphant, 53, sat outside Mims' store on a wooden bench, underneath a sagging metal awning, in the shade.

Oliphant, who is black, said the former segregationist who fought against civil rights earlier in life was "a fine man as far as I'm concerned."

"A lot of people have their bad ways in life," he said. "You can't blame a man for the way he comes up. But Strom Thurmond, he came alive at the end."

The Ten Governor's Cafe was closed, as were most of the other businesses on the square. Some had wreaths on their door. All were shuttered by 3:30 p.m., by mutual agreement of the owners. No one wanted to make money from the passing of a legend.

Painted on the outside wall of Mims' store is a 1932 quote from journalist W.W. Ball: "Edgefield has had more dashing, brilliant, romantic figures, statesmen, orators, soldiers, adventurers and daredevils, than any other county of South Carolina, if not any rural county of America."

The town said goodbye to one of those brilliant figures Tuesday.