<P> He had been entrusted, in 1859, with the codification of the laws of South Carolina; he completed the task in December 1862 . His code was rejected by the unreconstructed legislature of 1865, but formed the basis for the codification of 1872 . </P> <P> Petigru died in Charleston, South Carolina, in 1863 . He is buried in St. Michael's Churchyard . </P> <P> The Petigrus were an elite family of planters, politicians, businessmen, socialites and artists in 19th - century Charleston, South Carolina . While James Petigru's Unionist leanings made him the most nationally famous of the Petigrus, his extended family includes Governor Robert Allston, novelist Susan Petigru King, and painter Jane Caroline Carson . The Petigrus' rise towards economic, political and social success, along with their eventual fall from power, speaks to larger issues of class, race, identity and culture in Antebellum Charleston . </P> <P> The oldest of nine children, James L. Petigru was born in 1789 to William Pettigrew, a rural Scotch - Irish farmer, and Louise Guy Gibert, a French Huguenot descendant from nearby Badwell Plantation at their ethnic settlement of New Bordeaux near McCormick, SC . She was the daughter of its leader, Rev. Jean Louis Gibert . The family lived on a farm in Flatwoods, South Carolina, where William Pettigrew drank, gambled, and managed his agricultural and financial affairs poorly . Louise provided an education for young James, sending him first to Moses Wadel's nearby academy, and later to study law at South Carolina College, precursor to the University of South Carolina . Because of Charleston's post-Revolutionary War economic decline, South Carolina College was explicitly designed to train promising young upcountry men to become members of the low country's (i.e., Charleston's) elite ruling class . Three years after graduating, Pettigrew completed law studies and was admitted to the state bar in 1812 . At this point, James changed his last name from Pettigrew to Petigru to emphasize his Huguenot heritage, an action repeated by each of his younger brothers and sisters . (The name had early French origins, perhaps as petit cru, and was found in various forms in East Anglia, Scotland and northern Ireland .) </P>

Too large to be an insane asylum too small to be a republic