Washington Boazeman was born in 1841 in Newberry County, South Carolina, to Cooper and Cathrine Boazeman. For the next 20 years, he lived a relatively normal life until the event that disrupted everyone in the United States – war between the North and South. Boazeman heeded the call to join the Confederate cause and served in Gen. Wade Hampton III’s famous Hampton’s Legion in Company G of the 2nd South Carolina Cavalry Regiment.