Abbeville is a city and county seat of Abbeville County, in the U.S. state of South Carolina. It is located 86 miles (138 km) west of Columbia and 45 miles (72 km) south of Greenville. Its population was 5,237 at the 2010 census. Settled by French Huguenot settlers, it was named, along with the county, for the French town of the same name.

Samuel McGowan was an American military officer, lawyer, politician, judge, and a Brigadier general in the Confederate army during the American Civil War. Born in South Carolina, he commanded a brigade in A.P. Hill's famous "Light Division" and was wounded several times. Ezra Warner's book, Generals in Gray, claims that "McGowan's career and reputation were not excelled by any other brigade commander in the Army of Northern Virginia." Following reconstruction, he was elected to the United States Congress but refused to take his seat, later serving as an Associate Justice of the South Carolina Supreme Court.