At the start of the Civil War, Kershaw commanded the 2nd South Carolina Infantry Regiment. He was present at Morris Island in April 1861 during the Battle of Fort Sumter, and then in July 1861 at the First Battle of Manassas in Virginia as part of Brig. Gen. Milledge Bonham's brigade. During the battle, Kershaw's regiment along with the 8th South Carolina was detached from Bonham and sent to help drive back the Union assault on Henry House Hill. Afterwards, Kershaw gained the ire of Confederate general P.G.T. Beauregard by failing to file a proper report of the battle and instead writing a lengthy article in a Charleston newspaper which gave the impression that he and the 2nd South Carolina singlehandedly defeated the Union army. Beauregard, who had difficult professional relationships with many military and political officials, called him "that militia idiot". The disparaging remarks of Beauregard toward himself and other officers were duly noted. The capable and competent Kershaw had filed a military report of the battle, while the purpose of the newspaper article was to aid recruitment of South Carolina soldiers by showing how a single man, company or brigade could make a significant difference and lead the way to Confederate victory. Due in part to his military success, Kershaw was transferred to the West in the fall. In December when Milledge Bonham resigned his commission to take a seat in the Confederate Congress, Kershaw was honored with command of Bonham's former brigade. He was commissioned brigadier general on 13 February 1862 and commanded a brigade in Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia during the Peninsula Campaign, at the close of which he continued with Lee and took part in the Northern Virginia Campaign and Maryland Campaign. During the Battle of Fredericksburg, he succeeded Brig. Gen. T. R. R. Cobb upon the latter's death on 13 December 1862 and repulsed the last two attacks made by the Federals on Marye's Heights. The following year he was engaged in the Battle of Gettysburg and then was transferred with Lt. Gen. James Longstreet's corps to the West, where he took part in the charge that destroyed the Federal right wing at Chickamauga. After the relief of McLaws following the battle of Knoxville Kershaw was given the command of the division and promoted to major general on 2 June 1864. When Longstreet returned to Virginia, he commanded a division in the battles of the Wilderness, Spotsylvania Court House, and Cold Harbor, and was engaged in the Shenandoah campaign of 1864 against Maj. Gen. Philip Sheridan. After the evacuation of Richmond, his troops formed part of Lt. Gen. Richard S. Ewell's corps, which was captured on 6 April 1865 at the Battle of Sayler's Creek.
Postbellum career
At the close of the war he returned to South Carolina and in 1865 was chosen president of the State Senate. He was judge of the Circuit Court from 1877 to 1893, when he stepped down for health reasons. In 1894, he was appointed postmaster of Camden, an office that he held until his death in the same year. Joseph B. Kershaw was also Grand Master of the Freemasons of South Carolina. He died in Camden and is buried there in the Quaker Cemetery.
Ancestry
Children
Joseph Brevard Kershaw married in 1844 in Camden to Lucretia Ann Douglas, youngest of the four surviving daughters of the esteemed James Kennedy Douglas by his wife Mary Lucretia Martin. James, son of William Douglas and his wife Sarah Kennedy, had emigrated in 1800/1804 to join John Kirkpatrick, an established merchant in Charleston, South Carolina. Joseph and Lucretia's children included:
Rev. John Kershaw, married Susan B. DeSaussure and had issue;
Mary Martin Kershaw, married Charles John Shannon and had issue;
Harriet DuBose Kershaw, married Thomas Whitmill Lang without surviving issue;
Charlotte Douglas Kershaw, never married, no issue;
Josephine Serre Kershaw, married William Bratton deLoach and had issue.
