Abbeville County was established in 1785 from the splitup of the five-county area known as Old 96 District. 

Abbeville County lies in the rolling foothills of the northwestern sector of the State of South Carolina. It is bounded on the West by the State of Georgia, on the North by Anderson County, on the East by Laurens and Greenwood Counties, and on the South by McCormick County. 

The town of Abbeville developed around a spring which was set aside by General Andrew Pickens for public use. General Pickens had settled at what is now Abbeville proper prior to the American Revolution. Dr. John de la Howe, a French Huguenot settler in Western South Carolina, is credited with giving the county and town the name of his hometown in France.

The first organized meeting to adopt an Ordinance of Secession was held in Abbeville on November 22, 1860. A public assembly voted unanimously to leave the Union; that site is now called Secession Hill.

Confederate President Jefferson Davis, on his retreat trail south from Richmond, stopped overnight at the Abbeville home of his friend, Major Armistead Burt. His home, now known as the Burt-Stark  Mansion, was the last meeting place (May 2, 1865) of the Confederate war council. Davis was convinced by his generals and Cabinet that the Southern resources were exhausted and that any attempt to fight another campaign would merely bring more misery to the region. It was in this house that President Davis finally admitted, "All is indeed lost."

Present at this meeting were Cabinet Members: Benjamin, Mallory, Reagan and Breckinridge and Brigade Commanders: Ferguson, Dibrell, Vaughn, Duke and Breckinridge. Students of the American Civil War will certainly recall all of those names.

It's no surprise then that Abbeville is sometimes referred to as both the "birthplace" and the "deathbed" of the Confederacy.