Louis Manigault was born at Rue de la Paix #17, Paris, France, on November 21, 1828, while his mother and father were visiting their ancestors’ homeland. He was a seventh generation descendant of Pierre Manigault, a French Huguenot who fled La Rochelle, France, because of religious persecution with the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, in 1685. These Manigaults immigrated to South Carolina, where they became very prosperous in the occupations of planting crops, trading of planted goods and slaves at the Old Slave Mart, as well as merchandising.