The Revolutionary War in the Carolinas after the fall of Charleston was a great arena of war with hundreds of small battlefields. Some were battles involving a few dozen men, Tory or Whig Americans fighting each other or Whigs fighting British regulars. Other engagements involved hundreds of men, with dozens of casualties. Today, most of […]
Besides dealing with events elsewhere, this article relates in particular the plight of the Carolina loyalists and the way in which British ascendancy in South Carolina—achieved only by June 1780—began so soon to unravel in the face of internal uprisings and an external threat. By mid July Major Gen. Johann Kalb had advanced from the […]
Thomas Fletchall was a man of considerable influence in the South Carolina backcountry. Born in Maryland in 1725, Fletchall and his family relocated to South Carolina. By the 1770s, he owned a plantation in the Fairforest Creek region where he served his locality as a justice of the peace, coroner, and militia colonel for the […]
During the southern campaigns the British used two kinds of cipher, each kind being markedly different from the other. The First Kind of Cipher: The Common Cipher Earlier this year I was asked by an American historian[1] if I could decode the cipher in the following letter from Col. Francis Lord Rawdon, commanding in the upcountry […]
Little is known about the colonial-era history of Hammond’s Store, though the site appears to have been a local meeting place prior to the American Revolution. A 1775 proclamation of South Carolina’s Second Provincial Congress listed “Hammond’s old store” as the election polling place for the newly established “Little River” electoral district.[1] A letter from […]
The conflict in the south is often referred to as a civil war, pitting family members against each other. I haven’t really found too many instances of close family against each other; maybe Edward Lacey or James Habersham are good examples. But it is common to find entire families serving together in the district regiments. […]
“We Have Sacrificed Our All.” Thus, stated eleven loyalist officers from Ninety-Six and Camden Districts of South Carolina in a petition intended for the King of England. What happened to them, and the three hundred more named in the petition, is part of the equation leading to the question of how many families lost husbands […]
Walk Where Battles Were Fought and Heroes Were Forged The Ninety Six National Historic site is an area of unique historical significance. There is always curiosity as to the origin of the name Ninety Six. There are several legends surrounding how Ninety Six got its name but the most popular one is a romanticized legend […]
A Frontier Crossroads Today a remote and quiet corner of South Carolina, Ninety Six was once a bustling center of activity, and one of the most important sites in the state at the start of the Revolution. It began as a trading post that saw service in both the Cherokee War of the 1750s and […]
