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“Unless some great and capital change suddenly takes place,” Gen. George Washington wrote from Valley Forge on December 23, 1777,[1] to Henry Laurens, the…
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In late June 1780 a messenger arrived in Charleston, South Carolina, with intelligence for Lt. Gen. Charles, Earl Cornwallis. The messenger, Capt. John La Boularderie…
While George Hanger was for a time in limbo, waiting in mid May 1780 for a decision on his part in the British arrangements for…
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During the era of the American Revolution, cannons did not fire exploding projectiles, so the image of explosions on the battlefield doesn’t apply. Mortars…
This article is a companion piece to one of mine that appeared in this journal on July 18, 2017. Beginning with the start of the…
On this week’s Dispatches host Brady Crytzer interviews JAR contributor Andrew Waters on the course of the campaign through the Carolinas, including Cowpens and other key…
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It wasn’t really their fault, they said. Slavery, men of the founding generation liked to argue, was brought to the colonies by Britain. It…
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Besides dealing with events elsewhere, this article relates in particular the plight of the Carolina loyalists and the way in which British ascendancy in…
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With the Revolutionary War in full swing by August 1776, George Galphin penned a letter to his nephew, Timothy Barnard. Galphin started his letter…
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Thomas Fletchall was a man of considerable influence in the South Carolina backcountry. Born in Maryland in 1725, Fletchall and his family relocated to…
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The Road to Charleston, Nathanael Greene and the American Revolution by John Buchanan (University Press of Virginia, 2019) John Buchanan’s latest account of the southern theater…
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Jordi Ferragut Mesquida, better known by his anglicized name George Farragut, was the only known Spanish volunteer who fought under the American flag in…
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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…
As Daniel Morgan collected his prisoners on the morning of January 17, 1781, he knew Charles, Lord Cornwallis, could not be far behind. “The…
Dr. John Moultrie was born in 1729 in South Carolina to a father of the same name, one of five brothers. Educated in Edinburgh,…
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As November 1780 begins, we find Cornwallis continuing to wait at Winnsborough, South Carolina, in the hope of being joined by Major Gen. Alexander…
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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…
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On October 9, 1771, a ship arrived at the southwestern tip of England. The Earl of Halifax had spent twenty nine days crossing the Atlantic…
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No British officer was more reviled by Patriots in the South during the American Revolution than Lt. Col. Banastre Tarleton. Based partly on fact…
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George Washington surrounded himself with the best and the brightest young men involved in the revolutionary cause. Alexander Hamilton, Tench Tilghman, Robert Harrison, the…
As Nathanael Greene retreated from Ninety Six in late June 1781, following his unsuccessful siege there, Thomas Sumter was eager to campaign in lower…
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In February 1781, Thomas Sumter emerged from his three-month convalescence to begin his next campaign in the South Carolina interior. Having been wounded seriously…
South Carolina, by several measures, was the most affluent and economically important pre-revolutionary British colony in North America. Largely agrarian and sparsely settled, it…
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As events would prove, the autumn campaign was a very risky venture indeed, yet despite the operational difficulties attending it Cornwallis saw no option…
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“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…
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Its occupation by the British, the character of its inhabitants, and its flora, fauna and terrain Overall, I am of opinion that militarily the…
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Deep in South Carolina’s back country the Loyalist world came apart in the fall of 1781. British occupation ended with their retreat into the…
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The American War of Independence produced many dramatic episodes, but none surpassed the campaign that Lt. Gen. Charles, Second Earl Cornwallis, conducted in North…
Even under the strange, somewhat inept leadership of Loyalist Col. John Moore, the task of hampering Spartanburg’s Fair Forest role as a Patriot stronghold…
“What say you now, Sir Peter Parker!”[1] The high and mighty will sometimes do seemingly odd things in order to make a point. Like,…
The story repeated itself time and again across the southern districts of Georgia. Alarms raised loudly across a broad area with tales of imminent…
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In March 1778, several hundred South Carolina Loyalists began a march to the British province of East Florida to seek refuge from persecution and…
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Select any narrative from the dozens of sources that tell the story of what happened on July 12, 1780 at Cedar Springs, South Carolina,…
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Known primarily through a mix of fact and legend as the most notorious Patriot of the southern campaigns, Paddy Carr was also claimed to…
In January of 1781, Loyalist Maj. James Dunlap raided the Long Cane settlement in South Carolina that included the homes of notorious rebel leaders…
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If early American history is your beat, a trip to Musgrove Mill State Historic Site outside of Clinton, S.C., will likely give you a…
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Walk Where Battles Were Fought and Heroes Were Forged The Ninety Six National Historic site is an area of unique historical significance. There is…
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Everything we know about Brig. Gen. Andrew Williamson leads to one question: Did he become a traitor to the Patriot cause—the “Arnold of the…
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For Sir Henry Clinton, the capitulation of Charleston, South Carolina constituted not only the most stunning British victory of the war, but something of…