Christopher Gadsden arrived as a South Carolina delegate to the Second Continental Congress three weeks after fighting at Lexington and Concord lit the tinder for the American Revolution. He succinctly captured the backlash of collective anxiety when he created the iconic flag of a coiled and agitated rattlesnake conspicuously warning Britain of the ramifications with […]
American Patriots won a pivotal victory at Charlestown, South Carolina, on June 28, 1776, six days before the Declaration of Independence. The Battle of Sullivan’s Island was the Patriots’ first defeat of a joint attack by the British army and navy and one of their most decisive victories of the entire war. The astonishing win […]
In the 1760s and through 1775 John J. Zubly was the leading Whig in Georgia. He wrote a number of sermons and political tracts strongly opposing any right of the British Parliament to tax Americans and especially objecting to its declared right to legislate for America “in all cases whatsoever.” In spite of that stance, […]
On this week’s Dispatches, host Brady Crytzer interviews historian and JAR contributor Aaron J. Palmer on the social and political significance of the 1775 duel between the elite Henry Laurens and the up-start John Faucheraud Grimké. New episodes of Dispatches are available for free every Saturday evening (Eastern United States Time) on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play, Amazon […]
Charles Town, the metropolis of the South (today Charleston, South Carolina), was a leading location for duels in the late eighteenth century. One detailed example reveals much about the practice and about honor in general. In this case, an elite gentleman used every means available to him to defend his honor and police the bounds […]
“One of the most creditable actions of this war in which an American privateer was engaged took place on September 6, 1781.”—Edgar Stanton Maclay, A History of American Privateers Comdr. Charles Stirling intently inspected the distant ship headed toward his command, HMS Savage, a sixteen-gun sloop of war cruising thirty-five miles off Charleston, South Carolina. […]
BOOK REVIEW: March to Independence: The American Revolution in the Southern Colonies, 1775-1776 by Michael Cecere (Yardley, Pa.: Westholme Publishing for Journal of the American Revolution Books, 2021) Historian Michael Cecere has written an overview of the coming of the Revolutionary War in the South, from the months immediately leading up to the outbreak of fighting to […]
“We have every reason to believe,” proclaimed the North Carolina Council of Safety, that “the emissaries of [the British] government are making use of every means in their power to induce the Indian Nations to fall upon the inhabitants of these [Southern] Colonies. Your own prudence will direct that you hold the Militia of your […]
A search for scapegoats is certain to follow a lost war, and in the wake of the British disaster at Yorktown in October 1781 a long list of potential targets existed. Both Sir Henry Clinton, who had commanded Britain’s army in America during the four years leading to Yorktown, and General Charles, Earl Cornwallis, who […]
On or about November 19, 1781, a Loyalist officer named William Cunningham and his regiment of approximately three hundred men rode toward Hayes Station, a fortified log home, or “blockhouse,” in the Little River District, surrounding western South Carolina’s Little River primarily in what is now Laurens County, South Carolina.[1] Now commanding the outpost was […]
On this week’s Dispatches, host Brady Crytzer interviews consultant, author, and JAR contributor Eric Sterner on the life of John Rutledge, governor, president, and congressional delegate of South Carolina, a career he explored over a series of three articles. New episodes of Dispatches are available for free every Saturday evening (Eastern United States Time) on iTunes, Stitcher, […]
John Rutledge had been prominent in South Carolina politics virtually since establishing his Charleston law practice in 1761. He served in the General Assembly, tousled with the governor over colonial governance, represented the colony in the Stamp Act Congress, then again in the First and Second Continental Congresses. A moderate, he was instrumental in drafting […]
John Rutledge was born into Charleston’s elite in 1739 and by April 1775 had established himself as a defender of English rights in the colonies. A British-educated lawyer, he served in South Carolina’s General Assembly and represented the colony in the Stamp Act Congress, the First Continental Congress, and the early days of the Second […]
John Rutledge is one of those members of the founding generation who often get overlooked. Yet, for every Jefferson, Adams, or Washington, there were many like Rutledge who focused on the nitty gritty work of building a new country. Rutledge was born in 1739 to an Irish father and his fifteen-year-old bride. The oldest in […]
By the close of 1779 British possessions in the revolted colonies were confined in the north to New York City, Long Island, and Penobscot. An army had been lost at Saratoga. In the south a tenuous hold on lower Georgia had been gained, East and West Florida had remained loyal, but West Florida was threatened […]
On this week’s Dispatches host Brady Crytzer interviews JAR contributor Jeff Dacus on how Light Horse Harry Lee and Francis Marion were able to successfully capture British Fort Watson using a siege tower designed by Maj. Hezekiah Maham. Thousands of readers like you enjoy the articles published by the Journal of the American Revolution. Dispatches is a […]
On this week’s Dispatches host Brady Crytzer interviews author, land conservationist, and JAR contributor Andrew Waters on how Nathanael Greene and Thomas Sumter fought against British control of South Carolina. Thousands of readers like you enjoy the articles published by the Journal of the American Revolution. Dispatches is a free podcast that puts a voice to […]
On this week’s Dispatches host Brady Crytzer speaks with electrical engineer and JAR contributor Stephen John Katzberg on the significance of the Battle of Eutaw Springs, South Carolina. During his research he applied geographical information systems (GIS) to correct the famous 1822 map of the battle produced by William Johnson. Thousands of readers like you enjoy the […]
Leaving Colonel Francis Lord Rawdon to command in the field from Georgetown to Augusta, Lt. Gen. Charles Earl Cornwallis, the British General Officer Commanding in the South, marched from Winnsborough, South Carolina on January 8, 1781 at the start of his second campaign to conquer North Carolina.[1] With him were 1,147 rank and file present […]
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 […]
When dealing with available sources to investigate questions related to historical events, the researcher has at his disposal a limited set from which to choose. Contemporaneous accounts, reports, maps, plats, legal filings, and location evidence exist in a more or less complete record. Nevertheless, linking the elements bearing witness to one event or another is […]
On this week’s Dispatches host Brady Crytzer interviews architect and JAR contributor Douglas R. Dorney, Jr., on his research about Capt. John La Boularderie De Treville, a South Carolina Continental artillery officer and British spy, and his surprising decision after the British surrender. Thousands of readers like you enjoy the articles published by the Journal of […]
“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 recently-appointed president of the Continental Congress, “the Army must inevitably be reduced to one or the other of these three things. Starve—dissolve—or disperse, in order to obtain subsistence.” A week later, […]
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 De Treville, was a South Carolina Continental artillery officer and prisoner of war on parole. He was also a British spy. On at least four occasions, from June 1780 to January […]
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 administering South Carolina, he took time out to go fire-hunting for deer by night.[1] “I was,” he tells us, “an eyewitness to this amusement when I first went about 30 miles […]
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 and howitzers did loft exploding shells in high arcs, but these were used almost exclusively against fixed positions like forts and towns. Sieges and a few other actions included a fair […]
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 autumn campaign on September 7, 1780, it went on to describe Cornwallis’s advance from Camden to Charlotte, together with events elsewhere. Leaving what transpired next and its knock-on effect to a […]
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 engagements. His experience as a land conservator has provided him a knowledge of the Carolina backcountry that enhances his interpretation of the campaign. As your host Brady Crytzer says, “Sit back, […]
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 came via Barbados and the other sugar islands of the Caribbean. Thomas Jefferson and Henry Laurens both blamed Britain and wished the colonies could free themselves of the practice. It was […]
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 […]
With the Revolutionary War in full swing by August 1776, George Galphin penned a letter to his nephew, Timothy Barnard. Galphin started his letter with a report of the expeditions against the Cherokee Indians in the spring and summer, followed by the news of armed confrontations between settlers in Georgia and Creek (Muscogee) Indians, although […]
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 […]
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 in the American Revolution is appropriately titled, The Road to Charleston: Nathanael Greene and the American Revolution (2019). This work is a companion to his first work on the southern campaign, The Road […]
Jordi Ferragut Mesquida, better known by his anglicized name George Farragut, was the only known Spanish volunteer who fought under the American flag in the War of American Independence. Over one hundred thousand Spanish soldiers and sailors fought against Britain during that war, such as Bernardo de Gálvez in the Gulf Coast, as well as […]
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 […]
As Daniel Morgan collected his prisoners on the morning of January 17, 1781, he knew Charles, Lord Cornwallis, could not be far behind. “The Troops I have had the Honor to command have been so fortunate as to obtain a compleat Victory,” Morgan would later report proudly to Nathanael Greene. At the Battle of Cowpens earlier […]
Dr. John Moultrie was born in 1729 in South Carolina to a father of the same name, one of five brothers. Educated in Edinburgh, he graduated in 1749 before returning to the United States where he took up residence in Charleston. In subsequent years, he held numerous prominent positions within the colony. In 1763, when […]
As November 1780 begins, we find Cornwallis continuing to wait at Winnsborough, South Carolina, in the hope of being joined by Major Gen. Alexander Leslie, a junction on which the winter campaign to the northward depended. Bound for the Chesapeake and placed under the orders of Cornwallis, Leslie had sailed from New York on October […]
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 […]
