Little-Known Stories

Muskets

Did you know that reloading a Revolutionary War-era musket could take up to 20 seconds? That’s the same amount of time it takes to sing an entire rendition of “Happy Birthday,” which meant that soldiers could only fire three to four shots each minute.

1/3 Casualties

South Carolina’s role in the American Revolution cannot be overstated. Historians estimate that approximately 30% of American casualties during the war occurred in South Carolina.

Gideon Gibson

He was a leader and left behind a lasting legacy in our state. Gideon Gibson was a mixed-race freedman born in 1721 who would grow up to change South Carolina law forever. His participation in the Regulator Movement, a vigilante movement that challenged the colonial government, led to a tense...

Sullivan’s Island

On September 18th, 1775, Patriot troops from Fort Moultrie attacked and seized a small vessel taking supplies from Charles Town to two British ships at anchor off of Sullivan’s Island. The Patriots seized 21 casks of water, one case and two bottles of liquor, and some brown sugar. In the...

Eliza Lucas Pinckney

Eliza Lucas Pinckney is famous for developing a blue dye and becoming the first woman inducted into the South Carolina Business Hall of Fame. Her story is anything but ordinary for a woman of her time. Eliza became a plantation mistress at the age of 16 in the absence of...

Battle of Eutaw Springs

A hotly contested battle lasting five hours, the Battle of Eutaw Springs took place on September 8th, 1781. The Patriots, led by Major General Nathanael Greene, attacked a British camp on Eutaw Creek, and suffered 692 losses which included 251 killed, 367 wounded, and 74 missing. British Colonel Alexander Stewart...

End of the War

On September 3, 1783, the Treaty of Paris was signed by American and British representatives. This formally recognized the United States as an independent nation and ended the Revolutionary War. Here’s a fact you may not have known about the treaty: The three American negotiators, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin and...

Elizabeth, Grace & Rachel Martin

Elizabeth, Grace, and Rachel Martin were three women crucial to the success of the American Revolution. Elizabeth was a mother of nine with several sons in the Continental Army, and her daughter-in-law, Grace and Rachel, supported the Patriot cause by caring for wounded soldiers and operating from their home. During...

Jim Capers

A Patriot Drum Major who played a vital role in the American Revolution, Jim Capers, was born on September 23, 1742, in South Carolina. He was a free African American who served as a Drum Major in the 4th South Carolina Regiment during the Revolutionary War. Despite sustaining severe injuries...

Rebecca Brewton Motte

Rebecca Brewton Motte was a resilient supporter during the American Revolutionary War. Growing up in South Carolina, she married into the well-known Motte family. At the outbreak of the war, Rebecca and her family provided crucial supplies to the Patriots. After she lost her husband, Jacob, in 1780, the British...

Agrippa Hull

Agrippa Hull was a soldier in Washington’s Continental Army and Battle of Eutaw Springs survivor. Born free as a biracial man in Massachusetts, he enlisted and served for 6 years in Washington’s Continental Army. As an orderly to General John Paterson, Hull survived the Battle of Saratoga Springs in New...

Charleston Town & Pee Dee River

On July 25th, 1780, a fleet of British flatboats was heading towards Charles Town on the Pee Dee River. The transports contained sick soldiers and were being escorted by Loyalist militia. Not having any cannons, the Patriots made some Quaker cannons, fake cannons used to deceive the Loyalists, and placed...

Meet Antigua

Antigua was an enslaved African American man who risked his life by acting as a spy for the duration of the American Revolutionary War. Antigua was said to have been hired by the former governor of South Carolina, John Rutledge, to gather information on the movements and tactics of the...

Spartan Regiment

On July 12th, 1780, Col. John Thomas, Jr. was commanding the 1st Spartan Regiment of the South Carolina Patriot Militia. He was warned by his mother that the Loyalists planned to attack his camp. When the attack began at Cedar Springs, the Loyalists ran into a prepared ambush and were...

The Creation of Committee of 99

The Committee of 99 was formed on July 6, 1774 by the General Meeting in Charleston, South Carolina to give the state representation in government. It was made up of merchants, mechanics, and planters across the state of South Carolina with the goal of carrying out the series of resolutions...

Skirmish in Seneca

On June 26th, 1776, Patriot Capt. James McCall and a 30-man detachment from the South Carolina Rangers were sent on a peace mission to the Cherokee Nation. The Rangers were ambushed at Seneca by a party of Native Americans. McCall was captured but later escaped from his captors.

Battle of Stono Ferry

On June 20th, 1779, Patriot Maj. Gen. Benjamin Lincoln advanced with 1,200 men to assault a British garrison. The intense battle saw the British left side retreat, prompting Loyalist Lt. Col. John Maitland to reposition his troops and rally the Hessians. As fighting continued, Brig. Gen. Augustine Prevost’s reinforcements arrived,...

Skirmish at Hill’s Iron Works

On June 18th, 1780, two men warned the militia of Iron Works, a South Carolina backcountry settlement established by Col. William Hill and Isaac Hayne in anticipation of the war, about an approaching force of hundreds of British dragoons. The British arrived undetected and surprised the militiamen with gunfire. Believing...

Murder at Ninety Six

On June 15, 1776, Capt. William Ritche discovered that William Cunningham, an infamous South Carolina Loyalist, had deserted the Patriot cause and fled to Savannah, Georgia. Ritche rode to Cunningham’s home and assaulted his debilitated brother and parents. Upon learning of the attack, Cunningham retaliated by riding to Ritche’s home...

Peter Harris

Peter Harris, a Catawba Native American, served in the Continental Army during the American Revolution. Harris endured a devastating smallpox epidemic at age three, which killed his parents and half of his tribe. He remained in the village for two years before being taken in by Thomas Spratt, a nearby...

Skirmish at Mobley’s Meetinghouse (Gibson’s Block House)

In May of 1780, Patriot militia Capt. John McClure allied with Col. Richard Winn and Lt. Col. William Bratton to launch an attack against Col. Charles Coleman’s Loyalists, who were entrenched in a fortified blockhouse. The Patriots managed to reclaim a significant amount of stolen goods, along with horses and...

Buford’s Massacre

The Battle of Waxhaws occurred on May 29th, 1780, involving British forces under Lt. Col. Banastre Tarleton and American troops led by Col. Abraham Buford. The battle is infamous for its brutality, with Tarleton’s troops reportedly massacring American soldiers attempting to surrender. This event fueled anti-British sentiment and became known...

Rebecca Brewton Motte

Rebecca Brewton Motte was raised in privilege and inherited vast wealth that led to her sense of duty toward the American Revolution war efforts. Her family’s prominence included her father’s role as church warden for St. Philip’s Parish and Christ Church Parish and militia captain for two companies, and her...

Witherspoons Ferry

The City of Johnsonville has rededicated a historic marker at Witherspoon’s Ferry, where Francis Marion took command of the Williamsburg militia in 1780. The original marker, placed in 1979 by the Three Rivers Historical Society, had become damaged. Lawrence Eaddy and his family led the replacement effort in honor of...

Siege of Ninety Six

On April 22nd, 1781, Patriot Gen. Nathanael Greene’s army of 1,600 men laid siege to the British fort at Ninety Six. He employed traditional siege tactics, such as digging trenches and bombarding the fort with artillery, but he couldn’t compel the British to surrender. As Col. Francis Rawdon’s 2,000-strong British...

Skirmish at Mathew’s Plantation on the Stono River

During the night of May 20th, 1779, British troops attacked and routed a Patriot militia force guarding the Stono River plantation of Capt. John Raven Mathews, the future governor of South Carolina. The British gave no quarter to the Patriots and slaughtered them. During this attack, Patriot Lt. Col. Robert...

Powder Magazine Explodes

On May 15th, 1780, The British seized all Patriot weapons from Charles Town and Mt. Pleasant. The weapons were intended to be stored in a powder magazine located in the western extremity of Charles Town. Despite warnings that some of the weapons were loaded, it is believed that due to...

Battle of Lenud’s Ferry

On May 6th, 1780, Col. Anthony Walton White captured British light infantrymen at Wambaw Plantation. Heading southeast to Lenud’s Ferry, he was to meet Col. Abraham Buford and Lt. Col. William Washington’s cavalry. Banastre Tarleton, seeking retaliation, pursued White at Lenud’s Ferry, aided by accurate intel from a Loyalist. Tarleton...

Besieged Fort Watson

On April 23rd, 1781, Lt. Col. Henry Lee and Brigadier General Francis Marion successfully besieged Fort Watson, a British outpost that served as a communication and supply chain between Charleston and other outposts further inland, after an eight-day battle.

1775 Charles Town

On April 21st, 1775, the people of Charles Town committed acts of legal treason by seizing arms and ammunition, marking the beginning of the Revolution in South Carolina. Led by a Secret Committee, they broke into magazines at Hobcaw and Robert Cochran’s on Charlestown Neck, as well as seized arms...

Francis Salvador

Meet Francis Salvador, a notable Jewish political figure during the American Revolution. Born in London in 1747 to a prominent Jewish family with ties to the British East India Company, his family played a significant role in establishing Jewish communities in colonial America. After the death of his father, Salvador...

Andrew Ferguson

Andrew Ferguson, a free Black man born in Dinwiddie County, Virginia, made significant contributions as a Patriot during the Revolutionary War. Captured by the British as a teenager, he and his father rejected serving the enemy and joined the Continental Army under General Nathanael Greene. Ferguson displayed remarkable bravery in...

Upstate Loyalists

Greenville

Richard Pearis: Loyalist Officer and First European Settler of Greenville Richard Pearis was a colonial frontiersman and trader who straddled the cultural and political divides of Revolutionary South Carolina. Through trade licensed by the British government, Pearis developed deep connections with the Cherokee Nation, serving as an interpreter and eventually...

Private Bailey Anderson – Annotated Timeline of Revolutionary War Service

Spartanburg

Serving for at least six years of the eight-year war, Bailey Anderson was deeply involved in the battles of Revolutionary South Carolina. At the outbreak of the Revolutionary War in 1775, Anderson was 21 years old and living ten miles north of present-day Spartanburg in what was formerly the Ninety...

Prison Ship in Charleston Harbor 

Charleston

Joseph Herndon was a private in the North Carolina Militia at the Battle of Camden. He survived the disaster at Camden and went on to serve at Guilford Courthouse until he was captured during David Fanning’s raid on the Chatham County (NC) courthouse in July of 1781. He was one...