The Wonders of the Colonial Frontier: Wildlife

Back in August, I wrote about the South Carolina wilderness as it appeared to early European settlers, and promised I'd discuss the different types of wildlife that populated this frontier. Years ago, at Charles Towne Landing, a state park in Charleston, South Carolina, site of the earliest permanent settlement in the area, visitors could walk through an area called the Animal Forest and see examples of such wildlife. I've no idea to what degree the park maintains this area--so much else there has changed, though the park website still advertises it as an attraction--but our family has never forgotten our visits. Panthers, wolves, elk, bison, black bears, wild turkeys, and otters shared space with alligators, foxes, raccoons, and other critters who remain when others moved west or were hunted into scarcity.

John Henry Logan describes great herds of elk and bison across the Carolinas in the early 1700's, and explorers across Cumberland Gap into Kentucky attest to the richness of game in that area as well. When I researched for my Daughters of the Mayflower title The Cumberland Bride, I was under the impression that the elk and bison had mostly disappeared by 1800, but later research revealed this was not so.

One noteworthy source that I haven't covered before is the letters of Sarah McClendon, a settler to western Kentucky, near the Ohio River and a little south of what would become Henderson, about 1794. I ran across this woman's letters, a rather rambly reminisce of her early married life and late husband for the benefit of their three sons, while researching for my upcoming book The Blue Cloak, and found a fascinating trove of all sorts of tidbits, despite misspellings. Sarah recounts how the region they settled was frequented by large herds of elk and bison, and she mentions the curiosity of flocks of parrots, sometimes referred to as the Carolina parakeet.

Carolina Parakeet, stuffed and mounted at the Field Museum

Interestingly, Wikipedia had this to say about the bird:

The Carolina parakeet had the northern-most range of any known parrot. It was found from southern New England and New York and Wisconsin to Kentucky, Tennessee and the Gulf of Mexico. It has also had a wide distribution west of the Mississippi River, as far west as eastern Colorado. Its range was described by early explorers thus: the 43rd parallel as the northern limit, the 26th as the most southern, the 73rd and 106th meridians as the eastern and western boundaries respectively, the range included all or portions of at least 28 states.^{[Note 6]} Its habitats were old-growth wetland forests along rivers and in swamps especially in the Mississippi-Missouri drainage basin with large hollow trees including cypress and sycamore to use as roosting and nesting sites. 

I may have geeked a little at that last line, imagining flocks of the exotic bird flitting through the Congaree National Park, my feature last month!

Additional note: it should not surprise me when I find various resources for giving people a taste of what our land was like during earlier days--and two such relevant places are the Elk & Bison Prairie, and Blackfish Bison Ranch, both in Kentucky. I haven't visited either place, but they look interesting! (The photo at the top of my post is borrowed from the former site.)

Wonders of the Colonial Frontier: the Landscape of South Carolina

Early explorers of America found a wonderland whose description almost defies belief for those of us used to the tamed, populated landscapes of the eastern seaboard. A particular gem of reference exists in A History of the Upper Country of South Carolina by John Henry Logan, published in 1859. He writes,

The Great West here is, believe it or not, a reference to upstate South Carolina. Logan goes on to say,

It is well known that in the primitive history of the country, there were numerous prairies in the corresponding parts of Virginia and North Carolina.

He describes meadows full of peavines as tall as the back of a horse, and canebrakes (a variety of bamboo) extending for miles along the waterways. Cane, in fact, was used as a gauge for the richest soil for farming. If the cane only grew to the height of a man, it was passed over, but where it grew 20 to 30 feet, that was considered prime farmland. (Thus where the Long Cane District around Ninety Six, South Carolina, and others, got its name.) And anyone familiar with the hardwood and pine of the Carolinas--did you know those were more recent growth?

Logan says,

The partizan (sic) soldiers of the Revolution, in Upper Carolina, frequently spoke of this striking feature of the country. It sometimes favored their enterprises, but as often proved the cause of premature detection and defeat.

Even Cornwallis, while wintering around Winnsboro, South Carolina, in 1780-81 commented on the beauty of the landscape around him.

 The wildlife populating this country was just as wondrous--but that's another subject for another post!

"After the Surrender"

Last page of the Treaty of Paris

So, in October 1781, Cornwallis surrendered to Washington at Yorktown, Virginia, and the Revolution was over. Right?

Not quite.

It would be nearly three more years before the signing of the Treaty of Paris, formally ending the American War for Independence. And in the meantime, the partisan conflict that I discussed last month would continue to rage, especially in the Southern theatre.

In addition to the Bloody Scout (the name given for William Cunningham’s rampages during the late fall and winter of 1781), several other notable skirmishes took place. My best source focuses almost exclusively on the Carolinas, but the war continued to affect relations between people for many long years in other areas of the country as well. The British continued to foment uprising among the native tribes from forts held in the upper Ohio Valley, and those loyalists who preferred not to leave America had a tough struggle either to hold onto their lands or to make a way for themselves, often further west (Kentucky, Tennessee, Georgia) or even south (Spanish-held Florida).

Plenty of conflicts happened in the first year after the British surrendered, however. One incident involved the Chickamauga in Tennessee seeking to continue trading goods with the British, holed up in Savannah, Georgia, and fighting continued with the Cherokee. Others took place in North Carolina, in lingering clashes between loyalists and patriots. Still others happened at sea. And Cunningham made a few forays into the South Carolina backcountry, but none as widespread as before.

Finally, then, the Continental army grew impatient with the British presence in Savannah and Charleston, and laid siege to both in turn … but more about those in my next post. :-)

Bloody Bill Cunningham, Terror of the South Carolina Backcountry

Artist's rendering of the Battle of Kings Mountain

Some time ago I wrote about Col. Banastre Tarleton of the British Legion, and how he might not have been the bad boy that so many accounts claim, but today I introduce a man who almost certainly deserved every bit of bad press he got.

Captain William Cunningham of the South Carolina backcountry was the son, nephew, and cousin to staunch loyalists at the beginning of the Revolutionary War, but being the strong-minded, contrary sort, he joined the rebel side. (That’s loyalist terminology for what we call patriots.) That lasted until first, Cunningham was refused a promotion he thought he deserved, and second, he was assigned to a location he didn’t care for. After his second attempt to resign from the Continental Army, he was court martialed for insubordination and sentenced to a whipping.

Sent home in disgrace and facing threats on his life, Cunningham fled to St. Augustine. Two years later, word reached him that patriot militia had turned his family out of their house, treating his aged father roughly and whipping his disabled brother so severely that he died. Furious, Cunningham returned to South Carolina on foot and went straight to the man responsible for his family’s suffering, Captain William Ritchie, where as the story goes, he shot Capt. Ritchie at dinner, in front of his family.

Afterward, Cunningham promptly joined the British cause. His exploits soon earned him the rank of major and later, captain, and he’s recorded as being present at the Battle of King’s Mountain. Notably fearless and an expert horseman, he was so much admired by his peers that even his enemies speak of him in tones of awe, decades later.

SC Districts from 1775 to 1784

The truly bone-chilling accounts, however, start just after the surrender of Cornwallis at Yorktown, which took place October 1781. Slipping past patriot patrols in small groups, after the British withdrawal to Charleston, Cunningham led a fairly sizeable band of men—anywhere from 80 to 300, and I lean toward the latter—on a series of raids against the patriot populace. This quickly became a campaign of vengeance on those who had committed the gravest offenses against the Tories or their families. The first incident happened at Turner’s Station on Cloud’s Creek in the upper Ninety-Six District, where Cunningham and his men surprised and surrounded a patriot force that had been harassing loyalists. A shot fired prematurely while negotiations were being made for surrender tipped Cunningham’s temper over the edge, and most of them were slaughtered.

His reign of terror over the South Carolina backcountry would later be referred to as the Bloody Scout, with the term “scout” referring to their roaming the countryside rather than a person. The moniker “Bloody Bill” would likewise not be coined until later, like Tarleton’s nickname of “Bloody Ban.” With Cunningham’s habit, however, of pinning down his enemies, then deliberately putting them to death with a singleminded fury that is legendary even today, he stands head and shoulders above Tarleton in infamy. No other figure is attributed with such habitual, wholesale slaughter, to my knowledge, and even the Waxhaws Massacre had its extenuating circumstances.

The Bloody Scout was more or less brought to a halt one frosty morning when a mounted force led by Andrew Pickens attacked one of the camps Cunningham had spread out over the banks of the Edisto River, and with the alarm raised, the other camps fled and dispersed, eventually making their way back to Charleston. There’s evidence of one more skirmish leading to slaughter not far from Charleston, which historians feel was likely the work of Cunningham, as well, but after that time his raids were never as effective as before.

This stretch of obscure RevWar history provides the setting of my next novella, The Counterfeit Tory, which releases May 1 as part of the CQ-authored Backcountry Brides Collection from Barbour. Jed Wheeler from The Highwayman returns on a mission to infiltrate William Cunningham’s troops in the hopes of bringing him down. The big question for Jed is, can he accomplish this without getting killed, himself?

[My thanks to Patrick O'Kelley for Nothing but Blood and Slaughter, his extensive work on every military action in the Carolinas during the Revolution; and to carolana.com, diceylangston.com, and Wikipedia for maps and cross-checking of facts.]

This Month in Colonial History: December

This is my last month bringing you the theme of “this month in colonial (and Federal) history.” Next month I have the joy and privilege of starting posts relevant to my upcoming release, The Counterfeit Tory in CQ’s long-awaited all-colonial novella collection, The Backcountry Bride (May 2018, Barbour Publishing). So, this month I’m going to do something a little different and add in events specific to the Southern Campaign of the American Revolution, particularly in South Carolina—some of which are featured in my novella, and one of which figures into my first full-length release coming in October.

Washington's Portrait, by Stuart

1 – Spanish garrisons driven out of Portugal in a nationalist revolution that will lead to Portugal’s independence. (1640)

1-19 – Continuation of “the Bloody Scout,” a six-week reign of terror by loyalist officer William “Bloody Bill” Cunningham and his men across the South Carolina backcountry, in retribution for the treatment of family and friends by the patriots. (1780) (This event forms the backdrop of my story The Counterfeit Tory.)

2 - Napoleon Bonaparte crowned Emperor of France. (Because that was an improvement on the French Revolution?) (1804)

3 - Birth of Gilbert Charles Stuart (1755-1828) near Narragansett, Rhode Island. Best known for portraits of George Washington, James Madison, James Monroe, and Thomas Jefferson.

4 - The Observer, now the oldest Sunday newspaper in the world, first published in Britain. (1791)

5 - Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart dies in poverty at age 35 in Vienna, Austria. (1791)

5 – Birth of Martin van Buren (1782-1862), the 8th U.S. President and first born a U.S. citizen, in Kinderhook, New York.

7 – Birth of Marie Tussaud (1761-1850) in Bern, Switzerland. Later famous for Madame Tussaud’s Wax Museum.

8 – Birth of Eli Whitney (1765-1825) in Westboro, Massachusetts. Assisted in his invention of the cotton gin by Caty Greene, widow of General Nathanael Greene.

9 – Birth of John Milton (1608-1674) in London.

10 – Birth of Thomas Gallaudet (1787-1851) in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Co-founded the American School for the Deaf in Hartford, Connecticut, in 1817.

12 – Birth of John Jay (1745-1829) in New York City. Diplomat and the first Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court. With Alexander Hamilton and James Madison, he co-wrote the Federalist Papers.

13 - The Council of Trent, summoned by Pope Paul III, met to discuss doctrinal matters, including the rise of Protestantism. (1545)

13 - Francis Drake departed Plymouth, England, on his voyage around the world. (1577)

13 - New Zealand discovered by Dutch navigator Abel Tasman of the Dutch East India Company. (1642)

13 – Birth of Heinrich Heine (1797-1856) in Dusseldorf. “Best known for his statement made a hundred years before the advent of book-burning Nazis in Germany – ‘Where books are burned, human beings are destined to be burned too.’”

14 – The evacuation of the British from Charleston, South Carolina, after occupying the city for more than a year and a half. (1782)

14 - George Washington dies at Mount Vernon. (1799)

15 - The Bill of Rights takes effect following ratification by Virginia. (1791)

16 - Following the defeat of King Charles I in the English Civil War, Oliver Cromwell, leader of the Parliamentary forces, is declared Lord Protector of England. (1653)

16 - The Boston Tea Party! Colonial activists disguised as Mohawk Indians board British ships anchored in Boston Harbor and dump 342 containers of expensive tea into the water. (1773)

16 – Birth of Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827) in Bonn, Germany.

16 – Birth of Jane Austen (1775-1817) in Hampshire, England.

17 – Excommunication of King Henry VIII after he declares himself supreme head of the Church in England. (1538)

17 - The Continental Army, led by General George Washington, settles in for the winter at Valley Forge in Pennsylvania. (1777)

Poor Richard's Almanac

19 - Benjamin Franklin first published Poor Richard's Almanac containing weather predictions, humor, proverbs and epigrams, eventually selling nearly 10,000 copies per year. (1732)

19 – Birth of William Perry (1790-1855) in Bath, England. Famous for his Arctic expeditions and three attempts to find a Northwest Passage.

20 - The Virginia Company expedition to America began as three small ships, the Susan Constant, Godspeed and Discovery, departed London under the command of Captain Christopher Newport. (1606)

20 - Czar Peter the Great changes the Russian New Year from September 1 to January 1 as part of his reorganization of the Russian calendar. (1699)

20 – Attack on “Bloody Bill” Cunningham by General Andrew Pickens on the Edisto River, effectively ending “the Bloody Scout.” (1780)

22 – “Following a triumphant journey from New York to Annapolis, Maryland, George Washington, victorious Commander-in-Chief of the American Revolutionary Army, appeared before Congress and voluntarily resigned his commission.” (1783)

24 - Franz Joseph Gruber composed “Silent Night.” (1818)

24 – Birth of Benjamin Rush (1745-1813) on a plantation in Byberry, Pennsylvania. A signer of the Declaration of Independence, doctor, and humanitarian, whose writings on mental illness earned him the title “Father of Psychiatry.”

24 – Birth of Christopher "Kit" Carson (1809-1868) in Madison County, Kentucky.

25 - George Washington takes 2,400 of his men across the Delaware River for a surprise raid on 1,500 Hessians (German mercenaries) at Trenton, New Jersey. The Hessians surrendered after an hour, with nearly 1,000 taken prisoner by Washington, who suffered only six wounded. The victory provided a much-needed boost to American morale. (1776) (This incident figures into the backstory of my heroine’s father in The Cumberland Bride, releasing October 2018 from Barbour.)

25 – Birth of Isaac Newton (1642-1727) in Woolsthorpe, Lincolnshire, England.

Overlay of the Louisiana Purchase

27 – Birth of Johannes Kepler (1571-1630) in Wurttemberg, Germany. Considered the father of modern astronomy.

29 – Birth of Andrew Johnson (1808-1875), the 17th U.S. President, in Raleigh, North Carolina. Abraham Lincoln's vice president and President upon Lincoln's assassination in 1865.

30 - The Stars and Stripes flag raised over New Orleans as a sign of formal possession of the territory of Louisiana by the United States. (1803)

My thanks to The History Place, Holiday Insights, and the invaluable printed resource of Nothing But Blood and Slaughter: The Revolutionary War in the Carolinas by Patrick O'Kelley.

Please Pass the Sweet Potato

 Being in the middle of the festive season, many of us have or will enjoy sitting down to a delectable dish of sweet potato, whether hidden under marshmallows or baked in a pie crust. Full of vitamins and nutrients, what’s not to love about this vibrant vegetable…unless it is the only thing you have to eat for months on end?



The following is an excerpt from my novel, The Patriot and the Loyalist:

Daniel approached the morning fire, bedroll tucked under his arm.

“Good morning, Sergeant,” Marion greeted from his place near the fire. “Have some breakfast.”

“Thank you.” Daniel took the sweet potato, their staple food the past week, and sat down on the log, letting his bedroll drop behind him. Dawn hugged the horizon, slow to dissipate the haze of blue still draped over the forest. A bird or two announced the day, but most of the men still slept. “What’s our next move?”

Before the Colonel had a chance to answer, Gabe stepped over the log and lowered himself beside Daniel. He wore a big grin, though his eyes remained glazed from lack of sleep. “Poor little lizard.” Gabe chuckled.

Daniel shook his head. Of course the kid had to remind him.

“What lizard?” The elder Marion leaned forward so he could see his nephew on the other side of Daniel.

“Just a little one looking for a warm place to sleep. Nights are getting cold out here. Seems Sergeant Reid isn’t one for sharing, though.” Gabe nudged Daniel with his elbow.

“First of all, it wasn’t that little of a lizard, and second of all, I like sleeping alone.”

“That explains why you’re out here with us,” the lad shot back.

His uncle gave a laugh, and then a censoring look.

Daniel peeled off the blackened surface of his sweet potato, dug out a chunk with the tip of his knife and took a bite of the lukewarm mush, reheated from last night’s dinner. “No, it’s fine. In a lot of ways he’s right.”

 
 
Francis Marion of South Carolina is considered by some as the father of modern guerilla warfare. During the years of 1780-1781 and his band were stuck behind British lines, camping in swamps to avoid detection. Their staple food – the sweet potato.

 

It is said Colonel Marion quite enjoyed his sweet potato, usually baked in their camp fire and eaten with no other utensil than a knife. Not all his men were so enthusiastic about the vegetable, so when meat was available, the colonel often forwent the luxury for the sake of his men. He claimed sweet potato was all he needed. 

Personally, I like sweet potato…but drizzled with butter and brown sugar. How do you like yours?

Review: The Captive Heart

I'm so excited to offer my review of The Captive Heart, the brand-new colonial novel from Michelle Griep, whose interview I posted last month.

From the back cover:

The American wilderness is no place for an elegant English governess.

On the run from a brute of an aristrocratic employer, Eleanor Morgan escapes from England to America, the land of the free, for the opportunity to serve an upstanding Charles Town family. But freedom is hard to come by as an indentured servant, and downright impossible when she’s forced to agree to an even harsher contract—marriage to a man she’s never met.

Backwoodsman Samuel Heath doesn’t care what others think of him—but his young daughter’s upbringing matters very much. The life of a trapper in the Carolina backcountry is no life for a small girl, but neither is abandoning his child to another family. He decides it’s time to marry again, but that proves to be an impossible task. Who wants to wed a murderer?

Both Samuel and Eleanor are survivors, facing down the threat of war, betrayal, and divided loyalties that could cost them everything, but this time they must face their biggest challenge ever ... love.

My thoughts:

Michelle’s new release, The Captive Heart, is a tasty mix of romance, adventure, and pre-Revolutionary history. I’m a longtime fan of her work, but she’s at the top of her game in this one, and not just because she set it in what was my long-time home state in the midst of one of my favorite time periods. Meticulously researched, richly textured, and sizzling romance that leaps off the page ... this one won’t soon be forgotten!

(And considering that as of the night before this post date, she already had 112 Amazon reviews for a total of 4.8 out of 5 stars, I'd say many others agree!!)

About Michelle:  I hear voices. Loud. Incessant. And very real. Which basically gives me two options: choke back massive amounts of Prozac or write fiction. I've been writing since I discovered blank wall space and Crayolas. I seek to glorify God in all that I write--except for that graffiti phase I went through as teenager.

The Captive Heart is Michelle's first colonial, but her impressive list of titles includes medieval and Viking-age time travel, gothic Regency, and even contemporary. Check her out at michellegriep.com!

Guest Author Interview: Michelle Griep

September's here! Which means I finally get to introduce you to brand-new colonial fiction read The Captive Heart by Michelle Griep ... and the story that sparked several of my research posts from earlier this year. This beauty releases October 1, and I'll be posting my review next month, but for now I'm so excited to share this special guest interview with the author.

First, the book:

Proper English governess Eleanor Morgan flees to the colonies to escape the wrath of a brute of an employer. When the Charles Town family she’s to work for never arrives to collect her from the dock, she is forced to settle for the only reputable choice remaining to her—marriage to a man she’s never met. Trapper and tracker Samuel Heath is a hardened survivor used to getting his own way by brain or by brawn, and he’s determined to find a mother for his young daughter. But finding a wife proves to be impossible. No upstanding woman wants to marry a murderer.

Thank you so much for being with us today, Michelle! After writing medieval and Viking-age historical, contemporary, and ending up in the Regency era, what got you interested in the colonial time period?

Trappers, actually. I live in the frozen tundra of Minnesota but even here there were voyageurs and trappers that roamed the area. One of my favorite things to do is go to the annual River Rendezvous, a living history reenactment of Natives and trappers and rugged colonists.

What inspired your latest colonial work?

An Anglophile at heart, usually I write stories based in England. But during the Colonial period, lots of British criminals (some truly guilty, others innocent) were transported to America as punishment. Others crossed the ocean as indentured servants, signing away their freedom when they landed in the hopes of creating a better life. I got to wondering what it would be like to have your freedom taken away, and so The Captive Heart was born.

Do you have a favorite colonial place you like to visit and why?

I love the South Carolina backcountry. Stunning scenery. Awesome hiking. And loads of history. It’s hard to choose just one place when there are so many, but I’m going to go with Brattonsville, a living history museum in York County. Besides the setting, I love the historical guides that are stationed at each building. You could seriously spend days here, learning everything from blacksmithing to open fire cooking.

If you care to say, you can tell readers where you live and what colonial places you have in your state or your home state if different.

It’s a little later than the Colonial period, but the North West Company Fur Post (circa 1804) is a fun place to visit. You’ll met French voyageurs, British fur traders and visit an Ojibwe encampment. It’s located just outside of Pine City, Minnesota (about an hour north of Minneapolis/St. Paul).

Do you have a favorite colonial recipe you enjoy and would like to share with readers?

Apple Fritters

Pare some apples and cut them in thin slices, put them in a bowl, with a glass of brandy, some white wine, and quarter of a pound of powdered sugar, a little cinnamon finely powdered and the rind of a lemon grated: let them stand some time, turning them over frequently; beat two eggs very light, add one quarter a pound of flour, a tablespoonful of melted butter, and as much cold water as will make a thin batter; drip the apples on a sieve, mix them with the batter, take one slice with a spoonful of butter to each fritter, fry them quick, of a light brown, drain them well, put them in a dish, sprinkling sugar over each, and glaze them nicely.

— Randolph, Mary. “The Virginia Housewife.” pg.155.

About Michelle:  I hear voices. Loud. Incessant. And very real. Which basically gives me two options: choke back massive amounts of Prozac or write fiction. I've been writing since I discovered blank wall space and Crayolas. I seek to glorify God in all that I write--except for that graffiti phase I went through as teenager.

Michelle's impressive list of titles includes medieval and Viking-age time travel, gothic Regency, and even contemporary. Check her out at michellegriep.com!

The Care and Feeding of Colonial Livestock

Google books is an invaluable resource!

It started, as so often happens, as a quest to find a scrap of research info. I just wanted to know whether or not a backcountry farmer would feed oats to his saddle horse. I mean, they couldn't just drive down to their local feed store and bring home a bag of Omelene.

I asked my trusty 18cLife Yahoo group, which led to a whole array of answers.

Among other things, I was pointed to a handy resource: an old book, now available online, titled The Discipline of the Light-Horse by Captain Hinde of the Royal Regiment of Foresters. I discovered that oats were, indeed, common provender for horses since at least colonial times, and I plan on taking time to read the entire book. Though written with an eye to the War of 1812, it contains many references to the American Revolution.

Something else I learned, though, was that Germanic settlers--Germans, yes, but also Dutch and other continental Europeans of varying religious backgrounds--were the ones who introduced the concept of large-scale farming with big barns and big hay wagons. The practice of farming the land on purpose (for "business," some said) and rotating crops were a curiosity to their British neighbors, who generally turned out their livestock to roam and graze, then herded them in as needed. Thus, the term "Cow Pens" where the famous South Carolina battle got its name was an actual area where pens were built for the periodic containment of cattle. Saddle and work horses might either be pastured or staked out to graze. Horses and cattle both do just fine on grass only, or hay with a bit of grain in the winter, but they'd need to spend a lot of time grazing because it takes a lot of grass to feed that large of an animal. Hogs and chickens or other yard fowl were also left to roam.

Cattle drives were a thing long before the West was won

The purpose of fencing or stables in colonial times, in the backcountry or on the frontier, was more for the purpose of keeping predators out than containing livestock.

The rich meadows and forests of South Carolina were actually considered cattle country at one time, and many savvy cattlemen were of African descent, whether enslaved or not, trusted with the keeping and care of herds. The Florida "Crackers" (as in, the cracking sound of the cattle drivers' whips) were also famed for their ability to work cattle in the harsh conditions of central Florida, through heat and torrential rains.

So, what did the colonial farmer raise crops for, if not to feed his livestock? The concept of the cash crop (tobacco, rice, indigo) dates back to at least the first settlement at Jamestown, and like it or not, much of the grains grown (corn, barley) went into grain liquor, especially the making of whiskey. (There's a whole discussion, in fact, on how the different spellings of whisky and whiskey denote a British-made product or an American-made one.)

I was able to find "provenance for my provender," in the case of whether to feed a favored saddle horse at least an occasional bit of oats, but it probably wasn't the norm for every farmer, especially not in the Carolinas.

Colonial churches of coastal South Carolina

St. James Santee Church

In 1706, the South Carolina Commons House of Assembly voted to establish the Church of England as their official church and divided the colony into ten parishes. Each parish had one central church with smaller affiliated churches, designated as chapels of ease. These outlying meeting places provided local church attendance to the more remote areas of the parish.

I've written previously about Strawberry Chapel, a chapel of ease for St. John's Parish in Berkeley County, and St. George Anglican Church at Colonial Dorchester, but I've had the pleasure of visiting others during my years of living and touring around the South Carolina lowcountry.

There's a very small person in that pulpit--and beside!

Our visit to St. James Santee Church was almost accidental, a side trip on the day we'd driven up to McClellanville to see Hampton Plantation. The elegant brick chapel is located way down a sandy road which traces the route of the old King's Highway between Charleston and Georgetown.

 The building is noteworthy as an example of Georgian architecture, completed in 1768, and a list of all its features is found at South Carolina's National Register site: http://www.nationalregister.sc.gov/charleston/S10817710012/index.htm. Our family found it interesting for the original enclosed box pews and the raised pulpit. Its history is noteworthy as a place where English settlers worshiped together with French Huguenots:  http://homepages.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~scroots/sc13846.htm and http://www.stjamesec.org/brickchurch.html.

Pompion Hill Chapel, from the Cooper River

Very similar in archectural style is Pompion Hill Chapel, a chapel of ease for St. Thomas's parish, built 1763-65 on the banks of the Cooper River in rural Berkeley County. (On the east branch of the Cooper, incidentally--across the river and some from Strawberry, which is on the west branch.) Reportedly Pompion is the French word for "pumpkin," and so the name permuted to "punkin" and in one contemporary spelling is cited as "Ponkin Hill."

Pompion Hill Chapel

Inside Pompion Hill Chapel

We visited here during a family boat trip up the east branch of the Cooper River. When we stopped at the churchyard for exploration, the church was locked, but we took a peek through the windows. A raised pulpit is located far right of the window where this shot was taken, but it appears that most of the original box pews are gone.

Historic photo of St. James Goose Creek

The historic church closest to where we lived was one I sadly never took the opportunity to go see: St. James Goose Creek, chapel of ease for St. James's Parish. This one, built 1713-19, has quite a history. Legend has it the church was spared during the British occupation of Charleston, during the American Revolution, because of the royal seal displayed behind the pulpit.

Inside St. James Goose Creek

Just from its photos, the church building reminds me of Strawberry Chapel with its white stucco exterior. I find it interesting that all four historic church buildings (including Strawberry) share the Georgian building style and jerkinhead roof type. Some sustained more damage than others over the years (the Goose Creek church suffered a partial collapse in the 1886 Charleston earthquake) but all have been restored and/or kept up as examples of colonial-era architecture.

(Photos of St. James Santee and Pompion Hill Chapel are my own.)

Dispelling Colonial Myths: "Bloody Ban" or, Why does it matter?

The infamous Ban Tarleton

Was Banastre Tarleton really the monster he's portrayed to be?

Sometimes, deconstructing myth can be hard and cruel. I've found often that people would rather hold onto their suppositions and prejudices than look at the other side of an issue--or accept evidence for another view. And it's astonished me how fact can get embellished into legend, and either romanticized or demonized, not very long after the fact.

The more I read, the more I realize that some myths will never be completely dispelled. People's opinions are sometimes literally set in stone, and so many will continue believing the idea that the patriot cause was completely righteous, and the British one completely corrupt.

I suppose that starting at the outset from a British/loyalist point of view skews one’s perspective at the outset. But I found it interesting, at the least, to find all the evidence that calls into question popular accounts of various historical events.

Enter Oatmeal for the Foxhounds.** Oh, the things one finds online! And warning, if you’re staunchly anti-British when it comes to RevWar history, you may not appreciate what amounts to a Ban Tarleton fansite, but I found it an amazingly rich resource for many of the events and important figures of the time (see in particular the “Friends, Enemies and Comrades” page). The full text of Tarleton’s own “Campaigns” is found here, as well.

The very name of Banastre Tarleton evokes some of the RevWar's wildest stories. He’s accused of everything from the immoral (a supposed claim to ravishing more women than anyone) to the macabre (digging up the corpse of an enemy for the purpose of gloating over him). The accusations of cruelty were just the beginning. But the site’s own intro says it very well:

It is human nature to want to fit the past into tidy storybook patterns, to reduce it to tales with clear-cut morals populated by heroes and villains. But if we search into the history behind the idealized heroes of myth, legend and folklore, more often than not we find only flawed and ordinary individuals, struggling to survive the sweep of events....

Years ago, in the pages of a novel set during the American Revolution, I stumbled across a less famous victim of the power of folklore: Lieutenant Colonel Banastre Tarleton, Commandant of the British Legion. Nicknamed "the Green Dragoon" by his twentieth-century biographer¹, Tarleton served under Lord Cornwallis during the Revolution's Southern Campaign, where his aggressive fighting style and gift for fluid, hit-and-run warfare earned him a dark place in local legend. Predictably, he was presented as the novel's "villain," but I found him so entertaining that I was drawn to investigate the history behind the myths of "Bloody Ban."

The young man who waited, buried and often forgotten in the pages of historical research, had little in common with the black-hearted villain immortalized in Revolutionary War myths as "the Butcher of the Carolinas." A devil-may-care charmer, the real Ban Tarleton quickly became one of my favorite historical figures, and so he remains. He was a fearless and ferocious cavalry leader, capable of showing his enemies both chivalry and ruthlessness. Away from the battlefield, he was a witty, hyper-sociable little rogue who made friends by the carriageload. (After the war, that list of friends grew to include many of his former enemies such as the Duc de Lauzun, Lafayette, Thaddeus Kosciusko and possibly even Thomas Jefferson.)

While Tarleton was far from a saint, he was just as far from being a monster, and he deserves a better accounting than he is normally given by popular "history." I was inspired to start work on this website when his reputation has been tarred-and-feathered yet again by the movie The Patriot, whose producers cite him as the template for their elegant but antisocial villain, Colonel William Tavington. ... There are vague similarities between their names, they each show plenty of panache when leading a cavalry column, and they share a fondness for fluffy black hats. Beyond that, the resemblance between them is nothing more than a figment of the Hollywood imagination. [Historian Dr. M. M. Gilchrist, AKA Doc M, has more to say on this subject.]

It’s understandable, on one hand, how one side would need all the proof they could get to show that their side was the righteous one ... even if their proof was unsubstantiated. But it’s so true that history is written by the victors ... and skewed by the victors. It’s my opinion, as writers, even or maybe especially as novelists, we owe it to our readers to understand as much as humanly possible of the motivations of all sides of a particular conflict, and of the nuances in how a particular event is reported.

But I digress. :-)

The first question to answer, possibly, is that of Tarleton’s supposed cruelty and brutality. The practice of looting and burning of local wealth is a well-documented military strategy, practiced widely by both sides during the American War for Independence. (Don’t you just love that term? I heard it just recently for the first time.)

Consider this footnote on the page addressing the Colonel Richardson story on Oatmeal For The Foxhounds:

It is all too common for authors to personify the British in the Carolinas as a gang of mindless pyromaniacs who ran around trampling crops and burning buildings for the sheer, bloody heck of it. Needless to say, this is ridiculous. In fact a) they did a lot less of it than legend claims and b) when they did it, there were solid reasons for it. (I would never say "good solid reasons" because in the long run it worked very heavily against them -- but they weren't blessed with the 20/20 hindsight we bring to the situation when we look back on its results from 200 years later.)

It is a basic military goal to keep supplies away from your enemies. In this situation, that meant that the crops and goods of people known to be in open rebellion against the Crown were subject to forfeiture. (Proclamations to this effect had been circulated.) Whenever possible, this "punishment" took the form of confiscation, because the British army desperately needed the supplies themselves. It was Cornwallis's policy to leave a portion of the property and goods for the use of the wife and children of the rebel involved, so they would not be made to suffer. (The Wickwires present a lengthy discussion of how the system was designed to work, as well as why and how it generally failed.)

In other cases -- normally when confiscation was impractical -- forfeiture took the form of destruction. There was a war on, after all, and from the British perspective the rebels were armed terrorists.

The destruction or confiscation of property was a form of punishment used by both sides. For instance, Lawrence E. Babits, A Devil of a Whipping, The Battle of Cowpens (Chapel Hill, N.C. & London: University of North Carolina Press; 1998), p48, has this comment to make on Daniel Morgan's army shortly before the battle of Cowpens: "Morgan's men plundered [Alexander] Chesney's property of everything usable, including grain, trees, clothing, and blankets. ... By camping on a Loyalist's property, Morgan punished Chesney, intimidated other Tories, and lessened his army's impact on local patriots."

One of the points The Patriot actually got right was Ben Martin's speech about the consequences of starting a war that would be fought in your own back yard. The cost can be heavy.

In addition to serving as a punishment, the destruction of rebel property had another aspect which many writers overlook. It robbed the enemy of building materials such as finished lumber and also of strong points which could be fortified. We tend to underestimate the value of finished materials nowadays, but especially in remote locations, they were rare and hard to replace. (Yes, they had plenty of trees, but they needed time and sawmills to turn raw wood into lumber.) There are cases recorded of buildings (including a church) being disassembled and their raw materials used to construct fortifications. And areas were sometimes accepted or rejected for military purposes based on the presence or absence of defensible buildings. (http://home.golden.net/~marg/bansite/banecdotes/85richardson.html#n2)

So was Tarleton worse than anyone else at the time, or was he just extraordinarily efficient in carrying out his assigned mission in the field? Other accounts speak of his quickness to condemn the misbehavior of his dragoons, and of his deference when dealing with the property of Thomas Jefferson.

If you’re interested in reading more about the various legends that have grown up around Tarleton, I would refer you to the Banecdotes page.

Did Tarleton consider his hounds to be military equipment? :-)

**Why "Oatmeal for the Foxhounds"? The phrase comes from a requisition written by Tarleton requesting feed for the hounds brought along on campaign. Apparently fox hunting was considered a good sport to keep officers and their horses conditioned during periods of inactivity in wartime ...

Dispelling Colonial Myths: the Waxhaws Massacre

Historical marker photo, courtesy of royalprovincial.com

Anyone who researches the Southern Campaign of the Revolution long enough will run across that rallying cry of the patriot side: “Tarleton’s Quarter!” The uninitiated might say, who was Tarleton and why are we discussing coins? Seriously, though, the phrase tracks back to a military engagement right after the breaking of the Siege of Charleston.

Reports on this battle later fueled what I can only term Revolutionary propaganda.

Lt. Col. Banastre Tarleton will have his own article next month, but for now suffice it to say that he was a rising star in the British army, unremarkable during the northern part of the war, but later distinguished himself in a handful of skirmishes in the countryside around Charleston. The battle at Waxhaws was  relatively minor, all things considered.

But the British were brutal, they said. Tarleton ignored any pleas for surrender, they said.

It was a massacre, they said.

And thus the term “Tarleton’s Quarter” was born, and became the rallying cry all across the Carolinas. But what really happened?            

Banastre Tarleton, by Joshua Reynolds

Essentially, Tarleton was sent upstate with a mounted detachment of the British Legion to pursue South Carolina governor John Rutledge, who had escaped Charleston. Word was that he’d taken refuge with “rebel” leader Abraham Buford, whose forces had been mustered out of Virginia for the aid of Charleston, but turned back after the city surrendered. In the blistering heat of late May 1780 in South Carolina, Tarleton led his forces—a mix of cavalry and mounted infantry, and at least one 3-pound cannon—on an impossible dash into the South Carolina backcountry, covering more than 100 miles in 54 hours.

As they neared, Tarleton devised a plan to delay Buford. He sent an officer ahead with a flag of truce to offer terms of surrender—the same terms General Clinton had offered Charleston, as this was a fairly standard operating procedure before a battle—but greatly exaggerated his numbers (he told Buford they had 700 men). Even then, Buford refused. Some say this was his first tactical error. Surrender would not have been any more disgraceful than what just occurred at Charleston, but it’s possible Buford felt he couldn’t surrender without at least attempting a fight. With a detachment of his own men too far away to help, and knowing he was outnumbered, Buford stopped and formed up his troops in a single line. At least one of his fellow officers said this was his second tactical error.

We might be tempted to say, a battle is a battle, but I’ve learned in my research that this is not so—any more than we can say “a dress is a dress” when dealing with style and modesty and historical accuracy. Certain things went into making good decisions about whether to fight or not (are we outnumbered? does the lay of the land favor us?) and how to carry out the battle. Buford should have arranged his troops differently, for one—and then his last and possibly gravest error was to tell his forces to hold their fire. This works when you have infantry (men on foot) but not for cavalry. The single volley of fire had little effect before the line of Tarleton’s cavalry swept over the line, shattering their formation.

Some of Buford’s men started trying to surrender, and Buford himself attempted to raise a white flag, but some of his men were still fighting, with at least one shooting at Tarleton himself. In the heat and passion of battle—both sides were exhausted and doubtless half out of their heads with the intensity of the early summer sun—Tarleton’s horse was killed, trapping him underneath. The men of his detachment (he’d divided his forces into three sections and was leading the left flank), thought their leader had fallen in battle and went into a frenzy. By the time Tarleton got out from under his horse and got his men under control, enough damage had been done to create the rumor of brutality and massacre.

Military analysts later point out that the officers in charge of the center and right flanks maintained control of their men, and the fighting was soon halted in their quarter. The losses were indeed heavy—113 killed, 150 wounded, 53 captured compared to the British losses of 5 killed and 13 wounded. But later reports of “all wounded dying” or the British executing all their prisoners were rubbish. The British provided for the care of their own and enemy wounded alike, setting up a nearby church as a hospital and summoning doctors from neighboring communities. All the wounded were paroled (released to go home when they were recovered enough). Enough reports exist of civility of behavior by Tarleton and his men after things had calmed down, that it throws the hysteria that followed after into serious question.

Considering what we know today of the psychological impact of war, and the shock it must have been to the backcountry folk for this first battle to arrive on their doorsteps, it’s probably no wonder the event became the rallying cry all the way to the Overmountain settlements, or that they immediately began referring to this young British officer as “Bloody Tarleton.”

The Blood Be Upon Your Head by Jim Piecuch

After my research debunking a popular reenactment myth, I wasn’t as surprised as I might have been to find that reports about this battle differed widely, but I was dismayed ... and disappointed. It begs the question, who do you believe when reading historical accounts, even primary accounts?

For more reading on this subject, and a fascinating look into the early months of the Southern Campaign, I recommend The Blood Be Upon Your Head: Tarleton and the Myth of Buford’s Massacre by Jim Piecuch. (You can find this in many local bookstores in the Carolinas, or Google it ... almost anywhere is better than Amazon for purchasing this one, I think!) A much shorter read, covering several of the salient points, can be found at the Oatmeal for the Foxhounds site: the Waxhaws “Massacre.” (More about this site later!)