Most people know of Lexington and Bunker Hill, but very few people know that the Revolutionary War was fought and won in the South. It included the bloodiest battles, the longest siege, the worst defeat of the war, and the largest loss of life for the French allies.
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Most of the Revolutionary War is shadowed in myth and propaganda, written during the 19th and 20th centuries. The truth of the war is a little harder to find, and it is not as "black and white." Many of the "good guys" were not so good, and the enemy was not an evil force.
This book will shatter many myths that some consider sacred. Francis Marion was not called "The Swamp Fox" in his lifetime, and Thomas Sumter was never called "The Gamecock" in his.
The battle of King's Mountain was not won by rifle-wielding frontiersmen versus red-coated British Regulars. In the battle there was only one British soldier on the field, and both sides had frontiersmen with rifles.
In the battle of Moore's Creek Bridge there was no gallant charge of Highlanders, wearing kilts and playing bagpipes. The truth is much more mundane, and realistic.
Not all battles were "stand up" affairs. Many resembled the trenches of World War I, using names of weapons that we recognize today, such as mortars, rifles, and hand grenades. The ability of the British to adapt to fighting in America would eventually lead them to conquer Georgia and South Carolina. This was also accomplished because the United States was not so united, and constant in-fighting and political maneuvering would lead to defeat on the battlefield.
At the time of the Revolutionary War the British army was the mightiest nation on Earth, but this was their "Vietnam". The war in the Carolinas looked more like Bosnia in 1992 than combat in the 18th century. Most of the actions in the Carolinas were fought between Americans, with no British troops at all, in a true civil war. The Southern battles led the British to the decision to negotiate a "peace with honor" that ended the war.
This book is the first volume, of three, that attempts to list every single military action, no matter how small, in the Carolinas. This includes skirmishes, murders, hit and run tactics and naval actions.
Using primary sources, many which have never been published before, the truth of the war can finally be told.
The review of this Book prepared by Patrick O'Kelley
