Introduction: Saluda and the Revolution
There was not yet a “Saluda County” during the Lords Proprietor years, but though the name did not exist, the land always did. And that land was poised to be the setting for many events that would help lead to the building of our great state and country.
The name “Saluda” means “River of Corn.” It first belonged to the Saluda Indians, who had left the area long before this story began. But the name stayed with the river on which they had lived. It flows from the lower Blue Ridge Mountains above today’s Greenville, down through the Piedmont. It continues through the Midlands, forming the northern boundary of Saluda County and then the beautiful Lake Murray before it joins the Broad River. At their confluence in today’s Columbia, they become the Congaree. The Congaree, in turn, joins the Santee before it empties into the Atlantic Ocean between Charleston and Georgetown.
The rivers in South Carolina, as in every state, were the arteries – carrying lifegiving water to crops and people and livestock. Too often, as this narrative will tell, it washed red with the blood of the men and women who settled it and fought to keep it.
