After the slaughter at Clouds Creek on that November morning, William Cunningham and his three hundred Loyalist horsemen rode away from the Carter’s Cabin where twenty-eight Patriot militiamen lay dead. Cunningham’s column moved north through the pine woods, their horses’ hooves churning the red clay of the Ninety-Six District. They had come for revenge, and…
Dawn came gray and heavy over Cloud’s Creek the next morning. It was a day that would not be forgotten – November 17, 1781. A mist was lifting from the water and the trees still dripped from the night’s rain. In the yard and cabin, Turner’s men were slow to wake, limbs stiff, clothes still…
The bloody autumn air of late 1781 carried the scent of woodsmoke and turned earth across the rolling hills of Mount Willing, South Carolina. Cornwallis had surrendered at Yorktown, but in the backcountry the war had only grown more bitter – and more personal. Major William Cunningham’s Loyalist scouts—about three hundred strong. Many of them…
In the backcountry autumn of 1781, the great armies had shifted away, but the scars of war were everywhere. The British began pulling their troops out of the backcountry, even before the fall of Yorktown. For Loyalists like William Cunningham, it was clear enough: the king’s power in the interior was fading, and with it…
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