I once marched with the very men who would later curse my name: William Cunningham. In the beginning they persuaded me with promises. They swore I could serve close to home, guard the backcountry I loved, and would not be dragged down to the lowcountry to stand duty for Charleston’s merchants and lawyers. I believed…
The Snow Campaign brought a temporary calm to the backcountry, but the underlying tensions persisted. Loyalist figures like Patrick Cunningham, though defeated and scattered, had already been accused of encouraging Cherokee raids on settler communities as a means of aiding the British cause. When coordinated Cherokee attacks finally erupted in the summer of 1776, striking…
I will never forget that cold, deadly winter of 1775-76. I felt so alone and so far away from my Virginia Home. I was born, Mary Foote in Prince William County. My first husband, William Simpson, died before we were one year married. But then, after months of terrible grief, I saw James Butler, and…
The war in South Carolina’s backcountry truly began on that Saluda wagon road when Loyalist captain Patrick Cunningham took back that powder and lead. The “Mine Creek Ambush” did more than embarrass the Provincial Congress; it armed the Loyalists, handed them Patriot prisoners, and raised the terrifying prospect that a well‑supplied Loyalist movement might join…
They say history is written by the victors. I aim to see that the truth of Mine Creek is told by the man who stopped that wagon. I am Patrick Cunningham. I had not forgotten the day they dragged my brother Robert away. They called it lawful, a warrant issued by their Council in Charles…
Powder and lead moved first, long before armies did. In the backcountry and in Charles Town alike, once word came of Concord and Lexington, munitions became the coveted commodity. Men reached for muskets only when they were sure they could keep them fed. Fort Charlotte It was in Massachusetts, in April 1775 when the shots…
Robert Cunningham, Tory I am Robert Cunningham, descended from Irish stock that crossed the sea to Virginia in the mid‑1600s. By 1769 several branches of our family had pushed into the backcountry of South Carolina, just north of the Saluda River, in the area that would one day be called Laurens County. I built a…
Backcountry settlers across Colonial South Carolina entered the early 1770s with a sense of relief and optimism. The courts and local justice they had so desperately needed was, at last, a reality. The new district seat of Ninety Six quickly began to grow as a small hub of trade and law, drawing farmers, traders, and…
The Cherokee war left a vacuum in the backcountry, and from that vacuum grew the Regulator movement. The “Regulators” were ordinary settlers—farmers, traders, and veterans of the Cherokee War—who banded together to suppress cattle thieves, bandits, and petty tyrants who preyed on isolated homesteads. Figures such as Thomas Sumter, Richard Richardson, and Joseph Kershaw became…
The ink had scarcely dried on the parchment at Saluda Old Town when it became clear that the two sides who had signed the treaty carried distinctly different understandings of what it meant. To Governor Glen and the Colonial government the document marked a clear transfer of territory and sovereignty over vast tracts of Cherokee…
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