Remarkable Charlestonians in the American Revolution

 

The Death of Major Pierson by John Singleton Copley, 1782. Tate Britain 

The American Revolution was a struggle for liberty, but not in the uncomplicated way we learned in school, or by watching Mel Gibson' film, The Patriot. The traditional story holds that Patriots fought to free themselves from arbitrary taxation by an allegedly tyrannical king, George III. What is often left out is that supporters of the British government also fought for liberty. People on both sides viewed their actions as patriotic, even if they were sometimes self-serving. Enslaved blacks fought to free themselves from slavery. The War for Independence in the southern colonies was also in part a war to to preserve slavery. Slaveholders feared that an arbitrary British government might grant their slaves freedom after Lord Mansfield declared slavery illegal in English law in 1773. In that sense the Revolution had more in common with the later Civil War than is generally acknowledged. 

Charleston, South Carolina is famous as the place where the American Civil War began. Less well known is its significant role in an earlier civil war. For South Carolina, the American War for Independence was more truly a civil war than the conflict of 1861-1865. During the 1860s, South Carolinians were united in defence of their state. During the Revolutionary War, they were bitterly divided. South Carolina witnessed some of the most violent episodes of the conflict.

Remarkable Charlestonians in the American Revolution relates the stories of a spectrum of the city's residents during this turbulent time. Its subjects were famous, obscure, rich, poor, black, white, men and women. Some supported the "Patriot" cause; others were loyal to the British crown, or tried to remain neutral. A few switched sides, one more than once. Collectively, their experiences highlight the often grim reality of the revolutionary era. 

The public memory of the American Revolution is encrusted with layers of convenient forgetfulness, dubious facts, distorted legends, and outright myths. History, as Sir Lewis Namier wrote, is not a visit of condolence. Nor should it be. This book seeks to portray the complexity of a chaotic, turbulent, and fascinating time. Its pages provide, I hope, a nuanced sense of what it was like to live in Charleston during the American War for  Independence, 250 years ago. It also, I believe, sheds light on the situation in the USA today. 

The premise of Remarkable Charlestonians is that people on both sides of the War for Independence fought for liberty, although with a different sense of what liberty meant. The majority black population wanted to rid themselves of enslavement, and many joined the British, who promised them freedom. Many white Loyalists believed that the British government was the best protector of "the rights of Englishmen" against what they saw as mob rule. White revolutionaries (Patriots) opposed what they perceived as the arbitrary actions of the British government. One of the things they feared and fought to prevent was the possibility that an overpowerful Parliament would declare slavery illegal in the colonies. 

If you are convinced that Mel Gibson portrayed the Revolution correctly in "The Patriot" this book may not be your cup of tea. (Pun intended).

For more information, visit Remarkable Charlestonians in the American Revolution – Arcadia Publishing $24.95 

Available at all good bookstores -- and even some bad ones.

Trump, Manifest Destiny, and the Epstein Files.

[Image: "American Progress" by John Gast, 1872]

The term "Manifest Destiny" describes the belief of many 19th century Americans that they were destined to rule the North American continent; that they had a "divine right" to dominate the lands between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. The idea, if not the term, was unabashedly imperialist but even today, many political commentators seem to shy away from calling US expansion "imperialist." Donald Trump is a firm believer in Manifest Destiny, even if he knows little if anything about its history.

The phrase "Manifest Destiny" came into use after 1845, when newspaper editor and expansionist advocate John O'Sullivan used it. The timing was not coincidental. The US was in the process of annexing Texas, which had gained independence from Mexico in 1836. The US would soon be at war with Mexico, a war that was driven by expansionist ambitions. 

The plunder included what are now the states of California, Arizona, and New Mexico, and parts of Nevada, Utah, and Colorado. Some expansionists, including Jane Cazneau, who used the term "manifest destiny" before O'Sullivan, advocated the annexation of the rest of Mexico. 

That never happened, mainly because Manifest Destiny was a thoroughly racist ideology. It envisioned an American empire made up of white Europeans (plus their African slaves). Mexico was inhabited by large numbers of Native Americans (AKA "Indians") and people of mixed race who could not be part of the divine American mission.

The same thinking operates today. Trump has never spoken of annexing Mexico, because it is full of the sort of "criminal" and "inferior" people he claims are threatening the US. He has, however, repeatedly spoken of a US annexation of Canada, a predominately European white country. 

Advocates of manifest destiny also viewed Canada as a an area ripe for US expansion. Some expansionists demanded that Great Britain cede all of the Northwest Oregon Territory up to the border of Alaska. |Their cry was "54-40 or Fight". War threatened in 1846 but was avoided when the two countries agreed to a border on the 49th parallel. The peaceful resolution was partly due to the fact that the US was about to embark on the war against Mexico. To fight the British Empire at the same time would have been foolhardy. Of course, no one consulted the Native Americans who lived in the region.

Although the term "Manifest Destiny" emerged during the 1840s, the idea was expressed much earlier in American history, indeed at the very birth of the nation. It was annunciated clearly by William Henry Drayton of South Carolina in 1776. In that year, Cherokee bands attacked European settlers encroaching on their lands in the upcountry of the Carolinas and Virginia. The war that followed ended in a crushing defeat for the Cherokee. Many of their towns were destroyed, and they lost much of their historic land.

Drayton, a fervent advocate of American independence, viewed the war as an opportunity. At the time, he was serving as the Chief Justice of the newly independent state South Carolina. Drayton proposed that the defeated Cherokee be "extirpated" as a nation, that their lands "become the property of the American public," and that captives "become the property of the taker."

Drayton declared that the new nation had a divine mission. God had chosen the "American Empire" as his tool to advance the cause of liberty. The Lord had previously chosen Britain for this mission, but the British government had violated divine intentions by "trying to enslave the American people." Like other "Patriot" slaveholders, Drayton failed to see the irony in his political rhetoric. 

In his role as Chief Justice, Drayton also recommended the suspension of due process. A state court charged fourteen "Tories" with treason and sentenced them to death. Their "crime" had been fighting with the Cherokee against the new independent states. Drayton commented that he would have hanged them without a trial, thus advocating what soon became known as "lynching." The sitting "President" of South Carolina, John Rutledge, pardoned them. 

During the War for Independence, partisans on both sides employed lynchings. Nowhere was it more common than the backcountry of South Carolina. Among those lynched were blacks who supported the British, something Rutledge did support. During the 19th and early 20th centuries, blacks became the main victims of lynchings. 

Drayton may not have used the term "manifest destiny" but his statements and actions show that the idea a divine mission was present from the infancy of the American Republic. The popularity of his ideas and methods was an unfortunate omen for the new nation. 

Like Trump, Drayton employed populist rhetoric to convey his ideas of a divine mission to the public. Trump may not use the term "manifest destiny" either, but he is echoing it when he says that Greenland and Canada should belong to the US. It is also noteworthy that Trump has not threatened to annex Mexico, because it is supposedly inhabited by the sort of "bad people," he has sworn to deport from the USA. 

That may change. In his latest buccaneering ventures, Trump has threatened to annex or destroy various countries, including Venezuela, Cuba, and Iran. His motive in these cases seems to be to distract people from his numerous appearances in the Epstein Files. But appealing to a "divine mission" of the USA helps him with his gullible base.

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Charleston's Tea Parties, 1773-1774

Everyone has heard of the Boston Tea Party. Well, maybe not everyone, but it is one of the most famous episodes among the many events that led up to the American Revolution and War of Independence. But how many people know that Charleston, South Carolina had three tea parties? The first took place just a few days before the more famous Boston event, and was thus the first tea party in America. It was a more genteel affair,  at least on the surface.  [Image: Charleston Harbor, c. 1780] 

On December 1, 1773, an East Indiaman, the London, arrived in Charleston harbor carrying a large consignment of tea. Christopher Gadsden, a merchant or factor, called a “Mass Meeting” of local Whigs and Liberty Boys to discuss how to prevent the tea being sold. They called in the three merchants who had agreed to receive the tea. After some “threats and flattery” they persuaded the merchants not to receive the tea. The captain of the London and the owner of the wharf where the ship was moored received letters threatening them if they did not move ship out into the harbor. Before that could happen, however, the collector of customs seized the tea and put it in cellar of the Exchange to await the hoped-for resolution of the tax dispute. Threats had been made but no violence occurred. It was a relatively genteel affair compared to that in Boston. Although the tea was not sold, the local firebrands were upset that it was landed in the city at all, especially after they learned what happened in Boston, Philadelphia, and New York. In the latter two cities, the tea-bearing ships had been prevented from landing at all. They had to return to Britain with their cargoes.

Charleston's second tea party took place in July 1774. A merchant ship with the ironic name of Magna Carta, unloaded three crates of tea which were registered with customs officials at the Exchange. Since the first "party" the year before, opponents of British policies had established a General Committee to act as a watchdog for violations of the embargo. The General Committee summoned the ship's captain and demanded an explanation. Captain Maitland claimed that he was unaware his ship was carrying the tea. He offered to dump it into the river at his own cost. The customs officials refused to let him pay for and take the tea. The Liberty Boys decided Maitland was being duplicitous and took direct action. They aroused a mob of several hundred angry citizens and set out with tar and feathers to teach him a painful, possibly deadly lesson. Fortunately for Maitland, he learned of their approach and escaped to another British ship in the harbor. The Liberty Boys found the tea on the ship and took it to the Exchange to be stored. [Image: Charleston Harbor, 1773] 

The third Charleston tea party was a bit more like the Boston event in that it involved actual dumping of the tea into the harbor. In November 1774 the ship that had rescued Maitland, the Britannia, arrived carrying seven chests of tea. The captain, Samuel Ball, repeated Maitland’s plea, stating that he did not know of the presence of the “mischievous drug” on his ship. Ball was not being truthful, but the General Committee accepted his explanation and blamed the three Charleston merchants who had agreed to accept the consignments of tea. The committee convinced the merchants to dump the tea into the Cooper River at a loss to themselves. The memory of the liberty mob action against Maitland may have helped to persuade them. A large crowd gathered to watch them pour the tea into the water, but there was no violence. Peter Timothy reported the event with some glee in his South Carolina Gazette, calling the tea dumping “an oblation to Neptune.” He reported that the crowd dispersed afterwards as if nothing had happened.

Why is the Boston Tea Party so well known, while Charleston's tea parties were almost forgotten? One reason is the dramatic nature of the Boston event. The partygoers, members of Boston's Sons of Liberty, dressed as Native Americans and attacked the tea-laden merchant ship yelling war whoops and brandishing tomahawks. The image was violent and made a lasting impression, and throughout the war that followed, British cartoonists often portrayed the American rebels as Indians. Another, and even more important reason for the fame of the Boston Tea Party, is the British government's severe reaction.  Parliament passed a series of Coercion Acts (1774) designed to punish Boston and Massachusetts for tolerating such a wanton destruction of private property. The acts closed the port of Boston, suspended the colonial charter, and shut down the regular courts. They were to remain in effect until Massachusetts paid for the destroyed tea and the Crown was satisfied that order had been restored. The effect of the acts was to stifle the local economy and put Massachusetts under direct British rule. A third reason is that the history of the Revolution was long dominated by northern scholars, especially New Englanders, and they gave scant attention to southern events. Regional prejudice played a part, but after the Civil War, so did the perception that the Slave dependent South did not fit well into the narrative of a war for liberty.  

The government in London hoped that the Coercion Acts would deter other colonies from supporting resistance to British policies. The "Intolerable" Acts, as they soon became known in the colonies, had the opposite effect. By punishing the entire colony of Massachusetts rather than the individuals involved in dumping the tea, the acts aroused fears in the other colonies of being treated in a similar manner. The acts strengthened the influence of  radicals such as Sam Adams in Boston and Christopher Gadsden in South Carolina, who were already demanding independence in practice if not in name. 

Further Reading:

Stanly Godbold, Jr., and Robert Woody, Christopher Gadsden and the American Revolution. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1983.

Daniel McDonough, Christopher Gadsden and Henry Laurens: The Parallel Lives of Two American Patriots. Susquehanna University Press, 2000.

George C. Rogers, Jr., "The Charleston Tea Party: The Significance of December 3, 1773" The South Carolina Historical Magazine, 75, No.3 (July 1974), pp. 153-168.

Jordan Baker, "The Charleston Tea Parties," The Charleston Tea Parties – Legends of America

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The Execution of Isaac Hayne: Charleston, South Carolina, August 1781

During the American War for Independence, both sides executed enemy soldiers and civilians. Some were found guilty of spying or treason after a trial, although the “trial” was often pro forma. For many others a trial was dispensed with. 

After the Battle of King’s Mountain in October 1780, the victorious Patriots shot dead many of the defeated Loyalists after they had surrendered. King’s Mountain was part of a broader pattern of tit for tat executions that plagued the backcountry of South Carolina, especially during the British occupation of 1780-1782. 

Patriot Paddy Carr slaughtered every Loyalist he could lay his hands on, refusing quarter to those who surrendered. Loyalist “Bloody Bill” Cunningham became infamous for butchering patriots and their families. Both sides murdered "enemies" in their beds. 

Patriots executed without trial Blacks alleged to have aided or joined the British enemy. Governor John Rutledge ordered partisan leaders Thomas Sumter and Francis Marion to hang “renegade Negroes.”      

Most of the victims of these war crimes, for that is what they were, were anonymous, or just names. Only a few of them are etched in our historical memory because their stories have been told again and again. 

We remember Nathan Hale, who the British executed as a spy in 1776. Why? Because of his supposed last words: “I regret that I have but one life to give for my country." Powerful stuff, even if not true. 

Isaac Hayne is not as well-known as Hale, but he was the most famous person to be hanged in the South during the war. A painting of Hayne being led to his execution is displayed in the Old Exchange and Provost Dungeon on East Bay Street in Charleston, where he was imprisoned in the summer of 1782. 

The British hanged Hayne on a charge of treason, which he vigorously denied. How he got into that situation is convoluted. Hayne had inherited several plantations south of Charleston, mainly near Jacksonborough. He had a reputation as an excellent breeder of horses. He served as a cavalry officer in the patriot militia. 

After the fall of Charleston in 1780, the British paroled Hayne and others in the militia. He returned home. That summer and autumn smallpox spread across the state. One of his children died of it, and his wife and two other children became infected. He rode to Charleston to seek medical help. 

He had not wanted to come. The victorious British commander, Sir Henry Clinton, had issued a proclamation requiring the paroled militia to swear allegiance to the Crown. While Hayne was in Charleston, the British town commandant, Colonel Paterson, convinced him to take the oath. 

Paterson assured him, he later claimed, that he would not be required to take up arms against his former comrades. Hayne signed and went home. His other children survived but his wife died from smallpox. 

After Patriots regained control of most of the state in 1781, Hayne believed, or claimed, that he no longer owed allegiance to the invaders. He joined the partisans. In July 1781 he took part in a partisan raid on the plantation of Andrew Williamson. They kidnaped (or rescued) Williamson, a former Patriot general who had defected to the British after the fall of Charleston. 

A British detachment led by major Archibald Campbell intercepted the kidnapers and rescued Williamson. Campbell captured Hayne and took him back to Charleston as a prisoner. The commandant of Charleston was no longer Paterson, but Colonel Nisbet Balfour. He ordered Hayne to be imprisoned in the Provost Dungeon, the bottom floor of the Exchange Building. Balfour charged him with treason for having violated his oath of loyalty to the king. 

Hayne expected to receive a trial but Balfour and the commanding general in South Carolina, Lord Rawdon, declared him guilty and sentenced him to hang. For months, Balfour had been placing warnings in the newspapers that militia who had taken parole and signed the oath of allegiance would be liable to treason charges if they rejoined the Patriots. 

Balfour had hoped it would stem a rising tide of defections to the partisan bands. The warnings failed to bring about the desired result. He and his superior, General Lord Rawdon, decided to make an example of someone to deter others. [Image: Francis, Lord Rawdon]

The British commanders had another likely motive, one common in war: revenge. The previous October, patriots in New York had captured Major John Andre. He was returning to British lines after a secret meeting with Benedict Arnold, to arrange Arnold's switch to the British side. Because he was caught wearing civilian clothes, the Patriots charged Andre as a spy, which meant he had no right to a trial. They hanged him at Tappan, New York, a few days later, with the approval of George Washington. 

Andre was a talented and popular officer, and his execution outraged many of his comrades. Balfour had been his close friend, and Rawdon had helped him to prepare for his position. 

Many people in Charleston protested the sentence on Hayne and urged Balfour and Rawdon to reconsider the verdict. Those who pleaded for Hayne’s life included several prominent Loyalists, including William Bull, the former royal lieutenant governor. 

Women from both sides of the political divide came to beg for mercy. The sister of Hayne’s deceased wife brought his two surviving children to see Rawdon and Balfour. They begged for mercy on their knees. British officers also petitioned for to save Hayne, including the one who had captured him. Rawdon refused to change the sentence. His only concession was to allow Hayne a stay of a few days to visit with his children. 

At dawn on August 4 Hayne’s captors led him out of the Provost Dungeon. Several hundred soldiers escorted him to the place of execution at Boundary Street (now Calhoun Street), close to the present-day College of Charleston.

Hayne’s execution made him a martyr to the Patriot cause in South Carolina and a figure in Southern folklore, celebrated in story and song. Unlike Nathan Hale, he was largely forgotten in the annals of American history, probably due to the sectional conflict that led to the Civil War. Growing up in Chicago in the '50s and '60s, I heard about Hale but not Hayne. 

Almost immediately after the execution, Rawdon returned to Britain.  Fear of retaliation for Hayne’s execution may have sped up his departure. He arrived home to find that the execution was being criticized even in Britain. The Duke of Richmond, an opponent of the American war, moved to censure Rawdon’s conduct in the House of Lords. 

Although Richmond's motion lost by a large majority, Rawdon demanded the duke make an apology or meet on the field of honor. A duel was narrowly avoided when Richmond issued an apology. Rawdon went on to become Governor-General of India and rack up several peerages, including Earl of Moira and Marquess of Hastings. 

In later years, Rawdon blamed Balfour for Hayne’s death. Both played a role in it, but it seems that Rawdon was the more determined to hang him. 

During Balfour’s time as commandant of Charleston, Hayne was the only Patriot to be executed. Rawdon had ordered many executions under his command in America, though mainly of army deserters. Balfour, who remained in Charleston after Rawdon’s departure, bore the brunt of local anger about Hayne’s execution. 

In March 1782, General Alexander Leslie, who replaced Rawdon as commander in South Carolina, wrote Sir Henry Clinton that Balfour’s situation in Charleston had become “very unpleasant” since Hayne’s execution. In August 1782 Balfour was transferred to New York. After the war, he went on to become a Major General.

Below are two illustrations purporting to be of executions that took place during the American War for Independence. The first allegedly records the execution of Major John Andre at Tappan, New York in October 1780. The second claims to portray the execution of Colonel Isaac Hayne in Charleston. 

The illustrations are almost identical, except for changes in the colors of the uniforms. Even the flags remain the same. It is likely that the artist or artists was not present at either execution. The artist of Hayne's hanging obviously copied the artist of Andre's. They were after all, copycat killings. 

Peter McCandless, Remarkable Charlestonians in the American Revolution. Charleston, SC: Arcadia Publishing, 2025.

David K. Bowden, The Execution of Isaac Hayne. Lexington, SC: The Sandlapper Store, 1977.

David Ramsay, The History of the Revolution in South Carolina. Trenton, NJ, 1785. 

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Adventures of a Black Loyalist: Scipio Handley

 

At the beginning of the American Revolution, Scipio Handley was a free black fisherman who plied his trade in Charleston Harbor. We know very little else about him. We do know he was involved in a number of events during the revolutionary era, and after the war applied for compensation to the Loyalist Claims Commission in London. The memorial he submitted to the Claims Commission provides the little we know about Handley. It is part of thousands of pages of documentation, memorials and testimony, that now survives in the UK National Archives at Kew.

After the last royal governor, Lord William Campbell, fled Charleston in September 1775, Handley used his boat to carry supplies to the Tamar and its crew. When Lady William (Sarah Izard) decided to flee to her husband’s side, Handley took her. He was taking a great risk. The Committee of Safety prohibited any boats from town going to the British ships without a pass. Handley avoided Patriot patrols by going at night when the moon was down or when it was cloudy. But one night a patrol intercepted him ferrying supplies. They arrested him. According to Henry Laurens, Arthur Middleton wanted to hang Handley, and most of the council agreed. Laurens agreed that he should be hanged if guilty, but only after a “proper” trial. Exactly what would have constituted a proper trial in the wake of the Thomas Jeremiah incident is worth pondering. We will never know. Handley escaped from captivity one night shortly before Christmas and disappeared. That same night, a Patriot force numbering around 200 and disguised as “Indian warriors” attacked a camp of runaways and Loyalists on Sullivan’s Island. The “Indians” killed about two dozen runaways and captured others, including a few Loyalists. The rest managed to escape to the British ships anchored nearby or to Morris Island on the other side of the harbor mouth. The victors destroyed the pest house on Sullivan’s Island, which the runaways had used as a shelter. It is likely that many of them had resided there once before, on their arrival from West Africa, to perform quarantine.  In the aftermath of the Patriot attack, Lord William sailed off to St. Augustine. He took some of the runaways and Loyalists with him.

Was Scipio Handley one of them? Had he fled to the island the night he escaped, just before the Patriot attack? We don’t know, but we do know that somehow, Handley made his way to Florida, along with other Blacks and Loyalists. Or so he said in his memorial. He claimed that in escaping he had to jump from a second story window, that he landed badly, and suffered a rupture. In severe pain, he made his way to the British in St. Augustine. From there, he went on to Barbados. He took up fishing again and remained there for the next three years. Whether the British offered him a position as an auxiliary during that time he did not say.  When the British captured Savannah in the last days of 1778, they recruited him to work for their army as a Black Pioneer. He learned to make munitions, a dangerous and noisome job. He was at Savannah in the autumn of 1779 when a combined Patriot and French force attacked the city with disastrous results. He claimed that the “Negroes” did everything they could to repel the attack. They knew that “the rebels” would show no mercy to them if the British had to surrender. Handley was wounded during the battle. He was carrying grapeshot to the artillery when a musket ball hit him in the leg. It took months for the wound to heal so that he could walk. He would have taken part in the British siege of Charleston the following spring, he declared, if he had not been wounded. At the time he submitted his memorial, he stated that he remained unable to walk properly and that the pain was so bad that at times he could not work. He requested compensation from the Claims Commission in the amount of £97 for the loss of his possessions, livelihood, fishing boat, seven hogs, and furniture. The total claim would be about $25,000 in today’s money. That may seem substantial but many white planters and merchants claimed thousands of pounds, literally millions today. When the commission interviewed him  he brought along a white widow from Charleston as a testimonial witness. Mrs. Eleanor Lister. She had made and sold pies for her living, which she sometimes traded for fish from Mr. Handley. Lister testified that she believed Scipio was free and that he had possessed at least some of what he claimed. When one of the commissioners asked what kind of  furniture Handley possessed she answered tellingly: “Good enough for Negroes.” She asked the commission to give him “something” because he had “risked his life to serve His Majesty.” The commission dismissed her and asked Handley why he did not return to South Carolina to recover his property. “They’d hang me if I went back,” he replied. “During the war, Governor Rutledge ordered that all slaves who helped the British be executed.” The records of the Loyalist Claims Commission record the amounts awarded to the claimants, at least some of them. It does not contain any information about what Scipio Handley received, if any. Other Black Loyalists did receive varying amounts of compensation, although not a great deal.  The commission took about six years to make its final report on the awards. It may be that by then, Scipio Handley had died. Perhaps we will never know that either.

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John Laurens: Liberty and Slavery

John Laurens is remembered today, if at all, for two things. One is his advocacy of freeing enslaved blacks to fight against the British during the War for Independence. The other is his tragic and senseless death in one of the last skirmishes of that war. To be sure, he is now remembered for something else. Some historians argue that he had a homosexual relationship with his undoubtedly close friend, Alexander Hamilton. But I'll leave that issue to others, and focus on the first two.

John Laurens (1754-1782) was the eldest son of planter Henry Laurens of Charleston (then Charlestown), South Carolina. [For more on Henry, see The Tower of London's Only American Prisoner: Henry Laurens Detail of portrait of Henry by John Singleton Copley, 1782]

In the middle years of the 18th century, Henry Laurens had amassed a huge fortune, first as a slave trader and then as a rice planter. During the disputes with Britain that led to the American War for Independence, he became an important Patriot leader, even serving as president of the Continental Congress.

Following the example of many of South Carolina's elite, Henry had sent John to Europe for education. The War for Independence began while John was finishing legal studies at Lincoln's Inn in London. Against his father's wishes, he returned to America and joined the Continental Army. Also against his father's wishes, he left behind his heavily pregnant wife, Martha Manning, daughter of one of Henry's British business associates. 

John later confessed that he had carelessly gotten Martha pregnant and married her not for love, but out of pity. He never saw Martha again after he left England, nor did he ever see the daughter she gave birth to a few months later. 

Once in the Patriot army, John rose quickly to the rank of colonel -- too quickly in the view of some fellow officers. He fought bravely at Brandywine and other battles, and earned a reputation for courage bordering on recklessness. He became an aide de camp to George Washington and formed close friendships with two other aides, Hamilton and the Marquis de Lafayette.

In 1779 Laurens returned to South Carolina. The British army had captured Savannah, Georgia and were threatening Charleston. He subsequently fought bravely in several actions in the Southern Campaign. 

His return is best remembered for the shocking proposal he brought before the South Carolina General Assembly. With the blessing of Congress and Washington, Laurens moved that South Carolina, which had a black majority, enlist blacks in the Patriot army in return for their freedom.

He sought the support of his father, who in a letter to John declared his commitment to abolition of slavery. Henry's declaration was  inspired in part by British critics who ridiculed the sincerity of slaveholders proclaiming liberty and equality for all men. 

The letter was subsequently published. It is difficult to see it as anything more than a publicity stunt. But John took it seriously and continued to press his father on the issue. 

Henry also promised to give John forty of his enslaved blacks to form a nucleus of a unit of free black soldiers. When John formally proposed the creation of a black regiment after he returned to South Carolina, however, Henry got cold feet. He tried to convince John that the idea could never win a majority in the state assembly.

Henry proved correct, but he also did nothing to help his son. John moved the proposal before the assembly three times between 1779 and 1782. Much to his distress and disgust, the delegates repeatedly rejected it by large majorities. The most vocal of Laurens' opponents were John and Edward Rutledge and Christopher Gadsden, designer of the famous "Don't Tread on Me" flag. 

(Images: John Rutledge and Christopher Gadsden)

The second rejection took place in early 1780, as the British were advancing on Charleston with a large army and fleet under Sir Henry Clinton. The invaders took the city after a several weeks' siege. It was the worst Patriot defeat of the war to date. 

The entire defending army of more than 5000 men was made prisoner, including a furious John Laurens, who was convinced that the enlistment of black soldiers could have saved Charleston from capture. (Image: The Siege of Charleston, 1780, from the British lines. Artist: Alonzo Chapelle, 1860s)

Laurens was soon exchanged for a British officer, and resumed his crusade against slavery. On one occasion he wrote that if South Carolina could not be cultivated without slaves, "we should flee from it as a hateful country." This remark may hold the key to his ultimate fate.

John was an enthusiastic but impetuous soldier given to grand gestures. He often ignored or disobeyed the commands of superior officers. Sometimes he acted so rashly as to seem as if he was courting martyrdom. 

A few months after the last rejection of his black regiment proposal, in August 1782, he was killed leading his men against a British foraging expedition. He had advanced against orders to await reinforcements. He was only 28.

The Battle of the Combahee, a minor skirmish in fact, was one of the last actions of the war, and it was absolutely meaningless. The British were ready to concede independence. They evacuated Charleston in December 1782. 

One must wonder if John Laurens was seeking death in battle, having despaired that his new country would eliminate the institution that mocked its call for liberty.  

John is buried at his father's favorite plantation, Mepkin, now a Catholic monastery, near Moncks Corner, South Carolina. The epitaph which Henry chose for his son's grave marker, is a famous line from the Roman poet Horace: "Dulce et decorum est, pro patria mori." (It is sweet and proper to die for one's country.") 

It was an odd choice, given that Henry had tried to keep John out of the army. It also says nothing about John's attempts to create an army of free blacks, which Henry had never truly supported. After all, what would the neighbors think? 

Was John Laurens sincere in advocating African emancipation? It is impossible to be sure. I think he was, whether out of a sense of guilt or conviction. He first expressed abolitionist views in Britain while being educated. He became friends with British opponents of slavery, including Thomas Day and John Bicknell, who had written an abolitionist poem, "The Dying Negro."

Laurens was influenced as well by British claims that the American demand for liberty was hypocritical, given the large number of African slaves in the colonies. There was loads of hypocrisy on the British side as well, given that Britain was the largest slave trading nation in the world. 

But the fact that the British commanders freed thousands of slaves who came over to their lines put a sting in their claims of American hypocrisy. The new freedmen also helped to swell British manpower. 

When opponents of his proposals claimed that the enslaved blacks were incapable of appreciating and handling liberty, Laurens countered that blacks and whites shared the same humanity, abilities, and desires. It was slavery itself that had debased a people who, under better circumstances, would prove to be excellent citizens of the republic:

"We have sunk the Africans and their descendants below the Standard of Humanity, and almost render'd them incapable of that Blessing [Liberty] which equal Heaven bestowed upon us all." Here John echoed the preamble of the Declaration of Independence.

During the early nineteenth century, southern writers extolled John Laurens as a chivalric model for the region's youth, but ignored or suppressed his views on slavery. Many of those young men went on to die for a cause far less worthy than his.

Further Reading: 

Peter McCandless, Remarkable Charlestonians in the American Revolution. Charleston, The History press, 2025.

Gregory Massey, John Laurens and the American Revolution. Columbia, South Carolina, University of South Carolina Press, 2000.

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Anthony Ashley Cooper, First Earl of Shaftesbury

Visitors to Charleston, South Carolina quickly become familiar with two names: Ashley and Cooper. The Charleston peninsula, where the town was situated after 1680, is surrounded by the Ashley and Cooper Rivers, which according to a local joke, come together to form the Atlantic Ocean. Ashley Ave. is one of the major thoroughfares on the peninsula.  

If you live in Charleston or have lived there, you will be familiar with all this. You will more than likely know that Ashley and Cooper form part of the name one of the founders of the Carolina Colony: Anthony Ashley Cooper, First Earl of Shaftesbury. There is also a Shaftsbury Lane in Charleston, but someone apparently forgot the "e". 

The names Ashley, Cooper, and Shaftesbury abound in Charleston in other places and ways:  businesses, shops, apartments, schools, and more. Ashley and Cooper are common names in the region. 

Why did AAC get so much local publicity? He must have been an important guy in the Carolina Colony. In fact, he never set foot in the place. Yet he was important. 

Cooper was a leading politician in England before and during the reign of Charles II (1660-1685), for whom Charles Town* was named. In the 1660s, Charles granted the land of Carolina* to eight men, known as the Lords Proprietors [hereafter, LPs]. Originally, Carolina denoted all the land between Virginia and Florida. 

In making this grant, Charles' was rewarding these aristocrats for remaining loyal to his father, Charles I, or helping to restore the monarchy in 1660. Being able to mount the throne and the ladies of the court after 11 years of republican rule made Charles II a very Merry Monarch. He wanted to share his good fortune and keep these fellows loyal.

Cooper was one of the LPs who had opposed Charles I during the Civil War of the 1640s. He had also served in the government of the Republic (1649-1660), dominated by Oliver Cromwell. After the death of Cromwell, however, he worked for the restoration of the monarchy. The alternative, he believed, was another civil war or military dictatorship. [Image: Anthony Ashley Cooper as a young man, miniature by Samuel Cooper, c.1650]

No one asked the Native Americans what they thought about Charles II's grant of Carolina to the LP's, of course. Nor were the Spanish consulted, although they had claimed the territory a century before. That led to trouble.

AAC, or Lord Ashley, as he then was, was one of the LPs. He had a strong influence on the early development of the colony. He and his secretary, the philosopher John Locke, wrote the Fundamental Constitutions of Carolina, the legal blueprint for the colony. The colonists were unhappy with certain aspects of the document, especially the power it granted to the LPs, and they often contested or ignored them. That led to more trouble. 

During the formative years of Carolina, AAC had troubles of his own at home. In 1661, a happy Charles II had made him a Baron, Lord Ashley. In the early 1670s, he was one of an inner council of five men the king relied on to implement his policies. The five became known as The Cabal, an acronym formed from their names. In 1672, Charles raised him to a higher rank in the peerage as First Earl of Shaftesbury. [Image: Shaftesbury by John Greenhill, 1672-73]

Shaftesbury's close relationship with the king did not last. In the later 1670s, a political and religious crisis arose in Britain. The Exclusion Crisis, as it was known, centered on the succession to the throne. Charles II, famed for his mistresses, had not managed to father a legitimate heir. 

After his death, the law of succession meant the Crown would pass to his nearest male relative, his brother James, Duke of York. That was problem for many political leaders because James had recently become a Roman Catholic and married a Catholic, Mary of Modena. 

Shaftesbury became suspicious of James' intentions in the early 1670s. He feared that James intended to establish arbitrary rule and force Catholicism on the country with the aid of Louis XIV of France. He believed correctly that Charles was helping him. 

AAC was a trained lawyer and a firm advocate of the rule of law. He had opposed Cromwell's adoption of military rule in the 1650s and now he opposed the danger of an absolute monarchy. 

In the later 1670s, Shaftesbury helped establish a political movement to exclude James from the throne and limit the power of the monarch. The movement's supporters in Parliament became known as Whigs. Their opponents, who supported James, became known as Tories. 

Charles II supported his brother and lashed out against the Whigs. In 1682, fearing arrest, Shaftesbury fled to the Netherlands, where he died early the next year. The Whig Party lived on, however, as did the Carolina Colony he helped found. 

*Carolina was not named for Charles II, but his father Charles I, best known for starting the English Civil War and having his head removed by the victors. In the early 18th century, the Carolina Colony was divided into South and North Carolina. 

Charles Town (or Charlestown) was renamed Charleston in 1783.

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Loyalist by Marriage: Sarah Izard Campbell

In Revolutionary South Carolina, people became Loyalists for various reasons. Some held office under the British government and/or had taken oaths of loyalty to it. Some felt gratitude toward the Crown for granting them land or mercantile privileges. 

Others became Loyalists because the neighbors they hated had joined the other side. For them the war was a continuation of old family feuds. Many enslaved persons supported the British government because they believed it might bring them freedom. For thousands, it did. Native Americans, mainly the Cherokee in South Carolina, sided with Britain because it tried to limit the movement of whites onto their lands.   

Sarah Izard became a Loyalist through marriage. Genealogical sources on her are conflicting. She was born in South Carolina, around 1745, the daughter of planter Ralph Izard and his wife Rebecca. Sarah's cousin Ralph Izard (1742-1804) made his name as a Patriot, Senator, and American Diplomat. * Her life took a far different trajectory. 

She was a teenager, about 18, when she met and fell in love with a Royal Navy captain who arrived in Charleston in 1762. Lord William Campbell, commander of HMS Nightingale, was the 4th son of Scotland's most powerful aristocrat, the Duke of Argyll. The British were engaged at the time in the Seven Years War, known as the French and Indian War in British North America.

Sarah and William married in April 1763. The notice in the South Carolina Gazette mentions that she was "a young lady esteemed one of the most considerable fortunes in the province." In other words, a fine catch for the 4th son of a duke. But the 4th son of a duke was also a good catch for the daughter of a provincial planter. 

By the time they married, the war was officially over, and the couple moved to Britain in 1764. She was now Lady William Campbell and Sir Joshua Reynolds painted her portrait.

[Image: Miniature watercolor of Sarah by Charles Fraser in the Collection of the Gibbes Art Gallery, Charleston, SC. Fraser listed it in 1834 as a copy of a painting by "Sir Joshua." The original would have been painted sometime before 1775. Sarah is pictured with one of her pet whippets. I have been unable to locate Reynolds' original.] 

Back in Britain, Lord William served a term in Parliament as MP for his family's seat in Argyllshire. In 1766, the government appointed him royal governor of Nova Scotia. He remained in the post until 1773.  

For some time, he had been lobbying for the position of royal governor of South Carolina. Sarah wanted to return to her home and family. William was suffering from an eye problem he blamed on the climate.

Family influence got him the South Carolina appointment. The couple arrived in Charleston in June 1775 to a cold welcome. Rumors had spread before their arrival that their ship was carrying thousands of guns and munitions to distribute to the "slaves" and "savages." In fact, the most dangerous weapons it carried were probably Sarah's whippets.

Opponents of the British colonial policy in South Carolina had taken over the reins of government several months before. Lord William found himself virtually powerless and eventually physically threatened. 

In September the last royal governor of South Carolina fled to a British ship in the harbor. Sarah, who also faced harassment, joined him a few weeks later. They sailed away in late December 1775. Sarah would never return to South Carolina. 

Lord William did come back, and it proved his undoing. He served on a Royal Navy ship during the British assault on Sullivan's Island in June 1776. He was wounded in the side, a festering wound that his doctors believed the cause of his death two years later. Sarah lived out her life as a widow and mother of three children in Britain, presumably supported by William's wealthy family. She died in 1784.   

*Online sources on Sarah and her family are conflicting and sometimes hilarious. Some genealogy sites say her mother was nine years old when she gave birth to Sarah! Others says Sarah was the daughter of Ralph and Alice DeLancey Izard, who were born in the same decade as she was. Some say that Ralph was her brother. To add to the confusion, Sarah had a brother named Ralph Izard, but not that Ralph Izard, the other one! 

The Mysterious Dr. Kilpatrick

In 1717, a man calling himself James Kilpatrick (sometimes spelled Killpatrick) arrived in Charleston, South Carolina. His exact date of birth is unknown but was sometime in the 1690s. He joined his uncle, David Kilpatrick, who already lived in the colony. 

James Kilpatrick claimed to be a native of Ireland. He set himself up as a doctor, a profession in demand in the feverish colony. He had studied medicine at the University of Edinburgh but had not completed the MD.  

His lack of a medical degree was not a significant problem in the young colony, which lacked any kind of licensing system. The medical "profession" in Charleston at the time included people with little formal medical training, or none at all.   

Kilpatrick achieved some financial success. St. Philip's Parish vestry appointed him visiting physician to the parish poor. He established a pharmacy in the early 1730s -- something that modern doctors cannot do. 

In 1727 he wed Elizabeth Hepworth, an heiress and the daughter of the secretary of the colony. They were married at St. Philip's Church. A few years later he received a joint grant of more than 200 acres, and presumably engaged in a bit of rice planting. 

During Charleston's smallpox epidemic in 1738 Kilpatrick was one of the first doctors to employ the practise of inoculation. One of his children had died of the disease, and he decided to inoculate the rest of his family. He then inoculated several hundred residents. 

He vigorously defended his use of the procedure in the town's newspaper and in pamphlets. His efforts aroused controversy but enhanced his reputation in the long term. 

Upon the outbreak of war with Spain later that year -- the wonderfully named War of Jenkins' Ear -- he enlisted as ship's surgeon. He accompanied General James Oglethorpe's failed expedition in 1740 against St. Augustine, the Spanish stronghold in Florida. [Image: James Oglethorpe]

Around 1742, Kilpatrick moved to London with his wife and children. He established himself in medical practise and completed an MD from Edinburgh. Mysteriously, he also changed his name from Kilpatrick to Kirkpatrick.  

Why did he change his name? An old argument is that he decided that a name that began with "Kill" was not a good one for a doctor. That may be, but there is a more compelling reason: Kirkpatrick was his real name. 

That raises another question: Why did he change it to Kilpatrick on coming to South Carolina? The answer lies in British politics in the early 18th century. The Kirkpatricks were a Scots family who backed the wrong side in the Jacobite Rebellion of 1715.

The aim of the rebellion, and a couple more that followed, was to place the Catholic Stuart claimant "James III" (The Old Pretender) on the British throne, in place of the Hanoverian George I, who had just arrived from Germany.

The rebellion failed. People who had supported it, or were even suspect, were denounced as rebels. Many fled or tried to change their identity. James Kirkpatrick seems to have done both. 

He claimed to have been born in Ireland. Perhaps he was. But his family was Scottish, and he may have been born in Scotland. He attended Edinburgh University shortly before the 1715 Jacobite Rebellion. 

Did he take part in it? Possibly, or perhaps he was assumed to have done so because others in his family did. In any case, the political danger may have made a change of name seem like a good idea. The same goes for his migration to South Carolina. In a frontier colony, it was easier bury one's past and start afresh. The colony's promoters welcomed white men to a place where enslaved Africans already made up a majority of the population.  

When Kilpatrick changed his name back to Kirkpatrick, nearly 30 years had passed since the rebellion in which he may have been involved. Another, and more serious Jacobite rebellion took place in 1745, but no one could argue that he had taken any part in that. In any case, the Jacobite threat ended with the defeat of the army of "Bonnie Prince Charlie" at Culloden in April 1746. It was the last battle fought on British soil. [Image: Culloden]

 

Moreover, while in South Carolina, he had demonstrated his loyalty to the British government by serving as a naval surgeon in the Oglethorpe Expedition to St. Augustine. 

After arriving in London, he published an account of the 1738 smallpox epidemic in Charleston, highlighting the success of inoculation in the epidemic and his own role within it. 

When a smallpox epidemic broke out in London in 1746, Kirkpatrick helped found the innovative Smallpox and Inoculation Hospital, believed to be the first in Europe to specialize in that area. It provided free treatment to the working class. [Image: Smallpox and Inoculation Hospital,  Coldbath Fields, London]

Kirkpatrick collaborated on the hospital project with Isaac Maddox, Bishop of Worcester. Maddox later helped him to publish The Analysis of Inoculation (1754), a treatise on its history, theories, and practise. The book was translated into several languages and gained him a reputation as an expert on the subject. 

In the Analysis, he claimed to have revived inoculation in Britain after it had fallen into disuse. This was exaggeration, but he did help to popularize it, especially in France and the Continent. He inoculated members of the French and British aristocracies. 

Kilpatrick/Kirkpatrick harbored poetic as well as medical ambitions. He used them to celebrate the maritime and naval achievements of the British Empire, in a long poem entitled The Sea-Piece. He had composed it, he said, in South Carolina between 1717 and 1738. He published it in London in 1750. 

He praised the works of Alexander Pope, whom he called the poetic lord of the British empire. He wrote several poems commending and defending Pope and an elegy on Pope after his death in 1744. 

Kirkpatrick died in London in 1770. His son James became a high-ranking officer in the British East India Company. He was known as the "Handsome Colonel." Two of the colonel's sons, William and James Achilles Kirkpatrick, also attained high rank in the Company. 

James married an Indian princess in Hyderabad. The marriage ended in tragedy; a story superbly told by William Dalrymple in White Mughals.  

Further Reading: 

James Kilpatrick, An Essay on the Small-Pox Being Brought Into South Carolina in the Year 1738. (London, 1743)

James Kirkpatrick, The Analysis of Inoculation. (London, 1754). 

Peter McCandless, Slavery, Disease, and Suffering in the Southern Lowcountry. (New York and Cambridge: 2011, 2014)

William Dalrymple, White Mughals. (London, 2002)

David S. Shields, Oracles of Empire: Poetry, Politics, and Commerce in British America, 1690-1750. (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press,1990)