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As South Carolina and other states commemorate 250 years since the Revolutionary War, few places are closer to that history than the area served by the Upper Savannah Land Trust.
“We are within 50 miles of 100 Revolutionary War battles,” historical consultant and battlefield preservationist Durant Ashmore told those who attended the Upper Savannah Land Trust (USLT) Annual Meeting April 16.
“One hundred battles within 50 miles. There's only one other place in America that can make that statement. And that's Charleston,” Ashmore declared at the meeting held at Edgewood Community Center in Ninety Six.
Ashmore discussed several major battles within USLT’s main service area of Abbeville, Anderson, Edgefield, Greenwood, Laurens, McCormick, Newberry and Saluda counties. The Land Trust has helped protect 60,140 acres of land with more than 150 easement projects in the region since its inception in 2000.
The Annual Meeting began during the afternoon when Ashmore led a walking tour of the Ninety Six National Historic Site where there were two battles, including the first land skirmish of the Revolution south of New England (1775) and the 28-day siege of Star Fort in May-June 1781. It was the longest battle in the entire Revolutionary War.
USLT Executive Director Wade Harrison also led an afternoon van tour, showing three land trust conservation easement projects adjacent to the Star Fort site, highlighting their historical, ecological, and agricultural importance.
Another major battleground site in the region is protected by the USLT, that being the Hammond’s Old Store property in Laurens County south of Clinton where the American Patriots scored a decisive victory on Dec. 29, 1780, which helped spark them to an even bigger triumph less than three weeks later at the Battle of Cowpens.
The 250th anniversary of the Revolutionary War served as the theme for the Annual Meeting.
“The 250th anniversary being marked is not just July 4th, 1776, the Declaration of Independence,” Harrison said. “It's the anniversary of a long conflict that began here in 1775 and continued for at least seven years. And we're gathered here today in the heart of the Old Ninety Six District where the English colonists used to call the backcountry in the 1700s,” he continued.
“And great drama has played out on these lands over those Revolutionary War years. Combatants on foot and horseback traveled up and down old roads and trails, many of which we still use today. But others are but traces in the woods. Not only was blood spilled in battle ... but there were also councils held, treaties negotiated, pivotal decisions made in farmhouses, under tents, in sprawling encampments, in muster fields and battlefields that today are growing pine trees or peaceful pasture grass. So part of our mission at the Upper Savannah Land Trust is to protect such places and to better preserve their stories,” Harrison added.
His remarks were illustrated with a map of USLT’s conservation easements that fall within the Old Ninety Six District, on which 12 different Revolutionary War battles occurred either directly on or quite near an easement property.
Ashmore said his trusted source “Parker’s Guide to the Revolutionary War in South Carolina” lists 500 battles, skirmishes and related events that occurred across the state.
“That's more than any state in the nation can claim,” Ashmore said. “There was more activity in South Carolina than anywhere else. And Jack Parker lays out where all of these events were. He describes all 46 counties in the state. The only one county where there was not Revolutionary War activity was Anderson County. There are 17 sites in Laurens County. He lists GPS coordinates of where these locations are even though we're really guessing at a lot of these locations.
“But I encourage every one of you to know where these battles were, these events that were in your own particular county,” Ashmore urged. “And I want you to become caretakers of these battlefields and event locations as well. Because this is our legacy, folks.”
Ashmore said researchers are still discovering and interpreting battlefield locations across South Carolina, noting that sites such as Hammond’s Old Store were only identified in recent years. He credited ongoing field research efforts with continuing to uncover new locations.
“We did not know where Hammond’s Old Store was three years ago,” Ashmore said, crediting the South Carolina Battleground Preservation Trust. “The field research team spent five weekends investigating this site with their metal detectors. We found rifle balls, musket balls, shotgun pellets, buckles, buttons, all their crew accoutrements of a revolutionary war campsite. And we are discovering new places on a very regular basis. And we're actively searching for several of them, as we speak.”
He described the Ninety Six area as a center of intense internal conflict during the Revolution, with Patriots and Loyalists (loyal to Britain) living side by side. “It was essentially a civil war here,” Ashmore said. He then outlined the early stages of the war in the backcountry, focusing on the 1775 Snow Campaign. Patriot forces under Richard Richardson and William “Danger” Thompson moved toward the backcountry of South Carolina with up to 5,000 men to suppress Loyalist activity, ultimately launching a surprise attack on Loyalist troops at the Great Cane Brake in what is now southern Greenville County. Patriot leader Andrew Williamson from Greenwood County had also gathered a force of 450 men.
The brief but decisive engagement, fought in bitter winter conditions Dec. 22, 1775, resulted in 130 Loyalists captured. Those prisoners were marched toward Charleston during a heavy snowstorm which was said to have produced up to 18 inches of snow - an event that gave the campaign its name and effectively subdued Loyalist resistance in the region for more than two years.
Ashmore also highlighted the broader regional impact of the conflict, including tensions with the Cherokee Indians and subsequent frontier attacks at places like Lindley’s Fort in Laurens County July 15, 1776, only 11 days after the Declaration of Independence.
Turning to the later stages of the war, he described the shifting momentum following the British capture of Charleston in 1780, the British victory in Camden a few months later, and the arrival of new Continental Army forces under George Washington’s trusted leader Nathanael Greene.
He pointed to the Battle of Hammond’s Old Store as a pivotal moment in the backcountry campaign. There, Patriot cavalry under William Washington, a cousin of George Washington, and local militia routed a Loyalist force, inflicting heavy losses without suffering casualties. The victory, he said, helped swell Patriot ranks ahead of the Battle of Cowpens, giving General Daniel Morgan a significant numerical advantage and another decisive triumph as the tide of the war was turning toward independence of the colonies.
Ashmore also discussed the 1781 Siege of Ninety Six, noting that British reinforcements under Lord Rawdon forced Greene to abandon the Patriot assault. Many Loyalists then soon fled Ninety Six, enduring a grueling hot summer march to Charleston, where they lived as refugees for more than a year.
Rawdon and his reinforcements, and the refugees, traveled towards or from the coast on the “Old Charleston Road,” which crosses out of Star Fort headed Southeast. Today, that road is a deep trace through the quiet woods, pointed out by both Ashmore on his earlier battleground walk and Harrison on his van tour of the adjacent easement property.
“There were more casualties on the march to Charleston than during the siege,” Ashmore said.
During the business section of the meeting, USLT Associate Director Becky Brown described conservation easements totaling almost 1,700 acres closed by USLT in 2025. These included three in Greenwood County and two in Saluda County. Two of the five easements are working farmland, with another adding protection along an important section of Cuffeytown Creek.
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