As the nation marks its 250th anniversary, local historians shed light on brutal neighbor-against-neighbor conflicts following the regulator movement and strategic strongholds that shaped the South Carolina backcountry.
The Stolen Cattle Skirmish at Tarrar Springs
I sat with J.R. Fennell, director of the Lexington County Museum inside the Laurence Corley house. The cabin is older than America. Within these walls, we discuss one of the most heinous atrocities in South Carolina during the war.
Except, it didn’t start out that way.
In 1781, in modern day Lexington County, near U.S. 1, Loyalists were caught with stolen cattle from Saluda. A skirmish broke out, but no one was hurt.
“The cows were being driven to the Lowcountry,” Fennell said. “And there was a spring where people could drink and that’s where the skirmish took place. Tarrar Springs.”
Fennell tells me the patriots, led by Capt. Sterling Turner, agreed to a truce with the loyalists in exchange for the cattle being returned. The two groups then went their separate ways.
Until Bill Cunningham showed up.
The Ruthlessness of "Bloody Bill" Cunningham
The day after the truce, while the Patriot militia rested and recuperated, they were ambushed. A Loyalist group led by William "Bloody Bill" Cunningham attacked the forces in an event known as the Cloud's Creek Massacre. Twenty-eight Patriots died in the ambush. Two managed to escape.
Despite the tragic events, Fennell says the massacre backfired on the British.
“[Cunningham] helped the Patriot cause by being so ruthless. He turned the hearts and minds of the people toward the Patriot militia,” said Fennell. “They would burn Presbyterian churches or anyone they deemed disloyal to the Crown.”
Fort Granby: Who gets the glory?
Further east, down toward modern-day Cayce, sat a critical British stronghold along the Congaree River.
Andy Thomas, curator of the Cayce Historical Museum, is an expert on this area of South Carolina. Thomas tells me the fort was originally built in 1765 as a trading post.
Fort Granby was later seized by the British after the fall of Charleston in 1780.
“The British saw this as a wonderful place where they could put supplies and move it to their armies in the backcountry,” Thomas said.
By 1781, as the tide of the war shifted in favor of the Patriots, Gen. Thomas Sumter tried and failed to secure the fort from the British.
Twice.
Maj. Gen. Nathanael Greene would have none of it.
“Nathanael Green found Sumter a cannon, but Sumter, for some reason, took the cannon to fight a battle in Orangeburg,” Thomas said. “I don't think Green was very happy with that. So, he assigned LightHorse Harry Lee, who is the future father of Robert E. Lee.”
Lee successfully forced the British commander, Maj. Andrew Maxwell, to surrender. However, negotiations led to the British keeping all the plundered items from the Patriots. Much to their annoyance.
Preserving the Narrative
The physical site of Fort Granby was destroyed centuries later after the land was sold to a mining company. But its legacy lives on. Preserved cannonballs recovered from the fort site are on display at the Cayce Historical Museum. In 2016, a historical marker was erected in Lexington to permanently remember the events of Tarrar Springs that led to the massacre of nearly 30 men.
The items serve as a permanent reminder that the fight for American independence was fought far beyond the well-known battlefields of the Lowcountry and Upstate.
