Amazon.com Review
Though sometimes underestimated in standard histories, the American South was of critical importance as a theater of battle in the Revolutionary War. When the revolution broke out, historian Walter Edgar writes, South Carolina was far and away the richest of the American colonies. Charleston's wealth was more than six times that of Philadelphia, and its sparsely settled interior was a seemingly inexhaustible source of timber, cotton, and other prized goods. The war came early to this valuable terrain, first in the form of open combat between Whigs and Tories, then with the arrival of a large British task force that seized Charleston and other ports. As Edgar writes, the British and their loyalist allies then set about trying to tame the rebellious backcountry through a campaign of terror and atrocity so severe that, he maintains, leaders such as Lord Cornwallis and Banastre Tarleton deserve to be considered war criminals in the modern sense. Under their orders, civilians were assassinated and military prisoners summarily executed, farms and villages put to the torch, crops destroyed, and livestock slaughtered.
That campaign was ultimately unsuccessful, for instead of terrorizing the Scots- Irish settlers into submission, it galvanized resistance against British rule. That resistance, Walter Edgar concludes in this useful study, helped assure colonial independence. --Gregory McNamee
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From Publishers Weekly
Violence, endemic in a frontier society, was even more deadly in the Carolina back country. University of South Carolina historian Edgar, who has produced the well-regarded South Carolina: A History among eight other books, presents a quickly reconstructed account of the fratricidal civil war that took place in South Carolina during the American Revolution. Years before the Revolution, writes Edgar, patterns of terrible violence had already been set, as white settlers tried to maintain their hold on their lands, fighting among themselves and with the Indians they had displaced. But when the British captured Charleston in 1780 and set out on a policy of subduing the southern colonies, their efforts were doomed by the colonists' siege mentality. Lord Cornwallis, the British commander, misjudged the situation and tried to intimidate the population by repressive measures. His policy failed miserably and only enraged the rebels even more, Edgar shows. Partisan bands such as those led by Thomas Sumter and Francis Marion kept the enemy guessing, while Tories and rebels alike battled each other, killed family members, dispersed slaves, burned crops and houses, and generally kept South Carolina in a state of anarchy. Edgar's lucid, unflinching account shows the American Revolution in the south was truly the nation's first civil war. 8 pages of illus. and maps not seen by PW. (Nov.)Forecast: Regional sales of this title should be relatively strong, but without a compelling hook outside the Carolinas, national sales should be confined to buffs.
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--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
