Note: The newest installment of The Road to the American Revolution is now live on Substack. Follow the series on Facebook, Instagram, and X to keep up with new essays and join the conversation. An excerpt from the article appears below.

In the winter of 1775, the American Revolution in South Carolina’s backcountry was no contest between redcoats and Continentals, but a civil war between Patriots and Loyalists.

The spark flared on November 3, 1775, when a group of roughly sixty Loyalists led by Patrick Cunningham captured a Patriot wagon train at Mine Creek. The wagons were transporting gunpowder and guns from the First South Carolina Provincial Congress, intended for the Cherokee Nation, with whom Patriot leaders hoped to secure an alliance—or at least neutrality—along the frontier. The Loyalists took prisoner the 20 Patriot Rangers guarding the shipment and carried the captured supplies to their stronghold at Ninety-Six.

Control of Native alliances was central to the struggle in the southern backcountry.

British officials sought to keep the Cherokee aligned with the Crown by promising protection of their lands from colonial expansion. Patriot leaders made no such guarantees, relying instead on diplomacy and material support to secure neutrality or weaken Cherokee ties to the British. The seizure at Mine Creek undercut that effort and emboldened Loyalist resistance across the region.

Charleston’s Council of Safety—a Patriot governing body established by the South Carolina Provincial Congress to direct the revolutionary effort and raise troops—responded by authorizing Colonel Richard Richardson to mobilize militia in what became known as the Snow Campaign….

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