Overview

FINALIST FOR THE 2025 AMERICAN BATTLEFIELD TRUST PRIZE FOR HISTORY Over the past several decades, the history of the American Revolution in the South has undergone a transformation to better incorporate regional events into the greater narrative of the war. Among these events was the vicious ""backcountry"" war from the Georgia border, across the South Carolina wilderness, to the North Carolina Piedmont between rebel Americans and loyalist and British forces. Centered in South Carolina, this running battle saw some of the most intense and continuous fighting of the war, and from its skirmishes, feints, and sieges, three key leaders emerged: American partisans Francis ""Swamp Fox"" Marion and Thomas ""Gamecock"" Sumter, and British Legion commander Banastre ""Bloody Ban"" Tarleton. For the first time, Backcountry War: The Rise of Francis Marion, Banastre Tarleton, and Thomas Sumter by Andrew Waters frames the history of these three men into in a single narrative, focusing on the events of 1780 in South Carolina that witnessed their collective ascendance from common soldiers to American legends. It was a time when British victories at Charleston and Camden left the Continental Army in tatters and the entire American South vulnerable to British conquest. Yet in those dark hours, Sumter, Marion, and others like them rose in the swamps and hills of the South Carolina wilderness. Fighting a wildly successful partisan war against better trained and better equipped British forces, including Tarleton's British Legion, with victories at lesser-known places like Hanging Rock and Nelson's Ferry, they gained precious months for the reorganizing Continental Army. Their collective efforts led to the stunning American victory at Cowpens and a stalemate at Guilford's Courthouse the following year that finally convinced British general Charles Cornwallis to abandon the Carolinas for Virginia. With background biographies of its three main protagonists, a thorough sketch of Great Britain's Southern Strategy, and a sociocultural examination of the South Carolina frontier in the years leading up to the American Revolution, Backcountry War offers a fresh perspective on an extraordinary chapter of American history and a compelling account of the deadly contest between three of the war's most charismatic leaders.

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9781594164729

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Reviews

""Andrew Waters's Backcountry War provides a comprehensive study of the southern theater of the American Revolution, focusing on the South Carolina backcountry and the roles of Francis Marion, Thomas Sumter, and Banastre Tarleton. Rather than concentrating on strategic maneuvers, the work focuses on the motivations of those involved and on localized warfare and less well known skirmishes. Waters argues that British strategic planning was influenced by a miscalculation of the strength of Loyalist support, leading to over-reach and the eruption of partisan warfare. . . . The work will be useful to scholars working on the military history of the Revolutionary War in the South, particularly about the individuals involved and its interrogation of myths and sources. However, perhaps its greatest strength is how it effectively bridges academic and popular history, providing a compelling and readable narrative of the campaign of 1780 and the individuals involved.""--Journal of Southern History

Author Information

Andrew Waters is a writer, editor, and conservationist. He is the author of To the End of the World: Nathanael Greene, Charles Cornwallis, and the Race to the Dan and The Quaker and the Gamecock: Nathanael Greene, Thomas Sumter, and the Revolutionary War for the Soul of the South, and the editor of Battle of Cowpens: Contemporary and Primary Accounts. He resides in Pittsboro, North Carolina, with his family.

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