The most intense period of the fight to control the South Carolina backcountry during the American Revolution lasted about five months, from July to November 1780. There were over twenty engagements between Loyalists and Patriots, most akin to armed brawls between small groups of mounted men than pitched battles. Since there was no real training, the men were simply expected to ride hard, shoot well, and show no mercy to the enemy.

Several years before Lexington and Concord, farmers in western North Carolina had a rebellion of their own. This movement, called the Regulator Insurrection, represents the first time Royal officials used soldiers to suppress American colonists. When cheap land began attracting settlers to western North Carolina in the 1750s, speculators bought up large tracts that inflated land prices, forcing many farmers deep into debt. In 1766, the farmers organized and took their case to the colonial legislature but made no headway. When legal methods failed, a group calling themselves the Regulators adopted extralegal methods such as refusing to pay taxes, reclaiming confiscated property, and disrupting court proceedings.

Following the fall of Charleston, backcountry Loyalists rallied around the Union Jack. But more than wanting to defend King and Country, many simply wanted to settle old scores with their neighbors. The South Carolina backcountry, an area fifty miles inland from the coast to the mountains, was largely unsettled by European-Americans until the 1740s when large numbers of Scots-Irish began immigrating there. Bad blood began boiling at the close of the Cherokee Indian war in 1761, and fractured whatever harmony had existed in the backcountry. This episode was a prelude to the terrible backcountry brawl of the 1780s, one that would see some of the most bitter action of the American Revolution.

In February 1780, Sir Henry Clinton, commander of British forces in North America, and 8,500 Redcoats disembarked thirty miles south of Charleston, intent on capturing the Queen City of the South. Charleston was defended by 6,000 Americans led by General Benjamin Lincoln and included a fleet of ten ships under the command of Admiral Abraham Whipple. By mid-April, the city was surrounded, and, on May 12, 1780, Lincoln surrendered the city and his entire command.

In 1778, after three years of fighting their rebellious American colonists, the grand British Army had been stymied in the northern theater. At this point, Lord George Germaine, secretary of state for the American Department, decided to focus his efforts southward, having been repeatedly informed by exiled American Loyalists that Georgia and the two Carolinas were heavily populated by Loyalists simply waiting for assistance from the British Army. On December 29, a British force led by Colonel Archibald Campbell captured Savannah, effectively gaining control of Georgia.

Despite the Sullivan Expedition in 1779, which greatly weakened the Iroquois Confederacy, more heartache was in store. With the British southern campaign ramping up and with a virtually bankrupt Congress, the Continental Army could offer little assistance to the Mohawk Valley. Aware of this, in October 1780, Sir John Johnson led 1,000 men, many trained British regulars, on a sweeping raid and destroyed several hundred thousand bushels of wheat, slaughtered 3,000 head of livestock, and burned countless homes and farms, with over 300 civilians killed or taken captive. The following year, desperate to bring stability and security back to the Mohawk Valley, New York Governor George Clinton appointed Colonel Marinus Willett to lead the militia.

In spring of 1779, General George Washington developed a plan to strike deep into the heart of the Iroquois Nation. Washington recognized he must destroy the bases that the American Indians were using to launch their raids, or the depredations would never cease, and the settlers would never return to the Mohawk Valley. On August 26, General John Sullivan and his force of 4,000 men began their trek up the Susquehanna River from the Wyoming Valley into the Iroquois homeland, destroying any American Indian settlements they encountered.

In October 1778, following the Wyoming Valley Massacre, a contingent of Continental soldiers destroyed two prominent Indian towns. In retaliation, Walter Butler, a Loyalist Captain, led 500 Loyalists and Iroquois to the thriving town of Cherry Valley, New York, 60 miles west of Albany. When Butler’s Loyalist and Indian contingent fell on Cherry Valley in a swirling snowstorm at dawn on November 11, the garrison and villagers were caught completely off-guard. The butchery that followed was unprecedented, and Butler made little effort to control it.

When the American Revolution began, most of western New York, especially the Mohawk River Valley and the Finger Lakes region, was the dominion of the Iroquois Confederacy, comprised of six allied Indian tribes. The Confederacy’s greatest strength had always been their ability to stay united, which ended at the outset of the American Revolution when the Confederacy splintered apart with some tribes supporting the British and others the Americans. For the next eight years, raids and counterraids devastated much of western New York, resulting in a significant decrease in both the Native and European population.

When the American Revolution began, most of western New York, especially the Mohawk River Valley and the Finger Lakes region, was the dominion of the Iroquois Confederacy, comprised of six allied Indian tribes. The Confederacy’s greatest strength had always been their ability to stay united, which ended at the outset of the American Revolution when the Confederacy splintered apart with some tribes supporting the British and others the Americans. For the next eight years, raids and counterraids devastated much of western New York, resulting in a significant decrease in both the Native and European population.

On September 25, 1780, General George Washington arrived at West Point to inspect the fort and meet with its post commander, General Benedict Arnold. As he was sitting down to breakfast, Arnold received a letter informing him that Major John Andre, his spy accomplice, had been caught and confessed Arnold’s plot. He immediately raced to the river and ordered his bargemen to take him downriver. A few hours later, Washington was informed of Arnold’s attempt to give away West Point to the British. Colonel Alexander Hamilton, who delivered the message, later stated he had never seen Washington so visibly shaken, simply uttering, “Arnold has betrayed us.”

In June 1780, General George Washington gave the command of West Point to Benedict Arnold. Arnold swiftly took steps to weaken the fort’s defenses and arranged to meet with Major John Andre, the British spy chief, to turn over documents on the fortress. Arnold and Andre conferred until the early morning hours, but when ordered to take Andre back to his waiting ship, two local farmers hired by Arnold refused to go until they got some sleep. That would prove to be a fateful decision because while they slept, an American shore battery fired on and drove off Andre’s waiting vessel, leaving him no alternative but to make his way back to British lines on horseback.

General Benedict Arnold married Peggy Shippen in April 1779 and they soon hatched a plan to make money by betraying their country. They sent word to Peggy’s friend, the British spy chief Major John Andre, that Arnold was willing to provide military secrets to the British for a price.

In June 1778, Major General Benedict Arnold, the new military commander of Philadelphia, moved into the lavish Penn mansion and began to use his position to make extra money. The following year, Joseph Reed, a powerful Pennsylvania politician who had taken a great dislike to Arnold, accused him of several illegal activities. While most charges were frivolous and dismissed, two were referred to General Washington.

In July 1777, General George Washington sent his most trusted field commander, Benedict Arnold, to New York to help stop the invading British Army. Arnold would reach the peak of his short but illustrious career on October 7, when he charged and captured a strongly defended enemy redoubt at the Battle of Bemis Heights, ensuring an American victory. Unfortunately, Arnold suffered a severe wound in his left leg that prevented him from participating in the next military campaign. Instead, Washington appointed Arnold military commander of the Philadelphia region, a situation that would prove ripe for abuse.

Between 1775 and 1777, Benedict Arnold helped capture Fort Ticonderoga, led a miraculous trek to Quebec and besieged that foreign city, fought a naval battle at Valcour Island, led a relief force to lift the siege of Fort Stanwix, and saved a battle that led to the surrender of a British army.

Benedict Arnold was born January 14, 1741 in Norwich, Connecticut, into a wealthy family, but his father lost his fortune when Benedict was a child. At twenty, Arnold moved to New Haven, where he opened a pharmacy, married and had three children. Arnold soon expanded into the trading business, sailing his own ship to the West Indies. When Parliament passed the Stamp Act in 1765, Arnold joined the Sons of Liberty and began a dangerous but lucrative smuggling operation. By the early 1770s, Arnold’s high-risk-high-reward business exploits made him the wealthiest man in New Haven and in 1774, Arnold formed a militia company and was elected captain by the men.

The Tryon County militia sent to relieve Fort Stanwix was repulsed at Oriskany, but General Phillip Schuyler was determined to send a second relief column. When none of Schuyler’s subordinates volunteered to lead the expedition, Major General Benedict Arnold agreed to do so.

While the Mohawk and Seneca Indians and British Loyalists were ambushing General Nicholas Herkimer and his Tryon County militiamen at The Battle of Oriskany on August 6, 1777, Lieutenant Colonel Marinus Willett and 250 Continentals were destroying the unprotected British camp outside Fort Stanwix. Once alerted to Willett’s presence, Native American and British forces abandoned the fight to protect their belongings. Willet’s men retreated into Fort Stanwix, but they had saved Herkimer’s militiamen from certain annihilation. In an indication of the ferocity of the battle, 385 of the 700 Tryon County militiamen, or an astonishing 55 percent, had been killed, an unparalleled percentage for an American force during the Revolutionary War.

On August 6, 1777, General Nicholas Herkimer and 700 Tryon County militiamen planned a surprise attack against a British force led by Lieutenant Colonel Barry St. Leger that was besieging Fort Stanwix. Unfortunately, an informer tipped off St. Leger and he directed Joseph Brant, leader of the Mohawks surrounding Fort Stanwix, to set up an ambush in a ravine near the Native American village of Oriska.