The American Revolution in the South is neglected in many accounts of the period, Walter Edgar explains, but it involved some of the most vicious battles and intense partisan struggles of the entire war. The British failed in their first attempt to suppress the American Revolution in the South when a Royal Navy flotilla was repulsed at Fort Sullivan in 1776. The British returned in 1778 to capture Savannah. In 1780 they took Charleston and launched a campaign to crush the Revolution in the Carolinas and Virginia. Walter Edgar retraces the path to the ultimate American victory in the South, which secured the independence of the new United States.
About the Speaker
Walter Edgar is professor emeritus of history at the University of South Carolina and widely recognized as the dean of South Carolina historians. Among other works, he is the author of South Carolina: A History (1999) and Partisans and Redcoats: The Southern Conflict That Turned the Tide of the American Revolution (2001). He is the host of “Walter Edgar’s Journal” on South Carolina Public Radio, a popular weekly program in which he discusses South Carolina history. The American Revolution in the South was the 2012 George Rogers Clark Lecture.