The War in the South Begins

At the outbreak of the American Revolution in 1775 the struggle between the American patriots and British forces was fought mainly in the New England and Middle Atlantic colonies. The driving of the royal governors from North and South Carolina soon revealed to the British the importance of holding the southern provinces. Early in 1776 the British War Office sent a combined military and naval expedition to the coast of the Carolinas in an effort to restore the King’s authority. Hopes of gaining a foothold in North Carolina were quickly shattered. Patriot militia decisively defeated loyalists of the Cape Fear area on February 27, at the Battle of Moores Creek Bridge. Sir Henry Clinton, who had landed a small force near Wilmington, withdrew from the State. Clinton, and the British fleet under Sir Peter Parker, then undertook the conquest of Charleston, S. C. The successful defense of Fort Moultrie, on Sullivan’s Island, at the entrance to Charleston Harbor, closed with the brilliant American victory of June 28. Thoroughly discouraged, the British expedition left the South and the first attempt to conquer it ended in failure.