Diary of Orrin Brown, on Dean’s Swamp, outside Springfield, South Carolina
Monday–Feb. 13th
We were on the road again this morning at 7 Oclock, we marched across the river and went into camp with orders to fix up quarters for the day and at 12 Oclock we had orders to be ready to march at 1 PM and we marched out 5 miles and went into camp at about 3 PM on a large plantation. We had a freezing cold night but we have had a very nice day and it is cool again this evening. Jim Gifford went out after we got into camp and killed two good fat geese so we will live fine tomorrow. I read two Chapts. in the Testament today.
Dean’s Swamp, about where Aiken County, Barnwell County, and Orangeburg County, now meet near Salley, South Carolina, was the site of a skirmish in the Revolutionary War. On 24 May 1782, Capt. Michael Watson & Capt. William Butler lead mounted militia on a surprise attack against a group of Loyalists camped with prisoners of war at “John’s Town” near Dean’s Swamp. Two Patriot soldiers were killed and 8 wounded; unknown number of Loyalist casualties. The encounter significantly weakened Loyalist influence in the region.
This may be as close as our story gets to the scenes of action in Mel Gibson’s action movie, The Patriot. Most of the film never really happened anyway, as a loose agglomeration of less charismatic characters, such as Francis Marion the Swamp Fox, and completely fictional atrocities. However, over 200 battles were fought in South Carolina during the Revolutionary War, apparently more than in any other state.
Read More:
- South Carolina and the American Revolution: A Battlefield History by John W. Gordon (University of South Carolina Press, 2002)
- Sherman’s March Through the Carolinas by John Gilchrist Barrett (Univ North Carolina Press, 1956)
- Fierce Patriot: The Tangled Lives of William Tecumseh Sherman by Robert L. O’Connell (Random House, 2014)
- The March to the Sea and Beyond: Sherman’s Troops in the Savannah and Carolinas Campaigns by Joseph T. Glatthaar (New York University Press, 1985)
- The Memoirs Of General William T. Sherman by W.T. Sherman (Library of America, 1990)
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