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In the months following the May 1780 capture of Charleston, South
Carolina, by combined British and loyalist forces, British soldiers
arrested sixty-three paroled American prisoners and transported
them to the borderland town of St. Augustine, East
Florida--territory under British control since the French and
Indian War. In Patriots in Exile, James Waring McCrady and C. L.
Bragg chronicle the banishment of these elite southerners, the
hardships endured by their families, and the plight of the enslaved
men and women who accompanied them, as well as the motives of their
British captors. McCrady and Bragg thoroughly examine the exile
from the standpoint of the British who governed occupied
Charleston, the families left behind, the armies in the field, the
Continental Congress, and finally the Jacksonboro Assembly of
January and February 1782. Using primary sources and archival
materials, the authors develop biographical sketches of each exile
and illuminate important facets of the American Revolution's
southern theater. While they shared a common fate, the exiles were
a diverse lot of tradesmen, artisans, prominent civilians, and
military officers--among them three signers of the Declaration of
Independence. Although they had clear socioeconomic differences,
most were unrepentant patriots. In this first comprehensive
examination and narrative history of these patriots, McCrady and
Bragg reveal how the exiles navigated their new surroundings within
the context of a revolutionary conflict that involved various
imperial powers of the Old World--Britain, France, and Spain--and
American colonists seeking to create an independent nation.
In 1781 South Carolina patriot militiamen played an integral role
in helping the Continental army reclaim their state from its
British conquerors. Martyr of the American Revolution is the only
book-length treatment that examines the events that set an American
militia colonel on a disastrous collision course with two British
officers, his execution in Charleston, and the repercussions that
extended from the battle lines of South Carolina to the Continental
Congress and across the Atlantic to the halls of British
Parliament. On August 4, 1781, in Charleston, South Carolina, the
British army hanged Col. Isaac Hayne for treason. Rather than a
strict chronological retelling of the events, which led to his
execution during the British occupation of Charleston, what is
offered instead is a consideration of factors, independently set in
motion that culminated in the demise of a loving father and devout
patriot. Hayne was the most prominent American executed by the
British for treason. He and his two principal antagonists, Lt. Col.
Nisbet Balfour and Lt. Col. Francis Lord Rawdon, were unwittingly
set on a collision course that climaxed in an act that sparked
perhaps the most notable controversy of the war. Martyr of the
American Revolution sheds light on why two professional soldiers
were driven to commit a seemingly wrongheaded and arbitrary deed
that halted prisoner exchange and nearly brought disastrous
consequences to captive British officers. The death of a patriot in
the cause of liberty was not a unique occurrence, but the unusually
well-documented events surrounding the execution of Hayne and the
involvement of his friends and family makes his story compelling
and poignant. Unlike young Capt. Nathan Hale, who suffered a
similar fate in 1776, Hayne did not become a folk hero. What began
as local incident, however, became an international affair that was
debated in Parliament and the Continental Congress.
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