For over two-hundred years history books and teachers have taught us about the great heroes of the Revolutionary War; men like George Washington, Henry Knox, John Paul Jones, and Benjamin Franklin. We learned about the struggle for independence in battles at Lexington and Concord, Bunker Hill, and the Siege of Yorktown.

But history has failed to justly recognize the people and the battles that forever changed America and the world; a people who believed deeply in personal freedoms, and a people who epitomized the philosophy “Don’t tread on me!”

In 1775, the backcountry of South Carolina was wild and untamed. Day to day life on the frontier was only for the most rugged, the toughest, and most determined families; and that’s exactly the type of people who left their homes in Pennsylvania and Virginia and made their homes in the South Carolina wilderness.

Devoutly Christian and deeply rooted in Scotch-Irish tradition, these new settlers wanted to be left alone to live their lives as they saw fit. Many were indifferent to the war at first. But, when the British took Charles Town in May of 1780 and began issuing ultimatums to the citizens, the people of the backcountry would have none of it.

The British soon realized they had stirred a “hornet’s nest” that would eventually lead to their defeat.