Greetings! Our next meeting is to be an online Zoom meeting only scheduled for Wednesday, February 8 at 7 p.m. Please let me know by email if you would like to attend the online Zoom meeting. If you do, I will email you a Zoom link to the meeting the day of the meeting. Feel free to share this email with a friend who or family member whom you think may be interested.
Our next speaker will be John Buchanan, who will be speaking on his latest book, The Battle of Musgrove’s Mill, 1780 (Small Battles Series) (Westholme, Dec. 2022). On August 19, 1780, near a ford of the Enoree River in northwest South Carolina, a short and savage encounter occurred between Rebel militia and a combined force of Loyalist militia and Provincial regulars. Despite the Rebel’s being outnumbered more than two to one, it was an overwhelming victory for the American cause. The Rebels defended from the top of a ridge, inflicted heavy casualties on the Loyalist force as it advanced, then charged and drove the enemy from the field of battle. Just as Bunker Hill had done on a larger scale in Massachusetts, this clash of hundreds of soldiers in the Carolina backwoods invigorated the Rebel cause and led directly to the Battle of King's Mountain, the turning point of the war in the South. This battle is also remarkable because instead of one leader the Rebel force was directed by a joint command of three colonels. The Battle of Musgrove’s Mill, 1780, by award-winning historian John Buchanan, begins by describing the situation in South Carolina following the British invasion of 1780 before introducing the three colonels: Isaac Shelby, James Williams, and Elijah Clarke. These men led Rebel militia from North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia in an effort to disrupt British operations and their Loyalist support. The colonels and other leaders led mounted Rebel militia in a sweeping and bloody guerilla war that played an essential role in opening a path to the eventual British surrender at Yorktown and Britain’s loss of America.
To order the book prior to or after our meeting, go to this link:
John (Jack) Buchanan is the award-winning author of The Road to Guilford Courthouse: The American Revolution in the Carolinas, Jackson’s Way: Andrew Jackson and the People of the Western Waters, The Road to Valley Forge: How Washington Built the Army That Won the Revolution, and The Road to Charleston: Nathanael Greene and the American Revolution. He lives in New York City and often attends our Zoom meetings.
Our next meeting will be held in March, probably either Wednesday, March 1 or 8, at the Mount Vernon Inn. It will by a hybrid in-person/Zoom meeting. So please save those dates.
This is also a reminder that the schedule for the 10th Annual Conference of the America Revolution has been released. The Conference is from Friday, March 17 to Sunday, March 19, 2023, to be held at Williamsburg.
G. Lengel—Head of Faculty – Chief Historian, National Medal of Honor Museum
Maj. Gen. Jason Bohm, USMC – “George Washington’s Marines: The Origin of the Corps and the American Revolution”
John “Jack” Buchanan – “Picked Men, Well Mounted’: The Battle of Musgrove’s Mill, 1780”
Benjamin Carp – “’Many Circumstances Lead to Conjecture That Mr. Washington Was Privy to This Villainous Act’: George Washington and the Great New York City Fire of 1776”
Kaitlin Fergeson—Emerging Scholar – “Thompson’s Black Dragoons – A Study in Loyalist Cavalry in the American Revolution”
Kylie Hulbert – “America’s Revolutionary War Privateers: The Untold War at Sea”
Cole Jones – “Captives of Liberty: British, German and Loyalist Prisoners of War and the Politics of Vengeance”
Mark Lender – “Fighting for the Key to the Continent: Fort Ticonderoga, 1777”
Margaret Sankey – “Oh the Things They Said: The Yorke Family’s Opinions of British Generals”
Eric Schnitzer – “In Memoriam: Rediscovering the Stories of Americans Who Died in the Battles of Saratoga”
David O. Stewart – “The Real Miracle at Valley Forge: George Washington’s Political Mastery.
To register for the conference, click on this link: 10th Annual Conference of the American Revolution – March 17-19, 2023 (americashistoryllc.com)
Best,
Christian McBurney
