Sawney's Creek

The skirmish of Sawney’s Creek was a follow up to the battle of Hobkirk’s Hill in Camden.  Nathaniel Greene pulled his force back across the Wateree River to cut off the supply and communication routes to Granby (modern day Cayce), Ninety Six and Augusta.  Posting his troops in an abandoned house and on the high ground around Twenty Five mile creek, Greene waited in anticipation of the British.(1) It was May 8, 1781 and I am sure the weather was beginning to heat up.  Lord Rawdon crossed the Wateree with reinforcements from Georgetown that had just arrived.  Rawdon stated in his report, “ Having driven in his pickets, I examined every point of his situation; I found it everywhere so strong, that I could not hope to force it without suffering such loss as must have crippled my force for any future enterprise; and the retreat lay so open for him, I could not hope that victory would give us any advantage sufficiently decisive to counterbalance the loss.”(2) Lord Rawdon and the British flinched, fell back, burned Camden and retreated to Charleston.  I have crossed this bridge many times over the years to go fishing and kayaking at the dam in Lugoff.  It is with new found excitement that I have become aware of the sacrifices for my freedom fought so many years ago in the same woods, creeks and rivers that I enjoy today.

(1) Parker's Guide to the American Revolutionary War in South Carolina, John C. Parker Jr.
(2) Swamp Fox: The Life and Campaigns of General Francis Marion, Robert D. Bass