Living History Sites

The Battle of Sullivan’s Island, fought near the site of today’s Fort Moultrie in June 1776, was the first significant Patriot victory of the Revolutionary War.

Built circa 1740, Hopsewee Plantation was one of the South’s major rice plantations and the birthplace of Thomas Lynch, Jr., one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence.

During the British occupation of Charleston in 1781, these grounds were part of a British outpost to supply ammunition and provisions to patrolling British troops.

Nestled outside the traditional bounds of the South Carolina colony is the Presbyterian church where Andrew Pickens committed his time as an elder following the Revolution. In the adjacent cemetery lie the graves of several American soldiers who had fought by Pickens' side during the war.

Now under the man-made Lake Marion, British Lieutenant Colonel John Watson and Patriot Brigadier General Francis Marion, the “Swamp Fox,” skirmished in Wyboo Swamp near Santee Road.

On May 29, 1780, British commander Banastre Tarleton engaged and overwhelmed a Patriot force under the command of Abraham Buford in a dreadful defeat for the Patriots.

This park features the Lands Ford crossing, used during the Revolutionary War by both British and American troops under Cornwallis and Sumter before and after pivotal battles.

The Cowpens Battlefield commemorates Daniel Morgan’s victory over Banastre Tarleton on January 17, 1781.

Treacherous waters and Patriot fire foil a British attack on Charleston Harbor

An architectural treasure in its own right, the South Carolina Historical Society Museum is housed in a National Historic Landmark building and features interactive exhibits on the people, places, and movements that shaped the state and nation.

The Piedmont’s Kings Mountain State Park has miles of forested trails perfect for supreme Kings Mountain hiking, two fishing lakes, and sits adjacent to Kings Mountain National Military Park, one of many national park Revolutionary War sites.

Loyalists ambush a contingent of Patriot militia at a tavern in December of 1780, leading to a massacre