Jun 12 at 12:00 PM - Sale 2708 -

Sale 2708 - Lot 12

Estimate: $ 800 - $ 1,200
(AMERICAN REVOLUTION--1776.) Invoice for Patriot troops serving in the first months of war in South Carolina. Autograph Document Signed from Captain Richard Austin to George Walton as president of the Georgia Council of Safety. One page, 5 x 7¾ inches, docketed on verso; worn and toned, tasteful repairs to fold on verso, loss on right edge affecting a few letters. No place, 10 January 1776
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Additional Details

The South did not see any full land battles during the opening months of the Revolution, but the South Carolina back woods saw tense maneuvering for position and supplies between Patriots and Loyalists. In September 1775, a company of several dozen Georgians under Captain Richard Austin went to support William Henry Drayton of the South Carolina Committee of Safety on an expedition to the small inland village of Ninety Six, where they forced Loyalist colonel Thomas Fletchall to sign a truce. See Johnson, "Militiamen, Rangers, and Redcoats: The Military in Georgia, 1754-1776," pages 121-123.

This invoice reads: "Sir, please to pay Mr. Barnard Heard the money which was allow'd for me & men on a campaign to Ninety Six under the command of Sir William Henry Dray[ton], which will much oblige your most obediant hmb'e s't."

Two months after this "Campaign to Ninety Six," the same town was the site of the Revolution's first battle south of New England. In November 1775, a Patriot militia went out to Ninety Six to recover a supply of gunpowder which had fallen into Loyalist hands. They built an improvised fortification where 600 troops held off a larger force of 1900 Loyalists for three days before the Loyalists agreed to withdraw.

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