In the book The Loyalists at Kings Mountain, it is written that Michael Isham “evacuated Fort Ninety Six with Lt. Col. John H. Cruger.” This places him at another important battle of the American Revolution in the south: the Siege of Ninety Six.
In 2012, we visited this battle site near Edgefield, South Carolina.
My husband David beside a revolutionary soldier. Some enactors at Ninety Six
Ninety Six was originally a trading post that was fortified by the British during the Revolution, but no one now knows the origin of its interesting name. During the early summer of 1781, the British militia there endured a 3-4 week siege at this fort. They managed to hold it until the regular army arrived under Lord Rawdon.
But it was a bittersweet victory because the British immediately decided to abandon the fort and evacuate the militiamen and their families to Charlestown (now Charleston).
It was the beginning of the end for the loyalists, who more or less languished at Fort James until the end of the war. From there they were evacuated again, many of them on ships to Nova Scotia.
The end of the American Revolution saw an evacuation of refugees to rival any of modern times. Hundreds of thousands fled America in fear of persecution for having fought on the losing side.
The stockade at Ninety Six
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