Capt. Wm. Henry Mouzon II had been friends with Banastre Tarleton since their boyhood school days in France, yet Tarleton burned the Mouzon Plantation House on August 7, 1780. Ann Mouzon, age eleven, first saw the British and alerted the rest of the family. Mouzon escaped into Puddin' Swamp of the Black River beside his home. Soon afterward, British Major James Wemyss burned out Patriots and Loyalists alike in a swathe 15 miles wide for 70 miles from the Santee River to Georgetown, including the area along the Black River.