In the summer of 1780 during the American Revolutionary War, detachments from the two battalions of the 71st Fraser Highlanders, a regiment recruited in Scotland in 1775 by Simon Fraser, Master of Lovat, were ordered by Lord Charles Cornwallis to establish an outpost at Cheraw Hills after the fall of Charleston in May 1780 to strengthen the British defensive line. Major Archibald McArthur led a detachment of the first battalion from Camden to Cheraw on 7th June 1780, arriving on 9th June after marching 20 miles per day, and the soldiers camped on open ground near Kershaw’s, now Laney’s, Landing on the west bank of the Great Pee Dee River, not far from Old St. David’s Church, in canvas tents and wooden huts. Although local Loyalists warned against camping near the river because of unhealthy conditions, McArthur preferred the open ground because he feared sudden attack in the woods from local Patriots. Soldiers from the second battalion arrived in early July and camped even closer to the river. At Cheraw, the regiment’s duties were to maintain law and order, encourage loyalty to the King, gather intelligence on rebel activity from Loyalists, and pass that information to British commanders in Camden, Hanging Rock, Rocky Mount, and Waxhaw; McArthur also accompanied small units to the court houses at Long Bluff and Anson County to administer the oath of allegiance to inhabitants who remained loyal. As supplies dwindled and horses were needed for the few dragoons, the troops increasingly lived off the land and commandeered local provisions. At best estimate, about 300 men of the regiment were camped there, and Surgeon Robert Jackson reported that two hundred suffered from a malignant fever that he believed was caused by noxious vapors from the river; the illness spread rapidly, especially among those nearest the bank, so that before the post was abandoned in late July few had escaped its effects, and McArthur himself suffered from the fever during most of the six weeks in Cheraw. Some of the worst cases were taken into St. David’s Church for shelter from excessive heat and heavy rain, and local diarists and historians record that several Highlanders died at Cheraw and were buried in the cemetery, though surviving regimental records do not specifically record their place and date of death and the muster rolls for 1780 are notably incomplete. McArthur wrote on 29th July 1780 that his men had lacked essential necessities since October 1778. When the detachments were ordered back to Camden, about forty men were still too weak to march, so McArthur placed them under Lieutenant John Nairne to travel under the protection of Lieutenant Colonel William Mills and Loyalist militia by flatboat from Kershaw’s Landing to Georgetown on 24th July 1780, but Patriot forces led by Captain Tristram Thomas ambushed the boats at Hunts Bluff on 25th July and took the sick Highlanders captive into North Carolina, where they were later exchanged for Patriot prisoners held by the British. The remaining soldiers marched back to Camden, and Jackson recorded that many recovered through exercise and fresh air on the march; though some were still held in reserve because of illness, the rest of the 71st Fraser Highlanders fought at the Battle of Camden on 16th August 1780.