Camden - Strategic Key

At the start of the American Revolution, Camden stood just south of the present city and was home to at least thirty families, a Presbyterian church, and a Quaker meetinghouse. With its court house, stores, artisans, and grist mills that ground wheat grown by local farmers, Camden was the political and economic center of the surrounding region, and Joseph Kershaw and others made fortunes there. During the Revolution, its importance grew because of its position along the Great Wagon Road and at the junction of roads leading to Cheraw, Augusta, Georgia, and Cross Creek, North Carolina, making it a crucial route for troops and supplies moving overland. After the British occupied South Carolina, Camden became their main supply base in the southern backcountry and the starting point for their planned invasion of North Carolina, fed by surrounding farms and linked to Loyalists and British units farther west along the Broad and Saluda rivers and around Ninety Six. Camden was equally important to the Americans, because retaking it would secure North Carolina from invasion, cut western South Carolina Loyalists off from British support, and help force the British from the southern interior. These factors made Camden the strategic key for both sides in the Southern Campaign. In addition to being the site of two major Revolutionary War battles, Camden stood at the center of the bloody fighting that swept the South from 1778 to 1781. Its strategic importance was shown when the British evacuated Camden in May 1781 after the Battle of Hobkirk’s Hill, allowing General Nathanael Greene to drive British and Loyalist forces from the backcountry of South Carolina and Georgia and contributing to the later British evacuations of Savannah in July 1782 and Charleston in December 1782.

Camden, South Carolina · United States