The Night the Militia Stood Their Ground

The first time you hear the name Fishdam Ford you might think it is a misprint, a sleepy bend of river that could not possibly matter to the great gears of the Revolution. That mistake is how men get ambushed. The place sits near the Broad River in the South Carolina backcountry, a patch of woods and water that, in November of 1780, held the difference between a militia that learned from its scars and a British raiding column that believed the old tricks would always work. In the early hours of November 9 the British tried to pounce on a sleeping camp. Instead they rode into a cold ring of firelight, where their silhouettes were as plain as church windows and the men they thought were snoring had already slid into the shadows with loaded muskets. Twenty minutes later the British line fell apart, their commander lay bleeding on the ground, and the militia that had been mocked as rabble stood grinning in the trees. If you are looking for the moment when the Southern war’s momentum shifted from red to homespun gray and butternut, you could do worse than to start here.