**Beaufort, South Carolina, and the Revolutionary War: Liberty, Slavery, and the Fight for the Sea Islands**
PEOPLE
General Henry Clinton
British Commander-in-Chief in North America, Philipsburg Proclamation Author
Brigadier General Augustin Prevost
British General, East Florida Commander, Georgia-Carolina Campaign Leader
General William Moultrie
Continental Army General, South Carolina Governor, Fort Sullivan Defender
Thomas Heyward Jr.
Continental Congress Delegate, Declaration Signer, Beaufort District Planter
KEY EVENTS
Thousands of Enslaved People Seek British Lines
Jun 1780
Philipsburg Proclamation Reaches the Sea Islands
Jul 1779
Sea Island Plantation Economy Disrupted
Jun 1780
British Expedition to Charleston Stages at Port Royal
Jan 1780
British Occupy Port Royal Island
Oct 1779
British Withdraw from Sea Island Zone
Jun 1782
STORIES
MODERN VOICE
The Houses the Indigo Built
When visitors come to Beaufort, they come for the houses. The antebellum architecture is genuinely extraordinary — a concentration of Greek Revival, Federal, and vernacular styles that makes the histo...
HISTORICAL VOICE
The Calculation at the Water's Edge
The British ships had been in the sound for weeks. Everyone on the plantation knew it. The question was not whether the ships were there — you could see them from the edge of the marsh — but what it m...