Musgrove Mill State Historic Site

Musgrove Mill State Historic Site was the site of the Battle of Musgrove Mill, an action in the American Revolutionary War, which occurred on August 19, 1780, near the Enoree River, on what (in the 21st century) is the border between Spartanburg, Laurens, and Union Counties in South Carolina, approximately seven miles from Interstate 26.[2][3]

Musgrove Mill Battlefield
Musgrove's Mill Historic Battle Site
Visitors Center, Musgrove Mill State Historic Site
Nearest cityCross Anchor, South Carolina
Coordinates34°35′36.76″N 81°51′8.92″W
Area380 acres (150 ha)
Built1780 (1780)
NRHP reference No.75001708[1]
Added to NRHPMarch 4, 1975

In the August 1780, a group of 200 Patriot militiamen attempted to strike what they thought was an equal number of Loyalists camped near a ford on the Enoree River. The Loyalists, however, had recently been joined by 300 more, two hundred of them provincial regulars from the British post at Ninety Six, South Carolina. Once discovered, the Patriots were unable to either retreat or make a frontal assault. Instead they took up a position behind logs and brush on a nearby ridge and lured the Loyalists into attacking them. A fierce fight ensued and turned into a near rout of the Loyalists. Nevertheless, when the Patriot militia learned that American forces had been defeated three days before at the Battle of Camden, they also retreated.[4]

North Carolina Patriot militia leader Col. Isaac Shelby, campaigning to Musgrove Mill from the area of present-day northeast Tennessee, fought at the Battle of Musgrove Mill with a small force of Overmountain Men.[2] After the battle, Shelby and his Overmountain Men returned over the Appalachia Mountains to the Sycamore Shoals (located at present-day Elizabethton, Tennessee). Shelby was one of the Patriot officers mustering weeks later at Sycamore Shoals on September 25, 1780, in advance of the early October 7, 1780 Battle of Kings Mountain.

The Musgrove Mill battle site was listed on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places in 1975.[1][2] The park includes a visitor center with interpretive exhibits, a memorial to the legendary Mary Musgrove (featured in a popular early 19th-century novel), two marked trails, a picnic area, a fishing pond, a canoe launch, and a small waterfall.[5]

References
  1. "National Register Information System". National Register of Historic Places. National Park Service. July 9, 2010.
  2. Califf III, John W. (October 28, 1974). "Musgrove's Mill Historic Battle Site" (pdf). National Register of Historic Places - Nomination and Inventory. Retrieved 16 September 2012.
  3. "Musgrove's Mill Historic Battle Site, Union County (S.C. Hwy. 56, Cross Anchor vicinity)". National Register Properties in South Carolina. South Carolina Department of Archives and History. Retrieved 16 September 2012.
  4. John Buchanan, The Road to Guilford Courthouse: The American Revolution in the Carolinas (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1997), 176-80; Walter Edgar, Partisans and Redcoats: The Southern Conflict That Turned the Tide of the American Revolution (New York: HarperCollins, 2001), 114-15.
  5. Park website. Substantial waterfalls are unusual in this part of the state.
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