If you're not doing anything this weekend.....

[SPM]

......then come on out to Historic Brattonsville for the annual reenactment of The Battle of Huck's Defeat (Saturday) and the Battle of Hill's Iron Works (Sunday).

In addition to the battles themselves, there's a full weekend of 18th century living history with camp life, cooking, musket and Artillery demonstrations, and civilian and military reenactors.

So come out and sweat with us - and see, hear, smell, and witness life as it existed 242 years ago. It's good fun for the whole family! (Also, hydrate and come prepared to stay that way. It's South Carolina in July, folks....)

 

[Dave951]

Looks like great fun. Unfortunately, I'll be maintaining "peace and domestic tranquility" by working on the "honey better do list"

 

[SPM]

Looks like great fun. Unfortunately, I'll be maintaining "peace and domestic tranquility" by working on the "honey better do list"

I completely understand. I took this week off from work in order to get as much done before the weekend came around so as not to stress any of it.

 

[SPM]

Some pictures from the weekend. I will post both battles from a guy I found on YouTube in a seperate post.

 

[SPM]

Saturday's Battle of Williamson's Plantation, also known as the Battle of Huck's Defeat., which took place on 12 July 1780.



We fought as Loyalist Militia under the command of Captain Christian Huck, who was in the area searching out Patriot militia who had returned home for the wheat harvest. Huck was in search of Colonel William Bratton and Captain John McClure, leaders of American Militia in the area.

Huck arrived at McClure’s homestead the morning of July 11th. McClure was not there. Huck, angry at the absence, terrorized McClure’s wife, set fire to their house, and captured McClure’s younger brother James and his brother-in-law Edward Martin. Both were sentenced to be hanged the next morning for aiding the rebels. Huck arrested three more of McClure’s and Bratton’s neighbors under the same reasoning later that day.

Huck continued to Bratton’s homestead ten miles north. Neighbors warned Martha Robertson Bratton, William Bratton’s wife, that Huck was on his way. She dispatched Watt, a family slave, with a note for her husband to warn him about Huck’s approach.

Colonel Bratton returned home in the dawn of July 12th with about 200 Militia and routed Loyalist forces, killing Captain Huck in the assault.

 

[SPM]

Sunday's skirmish was the first time the Battle of Hill's Iron Works has been reenacted, and was fought between forces under Captain Christian Huck and a very limited Patriot militia force on June 18th, 1780 - about a month prior to his death at the Battle of Williamson's Plantation.



The Iron Works was established by William Hill and Isaac Hayne in the South Carolina backcountry in anticipation of the war. On June 16th, a group of the British Legion cavalry, commanded by Capt. Christian Huck, was ordered to destroy Hill's Iron Works. The Iron Works consisted of a store, a furnace, and several mills. The Iron Works was guarded by about fifty Patriot militiamen.

On June 18th, two men warned the Militia that a force of 200-300 enemy dragoons were on their way to the Iron Works. The British Legion detachment arrived undetected and surprised the Patriots when they opened fire on them. The Patriots thought that these were the advanced guard of the larger force that they had been warned about. After a brief skirmish, the Patriot Militia fled. Captain Huck burned Hill’s Iron Works, and confiscated about 90 slave laborers.

Huck would meet his Maker on July 12th, "the Day it Rained Militia."

 

[SPM]

 

[Pogue]

Was traveling home or would’ve loved to have checked it out. Thanks for sharing the pics !

 

[SPM]

Was traveling home or would’ve loved to have checked it out. Thanks for sharing the pics !

The next local event is the Battle of Charlotte and Battle of the Bees (also onown as the Battle of MacIntyre Farm) on Labor Day Weekend, September 3rd and 4th.

It will be at Historic Rural Hill in Huntersville, NC.

I will try and put it out there with some frequency to keep it in everyone's mind.

At the Battle of Charlotte/Bees last year, my 5 year old son, along with the rest of the Cadre of colonial clad boys armed with wooden muskets, "robbed" the ice cream truck that was out there.

 

[Snal~]

I've always wanted to go to one of these....especially with the use of horses. Just too dang busy.

Thanks for posting all of the pics!

 

[SPM]

I've always wanted to go to one of these....especially with the use of horses. Just too dang busy.

Thanks for posting all of the pics!

Brattonsville tends to have a pretty healthy contingent of dragoons. And since the Loyalists were the only ones mounted at the battles there, they're all in the same element rather than opposing one another.

Evenr with only 6 or 7 horse, you can feel and hear them coming up the field. Being charged by them, with riders holding sabers high.....is breathtakingly terrifying, in a good way.