Living History Days at Middleton Place

Event Details

Middleton Place, National Historic Landmark will present the 2nd annual Living History Days on Saturday, May 26 and Sunday, May 27 from 9:00 am – 5:00 pm. Hear the fife and drums and smell the gun powder at the two-day event commemorating the 230th anniversary of General Nathanael Greene's encampment of the southern army at Middleton Place during the Revolutionary War. Costumed historians will portray General Greene’s army as it was encamped here in 1782. Programs and interactive demonstrations focusing on Continental Army tactics and camp life, British prisoners of war and military field medicine will take place all weekend. Living History interpreters will also demonstrate period crafts such as spinning, indigo dyeing, candle and soap making, open hearth cooking, carpentry and coopering, blacksmithing, pottery, stone carving and lace making. Children will be able to test their skill with toys and games of the period as well as writing with a quill. Living History Days activities are complimentary with regular admission. Camp will be open 9:00 am to 5:00 pm on Saturday, and 9:00 am to 4:00 pm on Sunday. As always, light picnic fare will be available at the Garden Market and Nursery and the Middleton Place Restaurant will be open from 11:00 am – 3:00 pm with a three course prix fixe menu of Low Country favorites.

Background:
Contrary to popular belief, the majority of battles of the American Revolution were not fought in the Northeast, but in South Carolina. All told, there were over 500 engagements, large and small, fought in the state. New Jersey, with 300 engagements, is a distant second. The American Revolution in South Carolina was a true civil war with neighbor against neighbor and brother against brother. The largest number of patriot troops captured in a single engagement during the war came when Charlestown (Charleston) fell to the British; soon thereafter, Arthur Middleton, a signer of the Declaration of Independence who served in the defense of Charlestown, was sent as a prisoner of war to St. Augustine.
Many scholars say that the War for American Independence was won in South Carolina. After 1779, action in the north evolved into stalemate as both sides kept watchful eyes upon one another from behind their fortifications. At the same time battles and skirmishes in the south were taking a toll on military personnel and civilians alike, both patriot and loyalist. By 1782 the British forces had pulled back all their remaining troops in South Carolina inside the fortifications protecting Charlestown and the immediate surrounding area. In order to keep the British in check, Patriot troops under the command of General Nathanael Greene moved close to the city with the bulk of the southern army encamped in and around Middleton Place.