A strategy gone south: the British, the backcountry, and violence in revolutionary South Carolina

British officers based their Southern strategy on their ability to retain loyalist support. Sectional hostility between the lowcountry and backcountry colonists that had been festering since the 1760s prompted British officials to believe that the piedmont loyalists would take up arms when the war moved south. While the lowcountry elite demanded independence, the backcountry colonists had compelling reasons to remain loyal to the Crown. They might have remained so but for the policies and tactics employed by General Henry Clinton, General Charles Cornwallis, and their subordinate officers in the South Carolina backcountry. Despite the strong loyalist presence in the backcountry and the collapse of patriot military and civil power in 1780, the British would retreat from South Carolina. This thesis focuses on how the policies and tactics employed by British military officers alienated the loyalists and infuriated the neutrals in the South Carolina backcountry.