Hanging Rock Battleground, SC

On August 6,1780 a British camp in Hanging Rock just south of Heath Springs, SC under the command of major John Carden was attacked by 600 patriots led by General Thomas Sumter. It was preceded on august 1st with a diversion attack led by North Carolina major William R. Davie to pave the way for Sumter’s. The sign on the battleground states that over 200 British and loyalists were wounded or killed, and the camp destroyed. Sumter claimed 20 dead and forty wounded. It is unclear if these numbers include Davie’s casualties. After plundering the camp, the patriots retreated to Waxhaw, NC.

We stopped at this historical site managed by South Carolina’s State Park Service on 12/18/2021. The trail is an easy half a mile with a couple of steep inclines. We checked out the landscape dotted with huge boulders, read the historical marker and explored the creek. It looks like part of the trail may have been an old road. Dead brown leaves covered the ground on this fall day. They were slippery in a few sections; a hiking stick comes in handy. We saw nobody else. Parking is limited to a couple of cars, but we saw that there was another parking area by the bridge that may accommodate two more.

References AllTrails, Encyclopedia, Wikipedia, Only In Your State