The Loyalists 1775-1782 | And Then There Were Thirteen (1976) | ETV Classics

And Then There Were Thirteen with Dr. Henry Lumpkin was an instructional series debuted by SCETV in the mid-1970s. The 20-episode series featured lectures by Dr. Henry Lumpkin of the University of South Carolina Department of History filmed on actual battle sites and campaign areas of the American Revolution in South Carolina. 

In this fifth episode of the series, Professor Lumpkin recounts that harrowing period in American history where the states were involved in a bloody civil war, pitting the Loyalists (Tories) against the Patriots. With vivid storytelling, he presents the array of participants and battles that tore through the colonies for seven long years. To learn about some of these individuals figuring in our nation's history, see Side Notes below.

While some loyalists remained after the battles were over, many who had lost everything in the war left to go to the Bahamas, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Canada, or Great Britain. Professor Lumpkin observed that our nation was born in blood and war; pain and fighting and the names in this history are those of some of our ancestors. 

Side Notes: 

• Loyalists fighting in the American Revolution. This article is an overview of some of the prominent Loyalist military units of the Revolution, and of the fighting they did for the British Crown.
• Banastre Tarlton - Nicknamed "Bloody Ban" by Patriots, Banastre Tarleton became infamous in the southern states during the American Revolution. His conduct illustrated and exacerbated the problems the British faced in pacifying the population of the Carolinas. As the commander of a cavalry and mounted infantry unit, his unit became the eyes and ears of Lt. Gen. Charles Cornwallis' southern army, winning battlefield glories until a decisive day at Cowpens on January 17, 1781.
• Charles Cornwallis - That fall, British fortunes in the South began to shift. American forces emerged victorious at the Battle of King’s Mountain in October and forces under Francis Marion and Thomas Sumter continued to plague Cornwallis’s men throughout the winter. American troops followed their success at King’s Mountain with a victory at the Battle of Cowpens in January 1781. The battle, which devastated Cornwallis' light troops, was a major turning point in the war in the South. American forces continued to inflict heavy losses on Cornwallis and his men, most significantly at the Battle of Guilford Court House.
• Edward Winslow (1746 or 1747 – 1815) was a loyalist officer and New Brunswick judge and official.
• Thomas Gilbert (1714-1797) was a soldier in King George's War, the French and Indian War and the American Revolution. He was known as the "Leader of the New England Tories". He became a Loyalist, originally from Assonet in Freetown, Massachusetts, he settled a community that was eventually named after him, Gilberts Cove, Nova Scotia.
• Timothy Ruggles - At the end of the war, Timothy Ruggles was among the 30,000 to 40,000 Loyalists who were relocated to Canada by the British. The Crown rewarded him for his
  service by granting him 1,000 acres in Wilmot, Nova Scotia on the Bay of Fundy where at age 70 he built a new estate. He resided there until his death at age 83 in 1795.
• Nathan Hale (1755 - 1776) Patriot. At the time, spies were hanged as illegal combatants. The British held Hale in captivity for some days, and a British officer wrote how well Hale composed himself. On the morning of September 22, Hale marched to the Park of Artillery and was hanged at the age of twenty-one. There are no official records of Hale’s speech before his hanging. Though his last words may have been longer than those remembered, one line in particular stood out: “I only regret, that I have but one life to lose for my country.” Over the years, many have doubted the famous line; however, regardless of how those view it, the words have become synonymous with Nathan Hale.
• Robert Rogers (1731-1795) Rogers Rangers. A unique corps of 600 frontiersmen who successfully adapted Indian techniques to their fighting, Rogers’s Rangers emphasized self-sufficiency, courage, stealth, and methods of camouflage. Conducting numerous raids, scouting enemy positions, and capturing prisoners, Rogers’s Rangers gained a reputation as the most colorful unit in the British American army.
• Lord Hugh Percy - On April 19, 1775, a British expedition of about 700 soldiers headed toward Concord, ordered to seize weapons that American militia had near that village. The British soldiers encountered resistance, and shots were exchanged at Lexington and later at Concord. Colonel Francis Smith who commanded the expedition sent a message to Boston, asking for reinforcements. Hugh Percy marched more than one thousand soldiers to Lexington, meeting Smith’s troops who had been ambushed as they retreated from Concord. Percy’s hurried arrival with reinforcements and cannon protected Smith’s battered force, but the British retreat continued under attack and ambush from militiamen lining the road to the outskirts of Charlestown and Boston. After fighting back to safety, Percy gave the militia rebels respect, acknowledging they were organized in their resistance and fought well, using terrain to their advantage.
• Allan MacLean  - The Royal Highland Emigrants was the brainchild of Allan MacLean. Before the outbreak of hostilities, he formed a plan by which new Scottish emigrants from home would be given lands in America in secret exchange for a plan to bear arms for the British in the event of hostilities. At a given time, they would embody and serve alongside British troops. Given that the war broke out within weeks or days of formulating this plan, it really did not proceed exactly as planned, and the regiment enlisted mostly former Highland soldiers who had settled in Canada and America and recently arrived emigrants.
• Donald MacDonald - A career army officer, Donald MacDonald fought in the 1746 Battle of Culloden on the side of the Crown. In the summer of 1775, MacDonald left Massachusetts with orders to proceed to North Carolina and raise the Royal Highland Emigrants Regiment. The unit consisted primarily of individuals of Scottish descent. Captured shortly after the Battle of Moores Creek Bridge, MacDonald remained in Patriot hands until his exchange in October 1776.
• Jonathan Eddy - Many New Englanders who had settled in Nova Scotia became opposed to provincial authority as events developed in their native country, and Eddy and Allan were greatly encouraged by what they perceived to be a growing anti-British feeling throughout the province. During late 1775 and early 1776 Eddy in particular seemed to be obsessed with precipitating a major insurrection in the colony as quickly as possible, an end he hoped to achieve by encouraging George Washington and the Continental Congress to send an “army of liberation” to Nova Scotia as had been done in Canada.
• John Burgoyne (1722 - 1792) In May 1776, Burgoyne returned to the colonies and stopped the American invasion at Quebec. During the Battle of Valcour Island, he began formulating an idea for an invasion of New York, the Campaign of 1777. The plan required generals Howe and Barry St. Leger to meet Burgoyne in Albany, New York, but fell through after Howe decided to take Philadelphia instead of meeting Burgoyne in Albany.
• Captain Francis Lord Rawdon - Lord Rawdon, an Irish-born officer in the British army, saw extensive service in the northern and southern theaters of the Revolutionary War and took part in almost every major battle.
• Thomas Brown On August 2, 1775, a patriot mob descended on the home of prominent Georgia loyalist Thomas Brown. They demanded that Brown join the patriot cause. When he defiantly refused, the mob turned violent. Brown was partially scalped, burned, and tarred and feathered. The torturous punishment caused the loss of two toes and life-long headaches from a fractured skull, but injuries only strengthened his loyalist resolve. He continued to rally loyalists in Georgia and South Carolina until he was forced to flee to British East Florida to avoid capture by powerful revolutionaries.
• King's Carolina Rangers - (KCR) was a loyalist militia regiment active during the American War of Independence. The KCR was composed of nine infantry companies, of which one was converted into a troop of dragoons in 1782. The unit primarily saw action in the South Carolina and Georgia theatres of the conflict.
• Continental Army was the army of the United Colonies representing the Thirteen Colonies and later the United States during the American Revolutionary War. It was formed on June 14, 1775, by a resolution passed by the Second Continental Congress, meeting in Philadelphia after the war's outbreak at the Battles of Lexington and Concord on April 19, 1775. As a result, the U.S. Army Birthday is celebrated on June 14
• Nathanael Greene (1742 – 1786) was an American military officer and planter who served in the Continental Army during the Revolutionary War. He emerged from the war with a reputation as one of George Washington's most talented and dependable officers and is known for his successful command in the Southern theater of the conflict.
• Patrick Ferguson (1744 – 7 October 1780) was a British Army officer who designed the Ferguson rifle. He is best known for his service in the 1780 military campaign of Charles Cornwallis during the American Revolutionary War in the Carolinas, in which he played a great effort in recruiting American Loyalists to serve in his militia against the Patriots.
• Thomas Sumter (August 14, 1734 – June 1, 1832) was an American military officer, planter, and politician who served in the Continental Army as a brigadier-general during the Revolutionary War. After the war, Sumter was elected to the House of Representatives and to the Senate, where he served from 1801 to 1810, when he retired. Sumter was nicknamed the "Fighting Gamecock" for his military tactics during the Revolutionary War.
• Cherokee Indians - Bad treaties and the American Revolutionary War.