Qualla: Battle of Great Cane Brake

Battle of Great Cane Brake: Introduction

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit John Foxe, CC BY-SA 4.0. Patrick Cunningham escaped on an unsaddled horse, without his breeches, shouting for every man to shift for himself. That detail alone tells you most of what you need to know about the Battle of Great Cane Brake. The patriots had marched twenty-five miles through cold rain to reach this stand of bamboo-like cane along the Reedy River, and they nearly walked into the camp undetected. The loyalists had been burning cane stalks to keep warm. The stalks popped and crackled as they exploded in the fire, drowning out the sound of approaching boots.

Image: John Foxe | CC BY-SA 4.0

Battle of Great Cane Brake: A War Within a War

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit John Foxe, CC BY-SA 4.0. Most Americans picture the Revolution as redcoats versus minutemen, but in the South Carolina upcountry of 1775, the war was a civil war within a civil war. The patriot Council of Safety in Charles Town controlled the lowcountry. The upcountry, lawless and scattered, was thick wi...

Image: John Foxe | CC BY-SA 4.0

Battle of Great Cane Brake: The Snow Campaign

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit John Foxe, CC BY-SA 4.0. Colonel Richard Richardson raised an overwhelming force in response, perhaps 5,000 militiamen, and marched them up-country to break loyalist strength. By late December most of the loyalist leaders had been captured. Cunningham and the last holdouts retreated into Cherokee territo...

Image: John Foxe | CC BY-SA 4.0

Battle of Great Cane Brake: The Unmarked Battlefield

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit John Foxe, CC BY-SA 4.0. Richardson believed the upcountry was now pacified. He was wrong. The Cherokees, watching the patriots seize munitions promised to them, soon joined the loyalists in a brutal frontier war that would scar South Carolina for the next eight years. The exact site of the cane brake sk...

Image: John Foxe | CC BY-SA 4.0