The Battle of Blackstock's Farm, also called Blackstock's Plantation, Blackstock's Hill, and Blackstocks, a military engagement of the American Revolutionary War, took place in what today is Union County, South Carolina, a few miles from Cross Anchor, on November 20, 1780.
The battle marked the first time during the war that an American militia had defeated British regulars, although they outnumbered British troops three to one and fought from a prepared position rather than in the field.
After the defeat of Major Patrick Ferguson and the destruction or capture of his entire military force of 900 men at the Battle of Kings Mountain the previous month, the sparsely settled Carolina Backcountry had come increasingly under the control of the Patriots.
Lieutenant General Charles Cornwallis, British commander in the Southern theater, ordered Lieutenant Colonel Banastre Tarleton and his British Legion to abandon the chase of the guerrilla commander Brigadier General Francis Marion and instead disrupt the activities of Patriot militia Brigadier General Thomas Sumter, thereby returning confidence to Backcountry Tories. Meanwhile, Sumter had been gathering partisan volunteers and now had a thousand men under his command.
On November 18, Tarleton's British Legion dragoons and the mounted infantry of the 63d Regiment were bathing and watering their horses on the Broad River when some of Sumter's raiders fired at them from the opposite bank. The British brought up a 3-pounder "grasshopper" field gun and easily scattered the partisans. Putting his men across the river in flat boats that night, he pressed Sumter hard the next day. Tarleton's advance guard caught up to Sumpter's force the next evening, forcing them to make a stand. Fortunately for Sumter, a deserter from the 63d Regiment had revealed Tarleton's plans and location.
Although Sumter now had a thousand Backcountry militiamen, Tarleton had more than five hundred regulars under his command, including three hundred regulars. Sumter and his colonels decided the best course was to find a strong defensive position and wait for Tarleton to attack them. Colonel Thomas Brandon, who knew the area, suggested the nearby farm of William Blackstock, a homestead on the hills above the Tyger River. The land had been cleared, providing fields of fire and room for maneuver, and the outbuildings—solid log structures made of hardwood—were not chinked and thus provided "narrow but convenient openings for men firing from behind cover." Tarleton's troops would have to advance in the open over fences and a creek to engage Sumter's defensive positions.
The American Revolutionary War (1775–1783) grew from colonial resistance to British taxation without parliamentary representation — a dispute that radicalized through the Stamp Act (1765), the Townshend Acts (1767), and the Boston Massacre (1770). Fighting began at Lexington and Concord in April 1775; the Continental Congress declared independence on July 4, 1776. The Continental Army under George Washington faced severe shortages of supplies and troops, enduring the brutal winter at Valley Forge (1777–1778) before French alliance and French financing turned the military balance. Major engagements included Bunker Hill (1775), Trenton (1776), Saratoga (1777) — which secured French intervention — and Yorktown (1781), where British General Cornwallis surrendered to Washington. An estimated 25,000 American soldiers died in service, from combat, disease, and captivity. The Treaty of Paris (1783) recognized American independence and ceded British territory east of the Mississippi, though it left unresolved questions about Indigenous land rights and the status of Loyalists.
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