The Battle of Hammond’s Store was a conflict that occurred at Hammond’s Old Store near modern-day Clinton, Laurens County, South Carolina. The battle happened in response to Lieutenant Colonel Thomas Waters’ raids of Patriot settlements in South Carolina.
On Christmas Day of 1780, Brigadier General Daniel Morgan called on Lieutenant Colonel William Washington to attack Lieutenant Colonel Thomas Waters’ men after getting word of his destructive movement through South Carolina. Washington rounded up two Continental dragoons and four militias to combat Waters’ men. The Patriots ultimately won in this battle.
In November of 1780, General Daniel Morgan arrived at the Patriot camp in Charlotte, where he was promoted to Brigadier General after he was given the duty to command a brigade of the Southern army. On December 2, 1780, Major General Nathanael Greene was sent to Charlotte by General George Washington and accepted the offer to lead the Southern theater, in which Greene promptly took the place of General Horatio Gates.
On that same month, Major General Greene divided his command into two parts: Brigadier General Morgan in command of the Backcountry of South Carolina, and Greene in command of the other. The splitting of the Southern Department was proven to be a good move as it paved way for more resupplying and recruiting after the horrid Battle of Camden.
On December 25, 1780, Brigadier General Daniel Morgan and his men were encamped along the Pacolet River at Grindall Shoals, South Carolina, which was the plantation of a captured Loyalist. On that day, Morgan received intelligence from a scout that a Loyalist, Lieutenant Colonel Thomas Waters, banded with a Savannah militia in the Fairforest Creek region, between Winnsborough and Ninety Six, to loot, raid, and torch settlements of Patriot families.
Once Morgan became aware of Waters’ pillaging, he immediately dispatched Lieutenant Colonel William Washington and his dragoons and militiamen to harass and combat Waters’ front. William Washington, the second cousin of George Washington, was a highly skilled field officer of the head of calvary in the Northern theater of the war. Washington immediately arrived in the area with his dragoons and militias. Thomas Waters and his men learned that Washington and his dragoons and militia were headed towards where they were, so they retreated back southwards to Fort Williams, the plantation of the then recently deceased James Williams turned Loyalist fort, in Ninety-Six.
On December 30, 1780, as Waters and his militiamen were fleeing from the incoming Patriots, they stopped for a midday lunch at Hammond’s Old Store, which was 25 miles from the post at Ninety-Six. While Waters’ men were near Hammond’s Store, Washington and his troops were spying on them from a hill after they tracked them down for more than 40 miles.
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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