Far too often, those of us who are not self-proclaimed history buffs have the tendency to think of the past as important dates and names that we were supposed to memorize from the black and white pages of textbooks. But just as boring teachers can make learning pure drudgery, good teachers can kindle an insatiable passion within their students for any subject.

My sixth grade teacher at Heathwood Hall, Robin McLeod, made the important events of South Carolina’s role in the Revolutionary War leap off the page in full color and instilled in me a lifelong fascination. I distinctly remember her describing a midnight skirmish in which both sides were simultaneously attempting an ambush, her passion for the subject combining with the gift of a natural raconteuse. “As the Patriots were creeping through the woods,” she said in a suspenseful whisper, “the British troops were also creeping … through … the woods …” She paused dramatically. We were spellbound, literally on the edges of our seats to find out what on earth was going to happen next. Theater class had nothing on Mrs. McLeod’s lessons in history!

Our state played a vital role in our country’s independence, and more about our past is constantly being unearthed, literally. As David Hodges shares on page 74, in 2022, 14 soldiers who died in the Battle of Camden were discovered in hasty, shallow graves and were reinterred with full military honors this past April. The encomium at the end of the service, delivered by Rev. Josie Holler and Rev. William Owens,  reiterates the living, breathing reality and action of those days when the future balanced on the edge of a knife, and the facts we now memorize in school were waited upon with bated breath as critically important news.

“The bloody combat and international clash of armies wrought on this parcel of land were about destruction and death 242 years ago. There were more than 6,500 soldiers engaged here in the longleaf pine forest that hot August day in 1780 … Pause and reflect here today. Their wounds, their blood, and their deaths have consecrated it. Yes, these men sanctified the land upon which you are standing. As yet unnamed, these fallen here and the many others will never be forgotten as if they had never happened. Their spirit lives in this very soil. Amidst the personal sacrifice of these soldiers, the seeds of liberty grew to birth our country, to enable our citizenry, and to form a people’s government. The former foe, our enemy, is now our strongest ally, our best friend. We are all working and playing, progressing and reflecting, sharing and encouraging, growing and loving, because of the abundance of liberty bequeathed us by these hardy, brave, and patriotic soldiers. We are the inheritors of their most fundamental blessings of equal rights, an inheritance that is undefiled, unfading, and imperishable.”

Let us not take for granted neither this inheritance nor the opportunity to stand on the very soil where so much decisive action occurred in the American Revolution that has shaped our lives today. Opportunities to reach back and touch this history are literally all around us in the Midlands.

Sincerely,

Margaret Clay