I am not a fan of South Carolina’s new license plates. In May last year, the South Carolina General Assembly passed legislation to create a new license plate “commemorating the 250th anniversary of the American Revolution.” Many have criticized its appearance, comparing it to clip art. These criticisms are valid, but my main concern is the motto on the plate, “Where the Revolutionary War Was Won.” This is not just historically inaccurate; it also dishonors the ideals of the American Revolution.
The legislation authorizing this plate recalls the June 28, 1776, Battle of Sullivan’s Island, where Colonel William Moultrie’s men defended their partially built palmetto log fort against a fleet of British warships. Because of the spongy nature of the palmetto logs, British cannonballs were absorbed into the fort’s walls instead of shattering them, as would happen with pine logs or masonry. Additionally, the shallow channel leading into Charleston harbor caused several British ships to run aground before they could reach their firing positions.
The key to winning the battle lies beyond the luck of soft logs and shifting sandbars. Moultrie’s gunners, though short on gunpowder, were devastatingly accurate. Their bravery in facing down the world’s most powerful navy was embodied by Sergeant William Jasper. During an intense British barrage, the regiment’s flag was shot down, falling beyond the wall. Jasper leaped over the wall and raised the flag to rally the Americans, an act still celebrated in South Carolina lore.
The victory at Sullivan’s Island is inspiring, but it probably had a limited impact on the outcome of the Revolutionary War. After the British defeat at Charleston, the fleet retreated north to lay siege to New York. The British would return to Charleston four years later as part of their Southern Strategy. In May 1780, with British troops and colonial Loyalists surrounding Charleston by land and British men-of-war anchored in the harbor, the entire Charleston garrison surrendered. It was a humiliating defeat and the largest surrender of American troops until the Civil War.
A license plate honoring the Battle of Sullivan’s Island exemplifies naive sentimentality. It overlooks the complexities and ambiguities of history in favor of a sanitized fable. It celebrates waving a flag of liberty over a fort substantially constructed by enslaved African workers. It glorifies the actions of slaveholders, including William Moultrie, who were fighting—in part—to preserve their right to own other human beings, and who feared that the British would free their slaves to suppress the rebellion.
This was a genuine possibility given Lord Dunmore’s proclamation in 1775, which declared “all indented Servants, Negroes, and others (appertaining to Rebels) free that are able and willing to bear Arms.” The subsequent siege of Charleston in 1780 was probably aided by the updated Philipsburg Proclamation that encouraged slaves to leave the city and join the British troops.
Despite the inspiring words of the Declaration of Independence, signed mere days after the Battle of Sullivan’s Island, the contradictions of that victory remained unresolved. Eighty-four years later, the slaveholding descendants of its defenders would fire on nearby Fort Sumter, starting a new war premised on the conviction that all men are not created equal. It is fair to say that South Carolina was “Where the Revolution Was Nearly Lost.”
There is no single place or event in which the Revolutionary War was won. However, South Carolina was the site of many battles and skirmishes that contributed to the victory. The legislation creating the license plate lists several of these, including the crucial battles of Cowpens and Kings Mountain, which, along with the pyrrhic British victory at Guilford Courthouse, North Carolina, helped drive Cornwallis to his final surrender at Yorktown, Virginia.
More importantly, revolutions are made of more than military skirmishes. They are also made of ideas—ideas like the one Onesimus gave to Cotton Mather sometime around 1706. Onesimus, an enslaved African, taught Mather, his owner, the process of smallpox variolation. This traditional practice among West Africans was highly effective in reducing smallpox mortality. Cotton Mather passed this idea to Boston physician Zabdiel Boylston, and from there the idea spread throughout the colonies. By the 1760s, Dr. Joseph Warren was operating a smallpox inoculation clinic in Boston. Future president John Adams was inoculated by Dr. Warren, who had inoculated much of Boston until his death at the Battle of Bunker Hill in 1775.
Despite the demonstrable success of inoculation, many people continued to believe that it was more dangerous than contracting smallpox naturally. Some clergy also opposed inoculation, proclaiming that the disease was a punishment for sin and that preventing it would interfere with God’s will.
In December 1775, a smallpox outbreak among Continental troops contributed to the failure of the American assault on Quebec. Washington recognized that disease—not enemy fire—posed the greater threat to his struggling army. He wrote to Dr. William Shippen Jr., Director General of the Medical Department, directing that all troops be inoculated. Necessity demanded it: should smallpox infect the army naturally, Washington warned, "we should have more to dread from it than from the Sword of the Enemy.”
This was our nation’s first public health mandate and arguably the foundation of our current immunization system. It was also a remarkable success. Once the fear of smallpox subsided, the Continental Army saw a surge in new recruits. Before mass inoculation, infectious disease—mostly smallpox—accounted for many more deaths than combat. After Washington’s mandate, smallpox rates plummeted among American troops, while British troops continued to be affected by the disease.
Some might argue that Washington’s decision to mandate an evidence-based public health intervention was “Where the Revolutionary War Was Won.” However, I won’t go that far. Washington's inoculation order was not a single event; it was the result of a series of actions rooted in the wisdom and experience of an enslaved African man—a man who could never claim the liberty the Revolution promised.
Revolutions do not emerge from a single source. Even the Declaration of Independence, the document that proclaims our nation’s birth, did not spring fully formed from Jefferson’s pen. It owes much to its predecessors: from Cicero’s writings on civic virtue and resistance to tyranny, through the Magna Carta, to Thomas Paine’s Common Sense.
Contrary to our new state license plate, the American Revolution was not won in South Carolina. Nor was it won at Yorktown. There is no single place or moment where the Revolution is truly won. The American Revolution developed slowly over time, and because it challenged us to reach lofty goals—like guaranteeing every person the rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness—our Revolution can never be completely over.
This article was published in South Carolina Family Physician.