Wyboo Swamp: The Beginning of the Bridges Campaign
In March 1781, Lord Francis Hastings Rawdon, the British commanding officer in Charleston, designed a two-pronged assault against the forces of General Francis Marion. From Camden, Col. Welbore Ellis Doyle and the Volunteers of Ireland moved east and south to destroy Marion’s camp at Snow’s Island, while from Fort Watson, Col. John Watson and a combined British and Loyalist force moved along the Santee River towards Marion’s main force near Nelson’s Ferry. The series of engagements that followed between Watson and Marion is known as Watson’s Chase or the Bridges Campaign.
Marion and Watson first clashed on March 6 on the
quarter-mile-long causeway over Wyboo Swamp (today
submerged under the waters of Lake Marion), where
Marion had set up an ambush. The opposing cavalry
fought several times on the causeway, and Marion’s men
were initially able to hold back Watson’s advance. When
two British cannons arrived, however, Marion ordered a
retreat down River Road (now Patriot Road, behind you)
to John Cantey’s plantation.
After the battle at Wyboo Swamp, Patriot sympathizers
in the area told and retold the story of Gavin James. A
private in Marion’s Bridage, James faced down enemy
soldiers advancing across the causeway with only his
musket, felling one with a shot and two more with his
bayonet.
Marker is at the intersection of Patriot Road (South Carolina Route 14-410) and Wyboo Road on Patriot Road.
Courtesy hmdb.org
