08/30/2026
247 years ago on August 30, 1779, shortly after a Patriot force burned a British sloop that had run aground off Hunting Island, a young Lt. Paul Himilton led a party of Beaufort District militia in a surprise attack on the British picket point (lookout station) at Ashβs Point on Daufuskie Island. Several British and Loyalists were killed, and the Patriots occupied the position during a surge in aggression leading up to the attempted recapture of the City of Savannah at the end of a siege that followed.
A devastating defeat for the Continental Army under General Benjamin Lincoln, the siege ultimately led to the British capture of Charleston the following May and the establishment of British control of coastal South Carolina. Hamilton enlisted in the militia at age 16 in 1778 after leaving Charleston and went on to become the future South Carolina Governor and Secretary of the U.S. Navy.
