posted on Apr, 13 2009 @ 01:20 AM
When I read all of the post deriding the Tea Party movement as mind controlled psychologically unstable robots of the Neo-Con Republican Nazi’s, I
am reminded of the Long Cane Rangers and the skirmish at Long Cane Creek SC on December 13, 1780. Now as to why I should be so reminded, I beg a
moment of forbearance as the reasons should become apparent if granted some small benefit of patience.
You see, being a son of the South I have family across Dixie and have lived in her for most of my life, less time on Uncle Sam’s all expenses paid
world tour and the last few years. Because of this, the legends and deep cultural grace of the South are apart of my soul, and the legend of the
skirmish at Long Cane Creek has held a mystic sway over the way I have viewed the ideals of ‘duty and courage’ my whole life. Many nights I have
sat on the bank of Long Cane Creek by moonlight read and reread the names and ages of the Long Cane Ranger Militia and pondered if they could ever
know how their seemingly insignificant skirmish had set the stage for the victory of liberty in these United States; a skirmish I dare say, most
Americans have never heard of:
In April or May of 1775 when the news of the underlying issues of the beginning flames of the coming Revolution reached the outlying Colonies, a small
militia of 45 ‘men’ from 14 to 47 formed and took the name of the ‘Long Cane Rangers’. Laughed at deridingly by the Colony leaders in
Abbeville SC and the British alike as ‘rabble’ without shoes carrying fowl muskets ‘more dangerous to those behind than in front’, they stayed
together and continued to train.
Then on July 12, 1775 the Long Cane Rangers snuck up and captured Fort Charlotte with all its arms and ammunition in the first act of aggression in
the Revolutionary war; handing the British and Loyalist a humiliating defeat at the hands of the ‘shoeless rabble’ they had had much fun laughing
at. Indeed, the news of the victory lighting Revolutionary fervor throughout South Carolina, bringing ‘farmers with pitch forks’ from all over the
southern back woods into the quickly forming militias.
However, the Patriot militia of the Long Cane Rangers shinning moment in history happened on December 13, 1780 on the banks of the Long Cane Creek in
what is now Sumter National Forest. Barely a hundred ‘men’ at this time, the Rangers lay in wait for a relief column that had been sent by Lord
Cornwallis to Star Fort. Out numbered four to one, they lined the Creek and waited. A Ranger by the name of John Stevens “Aged 16 Year” was among
them.
In late afternoon, the British arrived for what is described as “a skirmish of indeterminate results” that lasted into the late evening. As night
fell, 12 Rangers lay dead on the banks of the Long Cane Creek with 24 British dead and wounded; John Stevens was among the dead Rangers. The Rangers
graves remain close to where they fell in a small long forgotten cemetery just off the banks of the creek.
As I’ve sat by John Stevens’ grave and had a drink of rye for the Fiddlers Green, I’ve often wondered if he knows that the skirmish he died in
kept relief from reaching Fort Star, which was latter besieged by his militia and regular Continentals causing it to be abandoned in 1781; I wonder if
he knows that because of the (now known as) Battle of Long Cane Creek and the abandonment of Fort Star, the British decided they could not control the
out lying areas of the colonies causing their retreat from the South and eventual entrapment at York Town. I wondered if he knew what he had given to
numerous generations of Americans with the gift of his young life; who among us remembers that gift now?
Who among us realizes that John Stevens stood his ground and died as neither a ‘Republican’ nor ‘Democrat’, but as a free man defending
Liberty with his life; he gave his all that we could be free; a down payment in blood for the concepts that would become embodied in the Constitution
of the United States of America. Can we not then put aside all that would divide us and defend the very liberty that so many men and women like John
Stevens have bled and died to give us? Not with pitchforks and muskets, but with one united voice proclaiming that we will not surrender our
Constitutional liberty; we will not allow our national birth right to be sold to some globalist cabal and we will not allow our beloved Constitution
to be ignored any longer.
We must never forget the lesson taught to us by young John Stevens and the Long Cane Rangers; that free men and women who stand their ground unified
in defense of liberty and their families future and welfare are worth countless numbers of governmental thugs; just a few strong of heart, who will
not be moved, can change the course of history. Long Live This Republic!
[edit on 4/13/2009 by SGTChas]