Historic Camden Revolutionary War Site

Historic Camden Revolutionary War Site, is a national historic district and open air museum located in Camden, Kershaw County, South Carolina. The 107-acre site is also known as Historic Camden Revolutionary War Restoration and as the British Revolutionary War Fortifications. The site preserves structures and grounds that are representative of the Southern theater of the American Revolutionary War. Managed by a consortium of private donors and local governments, the area is also an affiliated unit of the National Park Service.

History
Camden was captured and served as the main British supply post from spring 1780 to spring 1781 during the American Revolutionary War, and served as their garrison for two major engagements, the Battle of Camden and Battle of Hobkirk's Hill. At the time, Camden consisted of two city blocks of period homes and military barracks surrounded by a palisade log fence and further protected by five redoubt and three other fortified features (a house, a jail, and a powder magazine) which were placed strategically from 100 to 1000 feet outside the town itself.

The desire to control this territory was great for the British, as Camden was located on a crossroads of the routes to the largest Southern cities of Charleston, South Carolina and Savannah, Georgia. The location of the principal Battle of Camden is nine miles (14 km) north of the site, while several other skirmishes occurred within 20 mi of the town. Between the summers of 1780 and 1781, the British were able to claim victory in many of these assaults, but at the expense of high casualty rates. These costly struggles both weakened the Redcoats as a unit and spurred the momentum of an anti-war movement in the British Isles.

The site was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1969.

Museum
Included within the park are a variety of reconstructed and refurbished structures from the colonial era town site. Many of the restored buildings contain Revolutionary War artifacts recovered from the site.


 * Joseph Kershaw Mansion, a reconstructed and furnished house built in 1977, also known as the Kershaw-Cornwallis House. The original mansion was used as the British headquarters in the Carolinas by General Charles Cornwallis, during an eleven month Redcoat occupation of the town.
 * 1785 John Craven House, restored and furnished
 * 1830 Cunningham House, which houses the tour office and gift shop
 * two circa-1800 log houses with exhibits about the war and the Colonial era
 * reconstructions of some of the military fortifications
 * a blacksmith exhibit