Patriots: the Carolina Gamecock

Thomas Sumter (1734-1832) was one tough fellow.  He outlived all of my other patriots in this segment, surving to his 97th year!  He was the son of a Welsh immigrant, who settled in Virginia.  He was gifted in diplomacy, and grew to work well with the Cherokee Nation, along with his friend and fellow Virginian Brigadier General Joseph Martin, Jr.  I believe that the company hired to write the spoiler for The Patriot left out Martin's name in the list of men who inspired the film's hero.  Both Thomas and Joseph learned a great deal from the Cherokee, having a taste for warfare over the quiet and peaceful life of a planter.  Each fought first in the French and Indian War, and later in the Revolutionary War. 

The story goes that at the end of the Cherokee Campaign Thomas Sumter went with a Cherokee chief, Henry Timberlake, an interpreter, and a servant to the Overhill villages of the Cherokee Nation, at the request of the Chief.  Chief "Old Hop" lead them to the villages in the cold, to prove to them that the Cherokee and the British were at peace.  The journey itself cost them for provisions and later horses to get back to Virginia, and the bill was footed by Thomas.  He went to London briefly, and then took a boat to South Carolina.  He asked the British army for reimbursement for his money spent in the Cherokee Campaign, but instead they locked him in jail.  His friend, Joseph Martin, came to see him, and slipped him some money and a Cherokee tomahawk.   Did Thomas Sumter raise hell and escape from the jail, or did he pay the bill and walk out free?  Where facts are few, it's best to use your imagination.  I see it as one of those "choose your own adventure" novels.  But you must remember, by this time, Thomas was fluent in the Cherokee dialects and warfare.  He knew how to use that tomahawk.  He and Joseph Martin would meet again 30 years later, and Thomas would repay him.

Brigadier General Joseph Martin, Jr.

Thomas Sumter married a wealthy widow, just as Benjamin Martin did in The Patriot, and had several businesses and plantations.  His neighbor?  Francis Marion. 

I would like to portray Thomas Sumter as a spirited, no-holds-barred type of soldier.  He is, afterall, the original gamecock.  Lord Cornwallis himself would call Sumter his "greatest plague" because Sumter came at him with all of his might, unhindered by his own small stature. 
"Tho he be little, he be fierce."  -Shakespeare
Here was the man who rose to the rank of General, and commanded the militias which drove Cornwallis out of South Carolina and into the coast of Virginia, to Yorktown, where Cornwallis was forced to surrender. 

Cornwallis's surrender at Yorktown

Thomas, and later his son, would serve in Congress and as a Senator in South Carolina.  I worked at the fort in the mouth of Charleston's harbor, which was named for him, and in his grandchildren's lifetime would host the beginning of the Civil War.  I am not related to the Old Gamecock, but 2 outta 5 ain't bad.