A Patriotic Family Road Trip in South Carolina

South Carolina State House

Columbia, SC

Six bronze stars on the Columbia capitol's exterior mark exactly where Union cannonballs struck the building during Sherman's March.

Fort Sumter National Monument

Charleston, SC

The harbor fort where the first shots of the Civil War were fired on April 12, 1861.

Kings Mountain National Military Park

Blacksburg, SC

The ridge where Patriot militia from the Carolinas, Virginia and over the mountains destroyed a Loyalist force on October 7, 1780.

Cowpens National Battlefield

Gaffney, SC

The field of Daniel Morgan's January 17, 1781 victory over Banastre Tarleton, a turning point of the Southern campaign.

Musgrove Mill State Historic Site

Clinton, SC

The site of the August 19, 1780 battle in which Patriot militia defeated a larger Loyalist force days after the disaster at Camden.

Charleston Historic District

Charleston, SC

Rainbow Row, the Battery, and blocks of preserved eighteenth-century streetscape.

Congaree National Park

Hopkins, SC

The largest old-growth bottomland hardwood forest left in the country.

Poinsett Bridge

Travelers Rest, SC

A stone bridge with a Gothic arch built in 1820 on the State Road, the oldest bridge in South Carolina.

Fort Hill

Clemson, SC

The plantation home of John C. Calhoun, vice president and senator, on the campus of Clemson University.

Brookgreen Gardens

Murrells Inlet, SC

A sculpture garden founded in 1931 by Archer and Anna Hyatt Huntington on four former rice plantations, a National Historic Landmark.

Atalaya Castle

Murrells Inlet, SC

The Moorish-style winter home of the Huntingtons, built in the 1930s inside Huntington Beach State Park.

Hobcaw Barony

Georgetown, SC

The coastal estate of financier Bernard Baruch, where President Franklin Roosevelt stayed for a month in 1944.

Mitchelville Freedom Park

Hilton Head Island, SC

The site of Mitchelville, founded in 1862 as the first self-governed town of freed people in the United States.

Reconstruction Era National Historical Park

Beaufort, SC

Sites including the Penn Center on St. Helena Island, one of the first schools for formerly enslaved people, founded in 1862.

Andrew Jackson State Park

Lancaster, SC

A park and museum near the Waxhaws, where Andrew Jackson was born in 1767 and served as a boy courier in the Revolution.

Historic Brattonsville

McConnells, SC

A plantation village and Revolutionary War site where Patriot militia routed a Loyalist force at Huck's Defeat in July 1780.

Fort Moultrie

Sullivan's Island, SC

The palmetto-log fort that repelled the British fleet on June 28, 1776, the origin of the palmetto on the state flag.

Walnut Grove Plantation

Roebuck, SC

A 1765 backcountry home where Loyalist raiders killed a Patriot officer in 1781, with the family's school and doctor's office.

Hampton Plantation State Historic Site

McClellanville, SC

An 18th-century rice plantation house where George Washington was received in 1791 on his Southern tour.

Hopsewee

Georgetown, SC

The 1740 birthplace of Thomas Lynch Jr., a signer of the Declaration of Independence.

Middleton Place

Charleston, SC

The estate of the Middleton family, including Arthur Middleton, a signer of the Declaration, with the oldest landscaped gardens in America.

Charles Pinckney National Historic Site

Mount Pleasant, SC

The remnant of Snee Farm, country home of Charles Pinckney, a framer and signer of the Constitution.

Old Exchange and Provost Dungeon

Charleston, SC

A 1771 customs house where South Carolina ratified the Constitution in 1788 and Patriots were held by the British in the cellar.

Drayton Hall

Charleston, SC

A Palladian house completed around 1750, the oldest preserved plantation house in America open to the public, kept unrestored.

Patriots Point Naval & Maritime Museum

Mount Pleasant, SC

The aircraft carrier USS Yorktown, the destroyer Laffey and the Medal of Honor Museum on Charleston Harbor.

H.L. Hunley Submarine

North Charleston, SC

The Confederate submarine that became the first to sink an enemy warship in 1864, raised in 2000 and conserved on view.

Myrtle Beach Air Force Base Warbird Park

Myrtle Beach, SC

A memorial park on the former Myrtle Beach Air Force Base, with aircraft that once flew from the field.

Parris Island Museum

Parris Island, SC

The museum of Marine Corps Recruit Depot Parris Island, where East Coast Marines have trained since 1915. Visitors need photo ID at the gate.

Shoeless Joe Jackson Museum

Greenville, SC

The restored house of baseball great "Shoeless" Joe Jackson, moved beside Fluor Field.

Campbell's Covered Bridge

Landrum, SC

A 1909 covered bridge over Beaverdam Creek, the last remaining covered bridge in South Carolina.

Upcountry History Museum

Greenville, SC

A Furman University museum of the South Carolina Upcountry, from the Cherokee and the Revolution to the textile era.

Rice Museum

Georgetown, SC

A museum in the 1842 Old Market Building telling how rice made Georgetown County one of the richest places in colonial America.

Horry County Museum

Conway, SC

A county history museum in downtown Conway, with the L.W. Paul Living History Farm a short drive away.

Beaufort National Cemetery

Beaufort, SC

A national cemetery established by Abraham Lincoln in 1863, with Union and Confederate soldiers and the remains of the 54th Massachusetts.