Bloody Bill Cunningham
Though his family were loyal to the British crown, Cunningham initially enlisted in the Continental Army as part of the State of South Carolina's 3rd regiment in 1775.
When William was 10, the Cunningham family migrated to Ninety-Six, South Carolina, along the Saluda River in 1766, an area known for its fierce Whig-Tory rivalry that occasionally spilled into violence.
The seizure of the fort signaled South Carolina's entry into the Revolutionary War and the beginning of hostilities in the backcountry.
Cunningham's regiment arrived in Ninety-Six on November 19 to support Major Andrew Williamson against a band of Loyalist militia.
[8] However, rebel Colonel Richard Richardson violated the truce, dispatching a fleet of Rangers to surprise a Loyalist party the morning of December 22.
In 1778, he received word that a group of Whigs led by Captain Ritchie had kicked his father out of his house and whipped his invalid brother to death.
In Charleston, Cunningham took command of a regiment numbering somewhere between eighty and three hundred men and set off on the infamous march that became known as the "Bloody Scout".
A small band of patriots, headed by Captains Sterling Turner and James Butler Sr, had been conducting raids against loyalist forces in the backcountry.
Two of his men shot Caldwell and despite crying tears of sadness at his ex-commander's death, Cunningham ordered his house burned to the ground.
Cunningham ordered Hayes to surrender but he refused, believing that reinforcements would arrive in time to assist his outnumbered forces.
[2][10][13]After the massacre at Hayes' Station, the force travelled to present day Union County to the house of prominent Whig John Boyce.
Boyce saw them coming and somehow managed to escape and alert a local militia company led by Captain Christopher Casey.
[14] The Bloody Scout had put the entire Whig population on high alert and forced patriot militias to mobilize against Cunningham.
Brigadier General Andrew Pickens headed a force designed to find and kill Cunningham, who was believed to be hiding out along the Edisto River near Orangeburg.
[15] Not all of the men in Cunningham's Band escaped: one was killed in a fight with rebel pursuers; several were captured and either shot or hanged; one was lynched in 1784.
Spain's provincial government sent him and his cronies to Havana to stand trial in front of the Viceroy who prohibited them from returning to Spanish territory.
[6] William Cunningham's massacres and bloodthirsty disposition during the Bloody Scout made him one of the most infamous figures in South Carolina history.
