THE QUAKER AND THE GAMECOCK: Nathanael Greene, Thomas Sumter, and the Revolutionary War for the Soul of the South

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As the newly appointed commander of the Southern Continental Army in December 1780, Nathanael Greene quickly realized victory would not only require defeating the British Army, but also subduing the region's divided populace. That included managing South Carolina's determined but unreliable Patriot militia, led by Thomas Sumter, the famed 'Gamecock.' Though Sumter would go on to a long political career, it was as a defiant partisan that he first earned the respect of his fellow back-country settlers, a command that would compete with Greene for status and stature in the Revolutionary War's Southern Campaign.

Greene, born to a devout Quaker family and influenced by the faith's tenets, instinctively understood the war's Southern theater involved complex political, personal, and socio-economic challenges, not just military ones. Though never a master of the battlefield, Greene's mindful leadership style established his historic legacy.

The Quaker and the Gameccock tells the story of these two wildly divergent leaders against the backdrop of the American Revolution's last gasp, the effort to extricate a British occupation force from the wild and lawless South Carolina frontier. Both men needed the other to defeat the British, yet their forceful personalities, divergent leadership styles, and opposing objectives would clash again and again, a fascinating story of our nation's bloody birth that still influences our political culture.