McCord Creek, South Carolina
"The Bloody Scout"
7 December 1781

Captain John Crawford continued his part in the death and destruction during "The Bloody Scout." He rode to General Andrew Pickens’s blockhouse and on the morning of December 7th and surprised a convoy of wagons being guarded by Captain Moses Liddell. Crawford and his Loyalists quickly drove off Liddell’s escorts, killing several of his men. Crawford burned the entire train of wagons and took the waggoners prisoner. Crawford and his men then escaped into the Cherokee Nation.

Crawford turned over the prisoners to the Cherokees who tortured most of them to death. John Pickens, the brother of Andrew Pickens, was one of the captives and was singled out for special torture.

This would be a mistake for the Cherokees. Brigadier General Pickens would exact his revenge against their whole nation in 1782.

Crawford proceeded on to White Hall, the plantation of General Andrew Williamson, which Pickens' militia had turned into a military post. The Tories attacked and defeated the garrison and destroyed the works that the Patriots had constructed. White Hall was situated at a crossroads near Hard Labor Creek; on a modem map it is where state secondary road 156 crosses U.S. 221 seven or eight miles south of Greenwood.⁴⁸ The next objective of the Loyalists took them very near Andrew Pickens' blockhouse, where the town of Abbeville was later established. Just east of McCord Creek on December 7, Crawford surprised a convoy of wagons that had been sent to procure supplies for the use of the Patriots in this area. The Loyalists attacked and drove off Captain Moses Liddell's escort, killing several of his men, burned the entire train of wagons, and made prisoners of the drivers. According to tradition, this skirmish took place in the fork of Long Cane and McCord creeks about three or four miles east of present Abbeville. John Crawford was a Loyalist from the area that is now Abbeville County, and his actions subsequent to the capture of this convoy did not endear him to his former neighbors. The Loyalists escaped into the Cherokee Nation, and Crawford delivered his prisoners over to the Indians, who murdered most of them. Among the captives was John Pickens, the brother of General Andrew Pickens, who is said to have been executed by the Cherokees in typically gruesome Indian fashion.⁴⁹

⁴⁸ The Royal Gazette, January 2, 1782. On White Hall, see Margaret Watson, Greenwood County Sketches, pp. 44-50.
⁴⁹ Draper MSS, 3VVI48, 16VV305-10; 365; Audited Accounts of John Lindsay (AA 4595), George Stringer (AA7471), and James Beard (AA378), South Carolina Archives; Hugh McCall, The History of Georgia, p. 535; Johnson, Life of Greene, vol. 2, pp. 301-2. Two further documents in the South Carolina Archives relate to this incident. In the Annuities for Persons Hurt in the Service of the State, the entry for Martha Coil, widow of Burnet (Barnard) Coil, establishes the date. In the records of the Commissioners of Forfeited Estates, Colonel Robert Anderson's return of enemies of the state from his militia district has John Crawford's name at the very top of the list.

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Submitted by: Patrick O'Kelley.

Confidence level: See above.