Gen. Andrew Pickens, U.S. Congressman

A Patriot of the American Revolution for SOUTH CAROLINA with the rank of BRIGADIER GENERAL. DAR Ancestor # A090968

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Pickens_(congressman%29

Andrew Pickens (September 13, 1739 – August 11, 1817) was a militia leader in the American Revolution and a member of the United States House of Representatives from South Carolina.

Early life

Pickens was born in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, the son of Scots-Irish immigrants, Andrew Pickens, Sr. and Anne (née Davis). His great grandfather was Robert Andrew Pickens (Picon) and his great-grandmother however was Esther-Jeanne Bonneau of South Carolina and La Rochelle, France.

In 1752 his family moved to the Waxhaws on the South Carolina frontier. He sold his farm there in 1764 and bought land in Abbeville County, South Carolina near the Georgia border.

He established the Hopewell Plantation on the Seneca River, at which several treaties with Native Americans were held, each called the Treaty of Hopewell. Just across the river was the Cherokee town of Isunigu ("Seneca").

Andrew Pickens' grave marker at Old Stone Church cemetery[edit] Military career

He served in the Anglo-Cherokee War in 1760–1761. When the Revolutionary War started, he sided with the rebel militia, and was made a captain. He rose to the rank of Brigadier General during the war.

On February 14, 1779, he was part of the militia victory at the Battle of Kettle Creek in Georgia.

Pickens was captured at the Siege of Charleston on 1780. He saw action at the Battle of Cowpens, Siege of Augusta, Siege of Ninety-Six, and the Battle of Eutaw Springs.

Pickens also led a campaign in north Georgia against the Cherokee Indians late in the war. His victorious campaign led to the Cherokees ceding significant portions of land between the Savannah and Chattachoochee rivers in the Long Swamp Treaty signed in what is currently Pickens County, Georgia. Pickens was well regarded by Native Americans that he dealt with and was given the name Skyagunsta, "The Wizard Owl."

He and three hundred of his men went home to sit out the war on parole.

Pickens' parole did not last however. After ry raiders destroyed most of his property and frightened his family, he informed the British that they had violated the terms of parole and rejoined the war. Ironically, Sumter also resumed fighting under similar circumstances. Pickens was soon operating in the Ninety-Six District. During this period of the war, Pickens would join Francis Marion and Thomas Sumter as the most well-known partisan leaders in the Carolinas.

Cowpens, South Carolina: January 17, 1781:

At the Battle of foster Cowpens, Brig. General Daniel Morgan gave Pickens command of the militia, which played a key role in the battle. On the evening of January 16, Morgan personally instructed the militia to hold its ground while firing two rounds and then retreat. On the morning of January 17, Pickens and the militia carried out the plan perfectly, which led Lt. Colonel Banastre Tarleton and British to believe that the militia was fleeing. The British blinding charged ahead and were drawn into a double flanking and soundly defeated. .Following Cowpens, South Carolina Governor John Rutledge promoted Pickens to brigadier general. He would also be awarded a sword by Congress.

Augusta, Georgia: May 22-June 5, 1781:

Pickens' militia was soon recalled to defend their own homes and so he missed the Battle of Guilford Courthouse on March 15, 1781. In April, he raised a regiments of state regulars. In May 1781, Maj. General Nathanael Greene sent Pickens and Lt. Colonel Henry Lee to support Elijah Clarke in operations against Augusta, Georgia. The siege began on May 22 and after maneuvering, securing outposts and the cutting off of reinforcements by the Patriots, Colonel Thomas Brown surrendered Augusta on June 5, 1781.

Ninety-Six, South Carolina: May 22-June 19, 1781:

Following the surrender of Augusta, Pickens and Lt. Colonel Lee joined General Greene in his siege at Ninety-Six, South Carolina. Greene had begun his siege on May 22, 1781, the same day that Augusta had been besieged. On June 11, Greene ordered Pickens and Lt. Colonel William Washington to aid Thomas Sumter in blocking a relief column led by Lord Rawdon. However, Sumter instead moved to Fort Granby, allowing Rawdon to make his way to Ninety-Six. On June 19, Greene had to give up the siege and retreat after a failed assault.

Family and death

He married Rebecca Floride Calhoun in 1765. They had 12 children, including Andrew Pickens who later became governor of South Carolina. He was also an uncle of Floride Calhoun, the wife of John C. Calhoun.

Andrew Pickens died near Tamassee, South Carolina in Oconee County, on August 11, 1817. He is buried at Old Stone Church Cemetery in Clemson, South Carolina.

Memorials

Fort Pickens in Florida is named in his honor as is Pickens County, Alabama, Pickens County, Georgia, and Pickens and Pickens County in his adopted home state of South Carolina.

Pickens was a 7th great grandfather of former Senator and 2008 presidential candidate John Edwards.

He is also the namesake of Pickens High School.

The Patriot

Pickens and his actions served as one of the sources for the fictional character of Benjamin Martin in The Patriot, a motion picture released in 2000

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https://www.scencyclopedia.org/sce/entries/pickens-andrew/

Soldier, legislator, congressman. Pickens was born in Paxtang Township, Pennsylvania, on September 19, 1739, the son of Andrew Pickens and Ann Davis. His family was among the Huguenots and Scots-Irish that settled in Northern Ireland and then migrated to Pennsylvania. After moving southward, the Pickens family eventually settled on Waxhaw Creek, South Carolina, by 1752. The young Pickens commenced his military service as a company grade officer in the Cherokee War of 1759–1761. After the hostilities, he moved to the Long Canes area of western South Carolina and married Rebecca Calhoun on March 19, 1765. The couple had twelve children. This marriage formed ties with several prominent upcountry families.

During the Revolutionary War, Pickens became one of the most significant leaders of patriot forces in the South Carolina backcountry. He initially served as a militia company commander for Ninety Six District and campaigned against Tories in late 1775. By 1778 he had attained the rank of colonel of the Upper Ninety Six Regiment and had participated in expeditions against the British-allied Cherokees and the unsuccessful American invasion of East Florida. The most severe check of the Loyalists in the backcountry came on February 14, 1779, when patriots crushed the Loyalist force at Kettle Creek, Georgia. After the surrender of Charleston, Pickens took British protection and was paroled to his home. He renounced protection, however, when the British failed to prevent a Loyalist band from plundering his plantation. At the Battle of Cowpens on January 17, 1781, Pickens was in charge of the South Carolina militia during the decisive victory over Lieutenant Colonel Banastre Tarleton’s British forces. Afterward, Pickens was named a brigadier general by Governor John Rutledge and cooperated with General Nathanael Greene’s objective of isolating British posts in the South Carolina interior. Wounded at the Battle of Eutaw Springs in September 1781, Pickens recovered to wage two more punitive campaigns against the Cherokees in mid-1782.

After the war, Pickens served as both a legislator and a negotiator with the Native Americans. He represented Ninety Six District in the state House of Representatives from 1776 to 1788 and Pendleton District in the state Senate from 1790 to 1793. He resigned his Senate seat upon his election to the U.S. House of Representatives, where he served from 1793 to 1795. As a legislator, Pickens worked to establish schools, churches, and a legal system for the South Carolina backcountry. A recognized expert on Indian affairs, Pickens served as a federal commissioner to negotiate peace independently with the Cherokees, Chickasaws, Choctaws, and Creeks in the late 1780s and eventually negotiated a firm peace with the Treaty of Coleraine in 1796. The following year he and Benjamin Hawkins surveyed most of the southern boundary line between the United States and the Indian nations.

Pickens served two more terms in the General Assembly from 1796 to 1799, representing Pendleton District. He retired to his plantation Tamassee in 1805, coming out only briefly in 1812 when elected to a final term in the General Assembly to prepare South Carolina for war. He died at Tamassee on August 11, 1817, and was buried at the Old Stone Presbyterian Church.

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Chattanooga Quarterly 2004

Who Was General Andrew Pickens Reprinted with permission from the U.S. Forest Service

General Andrew Pickens, the “Wizard Owl”

Long before Harry Potter, the upstate of South Carolina had it’s own Wizard Owl. Known by the Cherokee as Skyagunsta, or the Wizard Owl as a tribute to his skill as a warrior, General Andrew Pickens played an important role in the history of the state and the nation. Pickens, the stern old Presbyterian, was also known as the “Fighting Elder.” He was a veteran Indian fighter and took part in several decisive battles with the British during the American Revolution including the battle of Cowpens that turned the tide of war in favor of the Americans. He, along with Thomas Sumter, the “Gamecock,” and Francis Marion, the “Swamp Fox,” were the fathers of the guerilla tactics that enabled the outgunned and out numbered American army to defeat the larger and better equipped British forces. Pickens was viewed by some historians as a courageous hero and by others as one who exploited the Cherokee, killing them and burning their villages as a soldier, while at the same time amassing a personal fortune in Indian trade. Paradoxical as his life may have seemed, an elder and a warrior, a farmer and a trader, respected by the Cherokee as a soldier and yet their enemy, Pickens nonetheless was a tactical genius and a man of true courage. Here is a brief history of General Andrew Pickens, the Wizard Owl, whose life has left an indelible mark on our culture and our history.

General Andrew Pickens is the namesake for the mountain district of the Sumter National Forest in the northwest corner of South Carolina. An able commander of South Carolina rebel militia during the American Revolution, Pickens was born near Paxtang, Pennsylvania, of Scots Irish immigrants. His family moved south to the Waxhaws with other Scots Irish families in the mid 1700s. Andrew Pickens served in the Cherokee War of 1760-1761 and was an officer in a provincial regiment that accompanied Colonel James Grant and British regulars in an expedition against the Lower Cherokee towns in 1761. He moved in 1764 to the Long Cane Creek settlement in Abbeville County where he married Rebecca Calhoun, aunt of John C. Calhoun. In 1768, Pickens built a blockhouse at the future location of Abbeville, to defend against Indian attack and to serve as his base for the Indian trading business.

Pickens, an elder in the Presbyterian Church, was described as a severe, dour, Scots Irishman of few words. He fathered six children. Much of his future wealth was built on trade with the Cherokees. He was also a farmer, justice of the peace, and church leader at the outbreak of the Revolution. He became a captain of rebel militia under Andrew Williamson at Ninety Six in 1775 and took part in the 1775 Snow Campaign against loyalist militia in the piedmont. A majority of the settlers in the back country remained loyal to the king or did not support rebellion.

The Cherokees attacked several settlements along the frontier and killed many settlers in July 1776. Captain Andrew Pickens led militiamen from the Long Canes in Williamson's expedition to burn the Lower Cherokee towns in northern South Carolina. The settlements of Essenecca (Seneca), Tomassee, Jocassee, Estatoe, Tugaloo, Brass Town, Cane Creek, Chehohee, Qualhatchee, Toxaway, Chittitogo, Sugar Town, Keowee, and others were destroyed. Andrew Pickens was leading a detachment of 25 men to destroy Tamassee when they were attacked by a large Cherokee force estimated at over 150 men and surrounded in an open field. The militiamen formed a small circle and fired out at the surrounding Indians in what came to be called the “Ring Fight.” Pickens won the fight after being reinforced. Following the destruction of the Lower Cherokee towns, Williamson conducted a campaign into Georgia and North Carolina to destroy the Cherokee Valley Towns. Andrew Pickens was elected major for this expedition. Williamson's forces fought five battles with the Cherokees and destroyed 32 towns and villages in the Lower and Valley settlements.

Major Pickens served in General Williamson’s army in 1778 in a failed attempt to take British St. Augustine. In the spring of 1778, he was appointed colonel of the Regiment of Ninety Six South Carolina Militia. The British occupied Augusta and were recruiting loyalist troops in the western piedmont when Andrew Pickens’ militia surprised and defeated a loyalist force of 700 men gathered at Kettle Creek about 50 miles northwest of Augusta. The British were forced to withdraw from Augusta and serious efforts by them to control the back country were suspended until the fall of Charleston in 1780. After Charleston was surrendered to the British, Andrew Pickens, along with many other rebel leaders accepted parole and British rule.

When loyalists burned his home and plundered his property in late 1780, Pickens informed the British that they had violated the terms of his parole and he was rejoining the rebels. He was soon leading operations in the vicinity of Ninety Six and over to Georgia. Pickens cooperated well with Continental forces. He was in charge of the South Carolina militia at the Battle of Cowpens in January 1781. There, with Continental troops under General Daniel Morgan, the rebels won a great victory over British regulars commanded by Colonel Banastre Tarleton. Following the Battle at Cowpens, Andrew Pickens command worked with the Continental Army under Nathaniel Greene in North Carolina.

After the Battle at Weitzel’s Mill, Andrew Pickens’ South Carolina and Georgia militia were called home from North Carolina to defend local rebel interests and missed the major battle at Guilford Courthouse. General Pickens worked with Colonel Elijah Clarke in harassing British forces in the area between Ninety Six and Augusta. The British in Augusta surrendered to Pickens, Clarke, and Continental troops under Colonel “Light Horse Harry” Lee in April 1781. The Star Fort at Ninety Six withstood a siege and attack by General Greene and the Continental Army in June. As Greene withdrew from Ninety Six, he instructed Pickens to harass the enemy and most importantly keep peace between the rebels and loyalists in the back country. In July the British destroyed the fort and village at Ninety Six and withdrew south.

See mountain picture under "pictures"

Pickens Nose is a 4,900 ft. mountain that lies on an ancient Indian trail near Rabun Gap, where Pickens once fought the Cherokee.

As the British withdrew, Andrew Pickens gave strict orders to his men to observe justice, and restore peace and order. He soon joined General Nathaniel Greene who was moving to attach the British under Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Stewart on the Santee River. At the Battle of Eutaw Springs on September 8, Pickens was shot off of his horse by a bullet which hit the buckle of his sword belt. He was not seriously wounded, but the wound troubled him in later years. The battle ended in a draw.

In September, while General Pickens was recuperating from his wound, the Cherokees attacked settlements on the western frontier. With the withdrawal of the British Army, Governor Rutledge moved to re-establish civil government in South Carolina. In January 1782, Andrew Pickens became a member of the South Carolina General Assembly. Recovered from his wound, in March 1782, Pickens led a force again against the Lower Cherokees and burned several villages in Oconee County.

In 1785, he met with the Cherokee at the Treaty of Hopewell where the Indians ceded their lands to the state.

In 1787, Pickens moved to Seneca and his plantation at Hopewell. About 1802, he moved to the site of the former Cherokee Village Tomassee, near where he had the “ring fight” in 1776 and built a plantation which he named after the village. Pickens lived at Tamassee until 1817. He remained an elder in the Presbyterian Church and was the first United States congressman from the Pendleton District.

The Andrew Pickens Ranger District was named after this early South Carolina military and political leader. His final home at Tamassee is located at the eastern edge of the district. The General Pickens District began with land acquired in 1914 in what was called the Savannah Purchase Unit under the authority of the 1911 Weeks Act. It became part of the Sumter National Forest by presidential proclamation in 1936.

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Andrew Pickens By G. Scott Withrow, Park Ranger

Andrew Pickens was born in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, on September 19, 1739. Like many of the Scots-Irish1, Andrew and his family moved south, traveling the Great Wagon Road2 in search of new land. Records show they lived first in Augusta County in the Shenandoah3 Valley of Virginia, later in the Waxhaw4 settlement along the North Carolina-South Carolina border, and, eventually, in the Long Cane5 settlement in Abbeville County, South Carolina, bordering Georgia.

It was in the Long Canes that young Andrew Pickens would marry and begin a family. He not only farmed and raised cattle as many of the other Scots-Irish; he became acquainted with his Indian neighbors through a prosperous trading business. As the American Revolution approached feelings were strong in the South from the start, its inhabitants split between Patriots6 and Loyalists7 (or Whigs and Tories). Pickens, as many of his Scots-Irish neighbors, was an ardent Patriot.

It was in the Long Canes, too, that he emerged as a military leader, first in expeditions against the Cherokee, who had allied with the Loyalists in hopes of retaining their lands. In 1779, Pickens was to distinguish himself in a Revolutionary War battle. That year, British commander Sir Henry Clinton sent British soldiers to South Carolina and North Georgia to encourage Loyalist support. Colonel Pickens and his three-hundred man militia, in efforts to aid the Patriot cause, overtook and defeated a much larger force of 700-800 men under Colonel Boyd at Kettle Creek in North Georgia just south of the Long Canes.

The victory at Kettle Creek slowed the recruitment of Loyalists, but by 1780, the British dominated as they took Charleston, captured the southern continental army, and swept inland from coastal Carolina. The situation looked gloomy -- so much so -that Pickens and other militia leaders surrendered to the British, and, on oath, agreed to sit out the war under British protection.

Pickens’ parole was not to last, however. When Tory raiders destroyed much of his property and frightened his family, he gathered his militia once again and resumed guerilla activities against the British. He was soon to play a key role in defeating British Colonel Tarleton at the Battle of Cowpens, January 17, 1781. The victory came at a crucial time for Patriots in the South who had been repeatedly forced to retreat. Andrew Pickens, who with his militia, arrived as reinforcements, urged Morgan to make a stand. According to one source, Pickens offered to stand alone with his militia if necessary.

Morgan was convinced to make a stand and relied heavily on Pickens’ militia in the ensuing battle. The militia, in fact, got off two shots before their planned retreat, something not done in previous battles, and reformed to help envelop the enemy. The bravery of the militia, combined with the well-disciplined Continental troops and William Washington’s cavalry, won the day in the battle that turned the tide for American forces in the south.

After the Revolution, Pickens acquired land in frontier South Carolina on the banks of the Keowee River, across from the old Cherokee town of Seneca. There, he built a house he called Hopewell and lived life as part of the backcountry elite. There, too, he served as a political middleman between the Cherokees and the new American nation and sympathized with Indian causes in his later years. Andrew Pickens borrowed heavily from Cherokee warfare skills and used those skills in partisan warfare including the courageous and brilliant victory at Cowpens. For his "spirited conduct" at Cowpens, the Continental Congress presented Pickens with a sword and the State of South Carolina promoted him to Brigadier-General in the state militia.

Glossary

1 Scots-Irish – Scottish Calvinists (Presbyterian) of Lowland (southern) Scotland who removed to Ireland and later migrated to America in the early eighteenth century. In many instances, they were seen as frontier people and served as a buffer between the colonies and Indians. They played an important role in the Revolutionary War.

2 Great Wagon Road – A wagon road stretching from Philadelphia, south to the Carolinas, used by countless pioneer families traveling south from the early 1700s to the Civil War.

3 Shenandoah – Shenandoah is often translated as "Daughter of the Stars" (from Native-American origins). The Shenandoah Valley was described as prairie-like because of Native-American use of fire as a hunting tool.

4 Waxhaws - A number of theories exist for the origin of the word Waxhaws.

  1. Named after the Waxhaw Indians, the word "Waxhaw", not translated;

  2. Anglicized word referring to the Waxhaw Indians and also meaning: The Waxhaws were named for the waxy-looking haw and "hawfields", prominent because of Native-American use of fire. 

The Waxhaw settlement was just off the Great Wagon Road, including today, parts of both Carolinas in an area southeast of Charlotte.

5 Long Cane – The Long Canes were named for the native canes that grew and formed dense canebrakes in the bottomlands. Again, these were sustained through Native-American use of fire as a cultural tool. The Scots-Irish settlement there inherited a region full of deer and other game, including the Buffalo. Because of its proximity to the trading path to the Indian village of Keowee, Long Cane, more than any other settlement, was an intercultural settlement. The Long Cane settlement was in present-day Abbeville County.

6 Patriots (Whigs) – Those Americans who supported the colonists against Britain in the American Revolution.

7 Loyalists (Tories) – Those Americans loyal to Britain in the American Revolution.

Bibliography

Babits, Lawrence E. A Devil of a Whipping – The Battle of Cowpens. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1998. *

Bearss, Edwin C. Battle of Cowpens: A Documented Narrative and Troop Movement Maps. Johnson City, Tennessee: The Overmountain Press, 1996. *

Boatner, Mark M. Encyclopedia of the American Revolution. Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania: Stackpole Books, 1994. *

Buchanan, John. The Road to Guilford Courthouse: The American Revolution in the Carolinas. New York: John Wiley and Sons, Inc., 1997. *

Hatley, Tom. The Dividing Paths: Cherokees and South Carolinians Through the Revolutionary Era. New York: Oxford University Press, 1995. *

Hilborn, Nat and Sam. Battleground of Freedom. Columbia, South Carolina: Sandlapper Press, Inc., 1970.

Ketchum, Richard M. The American Heritage Book of the Revolution. New York: American Heritage Publishing Co., Inc., 1971.

Majtenyi, Joan E. Andrew Pickens. Oconee County Historical Society, 1992.

Morrill, Dan L. Southern Campaigns of the American Revolution. Baltimore: The Nautical and Aviation Publishing Company of America, 1992. *

Moss, Bobby Gilmer. The Patriots at the Cowpens. Revised Edition. Blacksburg, South Carolina: Scotia Press, 1994. *

National Park Service. Cowpens – Official National Park Handbook. Washington, D. C.: Division of Publications, National Park Service, U. S. Department of the Interior, 1988. Also titled as Downright Fighting, The Story of Cowpens by Thomas J. Fleming. *

Skelton, Lynda Worley. General Andrew Pickens: An Autobiography. Pendleton, South Carolina: Pendleton District Historical and Recreational Commission, 1976.

• Available for purchase at Cowpens National Battlefield Visitors Center. Online bookstore.

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