Patriots in Exile

A historical study of a little-known episode of the American Revolution in which Charleston residents were held in a British-occupied region of Florida.

In the months following the May 1780 capture of Charleston, South Carolina, by combined British and loyalist forces, British soldiers arrested sixty-three Americans and transported them to the borderland town of St. Augustine, East Florida—territory under British control since the French and Indian War. In Patriots in Exile, James Waring McCrady and C. L. Bragg chronicle the banishment of these southerners, the hardships endured by their families, and the plight of the enslaved men and women who accompanied them.

McCrady and Bragg examine the events from various perspectives, including the British who governed occupied Charleston, the families left behind, the armies in the field, the Continental Congress, and finally the Jacksonboro Assembly of January and February 1782. Using primary sources and archival materials, the authors develop biographical sketches of each exile and illuminate important facets of the American Revolution’s southern theater.

While they shared a common fate, the exiles were a diverse lot of tradesmen, artisans, prominent civilians, military officers, and others—among them three signers of the Declaration of Independence. Although they had clear socioeconomic differences, most were unrepentant patriots forced to navigate complex and dangerous circumstances.