General Andrew Pickens: Ring Fight!

A tall and bronzed militia captain named Andrew Pickens led his scouts steadily forward to the unseen enemy. The captain and his men were part of a punitive expedition that was pushing deep into Cherokee territory in the uplands of South Carolina. The captain and his men were acting as scouts for the main body of men that were coming behind.

It was the summer of 1776, and the newly independent colony of South Carolina was being squeezed between an eastern British naval invasion in Charleston and a savage Cherokee uprising in the western backcountry. While heroes like Francis Marion and William Moultrie were dealing with the British threat, other brave men like Pickens were defending the western settlements from brutal Indian attacks against women and children.

As Captain Pickens led his twenty-five men through an old cornfield and uphill toward a wooded ridge, they were suddenly assaulted by about 200 Cherokee braves that had set up a clever ambush. The Indians saw that they had the militia outnumbered almost 8 to 1, and they dashed forward with knives and tomahawks from all directions to kill and scalp the American riflemen.

Surprised and surrounded on all sides, Andrew Pickens kept his cool. He was no stranger to frontier combat.  He was not a man to run away without a fight. He calmly ordered his men to form a ring. Surrounded on all sides, the 25 riflemen calmly waited the orders of their leader. He told them to hold their fire till he himself opened on the enemy, then half of them would fire and drop into the grass to reload while the other half stayed standing to keep up a steady fire.

The assaulting savages got within 30 feet of the ring before Andrew Pickens shot an Indian dead. Rifles blazed, and more Indians fell. The astonished Cherokee warriors hesitated. Seeing some militia fall, they mistakenly thought the Americans were giving up. Then the riflemen popped back up again and hot lead poured out of their ready muzzles. Unable to break into the ring with tomahawks, the Indians ran for their own guns. Facing outward, the militia fought calmly on, following the example of their captain. Eventually, reinforcements arrived, drawn by the sound of the firing. It was Pickens’ brother, Joseph, leading a fresh party of militia and hurrying them along with some vehement language!

By the time the fight was over, Pickens had lost 11 of his brave men. But the Indians had lost 75 warriors in the uneven battle known today as the “Ring Fight.” Andrew Pickens, a pious and consistent Christian, rather than basking in the victory, took the opportunity to firmly scold his brother for the use of profanity as he had been urging the reinforcements into place.

Andrew Pickens was born in 1739. He was descended from Scots-Irish and Huguenot forefathers. He learned early to work hard on his father’s farm, and learned the ways of the woods. He was a skilled hunter and a good farmer. While still a teenager, he gained his first experience fighting Indians. While the Cherokee were on the warpath, a wagon carrying the Calhoun family got stuck in the mud while crossing the creek. The family was murdered by savages that swooped out of the woods and upon the defenseless family. A fourteen-year-old girl named Becky Calhoun managed to escape and hid in a cane break where she, the sole survivor, witnessed the massacre of her family.

Andrew Pickens deeply admired the beautiful Becky, and love between the two young people blossomed and matured over the coming years. They were married as soon as the Cherokee uprising settled down. Pickens set about the life of a farmer. Andrew and Becky were blessed with 12 children over the span of many years. They called the plantation they built together “Hopewell.” The Godly farmer also established a church, which met for many years under a spreading chestnut tree on his plantation until a more permanent meeting house was constructed. Pickens also built and maintained a stockade for defense against the Indians.

When Britain, the mother country, invaded South Carolina, Andrew Pickens was a firm and committed Patriot. He was trusted by his friends and neighbors and quickly was made a captain in the local militia. His calm courage at the Ring Fight in 1776 gave him a lasting esteem among his men. Pickens was soon made a Colonel. The Indians also respected Pickens, calling him Skyagunsta, which means “Wise Owl.” The American militia called him “The Fighting Elder.”

Pickens distinguished himself in engagements like the Battle of Kettle Creek. A massive setback to the Patriot cause, however, came in 1780 when the British combined land and naval assault against Charleston led to the capitulation of the garrison. Colonel Pickens surrendered a fort in the Ninety-Six district and was paroled as a prisoner of war, allowed to go home and farm, but forbidden to take up arms.

But when Tory raiders threatened his wife and family, destroying property on Hopewell plantation, Colonel Pickens took up arms again, contending rightly that the British had violated the terms of the parole. Along with Thomas Sumter and Francis Marion, Pickens kept the flames of hope alive during the dark days when the British ran at will through South Carolina.

At the Battle of the Cowpens, when Daniel Morgan decisively defeated Banastre Tarleton, it was Pickens who was placed in charge of the American militia. The “Fighting Elder” proved that he could stand up to the British dragoons with as much courage as he faced the Indians. His leadership at the Cowpens earned him a promotion to general and a beautiful sword presented by Congress as a token of thanks.

Pickens fought on till the end of the war, participating in all the battles up to the final victory at Eutaw Springs. He then went home to his beloved Hopewell and a hero’s welcome. He was elected to serve in the South Carolina legislature and went on to become a delegate to the Constitutional Convention and then served in the US House of Representatives.

His friends and neighbors trusted him just as they had at the ring fight to be their leader and spokesman. One of his sons and later a grandson went on to be governors of South Carolina in their own generations. Andrew Pickens, still known as Skyagunsta “The Wise Owl” by the Indians, had earned and kept their respect over many long years. He was no Indian hater, and he always dealt truly and justly with the Cherokee, earning their friendship. He was instrumental in crafting several enduring treaties, some of which were negotiated on his own plantation.

He spent his final years reading his Bible and watching his grandchildren playing in the fields at Hopewell, frolicking joyfully in the fields that he had fought long and hard to free. Right after his noon meal one afternoon at the age of 78, he went outside to sit on his porch. There he died, surveying the domestic scenes he loved best.

“The Fighting Elder” was a man of peace who was willing when necessary to take up arms to defend a righteous cause. His character and example stand the test of time. We need brave men like him today, men who when surrounded by the enemy are not dismayed or awed into cowardly flight.         

Andrew Pickens and his example at the “ring fight” reminds us that whenever we as God’s people are surrounded and outnumbered, rather than giving way to fear we should stand back to back with friends and neighbors, brother and cousins, and fight!  Nehemiah exhorted the men of Judah, “Be not ye afraid of them: remember the Lord, which is great and terrible, and fight for your brethren, your sons, and your daughters, your wives, and your houses” (Nehemiah 4:14). Andrew Pickens did exactly that. May God give us the grace, when we are surrounded by a savage enemy, to do the same.

Drawn from: Andrew Pickens: South Carolina Patriot in the Revolutionary War  by William Reynolds

With gratitude for inspiration and encouragement from my brother, Stephen Huffman Esq, who has researched the Pickens family extensively