implements, blacksmith tools, kitchenware, cannons, and cannonballs.
In fact, most of the cannonballs used in the siege of Charleston came from Hill’s furnaces – which the colonists, not surprisingly, tried very hard to protect.
Unsuccessfully.
In June 1780, the British burned the ironworks. Hill lost his house, grain mills, saw mills, tenant houses, and 90 tenants.
Hill also lost his partner. Not long after, the British decreed that Hayne had “broken parole” – and hanged him.1
Force 10 from Brattonsville
The perpetrators of much of this mayhem were a troop of British light cavalry commanded by Captain Christian Huck. Huck was a Pennsylvania Loyalist and Philadelphia lawyer whose property had been confiscated after the British evacuation of that city. He was actually banished from the Keystone State, and made his way to New York, where he joined the British Army.2
Now Huck was operating in South Carolina. And historians like biographer Michael C. Scoggins say he had a particular hatred for the Scotch-Irish Presbyterians who made up a lot of the populace in that region’s backcountry.3 Most of those colonists were Whigs – what the British contemptuously referred to as “rebels” – and Captain Huck took great pleasure in the abuse, destruction, and death his troops engaged in. Indeed, it was his group that leveled Hill’s ironworks – and burned his home.
On the night of July 11, 1780, near what is now the town of Brattonsville, South Carolina, the same William Hill we’ve been talking about found himself spending the night out in the open.. under the stars.
It was hot. And muggy. And Hill was worried – scared even – wondering what the morning would bring.
At least, he thought, his family was safe. After losing his home, Hill stashed his family in the nearby log hut of a friendly neighbor.
And waited for dawn.
Just before first light, Captain William Hill and his ragtag band of local militia heard the first rustlings of Christian Huck’s New York Volunteers stirring from their overnight encampment. Surrounding the enemy with the stealth of practiced deer stalkers, Hill and his band of guerrilla warriors waited patiently. When the sun finally appeared over a nearby plantation, the Patriots opened fire.
And unleashed havoc.
The Redcoats – trained to fight in regimented, disciplined formations and to shoot in massed volleys – fell into chaos. Their clumsy smoothbore muskets were no match for the colonists’ frontier rifles. Firing with pinpoint accuracy from behind fence cover, these Colonial farmers and woodsmen rejected the order of eighteenth-century warfare and chopped their well-trained adversaries to pieces.
For the Revolutionaries, the gains were enormous and losses slight. Dozens of enemy soldiers lay dead on the field. That included their sadistic leader, Captain Huck, who’d been felled by a headshot as he was mounting his horse to rally his troops. The Redcoats who weren’t killed or wounded either surrendered or tried to flee.
Of Huck’s troopers – roughly 35 dragoons, 20 New York Volunteers, and 60 Loyalist militiamen – only 24 escaped.
The Americans – 150 strong at the outset – lost just one man.
But here’s the best part of all.
The total time of the battle – from first shot to decisive victory – was a mere 10 minutes.4
Ten minutes.
And that 10-minute span changed the world.
That’s not hyperbole.
Historians now refer to this 10-minute skirmish as “The Battle of Huck’s Defeat.” South Carolina historian Walter Edgar wrote that Huck’s Defeat was “a major turning point in the American Revolution in South Carolina.”5 It was the first of more than 35 key battles in that state that took place in late 1780 and early 1781 – all but five of which were Patriot victories.
This streak of victories in smaller battles ended up being a critical contributor to later American successes at King’s Mountain and Cowpens.
Edgar said that “the entire backcountry seemed to take heart. Frontier militia had defeated soldiers of the feared British Legion.” One key result: the militia brigade of American General Thomas Sumter enjoyed a stream of badly needed volunteers.
Our friend William Hill – a key figure in this world-changing 10-minute event who survived the battle and went on to become a man of importance in the years after the American Revolution – said this short, tiny engagement “was the first check the enemy had received after the fall of Charleston, and was of greater consequence than can well be supposed from an affair of [so] small a magnitude – as it had the tendency to inspire the Americans with courage and fortitude [and] teach them that the enemy was not invincible.”6
That’s a pretty impressive statement.
But I’ll say it even more clearly for you..
This single 10-minute span stopped the British juggernaut cold.. and ended a dark, dark stretch for this very young nation. Those 10 minutes infused the colonists with a new energy, a new confidence, and a new belief that victory was possible.. even probable. It put the Patriots back in the victory column, and kicked off a string of victories that led to America’s victory in the War of Independence. And it placed this country on a trajectory that would eventually lead to the United States’ emergence as a global superpower.
Ten Minutes Can Change Your World
Here’s the takeaway.
If a mere 10 minutes can change world history, it can certainly do the same for you.. changing your history.. your future.. and transforming you from wannabe to winner.
Just as that short span of time ultimately allowed an agrarian upstart to steamroll the most powerful country in the world, those same 10 minutes – properly applied – will let today’s individual investors wrest their financial freedom back from that seemingly invincible monolith we know as Wall Street.
To explain what I mean, let me give you some important context.
If you’ve been in this business for as long as I have.. talk to as many people as I have.. and navigated as many unique market situations as I have.. you’ll make a bewildering discovery.
There are a whole lot of different trading strategies that private wealth managers, mutual fund managers, hedge fund players, activist investors, and TV pundits talk about, make references to, write about, and claim to use with great success.
And when I say “a whole lot,” I’m talking about a truly mind-numbing array of supposedly successful ways of making money in stocks, bonds, options, currencies, futures, commodities – and lots of more arcane financial instruments.
I’m going to let you in on a little secret: a lot of those strategies really do work.
They really do let you make money.
And here in The 10-Minute Millionaire,
Harry M. Ward,
Michael C. Scoggins,
Ibid.
Culture and Heritage Museums of York County, South Carolina (chmuseums.org), “The Battle of Huck’s Defeat.”
Walter Edgar,
William Hill,
