American Revolution Troop Deployment Timeline

Troop Deployment Timeline

The purpose of this electronic map is to represent both American and British troop deployments and how they interacted. You can:

• Observe simultaneous British and American troop deployments superimposed on a modern terrain map. Troop movements are shown as colored lines.
• Follow the timeline of events by clicking Next Day or Prev Day button. Select a starting scenario, like a battle or event. Span multiple days by specifying a Start time and End time. The map will automatically display all troop movements during that time.
• Selectively display, forts, campgrounds, courthouses, churches, schools, mills, plantations, etc. Click on any icon for detail information.
• Click on US or British flag for troop deployment details, including strength, location, known weather conditions, and source documentation.
• Understand the "Big Picture", by clicking the "-" zoom-out button. Learn local details, by clicking the "+" zoom-in button. Center the map at any location with a double-click.

Map Precision

Troop deployments are shown at the regiment level, typically a few hundred men. If exact troop location is not known because of movement, it is interpolated between known prior and post locations and the source document is cited as "interpolated". In the future, such locations will be made precise when verified from original source documents. At present, each displayed march route follows a modern road. That is often precise because many old roads, especially ridgeline roads, are still being used today. Where they deviate, the nearest modern road approximates the old road. So this electronic map does not prove troop presence at every displayed location. If you require precision, click on the flag marker and access the cited source document.

Eastern Standard Time

At present, each troop deployment is precise to within a day. Hour-by-hour precision, if known, will be added later. For this electronic timeline to work consistently, Eastern Standard Time is used. At the time of the American Revolution, people estimated the time of day relative to local noon, when the sun was highest in the sky. Today, that time system is best approximated by Eastern Standard Time. Thus, all time references have the EST suffix. If you omit this suffix from a summertime date, Daylight Savings Time will be automatically applied, and that can result in well-known events occurring during the previous day.

Implementation, Limitations

At present, this electronic timeline covers the time period between 16 May 1780 and 27 November 1780. That includes all scenarios in the Start Scenario drop-down list. On a few days, there were as many as twenty simultaneous deployments. This interactive map helps explain these simultaneous American and British troop deployments. Although you can display some troop deployments before and after this time period, they are not yet fully represented.

Sources

Click on an icon to identify the source document. Wherever known, an original source is cited. Click on link to directly read original reference.

Some timeline information was first written in: An Application for a South Carolina Historical Marker Commemorating Colonel Thomas Sumter’s Clems Branch Camp, June–July 1780, Where did Cornwallis's Army invade North Carolina?, Lincoln County Men at Kings Mountain and Camp New Providence.

Acknowledgements

• Baxley, Charles, Southern Campaign of the American Revolution, for many suggestions
• Robertson, John, Global Gazetteer of the American Revolution, extensive catalog of geographic sites
• Graves, Will and Harris, Leon, Southern Campaign Revolutionary War Pension Statements, transcriptions of pension applications
• Neilan, David, Francis Marion Chronology

Questions, Comments, Voluntary Submissions

Please address questions, corrections, omissions, and comments to Bill Anderson at . If you offer new information, please include, as applicable: time span, (latitude,longitude) or a precise written location, and original source document with page number. Thanks in advance.