River News Now Breaking News Travel

(NAPSI) - Steeped in rich military history that is not widely known, South Carolina's heritage runs deep, including the fact that more Revolutionary War battles were fought in the state than most people realize. The region's numerous battlefield sites and military museums offer an appreciation of the state's role--one of the original 13 American Colonies--from the Revolutionary War to the current conflict in Iraq.

Among them:

• Historic Camden Revolutionary War Site, a 107-acre outdoor museum complex in Camden, re-creates the 18th century town site where British soldiers set up their main backcountry supply post.

• Musgrove Mill State Historic Site, set in the peaceful Piedmont woods near Clinton, offers interpretive exhibits of the bloody struggle waged there in 1780.

• Ninety Six National Historic Site near Greenwood stages re-enactments of Revolutionary War clashes, including the war's first Southern land battle there in 1775. The park offers exhibits, artifacts and a restored log cabin. The National Park Service also operates Revolutionary War battlefield sites at Cowpens and Kings Mountain.

• Fort Sumter Visitor Education Center at Liberty Square memorializes a defining moment in U.S. history-the first shots of the Civil War were fired at Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor. A ferry, meanwhile, takes visitors out to the fort itself.

• Civil War enthusiasts may want to see the H.L. Hunley, the first successful combat submarine in world history, now at rest in a warehouse museum.

• The only state-maintained Civil War battlefield, Rivers Bridge State Historic Site is deep in the swampy bottomlands near the Savannah River.

• Back in Charleston and fast-forwarding to the modern era, Patriots Point boasts an aircraft carrier, submarine and Coast Guard cutter open to the public on Charleston Harbor. Museums and living history in the form of weekly graduations from boot camp await visitors to Parris Island, the U.S. Marine Corps training camp in Beaufort County, and at Fort Jackson in Columbia, the nation's largest Army training base.

To learn more about the state's many history offerings, visit www.SCmilitaryhistory.com.

History buffs salute South Carolina, which was the location for a surprising number of Revolutionary War battles. Pictured above: Musgrove Mill.