Revolutionary War patriot

 This picture shows up in a listing for another of Sharon's ancestors, listed on the family tree as Pvt. Michael Abney: 

I suspect that whoever put it in the family tree looked around on the internet, found this image, liked it, and decided to associate it with Michael Abney's entry. The image appears to come from an archive hosted by Georgia State University in Atlanta.

I managed to find a site called Carolana.com that contains records of regiments that participated in the Revolutionary War, including lists of the soldiers who composed the regiments. 

As an aside, Carolana.com's home page contains this bit of historical lore: "In 1629, King Charles I of England "erected into a province" all the land from the Albemarle Sound in the north to the St. John's River in the south, which he directed should be named Carolana. Carolana is from the word Carolus, the Latin form of Charles, and the name he personally selected for his new colony. Carolina is the name King Charles II used in 1663 to finally implement his father's original vision of 1629." Of course that territory become the two Carolinas we know today.

And now, back to your regularly scheduled post: 

A Michael Abney, along with six others with the surname, appears on one of those lists as part of the Upper Ninety-Sixth District Regiment, a militia unit, for South Carolina. 

Sharon's great-great-great whatever relation of the same name was born in Virginia -- and several of her relatives are tied to the Virginia colony -- later married in South Carolina, and is buried there. Another record attached to the family tree seems to confirm that I found him, but whoever made the entry may be relying on the same website I am.

This site contains a list of engagements that Abney's regiment participated in, but the summaries of those battles and skirmishes are very short and only list certain of the officers involved. So I can't pin down which one(s) Abney may have taken part in. 

One of those engagements is listed at the Florida Expedition or the March Through Georgia. Nothing in the description relates any ties to Florida, so I'm not sure why it's mentioned, but having South Carolina militiamen marching through Georgia might explain the link to today's image.

Speaking of Florida, South Carolinians participated in a number of actions in Florida during the war. Now I'm sure you were a better student than I was during your American history classes, so you're not surprised by this information. But for some reason, perhaps because the little I know about Florida is that it began pretty much as a Spanish colony, I don't much associate Florida with the American revolution. Silly me. 

Florida became a British colony in 1763, at the end of the French and Indian War after the Treaty of Paris was signed. During that war, England captured Havana, one of Spain's best ports, and Spain agreed to swap Havana for Florida. 

Ah the stuff I really should know. I want to continue the history associated with Michael Abney's era and look more closely at the March Through Georgia next week. 



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