The American Revolutionary War (1775–1783) or American War of Independence began as a war between the Kingdom of Great Britain and the thirteen British colonies in North America, and concluded in a global war between several European great powers.

The war was the culmination of the political American Revolution, whereby many of the colonists rejected the legitimacy of the Parliament of Great Britain to govern them without representation, claiming that this violated the Rights of Englishmen. The First Continental Congress met in 1774 to coordinate relations with Great Britain and the by-then thirteen self-governing and individual provinces, petitioning George III for intervention with Parliament, organizing a boycott of British goods, while affirming loyalty to the British Crown. Their pleas ignored, and with British soldiers billeted in Boston, Massachusetts, by 1775 the Provincial Congresses formed the Second Continental Congress and authorized a Continental Army. Additional petitions to the king to intervene with Parliament resulted in the following year with Congress being declared traitors and the states to be in rebellion. The Americans responded in 1776 by formally declaring their independence as one new nation — the United States of America — claiming their own sovereignty and rejecting any allegiance to the British monarchy.

Beaufort played no major role in the early years of the Revolution, but as British hopes for success faded in New York and Pennsylvania they looked southward, and in December, 1778, captured and occupied Savannah. Early in the New Year General Prevost sent H. M. S. Vigilant with two hundred and fifty troops aboard to capture Beaufort. They landed at Laurel Bay and marched toward Beaufort but were intercepted and repulsed near the present  Marine Air Station by General William Moultrie with three hundred militia. The British returned to their ship but the Americans were forced to abandon the defense of Port Royal Island because the small garrison at Fort Lyttleton, guarding Beaufort, had spiked the guns and blown up the forst on the approach of the seventy-four gun ship-of-the-line, Vigilant.

The next month, Prevost attempted, with near success, to capture Charleston but was forced to retreat down the coast, finally occupying Beaufort in July, 1779. In October the siege of Savannah by American troops and the French West indies fleet forced the British to evacuate Beaufort. Charleston fell to the British in 1780. During its occupation (1780-82) the King's Highway to Savannah was guarded by the British Fort Balfour at Coosawhatchie.

In the Beaufort area, bitter rivalries led to scattered fighting between Tories and Patriots. Colonel John Laurens, son of Henry Laurens and close friend of Alexander Hamilton, was killed near the Combahee River in one of the last skirmishes of the Revolutionary War.

(Photos to come shortly)