Noted S.C. Historian Walter Edgar to Speak March 22 on Revolutionary War

ROCK HILL, SOUTH CAROLINA — One of the Palmetto State's preeminent historians will give a March 22 lecture at Winthrop University on how the American Revolution was fought in the Piedmont.

University of South Carolina Professor Emeritus of History Walter Edgar will give a 6 p.m. talk on "The American Revolution in the Carolina Backcountry" in Kinard Auditorium.

Edgar retired from the University of South Carolina in 2012, after a 40-year career. He was director of its Institute for Southern Studies and held four named professorships. Born in Mobile, Alabama, he did his undergraduate work at Davidson College and his graduate work at the University of South Carolina.

Edgar is the author or editor of more than a dozen books on South Carolina and the American South, including "The South Carolina Encyclopedia" (2006) of which he was editor-in-chief. He is also the author of "South Carolina: A History" (1998) and "Partisans and Redcoats: The Southern Campaign that Turned the Tide of the American Revolution" (2001). Since 2000, he has hosted "Walter Edgar's Journal" on SCETV-Radio--and since 2005, "South Carolina from A to Z."

Writing in The State newspaper in 2012, Carolyn Click described Edgar as "a courtly bespectacled professor with a wry and wicked sense of humor." She noted further that "he has expanded the state's view of itself in college classes and public lectures, at Rotary Clubs and library gatherings, on public radio and television, in now-classic history books, unearthing wonderful little gems to support his voluminous research."

Journalist Claudia Smith Brinson even said, "Walter Edgar's encyclopedic knowledge of the state makes him a historic figure himself."

The free lecture is sponsored by Winthrop's Friends of Dacus Library and is open to the general public.

For more about the program contact Ronnie W. Faulkner at faulknerr@winthrop.edu or by phone at 803/323-2262.