It was a battle Britain claimed to have won, yet it sent the Redcoats scurrying to Charleston and eventually back to England, ending their presence in the Carolina backcountry.

I have visited six battlefields: Gettysburg, Bentonville, Kettle Creek, Camden, Clouds Creek and now Eutaw Springs. With the exception of Gettysburg and Bentonville, battlefields give me a strange feeling. They are quiet and peaceful, more like parks. Preserved and possessing monuments, they carry an air of dignity.

Maybe that is what makes imagining the acrid smell of gunpowder, cannon fire and cries of the wounded so difficult. I find myself scanning the ground for a button or a projectile, but there is nothing left after years of archaeologists and visitors.

With 51,000 casualties, Gettysburg’s reputation serves it well. As for Bentonville, I have a memory hard to erase: a bloody outline on longleaf flooring where a soldier bled out in a home turned hospital. You get a feeling for war when you see something like that.

It was a cool spring morning when I set out for Eutaw Springs, another peaceful place. It was the last major battle fought on South Carolina soil for independence, and it was a bloody, curious affair. The battle raged for four hours on a blistering hot day in September 1781.

When the ragged, hungry American troops captured the fleeing Redcoats’ food and liquor, they stopped their attack to eat and drink. That was when the British prepared their counterattack. Maj. John Marjoribanks spearheaded the maneuver and saved the day for the British. He also saved something else: He turned aside a British soldier’s sword, sparing the life of Patriot Col. William Washington, George Washington’s nephew.

According to the American Battlefield Trust, the Sept. 8, 1781, engagement saw an American force under Nathanael Greene attack a British force commanded by Alexander Stewart. Despite initial success, Greene retreated. However, after staving off repeated attacks, Stewart realized his force needed to fall back toward Charleston.

The significance of the battle is that it hastened the retreat of the Redcoats. I have seen the battle classified as a tactical victory for the British but a strategic victory for the “good guys.” It was the Redcoats’ last stand in the backcountry.

Win, lose or draw, it was a bloody day. The Americans suffered 119 killed, 382 wounded and 78 missing or captured. The Redcoats suffered 85 killed, 297 wounded and 500 missing or captured—a total of 1,461 casualties.

It was also a curious battle because of the personnel. By 1781, the British were fighting with Continental Army deserters and the Americans were fighting with British deserters. “At the close of the war we fought the enemy with British soldiers and they fought us with American,” Gen. Greene once remarked.

I spent an hour walking from monument to marker. I met a man who told me his fourth-great-grandfather fought here when he was just 16. Marjoribanks is buried at the site; his grave was relocated in 1941 before the Santee Cooper dam’s floodwaters could cover it.

I didn’t see the springs for which the site is named. The dam drowned them, but I’ve read that when the lake is at a certain level, you can still spot their swirling movement offshore.

Tom Poland is the author of 12 books and more than 1,000 magazine features. He writes a weekly column for newspapers in Georgia and South Carolina about the South, its people, traditions, lifestyle and changing culture, and speaks often to groups across South Carolina and Georgia, “Georgialina.” Visit Poland’s website at tompoland.net or email him at tompol@earthlink.net.