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“M” is for Maham, Hezekiah (1739-1789)

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“M” is for Maham, Hezekiah (1739-1789). Soldier, legislator. A successful planter in St. Stephen’s Parish. After the fall of Charleston he joined Francis Marion’s partisan corps and served as a calvary commander. At the battle of Fort Watson, he suggested the construction of a log tower with a platform high enough to allow riflemen to fire into the fort. Though not a new idea to siege warfare, the Maham Tower (as it would come to be known) was effective in the sieges of Augusta and Ninety Six. In June 1781 Maham was promoted to lieutenant colonel and appointed to command a battalion of light dragoons which came be known as Maham’s Legion. Known for his temper, Hezekiah Maham once forced a deputy sheriff to eat and swallow a summons the latter was trying to serve on him.

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Dr. Walter Edgar has two programs on South Carolina Public Radio: Walter Edgar's Journal, and South Carolina from A to Z. Dr. Edgar received his B.A. degree from Davidson College in 1965 and his Ph.D. from the University of South Carolina in 1969. After two years in the army (including a tour of duty in Vietnam), he returned to USC as a post-doctoral fellow of the National Archives, assigned to the Papers of Henry Laurens.