In this exhaustive biography, Keith Krawczynski details the political and social career of William Henry Drayton (1742--1779), an ambitious, wealthy lowcountry planter and zealous patriot leader who was at the center of Revolutionary activity in South Carolina from 1774 until his death five years later. Considered the most effective Whig polemicist in the lower South, Drayton served on all his state's important Revolutionary governing bodies, commanded a frigate of war, was elected chief justice in 1776, coauthored South Carolina's 1778 constitution, and represented the state in the...