The Fabric of Liberty
The Society of the Cincinnati of the
State of South Carolina
Alexander Moore
With George C. Rogers Jr. and Stephen G. Hoffius
In 1783, soon after the end of the American War of Independence, a group of
former Continental Line officers, men who had fought with General George Washington, established the Society of the Cincinnati, a fraternal association that would
provide mutual support and keep strong the memories of their recent struggle.
In addition to the General Society, constituent groups were formed in each of the
original thirteen states and in France.
The Fabric of Liberty recounts the distinctive history, covering more than 225
years, of the Society of the Cincinnati of the State of South Carolina. Especially
remarkable is the organization’s continuity—it is the only society in the American
South to exist continuously from 1783—and its power to heal internal and external dissensions, great and small. Throughout South Carolina’s history, the society
has been a vehicle for reconciliation between warring political and economic factions: in the aftermath of the American Revolution and during the antebellum era,
between Confederate South Carolina and the victorious Union in the Civil War, and
in modern times between starkly
competing visions of South Carolina’s place in the nation and the world.
The Fabric of Liberty is extensively illustrated with color and black-and-white
depictions of South Carolina heroes and Cincinnati luminaries, including William
Moultrie, Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, Thomas Pinckney, and the Marquis de
Lafayette (who first reached America near Georgetown, South Carolina). Iconography, fine art, and depictions of historical and modern monuments provide visual
context. Appendixes identify original members, national officers from South Carolina, and state presidents.
Alexander Moore is a historian of colonial
South Carolina, documentary editor, and
student of southern art history. The former
director of the South Carolina Historical Society, Moore is an acquisitions editor at the
University of South Carolina Press and the
author or editor of several works on Southern history, most recently Selected Letters of
Anna Heyward Taylor: South Carolina
Artist and World Traveler.
Distributed for Home House Press
Available 2012, 384 pages, 10 color & 66 b&w illus.
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