Isaac Huger, born at Limerick Plantation at the head-waters of Cooper River, South Carolina, on the 19th of March, 1742, was the grandson of Huguenot exiles who had fled to America after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes. Inheriting an ardent love of civil and religious liberty, reared in a home of wealth and refinement, thoroughly educated in Europe and trained to military service through participation in an expedition against the Cherokee Indians, he was selected on the 17th of June, 1775, by the Provincial Congress, as lieutenant-colonel of the First South Carolina Regiment. Being stationed at Fort Johnson, he had no opportunity to share in the defeat of the British in Charleston Harbor, as Colonel Moultrie’s victory at Sullivan’s Island prevented premeditated attack on the city. During the two years of peace for the South that followed, Huger was promoted to a colonelcy, and then ordered to Georgia. His soldiers, however, were so enfeebled by sickness, privation, and toil that when called into action at Savannah, they could only show what they might have accomplished under more favorable circumstances. On the 9th of January, 1779, Congress made him a brigadier-general; and until the capture of Charleston by the British in May, 1780, he was in constant service either in South Carolina or Georgia. Too weak to offer any open resistance, the patriots of the South were compelled for a time to remain in hiding, but with the appearance of Greene as commander, active operations were resumed.

Huger’s thorough knowledge of the different localities and his frank fearlessness gained him the confidence of his superior officer, and it was to his direction that Greene confided the army on several occasions, while preparing for the series of engagements that culminated in the evacuation of Charleston and Savannah. Huger commanded the Virginia troops at the battle of Guilford Court-House, where he was severely wounded; and at Hobkirk’s Hill he had the honor of commanding the right wing of the army. He served to the close of the war; and when Moultrie was chosen president, he was made vice-president, of the Society of the Cincinnati of South Carolina. Entering the war a rich man, he left it a poor one; he gave his wealth as freely as he had risked his life, and held them both well spent in helping to secure the blessings of liberty and independence to his beloved country. He died on the 17th of October, 1797, and was buried on the banks of the Ashley River, South Carolina.