Come out for a special Saturday at the Relic Room. It will be revolutionary! March 29
March 25, 2025
When did our country make itself independent from British rule? Was it when the “shot heard ’round the world” was fired at Lexington? Was it when John Hancock and 55 other patriots signed the Declaration in Philadelphia? Was it at Yorktown? Or did it take until 1783, when the Treaty of Paris was signed?
Whatever your answer, the fact is that the glorious end – or perhaps the glorious beginning – would not have been the same if not for South Carolina, which is where the largest number of battles in the American Revolution were fought.
Learn more on Revolutionary War Day on March 29 at the South Carolina Confederate Relic Room and Military Museum in Columbia. It’s an annual full day of activity – from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.
It will, as in the past, feature a wide array of weapons, 18th-century tools, re-enactors, and artifacts, plus demonstrations of drills involving muskets and cannon, and the very latest in medical care – from the perspective on one living in 1776.
A major highlight will occur in the museum’s atrium at noon – a dramatic reading of key portions of the Declaration of Independence.
Many other activities will be going on all day.
• SC250 information table — A display about the Sestercentennial events going on across the state as its shared 250th birthday looms ever closer.
• Make your own corn-husk dolls. And then take them home with you.
• Candlemaking. Again, you get to take the finished product home. Be ready the next time the power goes out!
• Quill-pen writing. It’s a little messy, and the goose has a little less insulation from winter weather, but it gets the job done! Just ask John Hancock.
• Touch table with replica objects. You know how most museums – and this one most of the time, truth be told – are always telling you not to touch the artifacts? Well, you can leave your fingerprints all over these.
• Woodworking demonstration. This was a big deal at the time, and you really had to know what you were doing. Plastic was hard – OK, impossible – to find. And no power tools!
• Ninety-Six Historic Site table.
About the South Carolina Confederate Relic Room and Military Museum
Founded in 1896, the South Carolina Confederate Relic Room and Military Museum is an accredited museum focusing on South Carolina’s distinguished martial tradition through the Revolutionary War, Mexican War, Civil War, Spanish-American War, World Wars I and II, Vietnam, the War on Terror, and other American conflicts. It serves as the state’s military history museum by collecting, preserving, and exhibiting South Carolina’s military heritage from the colonial era to the present, and by providing superior educational experiences and programming. It recently opened a major new exhibit, “A War with No Front Lines: South Carolina and the Vietnam War, 1965-1973.” The museum is located at 301 Gervais St. in Columbia, sharing the Columbia Mills building with the State Museum. For more information, go to https://crr.sc.gov/.
