On the twin foundations of rice and slave labor the Rice Kings quickly built a brilliant if brittle society. Progress from a rough, crude frontier environment was quite phenomenal. By 1740, only seventy years after the colony was founded, the English evangelist George Whitefield noted in Charleston "an affected finery and gaiety of dress and deportment which I question if the Court end of London could exceed." This despite the various disasters that nature seemed to delight in inflicting on the Low Country. Pestilence and disease had been with them from the beginning, and in the year 1700 they suffered their first disasterous hurricane, which was followed by others, all of fierce proportion, all killers - 1713, 1728, 1752. "In such a case," wrote the colonial historian David Ramsay, "between the fear of pestilence in the city, of common fever in the country, and of an expected hurricane on the island, the inhabitants...are at the close of every warm season in a painful state of anxiety, not knowing what course to pursue, nor what is best to be done." Perhaps it was the monumental vicissitudes of life in the Low Country that helped persuade many merchants who made their fortunes early to return to England to enjoy their riches and pursue more. Most persevered, however, and from various parts of the world immigrants arrived. But there was a sizable group of Scottish merchants, and by 1750 enough Sephardic Jews to form a congregation. French Huguenots, from both the Continent or England, began arriving in the 1680s, and many of them assimilated quickly and became Rice Kings. There were also in the 1740s and 1750s and beyond poor immigrants destined for the Back Country: Germans, Swiss, and from Northern Ireland restive, pugnacious Scotch Irish Protestants.

The War of the Revolution was a little over a year old when the Battle of Sullivan's Island took place in Charleston Harbor. The action occurred four years before the serious British effort in the South, but it is a rousing tale and served to introduce a major theme of British strategy as well as some of the key players.

About a year before first blood was spilled at Lexington, Nathanael Greene's personal life took a sharp turn. He fell totally and forever in love. Catherine Littlefield, known always as Caty, was born on the wind-blown Block Island to a well-connected Rhode Island family. She was nineteen years old in the summer of 1774, thirteen years his junior. She had looks and wit, and according to tradition "her power of fascination was absolutely irresistible." A contemporary described her as a "small brunette with high color, a vivacious expression, and a snapping pair of dark eyes." Following a swift courtship, they were married on 20 July 1774.