It was 229 years ago today that representatives from the Carolinas and 11 other Colonies adopted the Declaration of Independence, guaranteeing a civil war with the most powerful army on Earth.

The road to revolution, however, started much earlier than that in the Carolinas.

So did the fighting. Families were torn apart, and fortunes were lost. Hundreds were killed. All before the ink dried on the Declaration.

Edward Channing, a Harvard University historian who specialized in Colonial and Revolutionary War history before dying in 1931, wrote that without successful rebellion in the Carolinas, revolution might not have been possible.

"Had the South been conquered in the first half of 1776, it is entirely conceivable that rebellion would never have turned into revolution. ... At Moore's Creek and Sullivans Island the Carolinas turned aside the one combination of circumstances that might have made British conquest possible."

South Carolina was one of the British Crown's most valuable colonies, and King George III didn't intend to lose it. But the plan was to quash rebellion and regain control of North Carolina first.

That meant modern-day Brunswick County, N.C., would become the center of British efforts to stop any attempt at revolution in the South months before the Continental Congress met to declare independence.

The fighting that ensued in the Carolinas would last for nearly a decade.

The reminders of that war are still with us, even on the Grand Strand.

Horry County is named after Revolutionary War fighter Peter Horry, an S.C.-born lieutenant colonel in the war. The county was formerly known as Kingston.

Georgetown County is littered with former battlefields.

The state flags of each state are steeped in Revolutionary War history.

And both states can trace their first fights for independence to Brunswick County.

On the shore of the Cape Fear River about 15 miles north of Southport at modern-day Orton Plantation, Brunswick Town was once a thriving port that was the seat of power for two royal governors.

Founded by the son of a former S.C. governor, it also had a history of rebellion. In 1765, armed Colonists rioted against the Stamp Act, which taxed every piece of printed paper in an effort to raise money for the stationing of troops in America.

But by 1775, the royal governor had established its N.C. capitol in New Bern. Tensions already were strained in North Carolina between colonists and the governor, Josiah Martin, when the first shots of the Revolutionary War were fired at Lexington and Concord, Mass.

Mecklenburg County, N.C., soon declared an end to British rule.

Within a month Martin fled New Bern, fearing rebellion. He went to Fort Johnston, in the Southport area of Brunswick County. Within six weeks, N.C. militia had burned the fort and forced him to flee again. This time he took refuge on the British warship Cruizer at the mouth of the Cape Fear River.

There, he plotted to regain control of North Carolina.

The plan was to raise 10,000 loyalist troops in North Carolina and have them march to the coast. There, in Brunswick Town, they would meet British forces arriving by sea in February 1776 and re-establish royal authority in the Carolinas.

Martin called on loyal subjects from the western region of the colony to put down "a most daring, horrid and unnatural rebellion," N.C. state library documents show.

Only 1,600 signed up. They gathered in the present-day Fayetteville area. And as they marched toward Brunswick Town to meet with British troops, rebelling colonists were waiting for them about 40 miles northwest of Wilmington at Moore's Creek.

The battle lasted only a few minutes. The loyalists lost. About 30 were killed, and 40 were wounded. Those who fled were captured within weeks.

And the naval ships were late for their rendezvous, failing to show until May.

Before they did, N.C. representatives made the first official call April 12 among all 13 Colonies to declare independence from Great Britain.

Meanwhile the British offensive was limited to looting Brunswick Town. It was burned down that spring.

When British ships arrived on the Cape Fear River, rather than fight again in North Carolina, they headed to Charleston to try and capture the fourth-largest city in the Colonies.

South Carolinians were waiting for them.

On Sullivans Island, at the mouth of the Charleston port, colonists had constructed a fort made of palmetto logs while waiting on a British attack.

The Continental Congress had sent troops and a general to advise and defend the city.

When General Charles Lee arrived and saw the fort at Sullivans Island, he called it a "slaughter pen," according to the S.C. Historical Society.

But when British troops attacked June 28, low tides grounded many of their ships. The palmetto logs bore the brunt of the shots that reached the fort.

The colonists performed better than expected. The battle was over within a day.

The week after the battle at Sullivans Island, the Continental Congress met in Philadelphia and made its case to the world why America should be free from British rule and adopted the Declaration of Independence.