During its banquet Friday evening in Statesboro, the Brier Creek Revolutionary War Battlefield Association and guests will hear about the latest research – including the recent discovery of a previously unknown combat area of the 1779 battle – from field archeologist Dan Elliott, president of the nonprofit Lamar Institute Inc.

Elliott is set to be featured presenter for the meeting and presentation, 6 p.m.-8:30 p.m. Sept. 6 at Forest Heights Country Club, 3772 Country Club Road, Statesboro. A 5:30-6 p.m. reception will provide an opportunity to view displays and mingle. Reservations for the event with buffet-style meal for members and guests cost $40.

American Patriot forces, including militiamen from Georgia and North Carolina and some Continental Army troops, were surprised by British and Loyalist forces near the creek on March 3, 1779, and suffered a significant defeat that some historians believe lengthened the war. Archaeologists continue to find artifacts, and also to locate graves, 245 years later at the site between Sylvania and the Savannah River.

In late June, Elliott emailed some friends and academics interested in history about a metal detector survey that had just been completed.

“We found a previously unknown battle area, south of the areas identified in 2014,” he wrote. “This new conflict area measures about 120 meters by 32 meters, minimum. Its full extent was not determined by us, as we were focused on the trail corridor and areas immediately adjacent to it.”

The survey turned up “dozens of musket balls, both dropped and fired, as well as two iron grapeshot,” Elliott reported.

Larger than musket balls – and in photos of the Revolutionary War examples appearing nearly the size of golf balls – grapeshot were fired in clusters, like a shotgun blast, from a cannon. He said these may be the first artillery-related finds from the Brier Creek battlefield. Among last spring’s other finds were a broken bayonet and some brass closures from cartridge boxes.

He also mentioned that LiDar, or light detection and ranging, had been used to trace the course of the original Savannah-Augusta Road, circa 1730s-1800, as most of the route of a proposed trail. Elliott noted, at the beginning of summer, that a GPR, or ground-penetrating radar, survey was planned.

Sons of the American Revolution will serve as color guard and flag bearers for Friday’s banquet, and Randy Jones, president of the Mill Creek Chapter SAR, has been helping to publicize the event. In a recent email to members, Jones noted that archeologists had even used human remains detection dogs in an effort to verify potential graves sites first detected with LiDar surveys. As Jones also noted, the Georgia Southern University Museum has been exhibiting artifacts and historical information about the battle. The museum’s exhibit curated by public history graduate students, “The Fight for a Star and a Stripe: The Battle of Brier Creek,” is scheduled to remain up at the Statesboro Convention & Visitors Bureau, 222 South Main St., until April 2025.

“It’s a great exhibit, too, and we’re going to have some of the things from there, and some of the things that aren’t on display there, at this banquet,” said Jones, who is also a member of the Brier Creek Revolutionary War Battlefield Association board.

To RSVP for the Friday banquet if you haven't already, email Jones at millcreeksar@gmail.com.