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The Longleaf Pine is a native tree to North America, and particularly common in South Carolina.

They have a really thin, tall trunk, reddish-brown bark that's very distinctive for breaking in these particular pieces.

It could be described as scaly, but they're so thin, and they kind of sprout out of near marshland.

It takes 100 to 150 years for long-leaf pines to become full-size.

What helps them survive is that they spread a root system that has very, very deep sinker roots and can tap into well-drained, sandy soil.

Officially the species is called Pinus Palustris, or Tree of the Swamp.

They are course known, and the name suggests, for their very long needles and large pine cones

that they produce, some are almost nine inches.

But these trees can be quite old.

Some of them can live to be 500,

which means there are probably trees somewhere in South Carolina

that existed at the time of a great battle.

Fighting among trees isn't the best idea for any army, whether British or American.

But then the location of this fight wasn't truly chosen.

It was a march and stop that march conflict.

One side, the Americans wanted to march, and the British wanted to stop that march. And both sides moved a little bit faster than the other

thought they would. Armies collided, both in feverish night marches among these trees about eight miles from the town of Camden, South Carolina.

It being night and neither side wanting a night battle.

They both pulled back and camped and had a battle the next day at daylight.

It's 1780.

The war's taking a different turn.

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