Background

Perhaps the most valuable Revolutionary War service records in the South Carolina Archives in Columbia are the Audited Accounts and the Indent Files. The Audited Account contains the dates of service and the officer under whom the participant served. The Indent (so called because of the irregular way it was cut from the stub to prevent forgery), an interest bearing promissory certificate, states the amount that the state paid the participant for a given period of service and gives the name of the person who collected the money if it were someone other than the participant. The names that appear in the Audited Accounts and Indents include not only those who served in the military forces, but also those who sold/provided supplies to the State Militia for military use.

 Audited Account

When a claim was audited, an account was made out, called the "account audited;" it was passed upon by the Auditor General. Then the audited account, together with the claim as filed, and all other papers pertaining thereto, such as supporting affidavits, passed to a legislative committee for final approval.  Very few claims were rejected or deferred, but it sometimes requires study to determine whether a name followed by several return numbers has reference to one person or several persons of the same name, since a name was entered in the index book only one time.

Indents

After approval by the legislative committee, an “INDENT” was made out for payment of the claim, with notations on the indent stub showing the amount, to whom payable, and for what service the claim was filed. These are referred to as the “stub entries” When an Indent was paid, it was then placed back in the file with the other papers, and kept in the archives. Sometimes these Indents were paid by installments; and frequently they were assigned to others, being negotiable.

The following image was made from a microfilm copy of Samuel Carter's SC Audited Indent File # 1111, the original of which is located in the SC State Archives in Columbia.  The image establishes that Samuel Carter served as the Lieutenant of his company in Camden District, commencing on 10 August 1782. The image file is large and will take several minutes to download over a 56kbps modem.