Francis Salvador died before he ever knew whether the country he fought for would survive.
On a remote South Carolina frontier, just weeks after the Declaration of Independence was adopted in Philadelphia, a 29-year-old Jewish immigrant named Francis Salvador was mortally wounded fighting for the American cause.
There is a haunting possibility that he never knew the Declaration had been approved. News traveled slowly in 1776, and Salvador was deep in the backcountry when he entered the fight on July 31. By the time the news of American independence reached South Carolina, he was already gone…