USA > South Carolina > The history of South Carolina, from its first European discovery to its erection into a republic: with a supplementary chronicle of events to the present time > Part 11
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On the eleventh of February, 1780, the British army landed within thirty miles of Charlestown. The ap- proach of danger led to the immediate action of the people. The assembly, then in session, dissolved, after having conferred upon John Rutledge, the powers, with some limitation, of the dictator in ancient republics. He
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was commissioned to see that the "republic sustained no harm." With these powers, he issued a proclamation commanding the militia to repair to the garrison ; but this proclamation produced very little effect. The people of the country were unwilling to leave their plantations unprotected, and have always been particularly averse to being cooped up in a besieged town. Had Sir Henry Clinton, the commander-in-chief of the invading army, at once advanced against the city, it must have fallen in a few days. " But that cautious commander, a good sol- dier, but one not formed for brilliant or prompt achieve- ments, adopted the slow mode of regular investiture. At Wappoo, on James island, he formed a depot and built fortifications. More than a month elapsed after his first landing, before he crossed Ashley river. On the first of April he broke ground at the distance of eleven hundred yards, and at successive periods erected five batteries on Charlestown neck. His ships of war about the same time crossed the bar, and passing Fort Moultrie with a fair wind, avoided a second regular combat with that fortress. They were not, however, suffered to pass with- out a heavy penalty. Colonel Pinckney, who commanded at the fort, kept up a brisk and severe fire upon them, and did great execution. The ships generally sustained considerable damage. Twenty-seven seamen were kil- led or wounded. The fore-top-mast of the Richmond was shot away, and the Acetus ran aground near Had- drell's point, and was destroyed by her crew, under a heavy fire from two field pieces commanded by colonel Gadsden. The crew escaped in boats. The royal fleet came to anchor within long shot of the town batteries.
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Fort Moultrie, being now of less use than the men who manned it, they were in great part withdrawn, and it soon fell into the hands of the enemy. Colonel Pinckney's force, together with that which had served to man the small fleet of the Americans, was transferred to the city, where they helped to swell the inconsiderable numbers of the garrison. This force at no time amounted to four thousand men ; they were required to defend an extent of works which could not be well manned by less than ten thousand ; yet, even for this small army, a sufficient quan- tity of provisions had not been furnished, and before the siege was over, the citizens were suffering from star- vation.
But the garrison, though feeble, was neither idle nor dispirited. The field works which had been thrown up against the invasion of Prevost, were strengthened and extended. Lines of defence, and redoubts, were stretch- ed across Charlestown neck, from Cooper to Ashley riv- er. In front of the lines was a strong abbatis, and a wet ditch picketted on the nearest side. Deep holes were dug, at short distances, between the lines and the abbatis. The lines were made particularly strong on the right and left, and so constructed as to rake the wet ditch in its whole extent. In the centre was a strong citadel. On the sides of the town, and wherever the enemy could effect a landing, works werc thrown up. The continen- tals, with the Charlestown artillery, manned the lines in front of the foe on the neck. The works on South Bay and other parts of the town, which were less exposed, were defended by the militia.
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The marine force of the Charlestonians had been increased by converting several schooners into gallies, and by two armed ships which had been purchased from the French. The inferior numbers of the garrison forbad any serious attempts to oppose the descent of the British upon the main, but did not prevent several little affairs, in which both officers and men exhibited no less spirit than good conduct. In one of these, a corps of light infantry, commanded by lieutenant colonel John Laurens, encoun- tered the advance guard of the British in a skirmish of particular severity. Though the lines of Charlestown were field works only, Sir Henry Clinton made his advances with great caution. At the completion of his first parallel, the town was summoned to surrender. Its defiance was the signal for the batteries on both sides to open, which they did with great animation on the 12th of April.
The fire of the besiegers soon showed itself to be far superior to that of the besieged. The former had the advantage of twenty-one mortars and royals,-the latter possessed but two ; and their lines soon began to crumble under the weighty cannonade maintained against them. The British lines of approach continued to advance, and the second parallel was completed by the 20th, at the dis- tance of three hundred yards from the besieged. The Americans soon perceived the hopelessness of their situation. Councils of war were called, and terms of capitulation offered to the besiegers, which were instantly rejected and the conflict was resumed. The weakness of the garrison prevented any sallies. The only one made during the siege, took place soon after the rejection
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of these offers. Lieutenant colonel Henderson led out two hundred men, attacked the advanced flanking party of the enemy, killed several and brought in eleven pris- oners. In this affair, captain Moultrie, of the South Car- olina line, was among the slain. On the 26th of April, a plan of retreat by night, was proposed in council, but rejected as impracticable. On the 6th of May, Clinton renewed his former terms for the surrender of the garri- son. At this time the flesh provisions of the city were not sufficient for a week's rations. There was no pros- pect either of supplies or re-inforcements. The engin- eers admitted that the lines could not be maintained ten days longer, and might be carried by assault in ten minutes. General Lincoln was disposed to accept Clin- ton's offer, but he was opposed by the citizens, who were required by Clinton to be considered prisoners on parole. To their suggestion of other terms, they received for answer that hostilities should be renewed at 8 o'clock. When that hour arrived, the garrison looked for the most vigorous assault, and prepared, with a melancholy defi- ance, to meet the assailants at their ruined bulwarks. But an hour elapsed without a gun being fired. Both armies seemed to dread the consequences of an assault, and to wish for a continuance of the truce. At nine in the evening, the batteries of the garrison were re-opened, and being answered by those of the British, the fight was resumed with more vigor and execution than had been displayed at any time from the beginning of the siege. Ships and gallies, the forts on James and John's islands, on Wappoo, and the main army on the neck, united in one voluminous discharge of iron upon the devoted gar-
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rison. Shells and carcasses were thrown incessantly into all parts of the town, and from all the points around it, covered by the cannon of the assailants. The city was on fire in several places; and, by this time, the third parallel of the enemy being completed, the rifles of the Hessian jagers were fired at so small a distance, and with so much effect, that the defenders could no longer show themselves above the lines with safety.
On the 11th the British crossed the wet ditch by sap, and advanced within twenty-five yards of the besieged. All farther defence was hopeless, and Lincoln found himself obliged to capitulate. He had maintained his post with honor, but unsuccessfully. For three months, with less than four thousand ill fed, ill clothed, and unpractised militia, he had baffled more than ten thousand of the best troops in the British service.
CHAPTER XVI.
The ill success of this first attempt, in the American war, to defend a city, approves of the general policy of Washington on this subject. The sterner wisdom, by which the city should have been sacrificed to the preser- vation of the army, would have produced far less evil to the state. The conquest of the interior rapidly followed the loss of the city. The troops, which might have suc- cessfully baffled the march of the invader through the for- ests, were in his power ; and his progress, for awhile, was almost entirely uninterrupted through the country. Lieu- tenant-colonel Tarleton, of the British army, a soldier more remarkable for the rapidity of his movements than for his talents, and more notorious for the sanguinary war- fare which he pursued in Carolina than for any other bet- ter qualities, commenced a career of victory, as a cavalry leader, soon after the landing of the enemy, which was continued for a long period after, with little interruption. While Clinton was pressing the siege of the city, he achieved sundry small but complete successes, that de- prived the garrison of most of those advantages which ne- cessarily must have resulted from their keeping a body of troops in the field. On the 18th of March, 1780, he sur- prised a party of eighty militia men, at the Salke-hatchie bridge, many of whom were slain and wounded, and the rest dispersed. He was equally successful, a few days after, against a second party, which he surprised near
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Ponpon. On the 27th, he encountered lieutenant-colonel Washington, at the head of a regular corps of horse, be- tween the Ashley river ferry, and Rantowle's bridge on the Stono. The advantage lay with the Americans. The cavalry of the British legion was driven back, and lost seven persons ; but, wanting infantry, Washington did not venture to pursue. At the beginning of the siege, gene- ral Lincoln ordered the regular cavalry, three hundred in number, to keep the field, and the country militia were , required to support them as infantry. The militia, on vari- ous pretences, refused to attach themselves to the caval- . ry ; and this important body of horse was surprised at Monk's Corner, by a superior force under lieutenant-col- onels Tarleton and Webster. About twenty-five of the Americans were killed and taken. The fugitives found shelter in the neighboring swamps, from whence they made their way across the Santee. Under the conduct of captain White, they recrossed the Santee a few weeks after this event, captured a small British party, and car- ried them to Lenud's ferry. } They were followed closely by Tarleton, with a superior force, and charged before they could get over the ferry. Retreat was impracticable, and resistance proved unavailing. A total rout ensued. A party of the American force, under major Call, cut their way through the British, and escaped. ' Lieutenant-colo- nel Washington, with another party, saved themselves by swimming the Santee. Thirty were killed, wounded, or taken ; the remainder found refuge in the swamps.
These repeated disasters were not the only consequen- ces arising from the fall of Charlestown. That event was followed by a train of circumstances, which, while they
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disgraced the British soldiery, exhausted the spirits and resources of the country. The invasion of Prevost, record- ed in a previous chapter, had been followed by scenes of devastation, and acts of pillage, which would have shamed a Tartar banditti. But these acts were ascribed to the tories and Indians in his retinue. The invasion of Charlestown was notorious from like causes ; but the loy- alists and Indians were no longer obnoxious to the charge. The royal troops were the robbers, and their commanders openly shared in the proceeds of the plunder. Thousands of slaves were shipped to a market in the West Indies. Mercantile stores, gold and silver plate, in- digo, the produce of the country, became equally convert- ible to the purposes of these wholesale plunderers, with whom nothing went amiss. They plundered by system, forming a general stock, and designating commissaries of captures. Spoil, collected in this way, was sold for the benefit of the royal army ; and some idea of the quan- tity brought to market, may be formed, from the fact, that though prices must have been necessarily low in so small a community, yet the division of a major-general was more than four thousand guineas. Apart from what was sold in Carolina, several vessels were sent abroad for a market, laden with the rich spoils taken from the inhab- itants.
The capital having surrendered, the next object of the British was to secure the general submission of the state. To this end, the victors marched with a large body of troops over the Santee, towards the populous settlements of North Carolina, and planted garrisons at prominent points of the country, during their progress. Their advance
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caused the retreat of several small bodies of Americans, that had approached with the view to the relief of Charles- town. One of these, commanded by colonel Buford, con- sisting of three or four hundred men, was pursued by Tarleton, with a force about double that number. Tarleton came upon Buford near the Waxsaws. A battle ensued, in which Buford was defeated. The cry of his troops for quarter, produced no effect upon the assailants. The battle ended in a massacre, in which, according to Tarle- ton's own account of the bloody business, five in six of the whole body of the Americans, were either killed or so badly mangled, as to be incapable of removal from the field of battle.
To the errors of Buford, may be ascribed the defeat of his party ; but the effect of this wanton massacre was beneficial to the country. The Americans were taught to expect no indulgence from their foes. "Tarleton's quarter," became proverbial, and a spirit of revenge in all subsequent battles, gave a keener edge to the military resentments of the people.
The British commander-in-chief followed up these se- vere and sanguinary lessons, by proclamations which denounced vengeance against all who still continued in arms; while offering "to the inhabitants, with a few excep- tions, pardon for their past treasonable offences, and a reinstatement in the possession of all those rights and immunities which they had enjoyed under the British government, exempt from taxation, except by their own legislatures." Suffering from the sword, their armies overthrown, the state every where in the hands of the foe, the people listened to these specious offers, and abandon-
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ed, for a few weeks, every hope of successful resistance. From several parts of the state, the people gave in their adhesion to the royal authority, and believing his con- quests to be complete, Sir Henry Clinton sailed from Charlestown to New York, leaving to lord Cornwallis the chief command of the southern department.
The general submission of the inhabitants, was followed by a temporary calm. The British believed the state to be thoroughly conquered. With this conviction, they proposed to extend their arms to the conquest of the neighboring states ; and their own force of five thousand men being inadequate to this object, they conceived a plan to carry out their operations, which had the effect of undo- ing much which had been done by their arms. They summoned the inhabitants to repair to the British stand- ard. Paroles given to citizens, not actually taken in Charlestown, were declared null and void, and the holders of them were called upon to act the part of British sub- jects, by appearing in arms at a certain time, under pain of being treated as rebels to his majesty's government. From this moment, the British popularity and power be- gan to decline; and the seeming submission which follow- ed this command, was the disguise assumed by disaffec- tion, under the pressure of necessity. The mask was thrown aside by the greater number at the first sound of the signal trumpet which rallied the patriots under the banner of Gates.
One small body of Carolinians which retreated before the British as they advanced into the upper country, was conducted by colonel Sumter, a gentleman who had for- merly commanded one of the continental regiments, and
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who had already distinguished himself by his fearless valor, great military talents, and unbending patriotism. Known to the British by these qualities, they had wreaked their fury upon his dwelling, which they had burned to the ground with all its contents, after expelling his wife and family from it. A sense of personal injury was superadded to that which roused his hostility in be- half of his country ; and, rallying his little force, which he strengthened by volunteers from North Carolina, he returned to his own state at the very moment when the cause of its liberty seemed most hopeless to the inhabit- ants. The attitude of this forlorn few, was no less melan- choly than gallant. The British were every where tri- umphant,-the Americans desponding,-the state without any domestic government, and utterly unable to furnish supplies to this little band, whether of arms, clothing, or provisions. Never did patriotism take the field with so few encouragements or so many difficulties. The iron tools of the neighboring farms-the ploughshare and the saw-were worked up into rude weapons of war by ordi- nary blacksmiths. They supplied themselves, in part, with bullets, by melting the pewter which was given them by private housekeepers. Sometimes they came into battle with less than three rounds to a man ; and one half were obliged to keep at a distance, until supplied, by the fall of comrades or enemies, with the arms which might enable them to engage in the conflict. When victorious, they relied upon the dead for the ammunition for their next campaign. The readiness with which these brave men resorted to the field under such circumstances, was the sufficient guaranty for their ultimate success.
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The British commander was suddenly aroused to fury by the tidings of this new champion in the field which he had so lately overrun. At a moment when Carolina lay, as he thought, lifeless and nerveless beneath his feet, her sword was waving in triumph above the heads of his war- riors. The little force led by Sumter, consisting of less than one hundred and fifty men, soon distinguished them- selves by the defeat of a large detachment of British and tories, under the command of colonel Ferguson of the for- mer, and captain Huck of the latter. The affair took place on the 12th of July, 1780, at Williams' plantation, in the upper part of the state. The British were posted at disadvantage in a lane, both ends of which were entered at the same time by the Carolinians. Ferguson and Huck were both killed, and their men completely routed and dispersed. At the fortunate moment in which the at- tack was made, a number of prisoners were on their knees, vainly soliciting mercy for themselves and families, at the hands of the British officers. Huck had become notori- ous for his cruel atrocities, in the' very performance of which, the retributive providence decreed that he should be slain. The success of Sumter rallied around him the people of the neighborhood, and his little force soon amounted to six hundred men. At the head of this force, on the 30th of the same month, he made a spirited but unsuccessful attack on the British post at Rocky Mount. Baffled in this attempt, he passed without delay to the at- tack of another post at the Hanging Rock, in which a large force of regulars and tories were stationed. His assault was equally daring and successful. The Prince of Wales' regiment was annihilated at a blow; and the
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tories, under colonel Brian of North Carolina, after suf- fering severely, were totally routed and dispersed.
These successes of Sumter, equally spirited and well- conducted, tended greatly to encourage the Carolinians, and abate the panic which had been occasioned by the fall of their chief city. Little partisan squads rose in arms in various quarters, falling upon the British detach- ments whenever they exposed themselves ; but much more frequently addressing themselves to the conflict with those of their own countrymen who had joined the foe, and were prosecuting the war with a degree of ferocity that seemed meant to obscure even the bloody massacres of Tarleton. These bands chose their own leaders, and acted from their own impulses. Colonel Williams, of the district of Ninety Six, at the head of one of these parties, was particularly active in this guerilla warfare. A month after the victory of Sumter over Ferguson and Huck, he attacked a like body of the enemy, consisting of British and loyalists, under colonel Innis, at Musgrave's mills, on the Enoree. These he defeated with loss, after a severe conflict. Like conflicts, and with the like results, became frequent throughout the state, and the sudden and almost simultaneous appearance of Marion and Sumter on the horizon of battle, and the advance of a continental army, with the total overthrow of Burgoyne at Saratoga, dissi- pated all the fairy visions of British conquest in South Carolina, re-inspired the desponding citizens, and com- pelled Cornwallis again to take the field.
The continentals sent from the northward, consisted of fourteen hundred men, and were marched to the south under the baron DeKalb, a German officer, whose military
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talents and experience secured him the command of a major-general in the army of the United States. DeKalb had pushed his march to the south by the direct route from Petersburg in Virginia, for Camden in South Caro- lina. On the 6th of July he reached Deep river, and halted at Cox's mills to collect provisions, and determine upon his future course. Here, he was overtaken, and super- seded in command, by general Gates. The arrival of Gates increased the activity of this little army, without improving its condition. Gates, unhappily, was one of those men whom success intoxicates and destroys. He had no sooner arrived than he issued orders to his troops to hold themselves in readiness for marching, and on the 27th, the army was under march over a barren country to Monk's ferry, in direct opposition to the counsel of all his officers.
The troops were without provisions and clothes, many without arms, and suffering from fatigue, from a protracted march, at every step of which they had been compelled ยท to undergo these severe privations. Still, his army was increased in its progress, by accessions, from Virginia and the Carolinas, of lean detachments ; and, with a little delay to permit of the coming in of the militia, and the procuring of arms and supplies, it might have been swollen to a very respectable force of four or five thousand men. Sanguine of success, and pressing on with the despatch which was all that this unfortunate general seemed to think necessary to secure it, he reached Clermont, where he en- camped on the 13th of August. Here he was informed, by colonel Sumter, of the advance of a considerable con- voy of British wagons on the route from M'Cord's ferry to
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Camden; and solicited by that brave partisan for a small reinforcement to enable him to capture them. Four hun- dred men were detached on this service ; while general Gates put the army under marching orders to Camden, where the British maintained a strong post under the command of lord Rawdon. On the night of the 15th, at ten o'clock, the Americans moved from Rugely's mills, little dreaming of the terrible fate which awaited them.
Gates was in ignorance of several facts which he might have known, but did not know, and which it was of infi- nite importance to his objects that he should have known. He was ignorant that, by forced marches, lord Cornwallis had reached Camden from Charlestown, bringing with him a considerable detachment. With a picked force of more than two thousand men, that enterprising command- er took up his line of march from Camden to meet his en- emy, at the very hour when Gates left Clermont. The latter had given himself little time to learn any thing. He committed a variety of blunders. He undervalued cavalry, one of the most important portions of every army, and one particularly important in a level country like that through which he had to march.
He hurried his men when fatigued, without necessity, and commenced a night movement with untried militia, in the face of an enemy. In this march he showed none of that vigilance upon which the success of all military enter- prises must mainly depend. Lord Cornwallis, on the con- trary, appears to have been accurately informed of every particular in relation to his enemy, which it was important for him to know. It is even said that an emissary of the British commander succeeded in passing himself upon
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