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 12
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Gates as a fugitive from Camden, and having won his con- fidence, made his escape to his British employer.
In a fatal state of security, the result of his own self delusion, the commander of the American army hurried his troops forward blindly to their doom. The armies felt each other at midnight. The fire of the British ad- vance, first announced to the Americans the presence of their foes. The cavalry of Armand's legion wheeled and fled at the first discharge, but the infantry, under colonel Porterfield, which was advancing in files on the right of the road, coolly returned the fire, and the march of the enemy was checked. As if by tacit consent, the respect- ive armies recoiled, and prepared to await the daylight for the conclusion of the strife. The Americans were quickly formed for battle. The first Maryland division, including the Delawares under DeKalb, was posted on the right; the Virginia militia, under Stevens, on the left ; the North Carolinians, under Caswell, held the centre ; the artillery in battery upon the road. Both wings rested on morasses, and the second Maryland brigade was posted a few hundred yards in the rear of the first, to act as the reserve. The British were formed in a single line, with the wings covered and supported by bodies in reserve.
The battle began with the dawn of day. It was brought on by the advance of the American left on the Brit- ish right, which had the appearance of being in some con- fusion. The reception which the Virginians met proved this to have been an error; they were repulsed, and, the British, charging at this moment with a cheer, fled in the utmost confusion, many of them without even
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discharging their pieces. This unworthy example was followed by the North Carolina militia, with the ex- ception of a single corps under major Dixon. The cavalry of Armand, which had behaved with so little resolution in the encounter of the night, increased the panic by a second and irretrievable flight ; and the con- tinentals stood alone, abandoned by the militia, and maintaining their ground against the entire force of the British army. The artillery was lost; the cavalry-a miserable apology for a legion, made up of the worthless outcasts of foreign service-were swallowed up in the woods-and the regular infantry, reduced to a mere point in the field, and numbering but nine hundred men, were now compelled to bear the undivided pressure of two thou- sand men. But they resisted this pressure nobly, and their bayonets locking with those of the foe, bore them back upon the field in many places, yielding them pris- oners from the very heart of the British line. This tri- umph was momentary only-these gallant men were un- supported. DeKalb had already fallen under eleven wounds, Gates had fled or was borne from the field by the flying militia ; and Cornwallis, observing that there was no cavalry opposed to him, poured in his dragoons, now returning from pursuit of the fugitives, and ended the con- test. Never did men behave better than the continentals ; but they were now compelled to fly. The only chance that remained to avoid a surrender on the field, and escape from the sabres of the dragoons, in whom the British were very strong, was to break away for the morass in their rear, into which they could not be pursued by cavalry. This was done, and by this measure, alone, did any part of this
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devoted corps find safety. The Americans lost the whole of their artillery, upwards of two hundred wagons, and all their baggage. The loss of the British, in killed and wounded, was about three hundred. Though the royal army fought with great bravery, they must have been beaten, but for the flight of the militia. The terrible con- flict which followed with the continentals, proves what must have been the event, had the former behaved like men.
CHAPTER XVII.
The milita composed so large a part of general Gates' army, that he lost all hopes of victory on seeing them leave the field. His flight was thence to Clermont and Charlotte, where he hoped to rally the fugitives. It was in the midst of the hurry of flight, that he was overtaken by a courier, who brought him the consoling intelligence of the complete success of Sumter in his enterprise. He had succeeded in his attempt against Carey's fort, on the Wateree, had captured the garrison, and intercepted the escort with the wagons and stores.
On hearing of the defeat of Gates, Sumter began his retreat up the south side of the Wateree. He was pur- sued by Tarleton, with his legion and a detachment of infantry.
The movements of Sumter were necessarily and greatly impeded by his captives. He had with him forty baggage wagons, filled with booty of the very kind that the Ameri- cans were most in need of. He was encumbered also by three hundred prisoners. Tarleton, pursuing with his usual celerity, came suddenly upon the camp of the Americans, near Fishing Creek, and a complete surprise was effected. The British cavalry burst upon them when there was not a man standing to his arms, and threw themselves be- tween the men and the parade where their muskets were stacked. The videttes were probably sleeping on their posts, seduced into a false security by the belief that the
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foe was at a distance. Not a drum was beat to arms, and no alarm given which could apprize the Americans of the approach of danger. The rout was total. A few of the regulars maintained a fire from behind the wagons for a while, in hopes of rallying the militia, but without success. Their opposition only served to infuriate the dragoons. The carnage was dreadful, and the aggregate loss in killed, wounded, and prisoners, was very little short of that sustained by Gates in his defeat of the 16th.
Sumter had the good fortune to escape; but very few of his officers or men got off. Of the prisoners taken in these two battles by the British, several were selected, bound with cords and carried to Camden, where they were hung without trial, as rebels, under the express or- der of lord Cornwallis. Nor was this the only measure of severity adopted by the invaders. In almost every section of the state, their progress was marked with blood, and with other deeds of equal atrocity. Many of the militia were executed on various and worthless pre- texts, and most frequently without even the form of trial. Private citizens were made close prisoners on board of prison ships, where they perished of foul diseases and without attendance. From Charlestown alone, after the defeat of Gates, sixty of the principal inhabitants were transported to St. Augustine, where they were subjected equally to bondage and every form of indignity. The determination of the British commander, seemed to be, to annihilate the spirit of independence by trampling upon the persons of its best asserters. This was a short sighted policy. True manhood is never more resolute than when it feels itself wronged, and the Carolinians were never
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more determined for their liberties than in the moment of their greatest denial.
General Gates, after several ineffectual attempts to rally his men, finally retired to Hillsborough, in North Car- olina, to solicit the support of the state legislature, then in session. Here, upon bringing together the remnant of his little army, it was found to number little more than one thousand men. In North Carolina, after the dispersion of Sumter's command, there did not remain a man in arms, except a small band embodied by Marion. This able partisan maintained his ground below and along the Santee river, and managed, among the defiles and swamps of that region, to elude all the activity of his enemies. His force had been collected chiefly among his own neighbors, were practised in the swamps, and familiar with the country. Like Sumter, utterly unfurnished with the means of war at first, he procured them by similar means. He took possession of the saws from the mills, and converted them into sabres. So much was he distressed for ammunition, that he has engaged in battle when he had not three rounds of powder to each man of his party. At other times, without any, his men have been brought in sight of the foe simply that their numbers might be displayed. For weeks his force did not exceed seventy-five ; sometimes they were reduced to one third that number, all volunteers from the militia. Yet, with this inconsiderable band, he maintained his ground, secure amidst hundreds of tory enemies, who hung around his footsteps with all that watchful hostility which the peculiar animosities of civil warfare is so likely to sharpen into personal hatred. Various were the
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means employed to draw off or drive away his followers. The houses on the banks of the Pedee, Lynch's Creek, and Black river, from whence they were chiefly taken, were destroyed by fire, the plantations devastated, and the negroes carried away. But the effect of this wantonness was far other than had been intended. Re- venge and despair confirmed the patriotism of these ruined men, and strengthened their resolution; and the indiscrim- inate fury of the foe, only served equally to increase their numbers and their zeal. For months, their only shelter was the green wood and the swamp,-their only cover the broad forest and the arch of heaven. Hardened by exposure, and stimulated by the strongest motives of patriotism and feeling, they sallied forth from these hiding places when their presence was least expected ; and the first tidings of their approach were conveyed in the flashing sabre and the whizzing shot.
With a policy that nothing could distract, a caution that no artifice could mislead, Marion led his followers from thicket to thicket in safety, and was never more perfectly secure than when he was in the neighborhood of his foe. He hung upon his flanks on the march, he skirted his camp in the darkness of the night, he lay in wait for his foraging parties, he shot down his sentries, and, flying or advancing, he never failed to harass the in- vader, and extort from him a bloody toll at every passage through swamp, thicket or river, which his smaller parties made. In this sort of warfare-which is peculiarly adapted to the peculiarities of the country in Carolina, and consequently to the genius of her people-he contrived almost to break up the British communication, by one of
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the most eligible routes, between the seaboard and the in- terior ; and a masterly enterprise, marked with the bold- ness and intelligence that distinguished all his move- ments, drew on him the anxious attention of his enemy, and made it necessary for Cornwallis to dislodge him. Hearing that a body of prisoners taken at the defeat of Gates, about one hundred and fifty in number, were under march to Charlestown, under a strong escort, he determin- ed upon their rescue. Placing his mounted militia in am- bush, in one of the swamps that skirt the wood from Nel- son's Ferry to Monk's Corner, he darted upon the escort, and succeeded in taking the whole party captive. Hav- ing put the arms of the British into the hands of the res- cued Americans, he hurried across the Santee, and did not pause until his prisoners were safely disposed of within the limits of North Carolina. He was far upon his way beyond the arm of danger, before the parties detached by Cornwallis to drive him from his covert, had reached the scene of his enterprise.
The temporary departure of Marion, left South Carolina almost wholly abandoned to the enemy ; but the fruits of his daring and success were yet to be seen. Opposition to the British was never wholly extinct in the state, even when it may have most appeared so; and soon after the defeat of Sumter on the 18th of August, he began to recruit his force from among the people of York district- a section of the state which had never made any conces- sions to the invader, Major Davie, another enterprising officer, had equipped, as dragoons, some fifty or sixty men in the same neighborhood; and these two bands were still in arms, though quiet, and only waiting for the occasion
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which was to bring them into renewed activity. It is probable that the knowledge of the existence of these par- ties, drew the attention of the British commander to this part of the country. Colonel Ferguson, a brave and effi- cient leader of the seventy-first British regiment, appear- ed among these brave borderers with a strong and disor- derly force, consisting of loyalists and British, nearly fif- teen hundred in number. His march through the coun- try was distinguished by every sort of atrocity and vio- lence. The lively representations of those who had suf- fered at the hands of these marauders, awakened the mountaineers to a sense of their own danger. Hitherto, they had only heard of war at a distance ; and, in the peaceable possession of that independence for which their countrymen along the seaboard had been contend- ing, they had probably been rather more indifferent to the issue than their own interests and sympathies could well have justified. The approach of Ferguson aroused them from their apathy, and they determined to embody them- selves for their own defence. Being all mounted men, and unincumbered with baggage, their movements were prompt and rapid. Each man set forth with his blanket and rifle, in the manner of a hunter, and as if in pursuit only of the wild beasts of the forest. The earth was his couch at night, and the skies his covering. The running stream quenched his thirst, and the wild game of the woods, or the cattle which he drove before him, supplied him with food. They rendezvoused at length among the passes of the mountains.
Nine hundred picked riflemen overtook the British commander on the 7th of October, 1780. His encamp-
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ment was made upon the eminence of a circular base, called King's Mountain, situated on the confines of South and North Carolina. The Americans were commanded by colonel Arthur Campbell, but were separated into four divisions, each under the command of its own captain. The colonels under Campbell, were Cleveland, Shelby, Se- vier, and Williams. These several divisions, by arrange- ment, ascended different sides of the mountain, at the same time, to the attack. The party led by Cleveland first encountered the pickets of the royal army. On this oc- casion the gallant mountaineer addressed his troops in the simplest but most exciting language of patriotic valor.
"My brave fellows," he said, " we have beaten the tories already, and we can beat them again. They are all cowards ;- if they were not, they would support the independence of their country. When engaged with them, you will want no word of command from me. I will show you how to fight by my example. I can do no more. Every man must be his own officer, and act from his own judgment. Fire as fast as you can, and stand your ground as long as you can. When you can do no better, run ; but do not run quite off. Get behind trees and retreat. If repulsed, let us return and renew the fight. We may have better luck the second time than the first. If any of you are afraid, let them retire, and I beg they may take themselves off at once."
This was a good speech, which his men could under- stand. The effect of it was such as every commander must desire. The battle began. The picket soon gave way and was forced up the mountain to the main body. Here the pursuers were met by Ferguson. They recoil-
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ed before the charge of the British bayonet, to which they could oppose nothing but the American rifle. They fled down the hill; but, obeying the directions of their com- mander, they availed themselves of every shelter, to stop, reload, and throw in their fire. They were soon relieved by the appearance of the party under Shelby, who, by this time, had made the circuit of the mountain. Fergu- son was compelled to turn and encounter a new foe. The fresh party, under Shelby, poured in a well directed fire ; but sunk back, like that of Cleveland, under the charge of the British. The plans of the mountaineers, though simple, were singularly effective, and the party of Shelby was relieved by the approach of another band, whose unerring rifles compelled the British commander once more to change his front. While busy with these, a fourth came upon the ground. As often as one of the American divisions was driven down the mountain, another rose in the rear or on the flank of the enemy. Ferguson's valor was unavailing. The mountain was en- circled by foes as bold and deliberate, as they were prompt, active and skillful. His men were falling around him on every side; the success of his bayonets gave him barren ground, which he could only for a moment retain. Still he refused to surrender. The conflict was ended only by his fall. The second in command sued for quar- ters. The havoc had been terrible on the side of the British. Thirteen hundred men were killed, wounded, and prisoners. But two hundred escaped. Fifteen hun- dred stand of arms fell into the hands of the Americans. They lost but few men, but among these was the brave colonel Williams. The bloody conflict was marked by
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a crowning sacrifice of vengeance. Ten of the captives were hung by the victors. These were men who had been guilty of the most monstrous crimes, for which their lives had long been forfeit. They were also re- quired to expiate for the murders which Cornwallis had committed at Camden, Ninety-Six and Augusta. The deed was justified by that code which requires eye for eye, tooth for tooth, life for life.
CHAPTER XVIII.
The defeat and death of Ferguson, and the overthrow of a force so formidable as that which he led, re-inspir- ited the Americans. It also served to baffle the plans of lord Cornwallis ; to whom it gave such serious alarm that he retreated from Charlotte, to which place he had pursued the fugitive army of Gates, and fixed himself at Winnsborough. The boldness of the Americans increas- ed daily. The panic which followed the defeat of the continentals began to dissipate. Small bodies of troops, under favorite leaders, began to show themselves even in the neighborhood of Cornwallis' encampment ; cutting off his foragers and intercepting his convoys. The sharp shooters of the Carolinas penetrated his very lines, and under the shelter of shrub, tree and hillock, picked off his sentries. Such was their audacity, that, on his march from Charlotte to Winnsborough, single riflemen often rode up within gunshot of his army, singled out their vic- tims, and, having discharged their pieces, rode off in safety. Andrew Jackson, then a boy but fourteen years old, took the field on this occasion. The approach of Ferguson and Cornwallis summoned all classes to the field : The old sire, better fitted to grasp the crutch than the brand, as well as the boy whose sinews had not yet hardened into manhood ; and, long after the storm of battle had subsided on the plains of Carolina, the boy of the Waxsaws still remembered its fury, while grappling with the same ene-
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my on the field of New Orleans. Little was it imagined that the obscure stripling who was sabred by a British offi- cer for refusing to clean his boots, should be honored, thirty-five years after, with the greatest triumph ever ob- tained in America over a British army.
The retreat of Cornwallis still farther encouraged the Americans, who began to repair in considerable numbers to the camps of their respective commanders. An incur- sion of colonel Washington, into South Carolina, was attended with singular good fortune. On the 4th of December, 1780, he appeared before the British post near Camden, which was held by one colonel Rugely. It was a stockade, but garrisoned by an hundred men. Washington was without artillery; but a pine log, which was ingeniously hewn and arranged so as to resemble a field piece, enforced, to the commander of the post, the propriety of surrendering to the first summons of the American colonel. This harmless piece of timber, ele- vated a few feet from the earth, was invested by the apprehension of the garrison with such formidable power, that they were exceedingly glad to find a prompt accept- ance of their submission. Colonel Rugely's hope of becoming a brigadier was forever cut off by his too ready recognition of this new instrument of warfare.
About this time, general Greene took command of the southern army. He found his troops few in number, oppressed with severe and active duties, without tents or blankets, and but imperfectly supplied with clothing. The British army in Carolina numbered five thousand men, exclusive of loyalists, and were strongly stationed so as to cover the most important routes in the state, and to over-
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awe the most populous settlements. The garrison at Winnsborough completed a chain of posts which the ene- my had established, from Georgetown to Augusta, in a cir- cle, the centre of which, equi-distant from Charlestown and Savannah, would have been Beaufort, in South Carolina. These posts consisted of Georgetown, Camden, Winns- borough, Ninety-Six and Augusta. Within this circle was another chain of posts, consisting of Fort Watson on the road to Camden, Motte's House, and Granby on the Congaree. Dorchester, Orangeburg, Monk's Corner, and other places, were fortified as posts of rest, deposite, and communication. These stations were all judiciously chosen, as well for procuring subsistence as for covering the country.
The American army had been under march for Salis- bury before the arrival of Greene. A command under colonel Morgan had penetrated South Carolina, pressing forward towards Camden, and occupying the very ground which had witnessed the defeat of Gates. The exploit of Marion in rescuing the American prisoners and cap- turing the British guards, made him particularly obnoxious to the British commander. Tarleton's success against Sumter, and the promptness and activity of his move- ments, pointed him out to Cornwallis as the proper officer to ferret out and destroy this wary partisan. But the British officer manœuvered in vain. Marion baffled and eluded him at all points, and his adversary was com- pelled to leave him the undisputed master of the whole ground, while he turned his arms once more against Sumter, whose incursions had again become troublesome. This daring captain, having recruited his command to an
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imposing force, advanced within twenty-eight miles of the British camp at Winnsborough. This audacity suggested to Cornwallis a plan of surprising him in his encampment. Such importance was attached to secu- ring his individual. person, that an officer, with five dra- goons, had it specially in charge to force their way to his tent, and take him, dead or alive. "The Game Cock," as Sumter was called by the Carolinians, was, in the lan- guage of Cornwallis, the greatest trouble which the British had encountered in the country. The conduct of this enterprise was entrusted to a major Wemyss, who approached the encampment of the' American general with considerable promptitude and caution. Fortunately, Sumter had given more than usual strength to his advan- ced guard. His army had lain so long in their position, that he naturally expected attack. Colonel Taylor, by whom the advance guard was commanded, had taken par- ticular precautions. Fires had been lighted in front of his line, and his men were ordered, in case of alarm, to form so far in the rear of the fires, as to be concealed, while the approaching enemy would be conspicuous in their light. The videttes and pickets did their duty, and the guard was ready to receive the attack. A murderous fire pros- trated twenty-three of the British as they reached the fires. The rest recoiled, then retreated for a hundred yards before they rallied. They were brought again steadily to the attack, and a close conflict followed ; but the well directed fire of the Americans completed what their advance guard had so well begun. The British were driven from the field, and found safety only in the darkness of the night. Wemyss fell into the hands of
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the Americans, being wounded through both thighs, and deserted by his men in the precipitation of their flight.
Sumter, after this affair, left his position, and was pursued by Tarleton with the headlong haste which marked all the movements of that warrior. He came up with the American general at Blackstock's, on the 20th of November. Blackstock's house, on the southwest bank of Tiger river, afforded a favorable position for the employment of a small force in battle. Sumter stationed his troops so as to avail himself of all its advantages. Not doubting that the whole force of the British was upon him, he resolved to maintain his ground during the day, and under cover of the night escape across the river. Tarleton's command consisted of his legion, a battalion of the 71st regiment, a detachment of the 63rd, and a lieutenant's command of the royal artillery, with one field piece. But, of this force, only four hundred mounted men had yet come up with the Americans. As soon as Sum- ter made this discovery, his plans were changed ; and he resolved to commence the attack and cut up his ene- my in detail. Tarleton, supposing that he had the game in his own hands, had, immediately on arriving, secured an elevated piece of ground in front of Sumter's position, and, dismounting his men to relieve themselves and hor- ses, prepared to await the arrival of his artillery and infantry. But the assault of Sumter compelled him to take to his arms. The Americans descended from their heights and poured in a well directed fire upon the ene- my. They were met by the bayonet, and being armed only with rifles, were compelled to retire. The British advanced, but were met by a reserve of rifles, which
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