The history of South Carolina in the Revolution, 1775-1780, Part 13

Author: McCrady, Edward, 1833-1903
Publication date: 1901
Publisher: New York, The Macmillan Company; London, Macmillan & Co., ltd.
Number of Pages: 966

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The suggestion that the administration was willing to abandon the idea of taxation, lost the government at once the support of many who had upheld coercive measures upon the persuasion that the revenue to be drawn from America would lessen their own burdens. The opposi- tion was therefore greatly strengthened when the matter of supplies came up. Because of the war the land tax was to be raised four shillings on the pound. It was with no little surprise and concern then that the country gentle-

1 Annual Register (1776), vol. XIX, 89.

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men learned that the taxation of the colonies was to be abandoned. They declared that if that essential object was to be relinquished, they would grant no money for prosecuting a contest from which no substantial benefit could be derived. The discontent of the landed gentry seriously alarmed the ministry, and their opposition was only allayed by the repudiation of Lord Barrington's statement, and the assurance that the intention of obtain- ing a revenue from America had never been given up.1 So this wise measure which would in all probability have secured the return of the allegiance of South Carolina - if of no other colony - was abandoned, and soon after another measure was introduced which, as we have seen, resulted in silencing the moderate party in this colony, and securing the adoption of a constitution and the organi- zation of an independent, if temporary, government. This was the bill prohibiting all intercourse with the thir- teen united colonies, - a measure which aroused violent opposition in Parliament, but in the face of which the ministry were unmoved, -a measure which the colonists claimed of itself cut off and separated them from Eng- land. It was observed in the debate that the guardian genius of America had that day presided with full influ- ence in the midst of British councils, and inspired the measures of those who directed the affairs of the country - measures calculated to answer all the purposes which the most violent Americans and their most zealous adher- ents could propose by driving the people in the colonies to unite in an inflexible determination to cast off all de- pendence on the government in England and to establish free and independent States of their own. It was moved that the title of the bill should be altered and so worded as to express its real meaning, in which case it should 1 Annual Register (1776), vol. XIX, 89, 101. VOL. III .- K

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be styled, a bill for carrying more effectually into exe- cution the resolves of Congress. But in vain were the ministry warned. The bill was passed, and every prepara- tion was made to enforce it.

Before the end of the year Sir Peter Parker, Admiral of the Royal Navy,1 with the Earl of Cornwallis, who now began a career of distinguished services as soldier and statesman alike in India as in America, sailed with ship Actcon and a bomb vessel from Portsmouth to Cork to convoy troops and transports to America. By the 20th of January, 1776, a fleet which was generally supposed to be destined for the Southern colonies was ready to sail ; but it was delayed and much time was lost by the objection of the Lord Lieutenant to permit the troops to leave Ireland, so that it was not until the 13th of Febru- ary that the fleet consisting of forty-three sail and about twenty-five hundred troops put to sea. In a few days it encountered a severe storm and was dispersed. Some of the transports put back to Cork, others got into Plymouth, Portsmouth, and other western ports of England. The expedition was thus unfortunate from the very outset ; and the news of its purpose and organization reached General Washington, who was now in command of all the forces of the colonies, before Sir Peter Parker's first vessel appeared off the coast. An intercepted letter of the Secretary of War, dated White Hall, December 23, 1775, had given the information that seven regiments with a full fleet of frig- ates and small ships were ready to proceed to the Southern colonies to attempt the restoration of the Royal govern-

1 We have followed the usual custom of speaking of this gallant officer as Sir Peter Parker. In fact, however, he was not created a baronet until 1782, and then he was so honored because of his distinguished services in America, and particularly for his gallant, if unsuccessful, con- duct in the battle we are about to describe.

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ment in that part of America. It was to proceed in the first instance to North Carolina, and thence either to Vir- ginia or South Carolina, as circumstances should deter- mine.

It will be recollected that Lord William Campbell, when he took refuge on the Tamar, had declared that he would never return to Charlestown till he could support the King's authority and protect his faithful subjects. It was a singular coincidence that soon after Lord William Campbell had abandoned his government and taken up his abode on the Tamar, Governor Josiah Martin of North Carolina had been compelled to relinquish his and to seek refuge on the Scorpion. This vessel was then also in Charlestown harbor, so that there then were as we have seen two British Governors without governments on board British vessels lying there. But neither of these had any idea of giving up the struggle for his restora- tion. Each had been assiduous in his efforts to procure a military force to reduce his province to obedience. Each represented the friends of Royal authority as need- ing only the support of a small force to give them an opportunity of embodying themselves for the reestablish- ment of the British government. Lord William Camp- bell was confident that Charlestown might easily be reduced, and that its reduction would restore the whole province. Governor Martin was equally so that with a little assistance he could set up and maintain a Royal government at Cross Creek, now Fayetteville, North Caro- lina, where the Scotch Highlanders, who had been intended for the High Hills of Santee in South Carolina, but had been as we have seen carried into the Cape Fear, and had finally settled, were intensely loyal to the Crown. There he expected also to be joined by the late Regulators, a body of desperate men lately rebels to the King's author-

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ity, and now hostile to the American cause. Lord Dun- more, Governor of Virginia, was also calling for assistance.

When Boston was evacuated by the British on the 16th of March, the fleet under Admiral Graves bearing the army from Boston lingered for some days in Nantucket road, but at length disappeared entirely from the coast, and the deliverance of Boston was assured. But what would be the destination of the troops thus relieved from Boston was a question which greatly concerned Washington. On the 4th of February the mystery was partly solved by the appearance in New York harbor of Sir Henry Clinton, who had been with the army at Boston and had distin- guished himself at Bunker Hill, and who with a part of the squadron had been dispatched from Boston just before its evacuation. He visited New York, as he declared, to have a talk with Governor Tryon, formerly Governor of North Carolina, then Governor of New York. There he met Lord William Campbell and Governor Martin, and after a brief visit, taking these Governors with him, he continued his cruise, avowing his destination to be North Carolina, which was doubted because of his open avowal. It was however true that the coast of North Carolina was the first point of his destination, and there he was to meet Sir Peter Parker sailing directly from England.

The plan appears to have been that the first attempt should be made in North Carolina. That the fleet enter- ing Cape Fear, the force under Sir Henry Clinton should proceed with Governor Martin and Lord William Campbell to Cross Creek, and there to set up a Royal gov- ernment, around which all the back settlers in the South- ern colonies might rally and unite. 1 On his voyage to Cape Fear Sir Henry looked in at Norfolk, but Lord Dunmore not then requiring his assistance, he proceeded 1 Annual Register (1776), vol. XIX, 157.

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to the Cape, there to learn that the grand scheme proposed for the establishment of a government in the backwoods of North Carolina had been utterly frustrated by the brilliant victory of General Caswell at Moore's Creek Bridge, where the Highlanders had been defeated and totally broken and dispersed. While waiting the arrival of Sir Peter Parker's fleet, however, Sir Henry landed several parties to reconnoitre the country ; and one of them attacked a post at Brunswick, fifteen miles up the river and dispersed its garrison.1

Sir Peter Parker's squadron did not arrive at Cape Fear till the beginning of May. There they found Sir Henry Clinton. Neither had any definite knowledge of General Howe's situation, as Sir Henry had been dispatched be- fore the evacuation of Boston, and only knew of that event through the American papers. Sir Peter's fleet was intended for the subjugation of the Southern prov- inces ; but General Howe had dispatched a vessel from Halifax, to which place he had retired from Boston to intercept and order the fleet to join him there, but the vessel was delayed and did not reach Cape Fear until the fleet had sailed for Charlestown.2 Lord William Campbell, true to his courageous, if not very firm, character, at once offered to serve under Sir Peter Parker as a naval officer, thus to be on hand to resume his government in case of success.

When Washington had been made Commander-in-chief of the American forces, General Charles Lee had been chosen third in command. By a singular coincidence Lee had arrived in New York on the very day Sir Henry Clinton looked so mysteriously into that harbor. It had been determined that Lee should go to Canada to com-

1 London Remembrancer (1776), 189.

2 Annual Register (1776), vol. XIX, 159.

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mand the troops there ; but as it was now presumed that the enemy in the ensuing campaign would direct their operations against the Middle and Southern colonies, Congress divided these colonies into two departments, - one comprehending New York, New Jersey, Pennsyl- vania, Delaware, and Maryland, and the other comprising Virginia, the Carolinas, and Georgia, these latter to be under the command of a major general with four briga- diers. In this new arrangement the orders assigning General Lee to Canada were revoked, and he was appointed to the command of the Southern department, where he was to keep watch over the movements of Sir Henry Clinton. Lee was not at all satisfied with the change of his command.

General Lee was a soldier of fortune. He may almost be said to have been cradled in the army, for he received a commission at the age of eleven years. He had had an irregular education, but the art of war had been his especial study from his boyhood. Unfortunately, he imagined that he wielded the pen as well as the sword, and was always meddling as much with the politics of the war in which he was for the time engaged as with the operations in the field, and in regard to the latter he could never confine himself to the limits of his own command. He was undoubtedly a man of brilliant talents and much knowl- edge and experience in the art of war, but he was wilful, uncertain in his temper, and always more intent upon his own military glory than careful of the interest of the cause in which he was engaged, if, indeed, he was true to it. He had served in the French war in America, in Portugal, and in Poland. When the question had arisen between England and her colonies, he warmly espoused the cause of the latter, and had come to America as early as 1773 and had taken an active part in the political agitations of the country. The soldier whom the Mohawk

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warriors had admitted to smoke in their councils and had adopted under an Indian name signifying " Boiling Water," who had served in the famous campaigns of Europe, com- manded Cossacks, fought with Turks, talked with Fred- erick the Great, and had been aide-de-camp to the King of Poland, could not but be regarded as a prodigious acquisition to the patriot cause.1 But no public estima- tion could equal the demands of his vanity and egotism. He had come now to a field, however, in which no fame or glory was to be achieved by a professional soldier nor by any one not a "native here, and to the manner born." They who were to succeed in the coming warfare must be untrammelled by the pedantic rules of the profession, must bring to it minds capable of seeing and realizing the novel condition of affairs and of conceiving and carrying out projects regardless of mere military etiquette and the old plans of European campaigns.

However reluctant to abandon the expedition to Canada, General Lee set out for the South on the 7th of March, and on his way gave intelligence to Washington of Sir Henry Clinton, that he had paused at Norfolk in Virginia and then sailed again farther south. Under his orders five hundred Continental troops from Virginia and four- teen hundred from North Carolina were in full march for Charlestown. Sir Henry Clinton having left General Lee, as he supposed, engaged in measures for the defence of New York, was surprised at his arrival in Virginia, where he had stopped on his voyage to Cape Fear, to find Lee there ready to meet him, and still more so upon arriving before Charlestown to find him again in command of the forces for the defence of that place.2

The coast of South Carolina is fringed by a series of

1 Irving's Washington, vol. I, 418.

2 Annual Register (1776), vol. XIX, 159, 160.

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low islands, or sand bars, on the exterior lines of which the receding tide leaves exposed broad beaches formed by gradually shelving shores. These islands are covered with glistening white sands, forming hills which shift with the varying winds. At the time of the Revolution they were covered with palmettoes and myrtle, with here and there a live-oak or a cedar tree. The deep, loose sand affords but poor footing for the movement of troops or carriages of artillery, and the beach could be used for these purposes only at certain stages of the tide. On the interior side of these islands are immense tracts of green salt marsh, extending for miles between the islands and the mainland. These marshes are intersected by laby- rinths of narrow serpentine creeks through which the flooding water makes its tortuous way, and often at the spring-tide overflows them, completely obliterating for the time the creeks through which it has come from the sea. At low water these creeks are usually bare. At no time do they afford the means of transportation for ar- mies or supplies. Two of these islands form the natural fortresses to the harbor of Charlestown, and both of them have become famous in the annals of warfare. That on the north, Sullivan's Island, was made so in 1776 by the events about to be narrated. That on the south, Morris Island, was made still more so in the war between the States in 1861-65. Sullivan's Island stretches on the northern side of the harbor for about four miles. At its northern end it is separated from Long Island, of similar formation, by what is now a bold but narrow inlet, but which at that time was said to have been ordinarily ford- able. Long Island extends some seven miles up the coast, where it is in turn separated from Dewees' Island,1 and so on.

1 Long Island is now known as the Isle of Palms, the pleasure resort of the city of Charleston.

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On the 31st of May expresses informed President Rut- ledge that a large fleet of British vessels was seen off Dewees' Island, about twenty miles north of Charlestown bar; and on the 1st of June Sir Peter Parker cast an- chors some few miles to the northward of it with upwards of fifty sail of vessels, including transports.1 The objec- tive point of the joint military and naval expedition of Sir Henry Clinton and Sir Peter Parker was now no longer in doubt. Upon South Carolina was the blow to fall.

General Armstrong, one of the brigadiers of this de- partment, had arrived in Charlestown toward the close of April, and soon after took command of the troops in its vicinity.2 Upon learning of the appearance of the British fleet President Rutledge sent expresses to order out the militia, the alarm was fired, the fortifications visited by the President and General Armstrong, and every step was taken for making the best possible defence against an invasion which was now certain and immediate.3 On the 4th of June Major General Lee accompanied by Brigadier General Howe 4 and some other officers arrived at Haddrell's Point on the mainland just opposite the cove of Sullivan's Island, and after viewing that post and Fort Sullivan - the fort on Sullivan's Island, which had been begun on the 10th of January, and since had been but partially com- pleted - they came up to Charlestown.5 Whatever were

1 Memoirs of the Revolution (Drayton), vol. II, 279.

2 Ibid., vol. II, 279, 280 ; Moultrie's Memoirs, vol. I, 140, 141. John Armstrong of Pennsylvania, Brigadier General, Continental Army, March 1, 1776 ; resigned April 4, 1777; Major General, Pennsylvania militia, January 9, 1778, to close of war.

8 Memoirs of the Revolution (Drayton), vol. II, 279, 280 ; Moultrie's Memoirs, vol. I, 140, 141.

4 Robert Howe of North Carolina, Colonel, Second North Carolina Conti- nental Regiment, September 1, 1775 ; Brigadier General, Continental Army, March 1, 1776 ; Major General, October 20, 1777 ; served to close of war.

5 Memoirs of the Revolution (Drayton), vol. II, 279, 280 ; Moultrie's Memoirs, vol. I, 140, 141.

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the faults of General Lee's character, for the present his arrival excited the public ardor, and seemed to presage happy results ; nor as it was said was he wanting in dis- courses to inform the public mind as to military matters, or backward in proceeding on horseback or in boats directing military works and ordering such matters to be done as he conceived the crisis demanded.1

The appearance of the fleet off the bar suppressed for the time, at least, the divisions among the people. Indeed, most of those in Charlestown and the adjoining parishes were united upon resistance to taxation by the British Parliament even to the wager of battle, and the with- drawal of the concession on this point which Lord Bar- rington had announced and the consequent avowal by the ministry of their intention to raise a revenue in America at the point of the bayonet had left no other course open even to moderate men than resistance or submission. The two parties still differed widely as to the extent to which resistance should be carried. If yet few were for abso- lute independence, fewer still were for absolute submis- sion. But all now joined heartily in preparing for the

struggle. The stores and warehouses on the wharves were levelled with the ground to give room for the fire of the musketry and cannon from the line of earthworks along East Bay. When it is recollected that the com- merce of Charlestown was so large at the commencement of these difficulties that Mr. Quincy saw three hundred and fifty sail off the town on his arrival there in 1773, it will be realized how great must have been the value of the property necessary for its accommodation which was thus destroyed. As lead was scarce, the weights from the win- dows of the houses in the town were taken out by their

1 Memoirs of the Revolution (Drayton), vol. II, 280; Moultrie's Memoirs, vol. I, 141.

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IN THE REVOLUTION

owners to be cast into musket balls. Works were thrown up, and traverses erected across the streets which might be raked by a fire of the enemy. All men labored with alac- rity ; some for the sake of example, and others for the usefulness of their labor. In a short time the works were so advanced as to give some sense of security to the in- habitants, encouraging them with hopes of a successful resistance. The public records and the printing-presses had been removed from the town to a place of safety. The Gazettes were thus suspended from the 1st of June to the 1st of August.

All possible preparation had now been made, and the people anxiously but firmly waited the result of the bat- tle. It was indeed a terrible trial they were daring ; with an improvised army of inexperienced officers, raw recruits, and uncertain militia, they were challenging the power of Great Britain and her combined military and naval forces.

The British fleet had sailed from Cape Fear, and on the 1st of June anchored off Charlestown bar. The time until the 5th was spent in sounding the bar and marking the channel with buoys, and on the 7th the frigates and most of the transports crossed and anchored in Five Fathom Hole. Immediately after a boat with a flag of truce set out from the fleet toward Sullivan's Island, but, unaccustomed to the forms of war, the sentinel in whose beat it approached fired upon it and the boat returned. Colonel Moultrie at once reported the occur- rence to President Rutledge, who ordered a flag sent by a discreet officer, explaining the incident to the commanding officer of the British fleet, and assuring him that a mes- senger from him would be properly received. Colonel Moultrie sent Captain Francis Huger under a flag with a letter of explanation, which was accepted, and a second flag

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from the fleet was sent the next day. President Rutledge and Colonel Moultrie would scarcely, however, have been at the trouble of the explanation and apology had they known the use that was'to be made of the flag, for instead of a message relating to the conduct of the war, a sum- mons, or other proper subject of communication, the flag brought a proclamation of Major General Sir Henry Clin- ton, commander of his Majesty's forces in the Southern provinces of North America, warning the deluded people of the miseries ever attendant upon civil war, and entreat- ing and exhorting them to return to their duty to their sovereign, and offering, in his Majesty's name, free pardon to all such as should lay down their arms and submit to his government. The proclamation was received, -no effort appears to have been made to suppress it, - but it produced no effect, no attention was paid to it, nor was any answer given. The transports then moved north- wardly, and General Sir Henry Clinton landed four or five hundred men on Long Island. On the 10th the flag- ship Bristol got over the bar with some difficulty, and was soon joined by the remainder of the fleet, which anchored but a league's distance off Sullivan's Island, from which point with the help of glasses all that was going on on Sullivan's Island could easily be seen and the guns counted.1

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The history of South Carolina in the Revolution, 1775-1780, Part 13

Author: McCrady, Edward, 1833-1903 Publication date: 1901 Publisher: New York, The Macmillan Company; London, Macmillan & Co., ltd. Number of Pages: 966

Author: McCrady, Edward, 1833-1903
Publication date: 1901
Publisher: New York, The Macmillan Company; London, Macmillan & Co., ltd.
Number of Pages: 966