USA > South Carolina > The history of South Carolina in the Revolution, 1775-1780 > Part 17
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The General Assembly were equally explicit in their answer to the President's address.
" It is with unspeakable joy we embrace this opportunity of express- ing our satisfaction in the Declaration of the Continental Congress constituting the United Colonies free and independent States absolved from their subjection to George III and totally dissolving all political union between them and Great Britain. An event unsought for, and now produced by unavoidable necessity, and which every friend to justice and humanity must not only hold justifiable as the natural effect of unwonted persecution, but equally rejoice in as the only security against injuries and oppressions, and the most promising source of future liberty and safety."
To the Assembly the President replied, " May the hap- piest consequences be derived to the United States from the independence of America, who could not obtain even peace, liberty, and safety by any other means." 1
It is difficult to reconcile these utterances of President Rutledge with his views expressed both before and after the meeting of the Assembly. Upon adjourning the Gen- eral Assembly, which as a Congress had adopted the Constitution, he had charged the members to tell their constituents that the Constitution they had adopted was but temporary, only intended to provide some form of government during the interregnum, until an accommodation could be obtained with Great Britain ; but now he not only accepts the Declaration of Independence as necessary and unavoidable, but applauds the determina- tion of the Council to maintain it at every hazard ; and to the General Assembly he predicts the happiest conse- quences to be derived from it. And yet when, as we shall
1 Memoirs of the Revolution (Drayton), vol. II, 376, 382.
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see, two years afterward, the General Assembly passed a bill reciting that the Constitution of 1776 was temporary only and suited to the situation of public affairs when it was resolved on, looking forward to an accommodation with Great Britain, an event then desired, but that the united colonies had since been constituted independent States by the declaration of Congress and it therefore became necessary to frame a constitution suited to that great event, President Rutledge exercising the power con- ferred by the Constitution of 1776 vetoed the bill, declaring that he still looked forward to such an accommodation as desirable then in 1778 as it had been in 1776.
Ramsay says the Declaration of Independence arrived in Charlestown at a most favorable juncture. It found the people of South Carolina exasperated against Great Britain for her late hostile attack and elevated with their success- ful defence of Fort Moultrie. It was welcomed by a great majority of the inhabitants. In private it is probable, he says, that some condemned the measure as rashly adven- turous beyond the ability of the State, but that these private murmurs never produced to the public eye a sin- gle expression of disapprobation. It was not likely that those who for the last two years could not express their opinions without danger of being tarred and feathered, would have been open at this time to declare their doubts as to the wisdom of those who were conducting the Revo- lution. But none the less was there opposition to this severance of the ties which bound this province to the mother country deep in the hearts and minds of many of the best and most patriotic of the people of South Caro- lina. John Rutledge himself was no doubt carried away for the time by the natural elation of sentiment upon the victory of Fort Moultrie which he had done so much to secure - which, indeed, would not have been won had it
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not been for his firmness and determination. But he was carried away only for the time. True, as we shall see, he assented to an act requiring an oath of abjuration of the King and allegiance to the State ; but when an attempt was made to form a permanent constitution, the necessity of accommodation with Great Britain again forced itself upon his conviction, and he refused to close the doors to a reconciliation.
Miles Brewton who, as we have seen, had entertained Josiah Quincy on his visit to Charlestown in 1773, as also Lord William Campbell on his arrival in the province in 1775, and had then endeavored to keep the peace between the Royal Governor and the Provincial Congress of which he was a member ; who had been a member of the Council of Safety and active participant in the early movements for redress against the grievances of the colonists, was typical of many in South Carolina. In a letter to Quincy in 1774 upon the situation in Charlestown, he writes: " I have quitted trade and am now winding up my labors for twenty-one years past. I long for shelter ; when once I get under the shade it is not a little will bring me out again." But there was no shade or rest in Carolina in those times. He had hoped, as he then wrote to his friend Quincy, that if Boston would but persevere and be pru- dent, her sisters and neighbors would work out her salva- tion without taking the musket. But things had gone very differently since then. War had actually begun, and the moving party in the colonies had given up the hope, if, indeed, they entertained any longer the wish for a redress of grievances from Parliament; they were now resolved on their separation from Great Britain. To this extent he would not go, nor would he remain to be other than a subject of Great Britain. So gathering up all his movable effects, he left his mansion in which he had
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exercised so generous and brilliant a hospitality, and with all his family sailed away from the province. No tidings were ever received of the ship in which they sailed, and now in the Gazette which publishes the Declaration of Independence, Charles Pinckney and Jacob Motte advertise that they had proved his will, and as executors had assumed control of his great estate.
Miles Brewton had left the province, but there were many who remained who thought as he did. Indeed, there were few families in South Carolina, as we have had occasion before to observe, which were not divided upon the question of independence.1 When four years after- wards Charlestown was taken, two hundred citizens, styl- ing themselves "the principal and most respectable inhab- itants" of the town, addressed Sir Henry Clinton and Admiral Arbuthnot, congratulating them upon their suc- cess and declaring that although the right of taxing Amer- ica in Parliament had excited considerable ferment in the minds of the people of the province, yet it might, with a religious adherence to truth, be affirmed that they had not entertained the most distant thought of dissolving the union that had so happily subsisted between them and their parent country, and that when in the progress of the fatal controversy the doctrine of independence which originated in the Northern colonies made its appearance among them, their natures revolted at the idea.2 There are some, but few, names among the signers of this paper which can now be recognized under the description they assumed as those of "principal and most respectable in- habitants," but what they said was undoubtedly true not only of themselves but of many others who did not sign that
1 So. Ca. under Roy. Gov. (McCrady), 557.
2 Siege of Charlestown (J. Munsell, Limited Edition), 148 ; extracts from Rivington's Royal Gazette, June 21, 1780.
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paper. In the Royal Gazette, into which Robert Wells's South Carolina and American General Gazette was converted during the occupancy of Charlestown by the British troops, in the issues of July 1 and September 19, 1780, there are published two long lists of citizens who had not addressed Sir Henry Clinton, but who had memorialized the commandant of Charlestown, declaring their allegiance and attachment to the person and government of his Majesty, and praying an opportunity of evincing the sin- cerity of their profession. Their petition, it is declared, had been referred to gentlemen of known loyalty and integrity, as well as knowledge of the persons and char- acter of the inhabitants who had reported confirming the truth of the declarations of these petitioners. In these lists are found the names of citizens of the highest charac- ter, some of whom had taken part in the first movements in the province. There is no reason to doubt the sincerity of many of these, either in their resistance to what they regarded the wrongs and oppressions of the colonies in the first instance, or in their declaration of their allegiance to the King in the second. Their conduct was consistent ; they were for resistance to the invasion of the rights of the colonies ; but this resistance was to be made within the dominion of Great Britain. They were opposed to the Declaration of Independence and a separation from the mother country. To this first secession the people of South Carolina were, as a whole, most bitterly opposed.
CHAPTER IX
1776
WHILE these things were taking place on the coast, the whole western frontier of the province was again ablaze. The Indians were upon the warpath. When we would realize what our forefathers dared in resisting the impo- sition of a few pennies of taxes because they regarded the measure theoretically unconstitutional, let us recall the horrors of Indian warfare, - the tomahawk, the scalp- ing knife, the torture, the conflagration which invariably accompanied an Indian uprising. Let us recollect that it was not only the prowess and valor of the naval and military force of Great Britain which were challenged on the coast, but far more the terrors of the savage lurking in their rear. Let us recollect, too, the defenceless condition of the people in the back country upon whom these horrors would fall, when the Indians learned of the war between the whites, and were instigated to hostilities by emissaries sent to incite them to murder and pillage. To those who had witnessed and escaped the massacre at Long Canes but a few years before, the dread must have been all but over- powering. Remembering this, we must wonder that there were so many in that region who would risk so much in a cause in which they were not materially interested, rather than condemn the conduct of those who hesitated to arouse their savage neighbors, supported as the savages would be by the British government. It was the crime of Great Britain in this contest that she instigated sav-
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ages to war upon her own people, and accepted them as her allies.
Captain John Stuart was at this time Superintendent of his Majesty's Indian affairs for the whole southern district including Virginia, North and South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida. He had, as we have seen, the warmest friends among the Cherokees, was beloved by them, and possessed the greatest influence among all their tribes. He was intensely loyal to the King. In June, 1775, he left his mansion in Charlestown and retired to Florida. Apprehending that from that point he would be stirring up the Indians, the Provincial Congress had made an order restraining his wife and Mrs. Fenwick his daughter from absenting themselves from his home in the town, thus holding them as hostages for his good behavior. A guard was placed around the house, and it was ordered that no person should be allowed to visit Mrs. Stuart without Colonel Moultrie's order. From this restriction Mrs. Fenwick was subsequently released, and Mrs. Stuart succeeded in escaping through the assist- ance, as it was supposed, of her son-in-law, Mr. Fenwick, who was himself accordingly arrested and put in jail.1
From Florida Stuart succeeded in opening communica- tion at once with the Cherokees, who still inhabited the northwestern part of South Carolina, and with General Gage at Boston. In the first instance Stuart employed Alexander Cameron, his Indian agent among the Chero- kees, and his brother Henry Stuart, and in the latter our old acquaintance Moses Kirkland, who when Mr. Drayton refused to receive his surrender had escaped to the sloop of war Tamar then in Charlestown harbor. On the 3d of October, 1775, Stuart reported to General Gage that as a great majority of the frontier and back country inhabitants
1 Moultrie's Memoirs, vol. I, 122, 123.
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of Carolina were attached to and inclined to support the government, that he was opposed to an indiscriminate attack by Indians, but he would "dispose of them to join in executing any concerted plan, and to act with and assist their well-disposed neighbors." Stuart dispatched this letter by Moses Kirkland, who he wrote would assure General Gage as to the favorable disposition of the peo- ple in the back country.1 The vessel in which Kirkland sailed was providentially captured, and the letters found in his possession were published by order of the Conti- nental Congress, to show the Americans that the British government had employed savages who indiscriminately murdered men, women, and children. The capture of the vessel and Kirkland, who was to have had an active share in the Indian operations, for the time frustrated them ; but they were renewed, and the Cherokees began a mas- sacre just at the time the British fleet attacked the fort on Sullivan's Island.2
When Cameron was first appointed agent by the British government for the Cherokees, he had opened two exten- sive farms on the frontier of Carolina, which he stocked with negroes, horses, and cattle ; and to secure his influ- ence among the Indians, regardless of morality or pro- priety, after the custom of Indian agents, had selected an Indian woman from one of the most influential families of the Cherokees, whom he took to his house as his mis- tress and placed at the head of his table. Her dress was of the richest kind the country could afford, her furniture was elegant, and her mode of living sumptuous. To increase his influence, through the means of his mis- tress, royal presents were distributed among the Indians under her immediate direction. When he saw the storm
1 Memoirs of the Revolution (Drayton), vol. II, 296, 297.
2 Ramsay's Revolution, vol. I, 155, 156.
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gathering, Cameron removed into the Cherokee nation, where he was constantly surrounded by his red brethren. He was there a powerful assistant to Stuart in his designs.
The Council of Safety had sent Captain William Free- man to meet some of the chiefs and head men of the Cherokees at Seneca on the frontier to assure them of the friendly disposition of the white people toward the Ind- ians, and to draw assurances from them of reciprocal sen- timents ; but upon his return he reported that the Indians could not be relied upon while they were under the bale- ful influence of Cameron. It was thereupon determined to secure Cameron's person and to bring him out of the nation. This hazardous enterprise through Major Will- iamson was intrusted to Captain James McCall, whom we have seen with a company at Ninety-Six, and who was now beginning a brilliant career, which unfortunately was not to outlast the revolutionary struggle. With Captain McCall were associated Captain James Baskin and Ensign Patrick Calhoun. Their party consisted of twenty-two volunteers from Carolina and eleven from Georgia. The avowed object of the party was to demand restoration of property plundered by Loyalists and Indians. This they were to ask, however, in a friendly way. The detach- ment rendezvoused at the Cherokee Ford on the Savan- nah River on the 20th of June, 1776, and marched for the Cherokee nation. Every preparation was made for a rapid retreat in case they were opposed by a superior force. The orders to the commander, Captain McCall, were to proceed to a certain point before he broke the seal of his private instructions or disclosed the real object of the expedition to the men who composed the detach- ment ; but finding there was no disposition to shrink from the undertaking, the purpose was confided to the men individually. The party passed through several Indian
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towns, where they were met and received with every appearance of friendship and hospitality and a profession of readiness to comply with the requisitions made of them. On the evening of the 26th they encamped in the vicinity of a large town, where McCall made known his wishes to have a discussion with the chiefs upon the subject of his mission. The conference was spun out, when suddenly his interpreter and himself were rushed upon by a party of warriors and made prisoners. The detachment under Basken and Calhoun were at the same moment surrounded by several hundred Indians, who drove in the sentries and fell upon the camp while the men were almost all asleep. The precautions which Captain McCall had ordered had not been strictly regarded. The Indians rushed into the camp with guns, knives, and hatchets, and for a few moments a bloody conflict ensued. Ensign Cal- houn was wounded in the first onset. The detachment, though overpowered by numbers and taken by surprise, succeeded in cutting their way through the ranks of the savages. Calhoun and three others were killed. After almost incredible sufferings from fatigue and hunger the remainder of the detachment reached the settlement in parties of three or four together within two weeks after the defeat.
Captain McCall remained a prisoner for several weeks, and to impress him with some idea of the dreadful fate which awaited him he was frequently taken to the place of execution to witness the torture under which his fellow- prisoners expired. One instance is mentioned in his jour- nal of a boy about twelve years of age who was put to death in a similar manner as had been John Lawson, the explorer, who perished under torture in 1711.1 The de- tails are horrible. Light wood splinters were prepared of
1 Hist. of So. Ca. under Prop. Gov. (McCrady), 497.
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eighteen inches in length, sharpened at one end and frac- tured at the other, so that when lighted the torch would not be extinguished by being thrown. After these weap- ons of death had been prepared and a fire made for the purpose of lighting them, the youth was suspended naked by the arms between two posts three feet from the ground. Then the scene of horror began. It was deemed a mark of dexterity, and accompanied by shouts of applause, when an Indian threw one of these torches so as to stick the sharp end into the body of the suffering victim, without extinguishing the torch. Thus were two of the most cruel ยท modes of death united in one, - crucifixion and burning, -and to these was added the exquisite suffering from the piercing splinters. This torture was continued in this instance for two hours before the poor boy was relieved by death.
The alarm excited among the Indians by the successful operation of the American forces of which we must pres- ently further tell relieved to some extent the rigors of McCall's imprisonment, and of this he availed himself by taking every opportunity of impressing on the minds of the Indians the consequences of murdering a man who visited their towns for the purpose of friendly talks and smoking the pipe of peace ; he warned them that if he was murdered his countrymen would require much Indian blood to atone for his life. Councils were held to con- demn him to death, and in one instance he was saved by a single voice. Efforts were made by Cameron through the medium of an Indian woman to obtain a personal interview with him, but McCall peremptorily refused see- ing or having any communication with Cameron. Finally McCall effected his escape, and with one pint of parched and a few ears of green corn, he traversed the mountains for three hundred miles on horseback without a saddle,
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and the ninth day after his escape reached the frontier of Virginia, where he fell in with a body of Virginian troops under the command of Colonel Christie on its way to join the forces of North and South Carolina in an expedition to put an end to Cherokee invasions. But other and no less thrilling events had taken place in South Carolina during his, McCall's, captivity.1
Stuart and Cameron had succeeded in arranging with the Cherokees for an attack on the frontier settlements from Georgia to Virginia as a diversion in favor of the invasion by the British fleet and army on the coast. The Indian uprising was to be made as soon as the fleet and army should be ready to strike. Learning therefore on the 1st of July that the fleet had arrived off Charlestown bar, the Cherokees took up the war club and with the dawn of that day poured down upon the frontiers of South Carolina, massacring without distinction of age or sex all persons who fell in their power. On this day one of Captain Aaron Smith's sons arrived at the residence of Mr. Francis Salvador on Corn-acre Creek in Ninety- Six district with two of his fingers shot away. He told that his father's house on Little River had been attacked by the savages, and that his father, mother, and five chil- dren, together with five negro men, had been butchered by them. Mr. Salvador, who was a member of the Provincial Congress and one of the few from the Up Country who had taken an active part in its proceedings, forthwith mounted his horse and galloped to Major Andrew Williamson's residence, twenty-eight miles from thence, where he found another of Captain Smith's sons who had fortunately escaped. Other families were likewise massacred, among
1 In this account we have followed McCall's Hist. of Georgia, vol. II, 76-81, which purports to be taken from a journal of Captain McCall's, but of which we have no other information.
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them the Hamptons. Anthony Hampton, the father of General Wade Hampton, was among the first emigrants from Virginia to the upper part of South Carolina. He had settled with his family on Tyger River in what is now Spartanburg County. Impressed with the importance to the frontier inhabitants that the Cherokees should be conciliated and kept in peace, Edward, Henry, and Richard Hampton, sons of Anthony, each of whom after- wards distinguished himself during the Revolution, had been sent by their neighbors to invite the Indians to a talk ; but the British emissaries had unfortunately been before them, and had already arranged for the uprising which now took place. In the absence of his sons the Indians fell upon Mr. Hampton and his family, killed him, his wife, his son Preston, his infant grandson Har- rison, and burnt his house. Mrs. Harrison with her daughter and her husband were absent at a neighbor's, but returned in the midst of the conflagration. They were in great danger, but escaped. Edward, Henry, . Richard, John, and Wade Hampton, who were then absent, were preserved to avenge the family ; so, too, was James Harrison, the son-in-law.
This outbreak of the Indians caused the greatest con- sternation. The people were almost destitute of arms, having sold the best of their rifles to arm the rifle regi- ments and Rangers in the service. They were also in great want of ammunition. Nor would the men collect in bodies until they had disposed their families in places of comparative safety. Some fled as far as Orangeburgh. The country was desolated, - plantations abandoned, and crops left to go to ruin, as the people crowded into the little stockade forts. Several hundred men, women, and children of the helpless inhabitants of the frontier fell a sacrifice to the tomahawk and scalping knife.
VOL. III. - O
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Major Williamson, to whom the first news of the uprising was brought, lost no time in opposing the in- vasion ; but so great was the panic that although he dispatched expresses on all sides, only forty men were collected in two days. But with this little band, accom- panied by Mr. Salvador, he marched on the 3d of July to the house in which Captain Smith had been killed. On the next day forty more of the militia arrived. On the 5th he mustered 110 men, and on the 8th his force was increased to 222, when he encamped at Holmes's field on Hogskin Creek, about four miles from the Cherokee line at De Witt's Corner, now Due West. Here he remained until the 16th of July, when, having collected 450 men, he advanced to Baker's Creek at a point a few miles above Moffettsville, in what is now Abbeville County.
The inhabitants along the Saluda had taken refuge in an old fort called Lyndley's, near Rayborn Creek, where on the morning of the 15th of July they were attacked by 88 Indians and 102 white men, many of whom were painted and disguised as Indians. The Indians expected to have surprised the fort, and commenced the attack about one o'clock in the morning. Fortunately 150 men under Major Downes had arrived the evening before on their way to join Major Williamson, and with their assist- ance the attack was repulsed with a loss to the Indians of two of their chief warriors, and several were left dead upon the field. The garrison immediately pursued and took 13 white men prisoners, among them some painted and dressed as Indians. These were sent to Ninety-Six for safe-keeping ; it would have been better to have hanged them at once. Had this attack upon Fort Lyndley succeeded, it is probable that all the disaffected would at once have joined the Indians. It was against the people of this region that Colonel Richardson's expedition
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