USA > South Carolina > The history of South Carolina in the Revolution, 1775-1780 > Part 25
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" All these circumstances," writes Washington to the President of Congress on the 2d of September, 1776, " fully confirms the opinion I have ever entertained, and which more than once in my letter took the liberty of mentioning to Congress, that no dependence could be put in a militia or other troops than those enlisted and embodied for a longer period than our regulations hitherto prescribed. I am persuaded, and as fully convinced as I am of any one fact that has happened, that our liberties must of necessity be greatly hazarded if not entirely lost if this defence is left to any but a permanent standing army. I mean to exist during the war." 1
Washington, it will be observed, had no idea of such an organization of volunteers, neither regulars nor militia, which has, as we have before pointed out, become in a great measure the military system of the United States; an organization with which the Mexican War was, to a large extent, conducted, which was the organization on both sides in the war between the States in 1861-65, was again resorted to in the late Spanish War, and is now, under the name of yeomanry, adopted, to a considerable extent, by the British government in the war in South Africa; an organization in which men of the highest char- acter and position may serve in the ranks from patriotism, regardless of pay ; an organization which, formed by enlist- ment for definite periods, - sometimes for a whole war, - combines the permanence of a regular force with the superior zeal and character of the patriot. Washington's idea of a proper organization was that of a regular army in which the rank and file were to be enlisted or hired
1 Washington's Writings, vol. IV, 72.
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IN THE REVOLUTION
men - men of indifferent characters who would serve for pay, and for pay subject themselves to the subordination and rigor of military discipline without regard to the cause for which they were hired to fight. He wished, in his own language, "a permanent standing army," and that was just what a large party of the Revolutionists were unwilling to establish, fearing that such an army might be used for setting up another monarchical government.
Thus urged, however, Congress soon after the defeat on Long Island, that is in the fall of 1776, adopted a scheme for the reorganization of the army by which 88 battalions of 680 men each were to be raised in the several States in proportion to their assumed ability severally to furnish them. Massachusetts and Virginia were each to furnish 15 battalions; Pennsylvania, 12; North Carolina, 9; Con- necticut, 8; South Carolina, 6; New York and New Jersey, each 4 ; New Hampshire and Maryland, each 3; Rhode Island, 2; Delaware and Georgia, each 1.1 From General Knox's report as Secretary of War, May 10, 1790, it appears that besides these the commander-in-chief was authorized to raise 16 additional regiments of infantry and 3 of artillery, also a body of cavalry of 3000 men.2 This scheme should have produced a force of 75,000 men. The number Gen- eral Knox reports as furnished was 34,820. A most
1 Marshall's Life of Washington, vol. II, 456, 457 ; Hildreth's Hist. of the U. S., vol. III, 164.
2 Am. State Papers, Military Affairs, vol. I, 15. The report, it should be observed, was compiled seven years after the war from such returns as could then be found. It is manifestly inaccurate. There was no Executive under the Confederation, no Secretary of War. Congress undertook to manage the affairs of the army itself by Boards and Com- mittees. The returns of the time were thus furnished by the States, and we have Washington's authority for the fact that they were unreliable. Knox's report to Congress is not a contemporaneous document. It is very certain that no such number of men as he reports were ever actually in the field. Many were only on paper.
VOL. III. - U
290
HISTORY OF SOUTH CAROLINA
extraordinary error, apparently originating in a statement found in the collections of the New Hampshire Historical Society, makes the number of continental troops actually furnished during the Revolution as 231,971, and the militia as 56,163, making a grand total of troops engaged in the struggle 288,134.1 This result is brought about by adding together the number of men reported by General Knox as furnished for each of the eight years of the war as if they were different and additional men for each of the years. Whereas Knox's report itself shows that in the year 1776 all the States together reported on paper but 46,891 continental troops ; in 1777 but 34, 820; in 1778 but 32,899; in 1779 but 27,699; in 1780 but 21,015; in 1781 but 13,292; in 1782 but 14,256; in 1783 but 13, 476; so that the largest number of continental troops returned in any year was that in 1776, in which the siege of Boston, battle of Fort Moultrie, and the battle of Long Island took place. The continental troops at first were enlisted but for six months, then for some longer periods, and some for the whole war. John Adams states that after a careful examination of the most authentic documents he was satisfied that there never was, at any time in North America, including the Canadas, more than 25,000 British troops during the war.2
1 Am. Almanac, 1830, 187 ; 1831, 112 ; Niles' Register, July 31, 1830 ; Am. Loyalists (Sabine), 31.
2 Letter of December, 1809, published in the Literary World (New York), quoted by Simms in his So. Ca. in the Am. Revolution, 54.
As a matter of interest the following table is given as showing the comparative strength of the two armies, American and British, on paper, during the years 1777, 1778, 1779, 1780, 1781, and 1782. The strength of the American forces is taken from the report of General Knox as Secre- tary of War, made May 10, 1790, and that of the British from the returns in the State Paper Office, London, quoted in Washington's Writings, vol. V, 542.
American
1777 continentals, 34,820 militia returned, 10,100
British
20,957
1778 ¥ 32,899 66 4,353 estimated, 13,800 34,064
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IN THE REVOLUTION
Mr. Sabine enlarges upon the estimate of the New Hampshire Historical Society and makes the aggregate force furnished by all the States (including continentals as 231,959, militia returned 58,747, and a conjectural estimate of militia in service 105,580) 396,286.1 That is, about one soldier for every eight of inhabitants by the estimate of population by Congress at 3,026,678.2 The case of South Carolina furnishes an illustration of the fallacies of these estimates. By that of Mr. Sabine
American
British
1779 continentals, 27,699 militia returned, 5,135 estimated, 12,350
38,569
1780
66
21,015
5,811
16,250
33,766
1781
13,292ª
7,298
8,750
33,374ª
1782
66
14,256
3,750
42,075
1 The Am. Loyalists (Sabine), 31. The inquiry naturally arises if there were so many Americans in the field where did they fight, and why did they not drive the British, who never numbered 50,000, out of the country without waiting for the assistance of France. The numbers of Americans present at the great battles of the war other than those dis- cussed in this work were as follows : Long Island, 27,000 (Marshall's Life of Washington, vol. II, 429) ; Trenton and Princeton, between 5000 and 6000 (Irving's Life of Washington, vol. II, 469) ; Saratoga, continental, 9993, militia, 4129 = 14,122 (Marshall's Life of Washington, vol. III, 291 2.) ; Brandywine, 11,000 effective (Ibid., vol. III, 141) ; German- town, 8000 continentals, 3000 militia (Ibid., 175) ; winter quarters Valley Forge, 17,000 (Ibid., 375) ; Monmouth, 10,684 (Ibid., 462) ; Yorktown, 5500 continentals and 3500 militia, 7000 French troops (Ibid., vol. IV, 494). See this subject also discussed by Mr. Simms, under the name of Southron, in his So. Ca. in the Rev. War, etc. (1853), 59. It is, however, a mistake to say that there were 1000 South Carolina troops in the North. There were none. The Carolinians mentioned as being in Phila- delphia were General Nash's brigade of North Carolinians.
2 Memoirs of the Revolution (Drayton), vol. I, 15.
« Lord George Germain, Minister of War, writes to Sir Henry Clinton on the 7th March, 1781 : " Indeed, so contemptible is the Rebel Force now in all Parts, and so vast is Our Superiority everywhere that no resistance on their Parts is to be apprehended that can materially obstruct the Progress of the Kings arms in the Speedy Suppression of the Rebellion ; ard it is a pleasing tho' at the same time a mortifying reflection, when the Dura- tion of the Rebellion is considered, which arises from the view of this Return of the Provin- cial Forces You have transmitted, that the American Levies in the Kings Service are more in number than the whole of the Inlisted Troops in the Service of the Congress." Clinton- Cornwallis Controversy, vol. I, 335.
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HISTORY OF SOUTH CAROLINA
the State is credited with 6600 continentals and a con jec- tural estimate of militia in service at 25, 850, in all 32,510. But no estimate of South Carolina's population could have furnished that number. The highest estimate of the num- ber of whites in 1775 was 75,000.1 The census of 1790, it is true, nearly doubles that number and makes it 140,178. This is, in a great measure, explained by the multitude from abroad and from the more northern parts of America which poured into the State after the peace of 1783. So great was this influx of population that the present counties of Greenville, Pickens, and Oconee - the territory acquired from the Indians in 1777 - filled so rapidly from 1783 that in 1800 they alone contained up- wards of 30,000 souls.2 But this would scarcely fully ac- count for the great difference between the former estimates and the census of 1790. The fault is probably in both the estimates and the census. The latter was the first taken in the United States, and was probably not very accurately made. It was, in fact, not completed in South Carolina until the 25th of February, 1792.3 In 1787 the population of South Carolina was estimated for representation by
1 Hist. of So. Ca. under Roy. Gov. (McCrady), 377-507. In the war between the States in 1861-65 the State of South Carolina, however, with a white population of but 291,300, and an arms-bearing population (i.e. of white men between the ages of 18 and 45) in 1860 of but 55,046 (War of the Rebellion Official Records, Series III, vol. III, 44), put into the field 44,000 volunteers before the passage of any conscript act ; and during the war 62,838 effective men, and had an enrolment of 71,083, of which 22 per cent were killed or died of disease or died in prison. Report of the Historian of the Confederate Records to the General Assembly of So. Ca. This was a most extraordinary uprising, but it would have been nothing in comparison to that of the Revolution if Mr. Sabine's estimate were correct.
2 Mills' Statistics, 176.
3 S. S. Cox, art. "Census," Supplement to Encyclopedia Britannica, vol. I, 764.
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IN THE REVOLUTION
the Constitutional Convention of the United States at 150,000, including three-fifths of 80,000 negroes, that is, 102,000 whites and 80,000 negroes.1 For want of a more reliable standard, if we accept for our present purpose the number of whites at 100,000 in 1775, instead of the highest of former estimates, 75,000, by Mr. Sabine's figures, the State would have furnished, as soldiers, one-third of its white population, including men, women, and children. But in addition to this it must be remembered that the inhabitants of the State were by no means unanimous upon the subject of the Revolution. They were indeed utterly divided. And while there were but few men in the State who did not actually bear arms on the one side or the other, the population which supported the Revolution could not in any case have exceeded the 65,000 at which the popu- lation was estimated at the time. Mr. Sabine's estimate in the case of the State of South Carolina, which would be one soldier in every three of white population at its highest figure, is wholly inadmissible.
Under the plan for the reorganization of the army, as we have seen, the Continental army should have numbered 75,000 men. It, in fact, never reached, at any given time, but little more than one-third of that number. Washing- ton, writing to a committee of Congress on the 15th of Janu- ary, 1779, states that unless he was mistaken 26,000 was a larger number than ever was in the field; 2 and again in a letter to the President of Congress of the 18th of Novem- ber of the same year he sends a return taken from the mus- ter rolls of October of the troops of each State except South Carolina and Georgia, from which he says Congress will perceive "that our whole force, including all sorts of troops, non-commissioned officers and privates, drummers
1 Elliot's Debates, vol. IV, 275.
2 Washington's Writings, vol. VI, 161.
294
HISTORY OF SOUTH CAROLINA
and fifers, supposing every man to have existed and to have been in service at that time, a point, however, totally inadmissible, amounted to but twenty-seven thousand and ninety-nine."1 And this was the number of continentals reported by General Knox for that year.2 By the plan of Congress, assuming that each year's returns were to be . of additional men, as in the estimate of the New Hamp- shire Historical Society, which has been so blindly and generally followed, the number of continentals should at that time have reached the enormous figure of 142,309.3 Washington, it will be observed, states that up to 1779 there had never been in the field actually more than 26, 000. The apportionment of the quotas of the various States, by Congress in 1776, was based upon an estimate of the popu- lation made by Congress, it was said, from the best calcu- lation.4 But this estimate was not at all correct, and was certainly in some instances, if not in all, greater than the population proved to be. For instance, Massachusetts was put down as having a population of 400,000, whereas, in fact, she did not have but 352,000.5 New Hampshire
1 Washington's Writings, vol. VI, 402.
2 Am. State Papers, Military Affairs, vol. I, 17.
3 Continentals reported by General Knox : -
1776
46,891
1777
34,820
1778
32,899
1779
27,699
Total
142,309
4 Memoirs of the Revolution (Drayton), vol. I, 15.
Massachusetts
400,000
Pennsylvania and Dela-
New Hampshire
150,000
ware . 350,000
Rhode Island .
59,678
Maryland 320,000
Connecticut
192,000
Virginia 650,000
New York .
250,000
North Carolina 300,000
New Jersey
130,000
South Carolina 225,000
Total of the twelve associated colonies
3,026,676
5 Am. Encyclopedia, Eaton S. Drone.
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IN THE REVOLUTION
was estimated at 150,000, whereas a survey taken the year before, 1775, partly by enumeration and partly by estimation, for the purpose of establishing a proper representation of the people, made the whole number
82,200.1 So, too, with South Carolina the estimate of 225,000 was far in excess of the truth. We have shown that the white population at the utmost was not over 100,000; the number of negroes could not have made up the difference. By Governor Bull's report in 1769 the negroes in the colony numbered 80,000.2 During the year 1770 importation had been prohibited.3 We have no mention of the number of negroes imported in 1771; but we have the statement, of the South Carolina Gazette, that in 1773 the importation reached the figures of 11, 641, which was the greatest number imported in any year; that the next greatest number imported in a year was 4865, in 1772. The importation, therefore, in 1771 could not have reached the latter figure. The report of the histori- cal committee of the Charleston Library estimates the number of negroes in 1773 as 110,000. Dr. Milligan puts them in 1775 at 104,000. Mr. Laurens estimated them in 1778, to the French minister, at 80,000. The Consti- tutional Convention in 1787 put them for representation at the same figure. By the census of 1790 they were 107,094. For our present purpose we will assume the estimates made by Mr. Laurens and the Constitutional Convention as probably correct, or nearly so, and put the whole population whether white or black at 180,000.
In 1754 there appears to have been, by an official census, 2448 negro slaves over sixteen years of age in Massachu- setts.4 Supposing that by 1775 these had been doubled in
1 Belknap's Hist. of N. H., vol. I, 234.
2 Hist. of So. Ca. under Roy. Gov. (McCrady), 807.
8 Ibid., 380, 381. 4 Hildreth, vol. II, 419.
296
HISTORY OF SOUTH CAROLINA
numbers, and that with those under sixteen years of age the negro population of that State to have. been 6000, - a large estimate, - and deducting these 6000 from 352, 000, there must yet have remained 346,000 white people in Massachusetts to have furnished 15 battalions of 680 men each = 10,800, while the 100,000 white people in South Carolina, assuming that they were so many, were called upon to furnish 6 battalions = 4080 men. The white people in Massachusetts were called upon to furnish 1 continental soldier for each 32 of inhabitants; the white people in South Carolina to furnish 1 continental soldier in every 25. In other words, the white people in South Carolina were called upon to furnish 25 per cent more continental soldiers in proportion to their numbers than were the white people in Massachusetts. It may, however, have been argued that as the slaves would furnish the labor to maintain the agriculture in such parts of the country as might remain in the peaceful possession of the States, and thus support the white men in the field, some allowance should be made on that account. But this is supposing the country could be preserved from invasion. Upon inva- sion the negro slaves at that time became a source of weak- ness to the invaded and of strength to the invader, even though he was not used by the invader as a soldier in his army. During the war between the States in 1861-65 it is true that the reverse was the fact, and that negro labor on the plantations allowed nearly all the white men in the Confederacy to take the field; but that, it must be remembered, was nearly a century later, when no importa- tion of negroes had taken place for sixty years, and when the relation between masters and slaves in the South had greatly improved. To the lasting honor of the Southern people the future historian will point to the extraordinary fact that during the four terrible years of the war, while
297
IN THE REVOLUTION
the whole country was invaded, so kindly were the rela- tions between the negro slaves and their masters that in no single instance was there a rising against the women and children of the Confederate soldiers upon the part of the negro slaves in whose care they were left. Negro troops, it is true, were raised by the Federal government, but only in territory permanently occupied by them. With immense armies surrounding the whole country, which came proclaiming their emancipation, millions of negro slaves remained faithful to their absent masters, who were in the field fighting for a cause which would retain them in slavery. But the case was very different at the time of the Revolution. Negro slaves at that time were in a far less civilized condition ; a large part of them were newly imported from Africa. Under these circum- stances planters, however well disposed to the Revolution, with great reason objected to leaving their families sur- rounded by these savages. When, therefore, the move- ments of the opposing armies left their plantations exposed to the invaders, no sense of patriotism, however strong, could overcome the demands of family affection and pa- rental duty. Men would not leave their wives and children to the mercy of their slaves, incited to rapine and murder by the presence of, if not by the actual instigation of, a hostile army. If the New England militiaman could not be kept to the lines around Boston, though his family at home were in no immediate danger, still less could it be expected that the Carolinian on the coast should remain in the field while his were exposed to the barbarity of the savage and in the interior to the merciless Indian, in ad- dition to the ordinary terrors of invasion. This appor- tionment, moreover, was based upon the assumption that the white people were practically united; but such was not the case in South Carolina; in no other State was there
298
HISTORY OF SOUTH CAROLINA
so great and persistent a division as to the causes of the war and its conduct, -a division, however, which the coming invasion was, in a great measure, to obliterate.
South Carolina made no question, however, of her allot- ment, and undertook to provide the men called for. The State, as we have seen, had raised six regiments of pro- vincial regulars. These regiments were transferred by the Provincial Assembly to the Continental service, and if they did not fill the quota called for, they furnished a well- organized and disciplined body, which had already seen service in battle and acquired a confidence gained only by victory.1 In 1779 another- a regiment of Light Dra- goons - had been raised by the Assembly, of which Daniel Horry was Colonel, Hezekiah Mahan, Major, John Cou- turier, John Hampton, James McDonald, James Dogharty, Thomas Giles, Benjamin Screven, and Richard Gough were captains.2
Under the act of Congress the soldiers of the continental regiments who were to be enlisted for the war were to be entitled, at the end of the service, to a land bounty of one hundred acres. Colonels were to have five hundred acres, and inferior officers an intermediate quantity correspond-
1 These regiments as taken on the Continental establishment in 1776 were as follows : -
First South Carolina . 750
Second South Carolina . 750
Third South Carolina, or rangers 450
Fourth South Carolina, or artillery 300
Fifth South Carolina, riflemen 700
Sixth South Carolina, riflemen 500
Total . 3450
General Knox's report credits South Carolina in 1776 with but 2069 continentals. In 1777 they were recruited up to full regiments of ten companies each.
2 The Gazette of the State of So. Ca., Feb. 24, 1779 ; Ramsay's Rev. in So. Ca., vol. II, 19.
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IN THE REVOLUTION
ing to their rank. Twenty dollars was to be given to each recruit. So great, however, was the difficulty in ob- taining such enlistment that an option was allowed for enlisting for three years; but these three-year recruits were to have no land. The States were to enlist their respective quotas, appoint their regimental officers, and provide them with arms and clothing. But the expenses of the operations, as well as the pay and expenses of the troops, were to be a common charge.1
But these inducements were not found sufficient to fill the continental regiments, and the States began bidding against each other for recruits. Massachusetts offered an extra bounty of $66, and South Carolina in 1779 first offered a bounty of $500 to every one who would volun- tarily enlist in either of her continental regiments for a period of sixteen months within one month from the 29th
1 Hildreth, vol. III, 164. John Adams was opposed to long enlist- ments. He was willing that General Washington might obtain as many men as he could, " But I contended," he says, " that I knew the number to be obtained in this way would be very small in New England, from whence almost the whole army was derived (?). A regiment might possibly be obtained of the meanest, idlest, and worthless, but no more. A regiment was no army to defend this country. We must have trades- men's sons and farmers' sons, or we would be without defence ; and such men would certainly not enlist during the war or for long periods as yet. The service was too new ; they had not yet become attached to it by habit. Was it credible," he asks, "that men who could get at home better living, more comfortable lodgings, more than double the wages, in safety, not exposed to the sickness of the camp, would bind themselves during the war ? I knew it to be impossible. In the Middle States, since they imported from Ireland and Germany so many trans- ported convicts and redemptioners, it was possible they might obtain some. Let them try. I had no objection." - The Life and Works of John Adams, vol. III, 48. And yet, incredible as such an enlistment seemed to Mr. Adams, in the war between the States, the author of this work served in a brigade of five thousand South Carolinians, including the highest and best in the land, who in 1861 voluntarily enlisted for the whole war, and served throughout it, regardless of the amount of their pay.
300
HISTORY OF SOUTH CAROLINA
of January, with a decreasing rate for those who enlisted thereafter.1 A few months after the bounty was enlarged to $500 in hand paid on enlistment and $2000 more at the end of twenty-one months' faithful service. These boun- ties were to be paid in indents of the Treasury, having ten per cent interest.2 A further bounty of one hundred acres of land was also promised, and in case a soldier so enlisting should die or be killed in the service the indent and the land were to go to his lawful heirs. The limitation in this act of the promise of these bounties to those only who should voluntarily enlist was not without significance, since the State had adopted, as we shall see, the device of recruit- ing her battalions by forcing into their ranks, by way of punishment, all men convicted of being idle, lewd, and disorderly, or sturdy beggars. A few months after the bounty was increased to $500 more upon enlistment and $2500 more at the end of twenty-one months' faithful service. 3
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