USA > South Carolina > The history of South Carolina in the Revolution, 1775-1780 > Part 26
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50 | Part 51 | Part 52 | Part 53 | Part 54 | Part 55 | Part 56 | Part 57 | Part 58 | Part 59 | Part 60 | Part 61 | Part 62 | Part 63 | Part 64 | Part 65 | Part 66 | Part 67 | Part 68 | Part 69 | Part 70 | Part 71 | Part 72
Washington was no doubt right in regard to the reor- ganization of the army into one of regulars, not only from a purely military point of view, but under the condition of affairs as they did actually exist. The plan was never- theless unbecoming a people struggling for freedom. All this effort was to hire or force others to do the fighting for those who claimed to seek liberty and independence. The signers of the Declaration of Independence were generally young men, or were at least of military age. Those from South Carolina, as we have seen, did not average thirty years, and yet though the signers pledged each other, - their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor in its support, - none of those whom we can recall regularly entered the military service to maintain it, and
1 Statutes of So. Ca., vol. IV, 461.
2 Ibid. 8 Ibid., 502.
301
IN THE REVOLUTION
few distinguished themselves in the field.1 Liberty and independence were to be bought and paid for. The war was to be fought vicariously. But as Grattan once exclaimed in the Irish Parliament, "The thing he proposes to buy is what cannot be sold - Liberty!" For alas! the candid student of the history of the Revolution must at last be forced to recognize and admit that the liberties of America were the shuttlecocks of foreign diplomacy, and secured at last in the cabinets of Europe rather than upon the fields of America. To the shame of America, in 1780 there were more Americans, it was claimed, serving in the Provincial Regiments of the British army than in the Continental service of the States; in 1781 there were more French troops at Yorktown than American regulars. Equality in numbers on that field was only maintained by Governor Nelson's Virginia militia. That victory was indeed quite as much a victory of France over Great Britain as a victory for American independence. The American Continental army, rank and file, was now
1 Several of the signers served from time to time in the State troops and militia ; some with distinction. William Whipple of New Hampshire was a Brigadier General of militia. Stephen Hopkins of Rhode Island was an officer in a State regiment. Oliver Wolcott of Connecticut was Major General of militia. William Floyd of New York Colonel of militia. Lewis Morris of New York Brigadier General of militia. Ben- jamin Rush and John Morton of Pennsylvania were surgeons. George Ross of same State was an officer in a State regiment. Benjamin Harri- son of Virginia was paymaster of Virginia State troops. Thomas Nel- son, Jr., was commander of Virginia State forces, and as such received the thanks of Congress to himself and his officers and gentlemen for their patriotic efforts in the cause of their country. As Governor of Virginia he called out the State troops, and with them took part in the siege of Yorktown. Thomas Heyward, Jr., and Edward Rutledge were Captains in the artillery battalion of the Charlestown militia, and as such fought gallantly at Beaufort and the siege of Charlestown, Heyward shedding his blood. George Walton of Georgia, who was Colonel of militia, was wounded and taken prisoner at the siege of Savannah.
302
HISTORY OF SOUTH CAROLINA
not an army of patriots, as were those who rushed to arms around Boston in 1775, or as those we shall see gathering around Sumter and Marion in this State in its darkest hour, but of mercenaries and hirelings, just as was that of Great Britain which was invading the country. Indeed, the British regulars and provincial regiments as they were depleted by the casualties of war and the expiration of the terms of service were recruited from the same class of population in America as were the continental regi- ments. And so it happened that men who served out their terms of enlistment in one army would enlist again in the other without regard to the principles for which they fought on the one side or the other. To such an extent did this exist that we shall see General Greene bitterly declaring that he fought Lord Rawdon with his deserters, while Rawdon fought him with his own.1 Ranks which were filled with sturdy beggars, lewd, idle, and disorderly men, and deserters were not the place for patriots and decent citizens. If the militiaman was insubordinate and would leave the ranks when tired of the service, the hired and vagrant continental soldier, with- out patriotism or pride, engaged in a desperate cause, and often apparently a losing one, would desert when oppor- tunity offered and circumstances invited. The militia- man when he left, whether with or without leave, would go home. The continental regular when he deserted would go to the enemy if he could.
There was no general uprising of the people in America. There was none in South Carolina until after the fall of Charlestown, the overthrow of the government, and the apparent subjugation of the State. Then we shall see the
1 " General Greene was often heard to say 'that at the close of the war we fought the enemy with British soldiers, and they fought us with those of America.'"- Johnson's Life of Greene, vol. II, 220.
303
IN THE REVOLUTION
people rise against the British, not so much because of the original causes of the war, but because of the tyranny, oppression, and brutal conduct of the army. Then under leaders who had nothing to do with bringing on the war, forming themselves into volunteer partisan bands, they harassed and embarrassed the enemy's movements, broke up their communications, attacked and destroyed their outposts, and forced them to battle, and often to defeat. This uprising we shall see effecting momentous results for the benefit of the cause of the whole country. This was yet to come, and for the last three years of the struggle the war of American independence was fought on Carolina soil. But for the present the Revolutionists in South Carolina, as elsewhere in America, depended upon the regular force, the Continental army, as the proper de- fence of the State.
South Carolina had not only furnished her full quota of men for the Continental army, according to her population, but she had far exceeded her share of expenditure in the cause. No State but Massa- chusetts equalled her in contributions of money and supplies. The commissioners who finally settled the accounts for expenses of the respective States during the Revolution found that the little State with at the utmost but 100,000 white inhabitants had ex- pended in the common cause $11,523,299.29, and that after charging her for all advances, including the as- sumption of the State debt by the United States at the end of the war, there was still due her as overpaid $1,205,978. The great State of Massachusetts, with twice the whole population of South Carolina, and more than three times her white population, which suffered from no invasion, - whose war the Revolution was, - had exceeded her in advances to the common cause by
304
HISTORY OF SOUTH CAROLINA
but a few thousand dollars, the overpayment by that State having been $1,248,801.1
South Carolina had a right, therefore, now that the scene of war was to be changed from the Northern provinces to her soil, to look for assistance against the common enemy. But she was far away from the cluster of States around the seat of Congress at Philadelphia; the great territory of North Carolina, still sparsely populated, lay between her and Virginia; and now that Georgia had fallen, the same practical difficulty of obtaining assistance which had compelled South Carolina to depend upon her own resources for defence against the Spaniards and French, the Cherokees and the Yamassees, now again arose when she appealed to Washington and Congress for a part of the continental forces for which she had paid her quota - she was too far away!
When General Lee left the South, the command at Charlestown had devolved upon General Moore of North Carolina, who had come to the assistance of South Caro- lina in 1776 in command of the First North Carolina Continental Regiment.2 He had been promoted a Con-
1 The Am. Almanac (1831), 112. " It is equally true that South Caro- lina was the first State of the thirteen to form an independent constitu- tion, and that she overpaid her proportion of the expenditures of the war in the sum of $1,205,978."- Am. Loyalists (Sabine), 80. The States which contributed more than their quotas to expenses incurred during the Revolutionary war, as allowed by the Commissioners who finally settled the accounts, were Massachusetts $1,248,801, South Carolina $1,205,978, Connecticut $619,121, Rhode Island $299,611, New Hampshire $75,055, New Jersey $49,030, Georgia $19,988. Those which were found in debt to the United States for expenses incurred on their accounts were New York $2,074,846, Delaware $612,428, North Carolina $501,082, Maryland $151,640, Virginia $100,879, Pennsylvania $76,709. - Pitkin's United States, vol. II (Appendix 20), 538 ; Am. Almanac (1831), 112.
2 General James Moore was the grandson of James Moore, the first Governor of South Carolina of that name, and nephew of James Moore,
305
IN THE REVOLUTION
tinental Brigadier General on the 1st of March of that year. Upon his departure the command of the troops in South Carolina had been assumed by General Robert Howe, who was also from North Carolina, as the senior continental officer present. On the 29th of October, 1776, Colonels Gadsden and Moultrie had been promoted Briga- dier Generals. The First South Carolina Continental Regiment was after this commanded by Colonel Charles Cotesworth Pinckney; the Second by Colonel Isaac Motte; the Third, or Rangers, by Colonel William Thomson ; the Fourth (artillery) by Colonel Owen Rob- erts; the Fifth (riflemen) by Colonel Isaac Huger; the Sixth (riflemen ) by Colonel Thomas Sumter. The Regi- ment of Dragoons, under Colonel Daniel Horry, does not appear to have been taken into the continental line.
Although General Gadsden had always been of a mili- tary turn, having in 1756 organized the first artillery corps in South Carolina, and with it taken part in Governor Lyttleton's expedition against the Cherokees, and from which it might be supposed that he gathered some mili- tary experience, his temper unfitted him for the subordina- tion of military life, and he did not long remain in the service. General Howe and himself soon became upon such unpleasant terms that when a communication between them was necessary it usually passed through General Moultrie's hands. The open rupture, which resulted in a duel, was upon the question of Howe's right to the com- mand. In 1777, after General Howe had been in command of the post for more than six months, he received a letter from General Gadsden desiring to know by what right he commanded, and claiming that he himself was the natural
who had commanded the expedition sent to the assistance of North Carolina in 1713, and who was also Governor of South Carolina. Hist. of So. Ca. under Prop. Gov. (McCrady), 373, 374, 544, 654.
VOL. III. - X
306
HISTORY OF SOUTH CAROLINA
commander in South Carolina. General Howe replied, stating his position and authority; but with this General Gadsden was not satisfied, and proposed to refer the matter to Congress. To this General Howe very properly replied that as he had no doubts respecting his own position, he would express none, but that if General Gadsden desired it he would communicate his, Gadsden's, views to Con- gress. This was assented to. But General Howe, it appears, subsequently understood that Gadsden had become satisfied and did not therefore make any commu- nication to Congress upon the subject. Meeting Howe some time after in the house of President Lowndes, Gads- den inquired of him if he had written as he agreed to do, and upon Howe's reply in the negative, though explain- ing to Gadsden why he had not, Gadsden became very indignant and answered that he would have the matter brought before the House of Assembly. A motion was accordingly made in that body by William Henry Dray- ton to inquire into the nature of General Howe's command in the State. This motion was at once seconded by Raw- lins Lowndes and Gadsden himself, but, Howe writes, met with the warmest opposition from most of the leading men of the State. The names of these are not given, but it is easy to see that the matter was at once made a party question between Gadsden and his opponents. The motion after long and warm debate was lost, and there- upon General Gadsden resigned.1 In forwarding Gads- den's resignation General Howe wrote giving his account of the circumstances under which it was made. Dray- ton, who was now in the Continental Congress, sent Gadsden a copy of this letter of Howe's, which had come into his hands as a member of that body; this Gadsden received in the midst of the excitement over the
1 MS. volume of Christopher Gadsden, entitled So. Ca. Miscellan.
307
IN THE REVOLUTION
proclamation business and the riots occasioned thereby, but he at once wrote to Drayton upon the subject.1 This letter to Drayton, dated the 4th of July, 1778, Gadsden intended as a public one in reply to Howe's, but Dray- ton not so understanding it made no effort to have it pub- lished among the members of Congress, and Gadsden's resignation was accepted without comment. At this Gadsden was deeply mortified, and it no doubt added to his bitterness in the political complications at the time at home. He had not supposed that immediate action would have been taken upon the resignation, he had expected that he would have been allowed an opportunity to be heard by Congress. Unfortunately, as he himself writes, his resignation came into Congress at an unlucky time, when two or three other generals were threatening Con- gress with their resignations. Gadsden was anxious that Congress should know that the case was very different from theirs -that he had never disputed the power of Congress. Nay, moreover, as he could with pride and truth assert, "No man in America ever strove more and more successfully, first to bring about a Congress, in 1765, and then to support it ever afterwards, than myself." He had resigned because the House of Assembly at home would not inquire whether Howe ever had had a commis- sion from Congress. Had Howe shown such a commission, he would have submitted, whatever he might have thought of Howe personally. Gadsden at the time was no doubt in a great state of excitement. He was struggling for power with John Rutledge and could not fail to perceive that in carrying the new Constitution he had achieved for himself a barren victory, and that in forcing Rutledge's resignation of the Presidency he had prepared the way for
1 Letter in Laurens's MS., Promiscuous Letters, 1776-78-80, So. Ca. Hist. Soc.
308
HISTORY OF SOUTH CAROLINA
his own discomfiture. He was embittered, and in his resentment spoke very hardly of Howe, charging him with insincerity and duplicity. This led to a duel between them, in which the foibles as well as the high characteris- tics of Gadsden were singularly exemplified. The seconds of both parties saw at once that a resort to the field was not called for, under the duelling code, and of this Gads- den's friends strongly advised him, assuring him that Howe had made all proper concessions, and endeavored to persuade him to offer an apology to Howe. He admitted the correctness of the advice, but positively refused the apology. When they met, however, ou the field, after insisting upon Howe's first firing, he fired his own pistol in the air, and then made the apology his friends had advised in the first instance. In writing to Drayton about the controversy over the proclamation, he had styled him- self Don Quixote Secundus ; he now exhibited the highest characteristics of that noble, if deluded, gentleman. After what had taken place he seems to have thought he could not apologize until he had given Howe satisfaction ; insist- ing upon receiving Howe's fire 1 he refrained from return- ing it, and then apologized.
In 1777 the North Carolina troops, which had been serv- ing in South Carolina, had been withdrawn and sent to join Washington's army in the Jerseys, and we learn from Moultrie that in March of that year 700 of the continental troops of South Carolina were serving in Georgia, leaving but 400 or 500 for the defence of Charlestown, George- town, and Beaufort.2 The continentals of the State, that
1 Letter of Christopher Gadsden to William Henry Drayton, dated September 9, 1778, MS. volume of Christopher Gadsden, entitled So. Ca. Miscellan. The account of this duel, published in the Gazette of Sep- tember 3, 1778, was parodied in New York by the celebrated and un fortunate Major André. See Johnson's Traditions, 204.
2 Moultrie's Memoirs, 190, 217.
309
IN THE REVOLUTION
is the original six regiments, had by this time dwindled to but 1200 men. A whole company of 50 men, we have seen, had been lost in the naval expeditions in which they were sent as marines. There was great difficulty in recruiting, and in March, 1778, the General Assembly passed an act to complete the quota of the troops for the continental service, from the provisions of which we may judge alike of the urgency of the occasion and of the char- acter of the rank and file of these regiments. The act, reciting the necessity that the six regiments should be completed without delay, thereupon provided "that all idle and disorderly men who have no habitation or settled place of abode or no visible lawful way or means of main- taining themselves and their families, all sturdy beggars, and strolling or straggling persons" be obliged to serve in one of the continental regiments. Justices of the Peace were required to apprehend and try persons charged with being vagrants, with the aid of six neighboring free- holders, and upon conviction the vagrants were to be enlisted as private soldiers in one of the regiments, and obliged to serve during the war. The legislators of these times were sportsmen as well as patriots, and the killing of game in any but a huntsman-like manner was so dis- reputable in their opinion as to condemn one to service in the war; and so it was provided by this act that all per- sons convicted of fire-hunting should in like manner as vagrants be declared duly enlisted in one of the regiments. To induce others, however, to enlist and associate with these idle and lewd persons and fire-hunters, all the lands in the fork between the Tugaloo and Keowee rivers, lately ceded by the Indians, that is, the lands between the Savannah and Keowee in what is now Anderson and Oconee counties, were reserved for bounty lands, one hundred acres of which were to be given to every soldier
310
HISTORY OF SOUTH CAROLINA
who had already enlisted or should thereafter enlist in either of these regiments.1
Colonel Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, then Colonel of the First Regiment, impatient of inaction and desirous of obtaining experience in the field, had, in the fall of 1777, joined the army in the vicinity of Philadelphia, and had been immediately received into Washington's military family, appointed aide-de-camp to the Commander-in-chief; and in that capacity he had been present at the battles of Brandywine and Germantown, where by his intelligence, zeal, and activity he had won Washington's confidence ; but immediately upon the approach of danger to the South had returned and resumed command of his regi- ment. John Laurens, son of Henry Laurens, President of Congress, was also one of Washington's aides, and had distinguished himself at Germantown and Mon- mouth, and was wounded in the former battle. He had fought a duel with, and wounded, General Lee for disre- spectful language in regard to Washington, had estab- lished a character for intrepidity, and had gained the affections and confidence of the Commander-in-chief. He also hastened to his native State upon the threat of danger in this quarter.
It was indeed impossible for Washington to send assist- ance to South Carolina. On the 8th of May, 1779, he writes to Gouverneur Morris that his army was little more than a skeleton, and he goes on to say, "Whenever I endeavor to draw together the continental troops for the most essential purposes, I am embarrassed with complaints of exhausted, defenceless situations in particular States, and find myself obliged either to resist solicitations made with such a degree of emphasis as scarcely to leave a choice, or to sacrifice the most obvious principles of mili-
1 Statutes of So. Ca., vol. IV, 410.
311
IN THE REVOLUTION
tary prosperity and risk the general safety."1 It was doubtless the appeal from South Carolina for reenforce- ments to which Washington thus alluded, and while his policy as to the conduct of the war as a whole in all the thirteen colonies was, we again admit, beyond question wise, and his military views clearly correct, yet all the same the fact remained to the people of South Carolina that they were beyond the pale of the general safety, and that the principles of military expediency required them to be left, in a great measure, to shift for themselves. The belief that South Carolina and Georgia were to be abandoned by Congress from this time took deep possession of the public mind and pervaded all ranks and classes, and influenced the conduct of many.2 The people recollected that they had sent without hesitation a large part of the powder they had seized in 1775 to assist in maintaining the siege of Boston. They had lavishly contributed to the common expense. The continental troops of Virginia and North Carolina were almost all serving with the Northern army, and those of this State and Georgia had been wasted and frittered away in the swamps of Georgia and Florida upon useless expeditions, in sickly seasons, against the advice and protests of the South Carolina officers ; and now that the State was invaded and a per- sistent effort was being made to subjugate it, the South Carolinians were told that they were too far away to be protected by Congress. There was great discontent. The people were divided as to the cause of the war, and the declaration and assertion of independence of England had been against the sentiments and wishes of many who had
1 Washington's Writings, vol. VI, 251.
2 Garden's Anecdotes, 189, quoting John Mathews; letter of John Rutledge, May 24, 1780, unpublished Revolutionary Papers; Russell's Magazine, September, 1857, 537.
312
HISTORY OF SOUTH CAROLINA
originally favored the Revolution. The number of the Revolutionists had again been diminished by the concilia- tory acts of Great Britain, and now Congress was unable to send succor in the time of need.
The net result of South Carolina's appeals to Congress for assistance consisted of a French engineer, Colonel Laumoy,1 Lieutenant Colonel John Laurens, and General Count Pulaski, with the remnant of his nondescript corps, which had been cut to pieces at Little Egg Harbor in the fall before, and which now consisted of but one hun- dred and twenty men, lancers and infantry, called by courtesy a legion.2 Pulaski came with a reputation for heroism and military ability, notwithstanding his sur- prise and disaster on the October before. The heroism he here abundantly displayed, and sacrificed his life for the strangers amongst whom he had come and for the cause he had espoused, but the military ability he did not exhibit.
Colonel Laurens, hastening to his native State in the hour of her need, was the most valuable acquisition that South Carolina received. He brought with him a resolu- tion of Congress of the 5th of November, 1778.3
"That John Laurens, Esquire, aide-de-camp to General Washington, be presented with a Continental Commission of Lieutenant Colonel in testimony of the sense which Congress entertain of his patriotic and spirited services as a volunteer in the American Army; and of his brave conduct in several actions, particularly in that of Rhode Island on the 29th of August last, and that General Washington be directed whenever an opportunity shall offer to give Lieutenant Colonel Laurens command agreeable to his rank."
1 Mons. de Laumoy (France), Colonel Engineers, November 17, 1777 ; wounded at Stono Ferry, June 20, 1779 ; brevet Brigadier General, Sep- tember 30, 1783 ; retired October 10, 1783 (Heitman).
2 Moultrie's Memoirs, vol. I, 423.
3 Ramsay's Hist. of So. Ca., vol. II, 497.
313
IN THE REVOLUTION
From the highest and most honorable motives Colonel Laurens had declined this commission ; he could not accept it, he wrote, without injury to the rights of officers of the line and to his colleagues in the family of the Commander- in-chief, over whom he would thus be promoted. He had, however, later, -to wit, on the 29th of March, 1779, - been promoted in the regular order to the same rank; and with his commission he brought also a letter from Washington himself to Governor Rutledge, telling that he had served in the General's family as aide-de-camp in two campaigns, of the General's particular friend- ship for the young officer, and of the high opinion he entertained of his talents and merit. But instead of bringing troops Colonel Laurens brought the advice of Congress, that as many of the citizens of South Carolina must remain at home to prevent revolts among the negroes, or their desertion to the enemy, that South Carolina and Georgia should arm three thousand of the most vigorous and enterprising of them under white officers. This was Alexander Hamilton's recom- mendation, and it was approved by Henry Laurens, - Colonel Laurens's father, - who wrote to Washing- ton, "Had we arms for three thousand such black men as I could select in South Carolina, I should have no doubt of driving the British out of Georgia and subduing East Florida before the end of July." Wash- ington's answer to this was conclusive: "Should we begin to form battalions of them, I have not the smallest doubt " the British would "follow us in it and justify the measure upon our own ground. The contest then must be, Who can arm fastest? And where are our arms?" The absurdity of a people achieving their liberty and inde- pendence by means of the valor of their slaves does not seem to have occurred to the Congressmen. The propo-
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.