USA > South Carolina > The history of South Carolina in the Revolution, 1775-1780 > Part 28
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1 Garden's Anecdotes, 277.
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killed with two of his company, and several were wounded ; but the impetuosity of the Highlanders cleared the ground of the party defending it. Whilst the rest of the troops were landing Colonel Campbell reconnoitred the position of Howe's army and determined to attack him before the evening.1 With the decision and energy of his character, it is not surprising that he should have done so, for Howe had but six or seven hundred men, and some of them very raw troops, with which to meet him.2 Howe had called a council of war to determine whether he should retreat, or remain and defend the town, and contrary to the received maxim that a council of war never fights, it was resolved to remain and resist. Determined to fight, the ground for the battle was well chosen, and but for an oversight would have enabled him to have made a stout resistance with even his small command, and possibly to have held out until General Lincoln reached him, who, he had certain information, was marching to his assistance. At a short distance in his front, and extending parallel to it, was a lagoon through which crossed the road approach- ing his position. The bridge over the stream running through the lagoon was destroyed to retard the enemy's advance. Howe's right was covered by a morass thick set with woods, and interspersed with some houses occupied by riflemen ; his left rested on the swamps of the river, and his rear rested upon the town and some old works on the Savannah.3 The little band was divided into two wings, General Huger commanding the right wing and Colonel Elbert the left. Thus posted, Howe awaited the attack, and had it been made only in front, it would, no doubt, have been obstinately disputed. But while Howe had been
1 Steadman's Am. War, vol. II, 69.
2 Moultrie's Memoirs, 252, 253.
8 Memoirs of the War of 1776 (Lee), 119.
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stationed for some time on this very ground, having had his headquarters in Savannah, and Campbell had only been in the neighborhood twenty-four hours, Campbell had, in that short time, discovered a path through the morass which Howe deemed impassable. Detaching the light infantry under Sir James Baird, supported by the New York volunteers, by this path through the swamp he gained the rear of the American troops. Engaging Howe's attention in the front with a feint, he waited until Sir James Baird, under the guidance of a negro, suddenly issued from the swamp and attacked the body of militia which was posted to secure the road leading from Ogeechee. Hitherto the British troops in front had re- mained quiet upon their ground without firing a gun in return to Howe's artillery, but as soon as the light infan- try had turned his flank, the whole British line advanced. Assailed in front, the Americans gave way, and, retreating, ran across Sir James Baird's party, and the battle was over in a few minutes. The defeat was instantaneous and decisive. Howe was pursued through Savannah, and with a small part of his little army escaped into South Carolina, losing before night five hundred and fifty men killed and taken, with his artillery and baggage.
Seldom was so decisive a victory gained with so little loss, amounting only to seven killed and nineteen wounded. Its results were commensurably great. Georgia was se- cured to the British control for the rest of the war. The lower part of the province was entirely at peace in less than ten days after the defeat of the Americans. A great number of the inhabitants came in, and, having taken the oath of allegiance, submitted themselves again to the authority of the mother country. Rifle companies and dragoons were formed out of those who came in to renew their allegiance, and these were employed to patrol the
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country and give information of the movements of their fellow-countrymen.
South Carolina was now a frontier State, with the enemy firmly planted upon her flank.
The conduct of Howe in the expedition to Florida had given great dissatisfaction. His removal from the com- mand of the Southern department had been asked by the delegates in Congress from South Carolina and Georgia before his disastrous defeat at Savannah; and by a resolve of the Continental Congress September 26, 1778, General Benjamin Lincoln of Massachusetts, who had been second in command to Gates at Saratoga, was ordered to take . command in the Department of the South and to repair immediately to Charlestown. We have seen what great results had followed the capture of Burgoyne. But Schuyler was to be avenged. The laurels which he had prepared for himself at Saratoga had been snatched from him by Gates. Both Gates and his second in command, Lincoln, were upon the strength of that victory to be sent to the South, where their real military abilities were to be tested, and both of them were to fail. Lincoln was first tried.
It happened that General Lincoln arrived in his new department simultaneously with the arrival of the British expedition against it, and he was hurrying to the scene of action when Howe's unfortunate battle took place. He found, on his arrival, a department, but no army to com- mand. The South Carolina regulars had been reduced by this time to about 1000 men. Something less than 500 were in garrison at Charlestown, and Huger had about that number with him near Purrysburg.1 There were left but 150 Georgia continentals under Colonel Elbert.2
1 Moultrie's Memoirs, vol. I, 258. 2 Ibid., 270.
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Upon learning of the intention of the British to invade the Southern States, President Lowndes, in order to keep as great a force as possible in the country, had laid a gen- eral embargo and prohibited the sailing of vessels from any port of the State. This was repeated for two succes- sive periods of thirty days each. He also ordered the owners of cattle, sheep, and hogs on the sea islands and other points immediately exposed to the incursions of the enemy to remove them so as to prevent the British forces from making use of them. He appointed Richard Rich- ardson, Stephen Bull, and Andrew Williamson, each of whom had already commanded in the field, Brigadier Generals, and drafted a large portion of the militia, which he put under the command of Richardson. But this force turned out to be a very unruly body. The militia laws were very lax and defective, and popular sentiment too much divided to supply the want of a more vigorous sys- tem. The men thus called into the field, grown up in habits of freedom and independence, impatiently submitted to military discipline. When ordered out they would demand, " Where they were going?" and " How long they were to stay?"1 Then there was still the open question as to the authority of the continental officers over the militia.
Apprised of the proposed invasion of Georgia, the North Carolina Provincial Congress wisely determined, as we have seen, to send aid at once to the threatened point, and thus by assisting her sister States to preserve her own territory from the enemy.
These troops of North Carolina under Generals Ashe and Rutherford, but without arms, had responded so promptly that had it not been for the delay of ten days near Charlestown before they were furnished with arms,
1 Ramsay's Revolution, vol. II, 12.
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they would have been in time to join General Howe before the reduction of Savannah. But while the British were in the offing, and it was uncertain whether Georgia or South Carolina was the object, President Lowndes hesitated to distribute the scanty supply of arms South Carolina had secured till the designs of the British were developed.1 And well might he do so, for these North Carolina troops thus hurriedly raised were no better disciplined than our own. Indeed, Moultrie writes that in this respect the North Carolina continentals themselves were as bad.2
On the 27th of December Moultrie marched from Charles- town with North and South Carolina troops amounting to about twelve hundred men and arrived at Purrysburg January 3, 1779. General Howe was relieved of command and ordered to join the army under Washington, in which he served with honor for the rest of the war. The rem- nants of Howe's army joined Lincoln at Purrysburg. The continentals were stationed there and the North Carolini- ans about two miles off.3 Here, also, Lincoln was joined by Richardson, but the latter could scarcely prevail upon the men to stay until relief arrived.4 Four or five hundred more North Carolinians came in by the 14th. But the whole force did not exceed twenty-five hundred men in camp.5
1 Ramsay's Revolution, vol. II, 9.
2 Moultrie's Memoirs, vol. I, 270.
8 Ibid., 264. 4 Ibid., 265. 5 Ibid., 265.
CHAPTER XVI
1779
A CORRESPONDENCE which took place between General Moultrie and Colonel Charles Pinckney, then President of the Senate of South Carolina, gives us an insight into the condition of affairs at that time, which was indeed deplor- able. The relation between the Continental Congress and the States was undefined and uncertain, and hence the authority of the action of Congress and of its officers was a matter of question. Militia drawn from a divided peo- ple necessarily included men of all shades of political opinion, and consequently many who were opposed to the State government under which they were called out and enlisted. There was dissension among the officers and mutiny among the men. A flagrant instance of breach of discipline brought about a crisis. One of Colonel Kershaw's men upon guard having deserted his post, and behaved with insolence to his Captain, upon being arrested seized a gun and threatened the life of the officer, and was indeed only prevented from killing him by being overpowered by the guard. And now comes, as General Moultrie writes, the grand affair. The case was one of mutiny, punishable by all military law with death. Colonel Kershaw so regarded it and applied to General Lincoln for a court-martial to try the offender. The court was accordingly ordered, of which General Richardson was appointed President, with other officers of the militia as members. But when the court met the
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militia officers refused to take the oath prescribed in arti- cles of war by the Continental Congress, taking the posi- tion that militiamen were not amenable to any but the militia law of the State. Seven of the members of the court refusing to qualify, the matter was reported to General Lincoln, who was much surprised. He insisted that as the militia were in continental pay, they must be subject to continental discipline. This did not neces- sarily follow, but Lincoln was on strong ground when he determined that if not subject to his discipline, they were not under his command, and might go off when they pleased, as he would furnish them with no more provision. The correspondence shows that Moultrie and Pinckney agreed with the position taken by the militia officers that the continental articles of war were without authority as to the militia of the State until sanctioned or adopted by the General Assembly of the State. Colonel Pinckney approves the recommendation of General Moultrie of filling up the continental battalions of the State, and says that the militia law will undergo some material amendment, " but," he adds, " will not take such military strides with respect to extraordinary powers as some of our high flyers expect."1 The General Assembly when it met did what it could to reconcile the regular regiments in the continental service, but it could not have been ex- pected that good men would be willing to enlist in a body upon which the legislature had cast such a stigma as to prescribe service in it as a punishment for crime and vagrancy.
Colonel Pinckney writes again to General Moultrie on the 29th of January, that the bill for the better regulation of the militia was before the House of Representatives, "but with respect to the militia being subject to the articles of
1 Moultrie's Memoirs, vol. I, 278.
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war, I believe this will never be submitted to." He adds : " I am sorry the General thinks the militia will be of no service without being subject to the articles of war, and therefore intends to stop their provisions. You know, my friend, on former occasions they have rendered essential service to their country under the present regulations . . . do not think of bringing freemen to the halter, or perhaps the receipt of a bullet by sentence of a court-martial for practices which they cannot conceive are crimes ; the pun- ishment is more than adequate to the offence, and there- fore highly improper in the case of freemen who have never formally and voluntarily resigned the rights of citi- zens to the benefits of civil law, as is the case of the soldier in the regular service." But how was the war to be carried on if, on the one hand, in the eyes of the State itself the ranks of the regular regiments were not too good for vaga- bonds and criminals, and, on the other, the militia were to be held above subjection to military law? How different it was when, eighty years after, the State of South Carolina seceded from the Federal Union ! Her young men then of the highest social position, the descendants of these very gentlemen, young men of wealth, of refinement, and of the highest education, hesitated not a moment to enter the ranks of her regiments as privates and enlisted men, and to subject themselves to the most stringent articles of war. They asked for no regulars to fight their battles. They murmured not at any discipline, however rigorous, which made them the better soldiers to fight for their State.1 The hearts of the Carolinians of 1860 were in the
1 In the First South Carolina Volunteers -a regiment first organized by the convention of the State which passed the ordinance of secession, and in August, 1861, enlisted for the whole war between the States, - in which regiment the author of this work had the honor to serve - at the battle of Cold Harbor, June 27, 1862, the whole color-guard fell under
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cause of the war; but as late as 1779 the hearts of their forefathers generally had not been in that of the Revolu- tion. Their zeal and their fire were yet to be aroused by the conduct - not the cause - of their invaders, and when aroused by treachery and cruelty, they were to throw aside the aid of regulars and to fight their own battles, and readily and without question to obey and follow leaders who were yet to arise from their own people.
In the meanwhile General Prevost had made his way through Georgia and formed a junction with Colonel Camp- bell's force at Savannah. On his route he had invested Sunbury, which after some resistance had surrendered with forty pieces of cannon, a quantity of ammunition, and two hundred and twelve prisoners. Prevost had arrived at Savannah about the middle of January ; but Campbell had not idly waited for him there. He was one of those com- manders who believe in striking quickly and immediately following up any success gained. Having secured Savan- nah, he at once set out for Augusta. The people of the interior of Georgia, South Carolina, and North Carolina were known to be much more strongly affected to the British government than those on the coast; and Camp- bell's purpose was to establish himself at Augusta and from that point to operate in the rear, as it were, of the Revolutionists in the Lower Country. Upon the approach of Campbell, General Williamson, who had been posted with militia at Augusta, retreated and crossed the river
the fire of Sykes' division of United States regulars. This guard was com- posed almost exclusively of men bearing the most historic names of the State. Of the thirty soldiers from the old historic St. Philip's Church, Charleston, who were killed or died of disease in the service, whose names are inscribed on a tablet in the vestibule of the church, twenty were from the rank and file of the Confederate army. Of these there were two Middletons, two Pinckneys, two Heywards, two Manigaults, a Prioleau, a Shubrick Hayne, a Washington Allston, a Ferguson, and a Gibbes.
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into South Carolina. Here, as well as at Savannah, the inhabitants flocked in and took the oath of allegiance, and were formed into companies under the King with officers of their own choice.1
A part of this expedition under Lieutenant Colonel Campbell consisted of the battalion of North Carolina Royalists, under Lieutenant Colonel John Hamilton. Colonel Hamilton had seen much service. He was a Scotchman who had fought at Culloden, a man of large fortune and high social position. He was beloved by his troops and respected by his opponents, to whom he was generous and humane.2 This officer Colonel Campbell detached toward the frontier of Georgia with two hun- dred mounted infantry, to encourage such of the inhabit- ants as were attached to the British government, and to disarm the disaffected. In his progress, however, Colonel Campbell soon discovered that he could not trust to the profession of all who came in to take the oath of alle- giance : some came only for the purpose of obtaining information of his strength and future designs. But every effort to check the advance of this officer proved ineffectual, and emboldened by him a number of Loyalists in the interior parts of North Carolina had embodied themselves under a Colonel Boyd and attempted to force their way into Georgia and to form a junction with him. Andrew Pickens, a name to become illustrious in the his- tory of South Carolina, now for the first time appears a leader. We have seen him as a lieutenant in the Chero- kee War, and as a captain of militia at Ninety-Six, and member of the General Assembly ; but now he assumes a position of consequence and command, which from this time forth he was to maintain. To oppose Hamilton and
1 Steadman's Am. War, vol. II, 106; Lee's Memoirs, 120.
2 Wheeler's Reminiscences, 214.
VOL. III. - Z
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prevent Boyd's junction with him, Colonel Pickens assembled his militia, and with five hundred men from the District of Ninety-Six attacked Colonel Hamilton. Unable to make any impression on him, Pickens turned against Boyd's command and came up with them at Kettle Creek, where an action took place which lasted three- quarters of an hour and resulted in the death of Boyd and the total rout of his party. About three hundred of them, however, keeping together, found means to join the British army. The rest were dispersed, some flying back to North Carolina, others into South Carolina, where they threw themselves upon the mercy of their country- men. Among these men who had collected under the specious name of Loyalists, were great numbers of the most infamous characters, -a plundering banditti, more solicitous for booty than for the honor and interest of their Royal master. As they had marched through the settlements, they had appropriated to their own use every kind of property they could take. Those taken were tried under the direction of the courts of the new government, and seventy were condemned to die for treason; but the sentence of the court was exe- cuted on only five of the principals, the rest were pardoned. It was alleged, and no doubt with truth, that these men had committed great atrocities for which they deserved to die. But they were not tried and condemned as ordinary criminals : all the accounts agree that they were hanged for treason against the new government, not for murder or pillage.1 Let us recollect this when we come to like executions by the British authorities.
Colonel Campbell having received orders to retreat from Augusta, recalled the detachment from his frontiers, and about the middle of February retired down the Savannah 1 Ramsay's Revolution, vol. II, 15 ; Steadman's Am. War, vol. II, 108.
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by easy marches, until he reached Hutson's Ferry. There he left the advance of the British army under Lieutenant Colonel Prévost, and returned to Savannah to establish civil orders previous to his departure for England. A conqueror at Savannah, says Garden, his immediate care was to soften the asperities of war and to reconcile to his equitable government those who had submitted in the first instance to the superiority of his arms. Though but lately released from close and vigorous confinement, which he had suffered in consequence of indignities offered to General Charles Lee while a prisoner at New York, he harbored no resentments, and appeared to consider his case rather the effect of necessity than of wilful persecution. Colonel Campbell had too nice a sense of honor to be made the instrument of injustice and oppression, and he was speedily called to relinquish his command to a superior less scru- pulous and better disposed to second the harsh measures of the commander-in-chief.1
The Royal army at Savannah having now been reën- forced by the junction of the troops from St. Augustine, Prévost availing himself of his naval aid and of the inte- rior navigation made lodgement on the island of Port Royal with two hundred men under Major Gardiner. On the 2d of February, 1799, General Moultrie with General Bull and about three hundred militia crossed the river and attacked and drove the British from the island. In this engagement General Moultrie had but nine regular sol- diers, but he had with him a portion of the Charlestown battalion of artillery, which was no doubt the very best fighting material in the service. This was the élite corps Christopher Gadsden had organized and drilled. It had now been increased to a battalion of two companies under the command of Major Thomas Grimball, with Thomas Hey-
1 Garden's Anecdotes, 277.
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ward, Jr., and Edward Rutledge, two of the signers of the Declaration of Independence, both still members of Con- gress, as Captains.1 On the 15th of January President Lowndes had issued orders to Major Grimball to detach fifty men from his battalion, with two field-pieces, to join General Lincoln. A meeting of the officers was called, when it was resolved to turn out the battalion and read the orders to ascertain if volunteers sufficient would offer for the service; if not, then to draw. The battalion turned out on the 16th, and instead of fifty, eighty volunteered and were accepted under the command of Captains Edward Rutledge and Thomas Heyward, Jr. It was indeed to this corps that the success of the expedition was chiefly due. Heyward and Rutledge and Captain John Barnwell of the militia distinguished themselves in the action. Cap- tain Heyward was wounded, and Lieutenant Wilkins was killed. The British lost almost all their officers. The Americans had eight men killed and twenty-two wounded. General Lee in his Memoirs of the War in the Southern Department observes that the object of the occupation of Port Royal, on the part of Prevost, could not then be ascertained, nor has it since been developed.2
1 This corps was the only regularly organized corps in South Carolina which was organized upon the basis of the volunteers on either side dur- ing the war between the States.
2 Memoirs of the War of 1776, 123.
List of killed or wounded at the action near Beaufort, February 9, 1799 : -
Killed : Lieutenant Benjamin Wilkins, John Fraser, John Craig, John Williams, Alexander Douglass, Charles Smith, James Heathcott, Joseph Solomon.
Wounded : Honorable Captain Thomas Heyward, Captain Thomas McLaughlin, Lieutenant Brown, Lieutenant Sawyer, John Calvert, Francis Dearing, John Righton, John Lawrence, John Green, John Anthony, I. D. Miller, Anthony Watts, John Collins, Stephen Deveaux, William Rea, John Crosskeys, Michael Campbell, Ephraim Adams, Samuel Howard, John Graves, Thomas Feapue, John Oliphant. Ramsay's Revolution, vol. II, 391, 392. Omitted in above lists, George Jervey and John Parsons, wounded.
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By the middle of February a very considerable body of militia had been collected, but it was in a discordant and disaffected condition and was without organization or dis- cipline. The militia law was utterly inadequate to the occasion. The General Assembly was busy discussing how to amend it, but in doing so showed that its members either had no appreciation of the situation, or were not prepared to make any sacrifices to meet it. Ramsay, the historian, describes the act, when passed, as "a very severe militia law," by which "much heavier fines were imposed on those who either neglected to turn out or misbehaved or disobeyed orders." But an army cannot be raised or maintained by fines. Death is the only penalty which will force men to fight who do not voluntarily do so. A government which could not enforce an oath of allegiance was not in a position to enforce a militia law. While the enemy firmly fixed at Savannah were stretching their posts all the way to Augusta, Colonel Charles Pinckney, Presi- dent of the Senate, one who had been a leader throughout the revolutionary movements, and was now Moultrie's chosen confidential correspondent, could even under these circumstances write : -
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