USA > South Carolina > The history of South Carolina in the Revolution, 1775-1780 > Part 34
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1 Life of Marion (Weems), 31.
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of South Carolina Loyalists, under the command of Lieu- tenant Colonel Thomas Browne, the same who had been tarred and feathered for his adherence to the King in 1775.1 To the right of the whole was a sailors' battery of nine-pounders covered by a company of the British legion, under the command of Captain Stewart. Between the centre and the Spring Hill redoubt was another of these batteries, under the direction of Captain Manby, behind which were posted the grenadiers of the Sixteenth Regiment, under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Glazier, with the marines which had been landed from the ships of war. The whole of the force on the right of the lines was under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Mait- land, upon whom was to fall the brunt of the assault. On the left of the lines were two redoubts, strongly con- structed with a heavy framework of the green, spongy wood of the palmetto, filled up with sand and mounted with heavy cannons; one of these was commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Cruger and the other by Major James Wright,2 having under him the Georgia Loyalists. Behind the impalements and traverses in the centre of the works were posted the two battalions of the Seventy-first Regi- ment, two regiments of Hessians, the New York Volun- teers, a battalion of Skinner's Brigade, one of De Lancey's, and the light infantry of the army, under the command of Major Graham, all of which corps were ready to act as circumstances should require, and to support any part of the lines that might be attacked.
To facilitate the attack of the besiegers, Major L'Enfant, with five men, on the morning of the 8th of October,
1 Captain Alexander Campbell Wylie, a captain in the King's Rangers. The Am. Loyalists (Sabine), 730. We can find no other mention of Captains Raworth or Tawse.
2 Son of Sir James Wright, Royal Governor of Georgia, and grandson of Chief Justice Wright of South Carolina.
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advanced under a heavy fire from the garrison to kindle the abatis; but the dampness of the air and the moisture of the green wood, of which the abatis was composed, prevented the success of this bold undertaking.
The morass upon the British right, stretching from the river and covering a quarter of the town, gave a concealed approach from a sink in the ground along its margin lead- ing to the British right. This hollow way gave great advantage to the assailants, as it brought them close to the works unperceived and uninjured. Then the small distance to pass over when discovered and exposed to the enemy's fire diminished greatly the loss to be sustained before they reached the ditch. Prevost was fully aware that this was his vulnerable point and to be especially guarded, and so it was that he placed there his best troops, under his best officer, Colonel Maitland; and it will be observed that among his best troops, then, he ranked the King's Carolina Rangers, commanded by Colonel Browne, no doubt still burning to avenge his brutal treatment in Augusta four years before. The same reason which led Prévost so strongly to guard this portion of his line, pointed it out to D'Estaing and Lincoln as the point of attack.
On the evening of the 8th, General Lincoln issued his orders for the battle. The infantry destined for the attack were to be divided into two bodies: the first composed of the light troops, under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Laurens ; 1 the second of the Continental battalions and the first battalion of the Charlestown militia; the whole were to parade at one o'clock on the morning of the 9th. The guards of the camp were to be formed of the invalids, who were charged to keep the fires burning as usual. The
1 These men were composed of companies detached from the Continen- tal regiments.
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cavalry were to parade at the same time as the infantry and to follow the left column of the French troops, to pre- cede the column of the American light troops, and were to endeavor to penetrate the enemy's lines toward the river. The American artillery were to follow the French of that arm. The whole were to be ready by the time appointed, with the utmost silence and punctuality, and to march the instant Count D'Estaing and General Lincoln should order. The militia of the first and second brigades, General Williamson, and the second battalion of the Charlestown militia were to parade under the command of General Huger. Five hundred of them were to be drafted, and the remainder to go into the trenches. With the five hundred drafted General Huger was to march to the left of the enemy's lines and remain there as near as possible without discovering his position until four o'clock in the morning, at which hour the troops in the trenches were to advance to the attack upon the enemy.1 Then General Huger was to move and make his attack as near the river as possible. General Huger was charged that though his attack was intended only as a feint, yet should a favorable opportunity offer, he was to improve it and push into the town. The Spring Hill battery, gar- risoned by South Carolina Loyalists, was to be the main point of attack, and the assailants were to be the Charles- town militia and the South Carolina Continentals. The main battle as it happened was thus to be fought by Carolinians on both sides. The attack on the right was to be made in two columns, the first of these columns
1 In Marshall's Life of Washington, vol. IV, 134, it is said : “On retiring from the siege of Savannah the Virginia Dragoons and infantry were detached to Augusta." We have no other mention of Virginia troops at the siege of Savannah, than in the So. Ca. and Am. Gen. Gazette of October 27, where in the list of killed and wounded we find among the wounded " Virginia Levies " Lieutenants Parker and Walker.
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destined to attack the Spring Hill redoubt in front, commanded by Count D'Estaing in person, assisted by General Lincoln; while the other, commanded by Count Dillon, was to move along the edge of the swamp, pass the redoubts, and get into the rear of the British lines.
The morning of the 9th came, but the attack, instead of being made at four o'clock, was delayed until it was clear daylight. General Huger found a rice-field through which he had to wade, and as he emerged he was received with music and a warm fire of artillery and musketry, upon which, losing a few men, his militia retreated faster, it is said, than they had advanced. Count Dillon's column mistook its way from the darkness of the morning and was entangled in the swamp, from which it was unable to extract itself until broad daylight appeared and exposed it to the view of the garrison and the fire from the British batteries. The fire was so hot and so well directed that this column was not able even to form. The darkness, however, which had caused Count Dillon to lose his way in the swamp, so befriended the column of D'Estaing and Lincoln that it was not discerned until it had approached very closely the Spring Hill redoubt.
Here the battle of the day was fought. D'Estaing, with 3500 French troops, and Lincoln, with 600 South Caro- lina Continentals and 350 Charlestown militia, advanced to storm the works. As soon as discovered they were received with a continued blaze of musketry from the redoubt and a destructive cross fire from the adjoining batteries, which mowed down whole ranks as they advanced. But regardless of the fatal fire from the cov- ered enemy the column, unappalled, with Lincoln and D'Estaing at its head, McIntosh being in immediate com- mand of the Continentals, forced the abatis. From the numbers which fell, the head of the column was several
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times thrown into confusion, but the places of those who fell being instantly supplied by others, it moved on until it reached the redoubt, where the contest became more fierce and desperate. The brave Captain Tawse of the South Carolina Loyalists fell in defending the gate of his re- doubt, with his sword plunged in the body of the third assailant he had slain with his own hand. The parapet was reached both by the French and the Carolinians, and each planted their standards upon it.
The second South Carolina Continentals had had the post of honor in the defence of Fort Moultrie on the 28th of June, 1776, and a few days after the battle Mrs. Barnard Elliott had presented to it an elegant pair of colors, and in doing so had said: "Gentlemen -Soldiers. Your gallant behavior in defence of your country entitles you to the highest honors! Accept these two standards as a reward justly due to your regiment; and I make not the least doubt but that under heaven's protection you will stand by them as long as they can wave in the air of lib-
erty." Her anticipations were fully justified. During this assault the colors she had presented were both planted in the British lines. This regiment, now under Lieutenant Colonel Marion, was one that reached the parapet of the Spring Hill redoubt. Lieutenant Bush, supported by Sergeant Jasper, carried one of the colors. Lieutenant Gray, supported by Sergeant McDonald, the other. Bush, being wounded early in the action, delivered his standard to Jasper for its better security, but did not leave the field. Jasper, who himself was already wounded, on receiving a second and fatal shot, restored it to Bush, who, on taking it again, received another, and this a mor- tal wound, and fell into the ditch with the colors under him, where they were found by the enemy. Lieutenant Gray, who had the other colors, was likewise mortally
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wounded, but Sergeant McDonald planted them on the redoubt, and succeeded in carrying them off in safety when the retreat was ordered. The regiment lost also Major Charles Motte early in the action.
The conflict for the possession of the redoubt continued to be obstinately maintained on both sides. It was the turning-point of the battle. All was lost to the British could this lodgement have been maintained; but Lieuten- ant Colonel Maitland, seizing the critical moment, ordered the grenadiers of the Sixteenth Regiment with the marines to move forward and charge the assailing col- umn, already staggering under the obstinate resistance it had met at the redoubt and the slaughter which had been made by the artillery from the different batteries, and now also from an armed brig in the river. This fresh body, under Lieutenant Colonel Glazier, assumed, it is said, with joy the arduous task of recovering the lost ground. With unimpaired strength it fell upon the head of the victorious column under General McIntosh, which, though piercing the British line in one point, could not spread along the parapet. The victory was suppressed in its birth. The triumphant standards of the French and of the Carolinians were torn down and the assailants repulsed. Many of these, thrown back into the ditch and huddled together without order, were unable to use their arms and were unmercifully slaughtered. The remnant, finally driven out from the ditch, left their dead and wounded behind them. About the time Maitland was preparing this critical movement, Pulaski, at the head of two hundred horse, attempted to make his way between the redoubts, and thus get into the rear of the enemy; but charging at a full gallop he re- ceived a mortal wound from one of the galleys in the river. Repulsed in every point of attack, after they had
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stood the enemy's fire for fifty-five minutes, the allied generals drew off their troops. The French lost very heavily. Count D'Estaing himself was twice wounded, and lost in killed and wounded 337 men. The South Carolina Continentals lost 250 men out of 600 carried into action.1 The Charlestown militia, though in the hottest of the fight, it is said, lost but six wounded, and the intrepid Captain Shepherd killed.
After the repulse the idea of taking Savannah by regular approach was again for some time renewed, but the naval officers of Count D'Estaing were uneasy at the situation of his fleet and pressed his departure.2 He remained long enough, however, to allow an opportunity for the expres- sion of the mutual dislike between the French and the Carolinians. The French affected to despise their allies, styled them insurgents in common conversation, and even in written memorials, and attempted to throw upon Lin- coln the blame of the refusal to allow the women and chil- dren in Savannah to return from the garrison. While, on the other hand, the Carolinians resented their arrogance and criticised their military conduct, Major Thomas
1 The exact loss in the South Carolina troops is not definitely settled. The following are the estimates : Memoirs of the War of 1776 (Lee), 142, 240; So. Ca. and Am. Gen. Gazette, October 27, 1779, 250; Ram- say's Hist. of Revolution in So. Ca., vol. II, 40, 257; Hist. Am. War (Steadman), vol. II, 131, 264; Moultrie's Memoirs, vol. II, 41, 457.
List of officers killed and wounded : -
Killed : Majors Motte, Wise ; Captains Shepherd, Donnom ; Lieuten- ants Hume, Wickham, Bush, Bailey.
Wounded : Brigadier General Count Pulaski (mortally); Major L'En- fant ; Captains Roux, Rendelo, Farrar, Giles, Smith, Warren, Hogan, Davis, De Treville ; Lieutenants Gray, Petrie, Gaston, De Saussure (mortally), Parker, Walker, Beraud, Wade, Wilkie, Vieland, Parsons.
Volunteers : Mr. Jones, killed; Mr. Lloyd and Mr. John Owens, wounded.
2 Moultrie's Memoirs, vol. II, 42.
VOL. III. - 2 E
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Pinckney, who was on Lincoln's staff and accompanied D'Estaing by his request, had informed the Count of the condition of Maitland's detachment, and of the ease with which it could be captured; but the Count was too great a man to receive advice from a young provincial officer. Was he not the conqueror of Granada? Nor could Colo- nel Laurens induce him to march at once upon Savannah before Maitland arrived. Carried away by his success in the West Indies, he imagined he could take Prévost at his leisure as easily as, with a fleet and 900 men, he had captured Lord Macartney and his garrison of 300, of whom only 150 were regulars. But with his excitable and changeable disposition, upon which Prévost had so well counted, he could not endure with patience the slow progress of a siege; and so, having allowed Prevost full time to put Savannah in the best possible condition for resistance, he broke off the siege and assumed the offen- sive. To this the South Carolinians were as much opposed as they had been in the first instance to the delay of the attack. It was easy to plead the danger to his fleet on the coast, but the season of the equinoctial gales had nearly passed, and though his fleet was soon after dispersed, there was at the time of the siege little more reason to apprehend such a gale than at any other season of the year. D'Estaing might go as he had come, and soon forget the dead he had left behind, especially as some of them were negroes and mulattoes from the West Indies. But it was a very different matter to the Carolinians and Georgians, who had risen under the promise of his assist- ance. He left them in a much worse condition than that in which they were before he arrived.
D'Estaing reembarked his troops, and on the 19th General Lincoln retreated with the Americans as far as Ebenezer Heights, and leaving his army there to follow
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him he proceeded to Charlestown. There the small-pox broke out soon after, and thereupon the remnant of the militia dispersed to their homes. Thus ended a campaign from which much had been expected, but which had dis- astrously failed from the arrogance and folly of D'Estaing, and the want of energy of Lincoln. For however justly D'Estaing may be blamed for his delay in the first instance and his rashness in the second, it must be remembered that he had been before Savannah seven days before Lincoln joined him with his force; and had Lincoln been more prompt, and had he been in his place, the truce might have been rejected and the town taken before Maitland could have effected his junction with Prévost.
CHAPTER XX 1780
A BRIEF, but somewhat more particular, review of the British operations in the Northern States since the defeat of the fleet and army on the 28th of June, 1776, will enable us the better to comprehend and appreciate those now undertaken in the South, and especially in South Carolina.
Upon the repulse of the British fleet and army the ex- pedition returned to New York, where it arrived just in time to allow Sir Henry Clinton to take part in the battle of Long Island in August, 1776, and the subsequent occu- pation of the city of New York in September. Then had followed the battles of White Plains, New York, 28th of October; Fort Washington, 16th of November; Trenton, 26th of December, 1776, and 2d of January; and Prince- ton, 3d of January, 1777. The result of these and many other smaller affairs, however, had been indecisive. Sir William Howe had fought and won one great battle - that of Long Island -and had occupied the city of New York ; but notwithstanding his superiority in men and materials, Washington successfully confronted him in the Jerseys and restricted him to the immediate vicinity of New York.
The year 1777 was one of the most momentous of the American Revolution. It is remarkable for great events, and some extraordinary as well. A grand plan of cam- paign had been devised and sent to London and adopted by the British ministry, but it was not carried out; and why it was abandoned had long remained a mystery, until
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the discovery not many years ago of the treason of General Charles Lee in a paper written by him when a prisoner in New York, recommending to his Majesty's commissioners, Lord Howe and General Sir William Howe, a plan of operations against his own people, which providentially they accepted and appear to have acted upon, to the aban- donment of that which had been approved by the ministry. From the beginning of the winter of 1776-77 General Howe had been sending home plans for the ensuing campaign, the primary object of which, repeatedly declared, was a junction of the two armies, -that in Canada and his own, -by movements at once up and down the Hudson River. His own movement northward, to be accompanied by an irruption into New England, he wrote, "would strike at the root of the rebellion and put those Independent Hypo- critics between two fires," "and open the door wide for the Canada army." The principal feature of these plans had received the approbation of the King, who, with the ministry, Parliament, and the nation, expected by the possession of the lakes and the North River to complete the separation of the Northern and Southern colonies, and insure the subsequent conquest of America in detail. This plan was suddenly abandoned, and its abandonment by Sir William Howe corresponds with the date of "Mr. Lee's plan,1 29th of March, 1777." Lee's plan, which
1 " Mr. Lee's Plan, March 29, 1777." The Treason of Charles Lee, Major General, etc., by George H. Moore, librarian, New York Historical Society, New York, Charles Scribner's, 1860, particularly pp. 84-91. See also Gordon's Am. Revolution, vol. II, 553; vol. III, 576, where it is intimated that the plan originated with a Pennsylvania refugee. In manuscript notes upon Steadman's History, attributed to Sir Henry Clin- ton, is this, "I owe it to truth to say that there was not a man in the army except Lord Cornwallis and General Grant who did not reprobate the movement to the southward, and see the necessity of a cooperation with General Burgoyne."
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it appears he had not only the treachery, but the audacity, to suggest to the British commander while himself his prisoner, was that adopted by Sir William Howe when he sailed from New York to the Delaware and made his cam- paign against Philadelphia. In the meanwhile Burgoyne, relying upon Sir William's cooperation, had begun his expedition down the lakes, which ended in his surrender. The treason of the man who would have abandoned Fort Moultrie on the 28th of June, 1776, had now misled Sir William Howe to his ruin. The battles of Brandywine and Germantown had been fought and won by him, and Philadelphia occupied; but Burgoyne's army had been lost. Sir William was discredited and resigned - dis- credited beyond the possibility of redemption by the vain- glorious and absurd Mischianza, which by contrast rather brought out his failure in more vivid colors.1
Sir Henry Clinton, who had found the water too deep
1 The famous Mischianza (or Medley) was a festival given in honor of Sir William Howe, by some of the British officers at Philadelphia, when he was about to give up his command and return to England. This entertainment not only far exceeded anything that had ever been seen in America, but rivalled the magnificent exhibition of the vainglorious monarch and conqueror, Louis XIV of France. All the colors of the army were placed in a grand avenue three hundred feet in length, with the King's troops between two triumphal arches for the two brothers - the Admiral Lord Howe and the General Sir William Howe -to march along in pompous procession, followed by a numerous train of attendants, with seven silken knights of the blended rose and seven more of the burning mountain, and fourteen damsels dressed in the Turkish fashion, to an area of one hundred and fifty yards square, lined with the King's troops, to the exhibition of a tilt with tournament or mock fight of old chivalry in honor of those two heroes. On the top of each triumphal arch was the figure of fame bespangled with stars, blowing from her trumpet in letters of light, Tres lauriers sont immortels. Steadman's Am. War, vol. I, 385. The unfortunate Major André, at that time a captain, was one of the chief promoters of this absurd pageant. Life of Washington (Irving), vol. III, 403.
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to cross from Long to Sullivan's Island on the 28th of June, 1776, and who - however much he may have criti- cised Sir William Howe's folly in abandoning Burgoyne for the campaign in the Middle States - had not escaped censure himself for failing to afford such assistance to Burgoyne as he might have rendered, for he commanded in New York in Howe's absence, was now appointed Com- mander-in-chief of the British forces, and named as one of the commissioners under the conciliatory acts of which we have spoken. He had evacuated Philadelphia, and on his march to New York was pursued by Washington and attacked at Monmouth on the 27th of June, 1778, from which he only escaped by the dilatoriness, if not again the treason, of Lee, who had been exchanged and restored to his command.
Upon his return to New York Sir Henry Clinton turned his attention to the South, and, as we have seen, sent Colonel Campbell to cooperate with General Prévost from Florida in operations against Georgia. These operations had led to Prévost's invasion, which came so near resulting in the capture of Charlestown.
It is not surprising that Sir Henry, upon assuming the chief command in America, should have turned again to the scheme of establishing a government in the back parts of North and South Carolina, the inhabitants of which were yet believed ready to rise and welcome a restoration of Royal authority. Events subsequent to the attempt in 1776 had rather strengthened the belief in the feasibility of that undertaking, and it was with great confidence assumed that if the King's arms could once reach those regions, especially that about Cross Creek, North Carolina, now Fayetteville, the people there would flock to the Royal standard, and large reinforcements would be obtained to his Majesty's forces. From that point, with increased
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numbers, the Royal army might proceed to Virginia, and thence on to the Chesapeake. This plan of carrying his Majesty's arms "from South to North"-an idea, it is said, that the ministry had long conceived - Sir Henry now undertook to carry into effect.1 The first plan of opera- tions, it will be observed, had been the cutting off of New England and New York by combined movements from New York and from the lakes; that had been neglected for a less effective one, that against Philadelphia. Now was to be tried another grand movement: that of "from South to North," combined with another favorite idea of the ministry, to wit, "the conquering of America by Ameri- cans," that is, by the reinforcements to be obtained in the backwoods of the Carolinas. The first step in this campaign was the capture and possession of the city of Charlestown; and for this purpose Sir Henry Clinton was now to put forth his whole power.
The operations of the British army in South Carolina during the year 1779 had disclosed at once the wealth of the State and its weakness in a military view. That incursion into South Carolina, says an English historian, 2 added much to the wealth of the officers, soldiers, and followers of the camp, and still more to the distresses of the inhabitants. The devastations committed, adds this writer, were so enormous that a particular relation of them would scarcely be credited by people at a distance, though the same could be attested by hundreds of eye- witnesses.3 But all this booty had been secured during a inere raid into the State, and from the country around the post at Beaufort, which they still retained. It was but a
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