USA > South Carolina > The history of South Carolina in the Revolution, 1775-1780 > Part 46
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" Marion," says Lee, "was about forty-eight years of age, small in stature, hard in visage, healthy, abstemious, and taciturn. Enthusiastically wedded to the cause of liberty, he deeply deplored the condition of his beloved country. The commonwealth was his sole object; nothing selfish, nothing mercenary, soiled his ermine character. Fertile in stratagem, he struck unperceived ; and retiring to those hidden retreats selected by himself in the morasses of the Pee Dee and Black rivers, he placed his corps not only out of the reach of his foe, but often out of the discovery of his friends.2 A rigid disciplinarian, he reduced to practice
1 Weems's Life of Marion, 120, says Gates sent him to the Santee " on the morning before the fatal action." James, p. 46, mentions his arrival at Lynch Creek " on the 10th or 12th of August," i.e. four or six days before the action. Williams's narrative (Johnson's Life of Greene, Ap- pendix B, 458) speaks of his departure from Gates's army as of the 3d, thirteen days before the battle.
2 Lieutenant Colonel Lee tells that, ordered to join Marion after Greene determined to turn the war back to South Carolina in 1781, an officer with a small party preceded him a few days' march to find out Marion, who was known to vary his position in the swamps of Pee Dee - sometimes in South Carolina, sometimes in North Carolina, and some- times on the Black River. With the greatest difficulty did this officer learn how to communicate with the brigadier, and that by the accident of hearing among our friends on the north side of the Pee Dee of a small
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the justice of his heart; and during the difficult course of warfare through which he passed calumny itself never charged him with violating the rights of person, property, or humanity. Never avoiding danger, he never rashly sought it; and acting for all around him as he did for himself, he risked the lives of his troops only when it was necessary. Neither elated with prosperity, nor depressed by adversity, he preserved an equanimity which won the admiration of his friends, and exacted the respect of his enemies. The country from Camden to the seacoast between the Pee Dee and Santee rivers was the theatre of his exertions." 1
" Of his preeminent ability as a partisan officer, success- fully opposing an active and enterprising enemy with an inferiority of force that is scarcely credible," says Garden, " there can exist no doubt. He entered the field without men - without resources of any kind, and at a period when a great proportion of the inhabitants of the district in which he commanded, either from a conviction of the inutility of resistance, or the goading of unceasing persecu- tion, had made them submissive to the enemy. To con- cealment he was indebted for security - and stratagem supplied the place of force. Yet always on the alert, - striking where least expected, retiring where no advan- tage could be hoped for by exposure, - he progressively advanced in the career of success till a superiority was obtained that put down all opposition. Far more disposed essentially to benefit his country than to give, by brilliant enterprise, increase to his own reputation, his first care provision party of Marion's being on the same side of the river. Making himself known to this party, he was conveyed to the General, who had changed his ground since his party left him, which occasioned many hours' search before his own men could find him. Memoirs of the War of 1776 (Lee), 174.
1 Memoirs of the War of 1776 (Lee), 174.
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was the preservation of the troops whom he commanded by strenuously avoiding an unnecessary hazard of their lives. It was his prudential conduct that so frequently occasioned a temporary retirement into fastnesses where pursuit was rarely ventured on, and if persisted in invari- ably attended with discomfiture and disgrace. But did occasion invite to victory - did carelessness in command, or the idea of security arising from distance, put the enemy though but for an instant off their guard - the rapidity, the impetuosity, of his attacks never failed to render the blow inflicted decisive and their destruction complete. Victory afforded additional claim to applause. Giving the rein to the most intrepid gallantry, and in battle exhibit- ing all the fire and impetuosity of youth, there never was an enemy who yielded to his valor who had not cause to admire and eulogize his subsequent humanity. The strict- ness of the discipline invariably maintained prevented every species of irregularity among his troops. His soul was his country's - his pride, the rigid observance of her laws -his ambition, to defend her rights, and preserve immaculate her honor and her fame. It would have been as easy to turn the sun from his course as Marion from the path of honor." 1
Dr. Caldwell describes Marion as an officer whose stat- ure was diminutive and his person uncommonly light, who rode when in service one of the fleetest and most powerful chargers the South could produce, and whom when in fair pursuit nothing could escape, and when retreating nothing could overtake.2
William Richardson Davie was of Scotch descent, but was born in Egremont in Cumberland County in the north of England on the 20th of June, 1756. When five years of age he had been brought to this country by his
1 Garden's Anecdotes, 20.
2 Caldwell, Memoirs of Greene, 107-109.
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father, Archibald Davie, and was adopted by his uncle, the Rev. William Richardson, the Presbyterian minister at the Waxhaws, who resided at Landsford on the Lan- caster side of the Catawba. Davie's youth was thus spent in this region which was to be the battle-ground of the Revolution during the remainder of this year, and which his own exploits were in a great measure to render famous. He was educated by his uncle and prepared for college at an academy in Charlotte, North Carolina, known as the "Queen's Museum," and afterward called " Liberty Hall." From this he entered Princeton College, where by his application and genius he obtained the reputation of an excellent student. But the din of arms disturbed these quiet shades, and Davie exchanged the gown for the sword. The studies of the college were closed and Davie joined Washington's army in the summer of 1776, and served in it as a volunteer during the campaign on Long Island. He then returned again to college and was gradu- ated in the fall of that year with the first honors of the institution. After his graduation he pursued the study of the law in Salisbury, North Carolina, during the following two years of quiet in the South. But when the scene of war was changed to this section of the country, he at once again entered the field. He induced a worthy and influ- ential but elderly gentleman by the name of Barnett to raise a troop of horse, and in this troop Barnett was elected Captain and Davie Lieutenant. His commission was given by Governor Caswell of North Carolina, and was dated the 5th of April, 1779. The company proceeded immediately to Charlestown ; but the Captain soon after returning home on furlough, the command of the troops devolved on Lieutenant Davie, and it was at his request annexed to Pulaski's legion.
Davie, as has been seen, was made Brigade Major of
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Cavalry and was severely wounded in the battle at Stono in June, 1779. He was incapacitated by this wound for service for nearly a year, and, returning to Salisbury, com- pleted his course of studies and was admitted to the bar. But, recovering from his wound, he could not remain out of the field while such stirring events were taking place in the State in which he had been reared. In the winter of 1780 he obtained authority from the General Assembly of North Carolina to raise a troop of cavalry and two com- panies of mounted infantry. But the authority only was granted. North Carolina was unable to furnish or equip the legion. This Davie would not allow to be an obstacle in the way. His uncle, the Rev. William Richardson, had died in 1771, leaving him a considerable estate. This, as his biographer observes, with a patriotism worthy of eternal record, he disposed of, and with the funds thus raised he equipped his troops.1
" Davie," says a historian, " was one of the most splen- did and knightly figures on the American continent. He was then fresh from his law books and only twenty-five years of age. Tall, graceful, and strikingly handsome, he had those graces of person which would have made him the favorite in the clanging lists of feudal days. To this he added elegant culture, thrilling eloquence, and a gracious- ness of manner which was to charm in after days the salons of Paris.2 He had won high honor and had been
1 Wheeler's Hist. of No. Ca., 188; Memoirs of the War of 1776 (Lee), Appendix, 577.
2 General Davie was after the Revolution a member of the Convention which framed the Constitution of the United States, from North Carolina ; Brigadier General, U.S.A .; Governor of North Carolina ; and in June, 1799, was appointed with Chief Justice Ellsworth of the Supreme Court, U.S., and Mr. Murray, then Minister at The Hague, as ambassadors to France. In November, 1799, he sailed on this mission.
" In the most polished court of Europe the dignified person and grace-
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dangerously wounded at Stono on the 20th of June, 1779. Since then he had expended the whole of his estate in equipping at his own cost the only organized body of troops now left to do battle in behalf of the cause he loved." 1
" General Davie," says another, " was not only distin- guished as an intelligent, but an intrepid, soldier. His delight was to lead a charge; and possessing great bodily strength, is said to have overcome more men in personal conflict than any individual in the service." 2
"Such was the soldier and the hero who was now in this dark and depressing hour of our history about to strike the British outposts and restore confidence and hope to the people. He was on familiar ground among the scenes of his early childhood and maturer years. He was inspired by a fervid ambition to deeds of valor and patriotism, and his friends and associates were to be witnesses of his achievements. Their hopes of deliverance from the sword and the prison or perhaps the gallows were centred on him, and with noble daring he entered the lists determined with his little band of patriots and soldiers to strike the foe before 'the harvest was gathered.'" 3
" This distinguished leader," says Dr. Caldwell, " al- though younger by several years, possessed talents of a higher order and was much more accomplished in educa- tion and manners than either of his three competitors for fame (Sumter, Marion, or Pickens). For the comeliness of his person, his martial air, his excellence in horsemanship, ful manners of Governor Davie were conspicuous. 'I could not but remark,' said an eye-witness, ' that Bonaparte in addressing the Ameri- can Legation at his levees seemed to forget that Governor Davie was second in the mission, his attention being more particularly to him.'" Wheeler's Hist. of No. Ca., 198.
1 Moore's Hist. of No. Ca., vol. I, 265.
2 Garden's Anecdotes, 39. 3 No. Ca., 1780-81 (Schenck), 65.
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and his consummate power of field eloquence, he had scarcely an equal in the armies of his country. So sono- rous and powerful was his voice, so distinct his articulation, and so commanding his delivery, that the distance at which he could be heard was almost incredible. But his chief excellence lay in the magnanimity and generosity of his soul, his daring courage, his vigilance and address, and his unrelenting activity and endurance of toil. So ardent was his attachment to the cause of freedom and so disin- terested his efforts to promote it, that in equipping for the field his corps of followers he expended his whole patri- monial estate." 1
General Davie was a Carolinian. He cannot be claimed exclusively by either North or South Carolina. He be- longed to both. Reared in the Waxhaws in South Caro- lina near the North Carolina line, there was the scene of all his military exploits. His command was composed of Carolinians of both sides of the dividing line between the States. His civil and political life was spent in North Carolina, and it was that State whose honors he bore. Upon his retirement to private life he returned to Landsford on the Catawba in South Carolina, where he had been reared, and where he had joined Sumter on his expedition to Hanging Rock, and there he spent the remainder of his days, dispensing an elegant hospitality to his friends of the Revolution in both States, who gathered there to live over with him the days of their warfare and their glory.
These three men were now in North Carolina, each forming a nucleus of a force with which the war was to be renewed in the Southern States. Davie, as has been seen, had an organized corps, the only one formed regularly under a commission. Sumter was gathering around him
1 Caldwell's Life of Greene, 113-114.
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the refugees from his State and was forming a camp in Mecklenburg County. Marion had joined De Kalb on Deep River and was hospitably entertained by the Baron. But he and his party were an eyesore to Gates when he took command. Colonel Otho Holland Williams, the Adjutant General, thus describes them : "Colonel Marion, a gentle- man of South Carolina, has been with the army a few days attended by a very few followers distinguished by small black leather caps and the wretchedness of their attire ; their number did not exceed twenty men and boys, some white, some black, and all mounted, but most of them miserably equipped; their appearance was in fact so bur- lesque that it was with much difficulty the diversion of the regular soldiery was restrained by the officers ; and the General himself was glad of an opportunity of detaching Colonel Marion at his own instance toward the interior of South Carolina to watch the motions of the enemy and furnish intelligence. These trifling circumstances," adds Colonel Williams, " are remembered in these notes to show from what contemptible beginnings a good capacity will rise to distinction. The history of the war in South Caro- lina will recognize Marion as a brave partisan if only the actions of the two last years' campaigns are recorded." 1
Davie's corps, though equipped and furnished by him- self alone, from his own individual means, was neverthe- less a regular organization authorized by the State of North Carolina, whose commission he bore ; but the bodies gathering around Sumter under Hill, Bratton, Winn, the Hamptons, the Taylors, and Lacey, and around Marion and the Horrys, James, McCottry, Mouzon, Witherspoon, Vanderhorst and the Postells, were volunteers only, who came as the occasion demanded, serving without pay,
1 Colonel Otho Holland Williams's narrative, Johnson's Life of Greene, vol. I, 485.
VOL. III. - 2 P
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and at their own expense. These men were no merce- nary soldiers, but patriotic citizens striking for liberty, giving freely of their own substance, and asking for no compensation for blood or treasure spent in the cause ; shedding their blood and dying for their country, without even an enrolment of their names that their descendants might glory in their deeds.
We have a few pages since quoted Ramsay as saying that, after the fall of Charlestown, excepting in the ex- tremities of the State which border on North Carolina, the inhabitants of South Carolina preferred submission to resist- ance. It is curious that while Cross Creek or Fayetteville in North Carolina was looked upon as the place most in- tensely loyal to the King, not far from it the people of Mecklenburg, on the border of the two States, were the most earnest and steadfast Whigs. This is the more re- markable, also, as the Scotch-Irish in the northwestern part of South Carolina had not taken any considerable part in the Revolution. It was in this neighborhood that the action was taken in May, 1775, setting up a local gov- ernment.1 It was in the same that the first collision was
1 Without entering into the historical question as to the authenticity of the Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence, it is enough here to say that there appears in the So. Ca. and Am. Gen. Gazette of June 13, 1775, a preamble and resolves of the Committee of the County, adopted on the 31st of May, from which we quote.
" Whereas by an address presented to his Majesty by both Houses of Parliament in February last the American colonies are declared to be in a state of actual rebellion, we conceive that all laws and commissions confirmed by, or derived from, the authority of king or Parliament are annulled and vacated, and the former civil constitutions for the present wholly suspended. To provide in some degree for the exigencies of this county in the present alarming period, we deem it proper and necessary to pass the following resolves."
Then follows a series of resolves declaring all commissions, civil and military, granted by the Crown null and void; that the Provincial Con-
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now to occur between the Whigs and Tories. The Tories in North Carolina had risen precipitately in February, 1776, under Donald McDonald and had met with a crushing de- feat at Moore's Creek. A similar defeat was now again to meet them from the same precipitancy. This time it was to be final.
Upon the defeat of Buford, Brigadier General Rutherford of North Carolina 1 had ordered out the militia in mass to obstruct the advance of the conquerors ; and on the 3d of June nine hundred men were assembled at Charlotte, but they were dismissed when it was learned that the British had fallen back to Camden. When Lord Rawdon, however, advanced into the Waxhaw country, General Rutherford again assembled his militia; on the 12th eight hundred men were on the ground, and on the 14th they were organized. The cavalry under Davie was formed into two troops under Captains Lemmonds and Martin ; a corps of light infantry was placed under Colonel William L. Davidson, a Continental officer,2 and the remainder
gress of each province under the Continental Congress is invested with all legislative and executive powers within their respective provinces, suspending all former laws in the province, and providing for an inde- pendent government. See Johnson's Traditions, 79. There is, however, nothing in the Gazette to indicate that there was any first or previous set of resolutions.
1 General Griffith Rutherford, an Irishman by birth, uncultivated in mind or manners, but brave, ardent, and patriotic. He commanded the North Carolina forces in the expedition against the " Over Hill " Chero- kee Indians, joining General Williamson on the 14th of September, 1776, at Ellajay, and with him routing and subduing the Indians. Wheeler's Hist. of No. Ca., 383-384.
2 William L. Davidson was at this time Lieutenant Colonel of the First North Carolina Continental Regiment, who had been prevented from joining his regiment in Charlestown, and was thus saved from cap- ture, and like Marion preserved for distinguished services in the field, but was to fall before the end of the war. Historical Register (Heitman) ; No. Ca., 1780-81 (Schenck), 51 ; Wheeler's Hist. of No. Ca., 263.
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under the command of General Rutherford. Learning that a body of Tories was assembling in strong force under Colonel Moore at Ramsour's Mill, near where the town of Lincolnton now stands, General Rutherford, not willing himself to leave the front of the British, ordered Colonel Francis Locke and other officers to collect a body of militia and disperse it.
The uprising of the Tories at this time was without Lord Cornwallis's consent or approval. A correspondence had been kept up with the Loyalists in North Carolina, but his lordship had sent messengers to request their friends to attend to their harvest, collect provisions, and remain quiet till the King's troops were ready to enter the prov- ince, which would not be until the end of August or be- ginning of September.1 But this prudent and necessary admonition was disregarded. One James Moore, whose father and family resided about six miles from Ramsour's Mill, had joined the British army the preceding winter, and leaving the detachment under Cornwallis on the march from Charlestown to Camden, arrived at his father's on the 7th of June, wearing a sword and old tattered suit of regi- mentals. He announced himself as Lieutenant Colonel of the Regiment of North Carolina Loyalists, commanded by Colonel Hamilton, and gave to the people of the neighbor- hood the first particular account they had received of the siege and capture of Charlestown and the advance of the British troops to Camden. Assembling some forty of the people on the 10th of June in the woods on Indian Creek, seven miles from Ramsour's, he gave them Lord Cornwallis's message that they should not embody at that time, but hold themselves in readiness, and in the meantime get in their harvest; and that as soon as the country could
1 Steadman's Am. War, vol. II, 196.
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furnish subsistence to the army it would advance into Nortlı Carolina and support the Royalists.
Before the meeting broke up, however, an express arrived that Major McDowell of Burke County 1 with twenty men was within eight miles of them in search of the principal persons of their party. Confident of their strength, not- withstanding Lord Cornwallis's known wishes in the matter, the party determined to attack McDowell at once. They did not, however, march until the next morning, when, finding that McDowell had retired, they pursued, but not being able to overtake him Moore directed them to return home and meet him again on the 13th at Ramsour's Mill. On that day two hundred men joined Moore, and they were joined the next by many others, among whom was Nicholas Welch, a major in the regiment commanded by Colonel Hamilton. He also had lived in that neighborhood and had joined the British army eighteen months before. He was directly from the army of Lord Cornwallis and gave information of Colonel Buford's defeat. Wearing a rich suit of regimentals and exhibiting a number of guineas, he sought to allure some, while he endeavored to intimidate others, by his account of the success of the British army in all the operations of the South, and the inability of the Whigs to make further opposition. The party remained in camp until the 20th, during which time a detachment commanded by Moore made an unsuccessful attempt to capture Colonel Hugh Brevard and Major Joseph Mc- Dowell, each of whom had come into the neighborhood
1 Major Joseph McDowell. He had served in his brother's regiment in the expedition against the Over Hill or Cherokee Indians in 1776 under Rutherford and Williamson, and was at Stono in 1779. He was famil- iarly known as " Quaker Meadow Joe," to distinguish him from his equally distinguished cousin of the same name, who was likewise known as "Pleasant Gordon Joe." Wheeler's Hist. of No. Ca., 59; King's Mountain and Its Heroes (Draper), 472.
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with a number of Whigs to break up the assembling Tories.
By the 20th nearly thirteen hundred Tories had assembled at Ramsour's, one fourth of whom were without arms. General Rutherford, as soon as he learned that Lord Raw- don had retired to Camden, resolved to concentrate his force and attack this party of Tories. He accordingly marched on the 18th from his camp south of Charlotte, and in the evening sent a dispatch to Colonel Locke, advising him of his movement and of the enemy's strength, and ordering Locke to join him on the 19th in the evening or on the 20th in the morning at the Tuckaseege Ford on the Catawba. General Rutherford's express did not reach Colonel Locke, and that officer, pro- ceeding under his orders of the 14th, collected as many men as he could, so that by Monday, the 19th, he encamped on Mountain Creek, sixteen miles from Ramsour's, with a force amounting to about four hundred men. Here the officers met in council, and were unanimous in opinion that it would be unsafe to remain in that position, as the Tories were in greatly superior force within a few hours' march. It was at first proposed to recross the Catawba and wait reinforcements ; but it was objected that a retro- grade movement would embolden the Tories, whose num- bers were increasing as fast as their own. Then it was proposed to march directly down the river and join Gen- eral Rutherford, about thirty-five miles distant. Again it was objected that this movement would leave the fami- lies of many who were with General Rutherford exposed to the Tories, and it was insinuated that these propositions proceeded, if not from fear, at least from an unwillingness, so to meet the Tories; these taunts overcame all prudent counsels, and it was unanimously resolved to march at daybreak to the attack. An officer was sent to apprise
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