USA > South Carolina > The history of South Carolina in the Revolution, 1775-1780 > Part 48
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Approaching to near where they supposed the British encamped, the Whigs dismounted, tied their horses, and again counted their men. Ninety had fallen off since they left the Mills. Although they now had not more than two hundred and sixty men left, they still deter- mined to attack the Royalists before daylight. But the British had again moved. They had left Bratton's and encamped at Williamson's plantation, on a creek about a
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quarter of a mile farther off. The Whigs halted in a thicket to rest ; but Bratton did not avail himself of this indulgence. The British campfires were within sight of his own house, the residence of his family. He first pushed on to ascertain its safety, - the British had fortunately postponed its destruction until the next day, - and then turned to reconnoitre Huck's encampment, to ascertain where the sentinels were stationed and where the horses were picketed. In doing this he passed through their line of sentinels. A consultation was had, and it was agreed that the men should be divided into two parties : one party to be led by Colonels Bratton and Neel, and the other by Colonel Lacey, the parties to approach from different directions. Huck had sentinels placed along the road in front of the house, while the soldiers not on duty were asleep in their tents, and one officer in the house. Huck, it is evident, had not considered himself in any danger. His men were very carelessly posted; no pickets were advanced, and no patrols sent out.1
The Whigs moved to the attack just as the morning of the 12th began to dawn ; they approached the enemy in silence, cut off the troopers from their picketed horses, and opened fire about seventy-five paces from where the British were lying. The fence on the lane gave the Whigs some little protection against the enemy's mus- ketry, and afforded them a good rest for their rifles, with which they took unerring and deadly aim. Three times the British charged with their bayonets, but were forced to fall back from the galling and destructive fire of the American rifles. Huck appears at first to have consid- ered the affair so small that he did not get up out of bed ; but at last, aroused to his danger, he hurriedly arose and, without his coat, mounted a horse, and while trying
1 Tarleton's Campaigns, 93.
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to rally his men was shot and fell dead. Upon his fall the word, " Boys, take the fence and every man his own commander," was passed along the Whig ranks, and no sooner said than done; the Whigs leaped the fence and rushed upon the enemy, who, after a futile resistance, threw down their arms and fled in great confusion. A few on their knees begged for quarter. And this was allowed, notwithstanding Tarleton's precedent at the Waxhaws, except to one Ferguson, a Tory, who, it was believed, had commanded the squad that killed young Strong a short time before. The Whigs mounted their horses and pursued the flying Royalists for thirteen or fourteen miles, wreaking their vengeance and retaliating heavily for the cruelties and atrocities which had been committed. The battle had lasted about one hour; the Whigs had one man killed, the British between thirty and forty, and about fifty wounded. In the rout and
pursuit of the British, Colonel Bratton's house became the scene of action, and when the family came out from their hiding-place, the dead and wounded were lying around it and in the lower rooms. To these suffering enemies Mrs. Bratton paid the kindest and most assidu- ous attentions, feeding and nursing them, and supplying their wants to the best of her ability. The officer who had saved her life in the morning, having been taken prisoner, requested to be brought to her, confident of her gratitude; and he was not disappointed - he was pro- tected from injury and hospitably entertained. This noble-minded lady, says the author from whom this account is taken, an example of female patriotism and heroism in South Carolina, in the hour of danger risked her own life and all that was dear to her on earth rather than ask her husband to desert his country or shrink from his duty. In the hour of victory she
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remembered mercy, and interposed to save and comfort the unfortunate among her foes.1
One of the happiest results of the victory was the release of James McClure and Edward Martin, who during the action had been confined - tied in an outhouse, a corncrib, awaiting their execution the next morning. But one of the Whigs was killed - his name was Campbell. Huck was killed by one of two brothers, John or Thomas Camp- bell, who both were foremost in the action. It is uncertain which fired the fatal and decisive shot. The fight was made by the patriots of this immediate neighborhood. Besides the Brattons, of whom there were three brothers, there were two brothers named Ross, two named Hanna, and two Adair, one of whom became afterwards distin- guished ; three named Gill and three Rainey, also four sons of John Moore and five sons of James Williamson, around whose house the battle was fought. The people of this neighborhood generally were, however, probably not more united in sentiment than elsewhere in the State. There were Tory families upon whom the victors billeted about fifty wounded of their enemies. These were attended by a physician who resided in the neighborhood. Many others of the wounded Tories escaped into the woods, and were afterward found dead.2
The battle at Williamson has been but little noticed by historians ; but it was one of the turning-points in the Revolution. The affairs at Mobley's Meeting-house and Beckham's Old Field had indeed been uprisings of the people; but in them the Whigs had only been opposed to their own neighbors, like themselves unorganized and unarmed, and no blood, as far as we know, had been shed. Nor at Ramsour's Mill, where unfortunately there had been
1 Johnson's Traditions, 339.
2 Life of General Edward Lacey, 10.
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great slaughter by kinsfolk, friends, and acquaintances, had there been any regularly organized forces. But in this battle British regulars, though few in number, had been routed and dispersed. It is true that Huck was not a British regular officer, nor a professional soldier, but an American loyalist. Still he wore the red coat of the Brit- ish army and bore his Majesty's commission in the British legion, which in three months' service in South Carolina had already made itself famous and equally dreaded and hated by the people among whom their atrocities had been committed. That any of the merciless sabreurs of Monck's Corner, Lenuds's Ferry, and Waxhaws could themselves be surprised and cut to pieces alike aroused the courage and vengeance of those who had witnessed the sufferings of the cruel massacre of Huger's and Buford's men. But more than this, it committed these people to the cause of inde- pendence. There was now no longer time for consider- ation and discussion. They must take the field -if only for their own safety. It had the immediate effect, it was said, of adding six hundred men to Sumter's camp at Clem's Creek within a few days after the battle.1 Among these was Lacey with a body he had collected.2
Captain Thomas Young, a soldier who took an active part in the bloody scenes which were now to follow, who was still living in 1847, relates in his memoirs two affairs which must have happened about this time, but of the exact dates of which there is uncertainty.
Colonel Thomas Brandon was encamped about five miles from the present town of Union, collecting forces for the approaching campaign and keeping a check upon the Tories. They had taken one Adam Steedham, a Tory, who, managing to escape, notified the Tories of Brandon's posi-
1 Johnson's Traditions, 399.
2 Life of General Edward Lacey, 11.
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tion. Brandon was attacked by a large body of the enemy before day and completely routed. Captain Young lost a brother in this affair whom he vowed to avenge, and declares that he did so. Upon this he says he joined Brandon's party, and his first engagement was at a place known as Stallions,1 in what is now York County.
Brandon, learning that a party of Tories were stationed at Stallions, took a detachment of about fifty Whigs to attack them. Before arriving at the house, which was fortified, Brandon divided his force into two parties. A Captain Love with a party of sixteen, of which the narrator was one, attacked the front, while Colonel Brandon with the remainder made a circuit to intercept those who should attempt to escape and to assail the rear. Mrs. Stallions was a sister of Captain Love, and on the approach of her brother she ran out and begged him not to fire upon the house. Running back to the house, as she sprang upon the door- step, she fell, pierced by a ball shot at random through the opposite door. The Tories, attacked in front and rear, kept up for some time a fire upon their assailants. It was not long, however, before they raised a flag and surrendered. The loss of the Tories was two killed, four wounded, and twenty-eight prisoners. The prisoners were sent to Char- lotte, North Carolina. The victory was gained at bitter loss to Love, who mingled his own tears with those of his Tory brother-in-law.2
It will be recollected that while the main body of the British army had proceeded to Camden, two other divisions after leaving Charlestown had separated at Dorchester, one under Lieutenant Colonel Browne moving up the Savannah River to Augusta, and the other under Lieu- tenant Colonel Balfour passing along the western bank of
1 Probably Stallings. See Georgia Scenes (A. B. Longstreet).
2 Johnson's Traditions, 446-448.
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the Congaree to Ninety-Six. It is time now to recur to the movements of these parties under Browne and Balfour between the Broad and the Savannah.
When Lord Cornwallis crossed the Santee at Lenuds's Ferry he detached Colonel Ferguson with his corps of American volunteers, 100 to 200 men, to join Colonel Balfour at Ninety-Six, where he arrived on the 22d of June. Colonel Ferguson and his friend Major Hanger seem to have had a special commission from Sir Henry Clinton, independently of Colonel Balfour. Colonel Fer- guson was a remarkable man. A Scotchman of excel- lent birth, the son of Lord Pitfour, at fifteen years of age he had entered the army as a Cornet of Dragoons and had served with distinction in the wars in Flanders and Germany. Then, transferred to the Seventieth Regi- ment of Foot stationed in the Caribbee Islands, he had performed important service in quieting an insurrection of the Caribs on the island of St. Vincent. When the disputes between the mother country and her colonies were verging toward hostilities, the boasted skill of the Americans in the use of the rifle was regarded as an object of terror to the British troops. These rumors excited the genius of Ferguson, and he invented a breech-loading rifle, with which he performed some most extraordinary feats of practice at Woolwich in June, 1776, in the presence of the Master of Ordnance, General Amherst, and other officers of high rank. And on one occasion his Majesty George III himself had honored him with his presence at an ex- hibition of his skill. He was regarded as the best rifle- shot in the British army, if not the best marksman living, excepting, possibly, his associate, Major George Hanger. Anxious to take part in the American war, he joined Sir Henry Clinton, and was placed at the head of a corps of riflemen picked from the different regiments, and soon
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after participated in the battle of Brandywine on the 11th of September, 1777, in which he rendered the most impor- tant service. Washington, it is said, owed his life at the battle of Germantown to Ferguson's ignorance of his position, or to his humanity, - the account differs as to which, - having been repeatedly within the range of his unerring rifle. When the British evacuated Philadelphia in June, 1778, Captain Ferguson accompanied the retiring forces and of course participated in the battle of Mon- mouth on the way. He it was who commanded the ex- pedition which surprised and cut to pieces the infantry of Pulaski's legion at Little Egg Harbor on the 14th of October of that year. During the northern campaign of 1779 he had been engaged in several predatory excur- sions along the coast and on the Hudson. When Sir Henry Clinton fitted out his expedition against Charles- town at the close of 1779, he very naturally selected Major Ferguson to share in the important enterprise. A corps of three hundred men called the American Volunteers 1 was assigned to his command, he having the choice of both officers and soldiers, and for the special service he had been given the rank of Lieutenant Colonel. At his request Major Hanger's corps of two hundred Hessians were joined to his own. Colonel Ferguson's command, as has been seen, formed a part of the troops under General Patterson which had joined Sir Henry Clinton on the
1 In The Winning of the West Governor Roosevelt says in a note that, though called volunteers, this body was simply a regular regiment raised in America instead of England. Ferguson himself always spoke of them as regulars. The British, says Roosevelt, gave an absurd number of titles to the various officers ; thus Ferguson was a Brigadier General of Militia, Lieutenant Colonel of Volunteers, a Major in the army, etc. (Vol. II, 243.) But the same system prevailed in our own army during the late Spanish war, and does to-day in the Philippines, officers holding at the same time different ranks in the regular and the volunteer lines.
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Stono on the 25th of March, and had supported Tarleton in his attack upon Huger at Monck's Corner on the 12th of April. Ferguson, says Irving, was a fit associate of Tarleton in hardy, scrambling partisan enterprise, equally intrepid and determined, but cooler and more open to im- . pulses of humanity.1 But Ferguson, besides his superior
humanity, was much more than a mere soldier. His characteristics were more those of Lieutenant Colonel Archibald Campbell, under whose command the Seventy- first Regiment had first come to the South, and whose wise and conciliatory conduct after his defeat of Howe before Savannah had effectually secured to his King the fruits of his conquest and had permanently reestablished the Royal authority in Georgia. Major Hanger, Colonel Ferguson's companion, was a man of different character, dissolute in his habits and reckless in his conduct, but, like Ferguson, a good soldier.2 These men Sir Henry Clinton directed to repair to the interior settlements and jointly or sepa- rately to organize, muster, and regulate all volunteer corps
1 Irving's Life of Washington, vol. IV, 51.
2 George Hanger, fourth Baron of Coleraine, was the youngest son of Gabriel Hanger, created Baron of Coleraine in the peerage of Ireland. Educated at Eton and Göttingen, on January 31, 1771, was gazetted an Ensign, First Regiment of Foot Guards ; resigned, and left the Guards ; appointed by Landgrave of Hesse-Cassel captain in the Hessian Jäger Corps, February, 1776; sailed for America, where he served throughout the war; was aide-de-camp to Sir Henry Clinton during the siege of Charlestown. Upon his return to England was with Tarleton, Lord Rawdon, then Earl of Moira, and Sir John McMahon (of whom later), one of the Prince of Wales's (George IV) fast set, and even in that circle was famous for his eccentricity and profligacy. Losing the countenance of his royal master because of the freedom with which he treated him, he was an inmate of the King's Bench Prison in 1798-99. He was the author of several works. The Life and Opinions of Colonel George Hanger appeared in London in 1801. On the second page of that un- savory book is a portrait of Hanger, with cocked hat and sword, sus- pended on a gibbet. In the second volume of this work he announced
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and inspect the quantity of grain and number of cattle, etc., belonging to the inhabitants, and report to Lord Corn- wallis, who would be left in command of the southern province. The powers of their commissions were very extensive. It authorized them to receive the submission of the people, administer oaths of fealty, and exact pledges of Royal service ; but it extended still farther.1 No author- ity had really existed in this part of the country since Lord William Campbell had abandoned the government in 1775. It has been seen how little impression William Henry Drayton's mission had been able to make upon the people in Colonel Fletchall's district between the Saluda and the Broad. They had never accepted either the Association or the new government established in 1776; and none other existed. Large civil powers were therefore also added to the commissions of Ferguson and Hanger, even authority to perform the marriage service. The commis- sioners did not establish any civil government, but they thoroughly organized the loyal militia, forming them into six battalions.2
After a fortnight's rest at Ninety-Six Colonel Ferguson advanced some sixteen miles, and selected a good location on Little River, where he erected some field works, while most of his provincials pushed on to the Fair Forest region. This camp was at the plantation of Colonel James Williams, in what is now Laurens County, near the Newberry line, where the British and Tories long main- tained a post, a part of the time under General Cuning-
the singular prophecy that one of these days the Northern and Southern powers will fight as vigorously against each other as they both have united to do against the British. Vol. II, 425-429.
1 'This account of Colonel Ferguson is taken from Draper's King's Mountain and its Heroes, Chapter III. See also Roosevelt's The Win- ning of the West, vol. II, 242.
2 King's Mountain and its Heroes, 143.
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ham, till they evacuated Ninety-Six the following year.1 Major Hanger did not remain long with Colonel Ferguson in the Little River region, for early in August he was transferred to Tarleton's legion as Major.
" We come not," declared Ferguson, "to make war on women and children, but to relieve their distresses." He would sit down for hours and converse with the country people on the state of public affairs, and point out to them from his view the ruinous effect of disloyalty. He was as indefatigable in training them to his way of thinking as he was in instructing them in military exercises. The conde- scension on his part was regarded as wonderful in a king's officer, and very naturally went far to secure the respect and obedience of all who came within the sphere of his almost magic influence.2
To Colonel Ferguson's standard, while encamped at Little River, the Tories of the country, whose spirit had been kept up by the Cuninghams, Fletchall, Robinson, and Pearis, now flocked in large numbers. Companies and regiments were organized and many officers commissioned for the Royal service. David Fanning, the notorious
1 Draper fixes the location of Williams's plantation as about a mile west of Little River, and between that stream and Mud Lick Creek on the Old Island Ferry Road followed by General Greene when he re- treated from Ninety-Six in 1781. Ferguson's camp was near the inter- section of a road leading to Laurens Court House, about six miles distant - MS. letters, he says, of General A. C. Garlington, July 19 and 20, 1880, on authority of Colonel James W. Watts, a descendant of Colonel Williams, and Major T. K. Vance and others. D. R. Crawford, of Martin's Depot, South Carolina, states that three miles above the old Williams place, on the west side of Little River, opposite the old Mellin store, must have been an encampment, as old gun barrels and gun locks have been found there. King's Mountain and its Heroes, 69 ; Tarleton's Campaigns, 80, 87, 100.
2 Draper, King's Mountain and its Heroes, 72, 73; quoting Political Magazine (March, 1781), 125.
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North Carolina Tory, secured from Colonel Ferguson com- missions for no less than sixty-two persons. But it was not only the youthful Loyalists, whose zeal and ambition prompted them to take up arms, who found a warm recep- tion in the British camp; but the desperate, the idle, the vindictive, who sought plunder or revenge, were alike wel- comed ; but these were disciplined by him and organized, drilled, and fitted for active service. Ferguson's principal camp was at Little River, as just described, but he was constantly on the move scouring the country in front of the posts from Rocky Mount to Ninety-Six. However gentle and patient he was with the Loyalists and with those whom he hoped to win back to his Majesty's cause, to the avowed or known Rebels he was a bitter foe. Trav- ersing principally the present counties of Newberry, Union, and Spartanburg, and sometimes crossing into Fairfield and Chester, he mercilessly plundered the Whigs of their cattle, horses, beds, wearing apparel, guns, and vegetables, even wresting rings from the fingers of the women. He believed as much in despoiling his enemies as Tarleton did in slaughtering them.
That Ferguson during the period he held command in the Up Country had been both untiring and successful is well attested by a report of Lord Cornwallis to the home government, August 20, 1780: " In the district of Ninety-Six," says his lordship, "by far the most populous and powerful of the province, Lieutenant Colonel Balfour by his great attention and diligence and by the active assistance of Major Ferguson, who was appointed Inspec- tor General of the Militia of the Province by Sir Henry Clinton, had formed seven battalions of Militia consisting of about four thousand men, composed of persons well affected to the British government, which were so. regu- lated that they could with ease furnish fifteen hundred
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men at a short notice for the defence of the frontier or any other service." 1
A singular exception to the general sentiment of the people in this section was a congregation of Presbyterians of the Fair Forest church, of which it was said that there was not a Tory among them. Of these Colonel John Thomas was one of the leaders. He was a native of Wales, but brought up in Chester County in Pennsylvania and removed to South Carolina. Before hostilities commenced he was residing upon Fair Forest Creek in the lower part of what is now Spartanburg County. He was one of the founders of the church and a militia captain and magis- trate under the Royal government. Having resigned
his Majesty's commission, he was elected Colonel of the regiment in the place of Fletchall when that officer re- fused to join the new government. After the fall of Charlestown he was, under Sir Henry Clinton's proclama- tion, thrown into confinement in violation of the parole he had given and the protection he had received. He had four sons in the rebel service, two of whom fell in the cause. John Thomas, Jr., succeeded his father in the com- mand of the regiment and made his mark on many a well- fought field. The other son was a youth at the time of the war, but not too young to do some important service. He had also four daughters, each of whose husbands was a Whig and each ultimately held a commission in the field.
It happened that while Colonel John Thomas the elder, with two of his sons, was confined at Ninety-Six as a pris- oner, Mrs. Thomas visited her husband and sons, and while there overheard two women in conversation, one remarking to the other, " On to-morrow the Loyalists intend to surprise the Rebels at Cedar Spring." This was a camp in which Colonel John Thomas, Jr., her son, was organizing
1 King's Mountain and its Heroes, 142.
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a body to join Sumter at Clem's Creek. Startled at this information, as she had two sons as well as many of her friends and neighbors in that camp, which was but a few miles beyond her own home, Mrs. Thomas determined at once to return and apprise them of the intended attack. This was on the 12th of July, the night on which Huck's party was cut to pieces at Williamson's plantation in York. She started early the next morning, the 13th, and reached Cedar Spring that evening in time to give her friends warning of the impending danger.
Colonel John Thomas, Jr., the son of the heroine of this story and of Colonel John Thomas the prisoner, who had succeeded his father in command of the Fair Forest Whigs, now headed the small band of some sixty in num- ber encamped at the Cedar Spring. On receiving the timely intelligence of the intended attack, Colonel Thomas and his men, after a brief consultation, retired to a distance in rear of their campfires, and awaited the impending onset. The British enemy, one hundred and fifty strong, soon made their appearance, and rushed upon the camp, where they expected to find the luckless rebels profoundly enwrapped in slumber; but on the contrary they were wide awake and astonished their assailants with a volley of rifle balls. Several were slain and the rest routed. It was a short, quick, and decisive affair. It was fortunate for the Thomas party that the attack was made at night, as it prevented the enemy from discovering their own great superiority in numbers.1
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