USA > South Carolina > The history of South Carolina in the Revolution, 1775-1780 > Part 58
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1 James McCall had been, it will be recollected, a Captain under Major Williamson at Ninety-Six in 1776, and had been captured by the Indians.
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dezvous. Colonel Clarke had been more successful, his numbers amounting to three hundred and fifty. Though this little band fell far short of his expectations, and were really inadequate to the purposes Clarke had in view, it was then too late to relinquish a project which he so anx- iously wished to accomplish; he was therefore compelled to depend upon courage and stratagem as substitutes for numbers in his ranks.
Colonel Clarke's arrangements had been made so sud- denly and so unexpectedly to the enemy that he reached the vicinity of Augusta unobserved, and found them unprepared for an attack. On the morning of the 14th of September he halted near the town and formed his command into three divisions: the right commanded by Lieutenant Colonel McCall, the left by Major Samuel Taylor, and the centre by himself in person. The centre approached the town by the middle road, and the right and left by the lower and upper roads at its eastern and west- ern extremities. Near Hawk's Creek in the west Major Taylor fell in with an Indian camp, and with a desultory fire the Indians retreated toward their allies. Taylor pressed on to get possession of Mckay's trading-house, called the White House, a mile and a half west of the town. At this house the Indians joined a company of the King's Rangers, commanded by Captain Johnston. The attack upon this, the camp, gave the first intimation to Browne of the Americans' approach. He reenforced Johnston, and advanced to the scene of action in person with the main body of his garrison. The centre and right division com- pletely surprised the garrison and forts, and took possession without resistance ; seventy prisoners and all the Indians present were put under charge of a guard, and Clarke marched with the residue to the assistance of Taylor. Browne had joined Johnston and the Indians, and upon
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Clarke's approach took shelter in the White House and defended it. Several attempts were made to dislodge the British, but failed. A desultory fire continued from eleven o'clock until night, but it was found that the enemy could not be dislodged without artillery. The house was situ- ated about eighty yards from the river. The Indians who had not room to fight from the house took shelter under the banks, which furnished them with a good breastwork, while they were secured by the thick wood between the bank and the water's edge. At the close of the day the firing ceased, and strong guards were posted to keep the enemy in check.
Under cover of the night, Browne added strength to his position by throwing up some works round the house. The crevices between the weather boards and ceiling were filled up with earth to make the walls proof against musketry; loopholes were cut out at convenient dis- tances ; the windows were closed up with boards taken from the floors, and defence rendered as formidable as the materials at command would admit. The next morn- ing two pieces of artillery were brought by the Americans from the British works and placed in a position to bear upon the house; but the carriages not being designed for field service, and the handling unskilful, they proved of little service. Captain Martin of South Carolina, the only artillerist attached to Clarke's command, was unfor- tunately killed soon after the pieces were brought to bear on the enemy. A fire was continued through the day with small arms, but without much prospect of compelling the enemy to abandon the house or surrender.
On the morning of the 15th, before daylight, the Americans drove the Indians from the river bank, and cut off their supply of water, by which the wounded, particularly, suffered greatly. The dead men and horses
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which lay about the house became very offensive. Early in the engagement Browne was shot through both thighs, and suffered among the wounded, who were often heard calling for water and medical aid. On the night of the 15th the garrison was reenforced by fifty Cherokee Indians, who crossed the river in canoes. The sufferings of the wounded, the want of water, and the nauseous smell of animal putrefaction, it was supposed, would discourage the besieged and induce them to surrender, but Browne was not a man to yield. On the 17th Clarke sent a summons to him, but the proposition was rejected and Clarke warned of the destruction his measures would bring upon the people of Georgia. In the afternoon the summons to surrender was repeated with the addition that Browne would be held responsible for the consequences of his temerity ; Browne replied that it was his determination to defend himself to the last extremity.
Immediately after Colonel Clarke's appearance, Browne had dispatched messengers by different routes to Ninety- Six, informing Colonel Cruger of his situation and the necessity of immediate relief by reinforcements. Sir Patrick Houston, one of the messengers, reached Ninety- Six early on the next day, and was the first to communi- cate Browne's critical situation to Cruger, who lost no time in making preparations and advancing to his relief. On the night of the 17th Clarke's scouts informed him of Cruger's approach by forced marches, with five hundred British regulars and Royal militia to the relief of the besieged. In the meanwhile many of his men, availing themselves of being in the neighborhood, had gone to visit families or friends from whom they had long been absent; others, who had been actuated by the hope of obtaining plunder rather than by motives of zeal in the cause of their country, had decamped, laden with goods
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which Colonel Browne had received not long before for presents to the Indians.
About eight o'clock on the morning of the 18th, the British troops appeared on the opposite side of the river. The weakness occasioned by the loss of men in the siege, and by the desertion of those who preferred plunder to the honor and interest of their country, compelled the Ameri- cans to raise the siege and retreat, having sustained a loss of about sixty killed and wounded; among the former were Captains Charles Jourdine and William Martin. William Luckie, a brave and much respected young man from Carolina, was killed early in the contest in a desperate effort to gain the possession of the White House. Such of the Whigs as were badly wounded and not in a condition to be removed were left in the town. Captain Ashby, an officer noted for his bravery and human- ity, with twenty-eight others, including the wounded, fell into the hands of the enemy. Ashby and twelve others of the wounded prisoners were hanged on the staircase of the
White House, where Browne was lying wounded, so, it was said, that he might have the satisfaction of seeing the vic- tims of his vengeance expire. Their bodies were delivered up to the Indians, who scalped and otherwise mangled them, and threw them into the river. Henry Duke, John Burgamy, Scott Reeden, Jordan Ricketson, - Darling, and two youths, brothers, of seventeen and fifteen years of age, named Glass, were all hanged. The elder of these youths was shot through the thigh, and could not be car- ried away when the retreat was ordered, and the younger brother could not be prevailed upon to leave him ; his ten- derness and affection cost him his life. A horse was the scaffold on which they were mounted, and from which they were gibbeted. But all this was merciful when com- pared with the fate which awaited the other prisoners ; VOL. III. - 3 B
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these were delivered to the Indians, to glut their ven- geance for the loss they had sustained. The Indians formed a circle and placed the prisoners in the centre. Their eagerness to shed blood spared the victims from tedious torture. Some were scalped before they sank under the Indian weapons of war; others were thrown into the fires and roasted to death. The record of these transactions, from the pens of British officers who were present and exultingly communicated it to their friends in Savannah, Charlestown, and London, where it stands upon record in the papers of the day, says McCall, from whom this account is taken, was before him when he wrote.1 Cornwallis himself wrote to Ferguson on the 23d that he " had the satisfaction to hear from Lieu- tenant Colonel Cruger, that he had arrived in time to save Browne, and retaken the guns, and totally routed the enemy, who had retired with great precipitation ; that the Indians had pursued and scalped many of them." 2
The British loss was announced, it is said, in Colonel Browne's official letter published in Charlestown, but can- not now be stated with correctness.3 The morning on which Colonel Clarke retreated, he paroled the British officers and soldiers who had been captured, and received certificates from the officers of the number of men who were to be considered and accounted for as prisoners of war; to wit, 2 officers and 41 men of the King's Rangers, 1 officer and 11 men of DeLancey's corps, and a surgeon. These officers and private soldiers, regardless of their obligations as prisoners on parole, resumed their arms immediately after Clarke retreated. If Browne had
1 McCall's Hist. of Ga., vol. II, 322-327.
2 Tarleton's Campaigns, 192.
8 McCall's Hist. of Ga., vol. II, 328. The official letter mentioned can- not now be found in the files of Charlestown papers of that date.
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not been surprised, says McCall, the numbers in his ranks would have authorized the defeat of his adversaries. These numbers he puts at 550 before Cruger's arrival. Tarleton, however, gives Browne's original strength at but 350; to wit, 150 Provincials and 200 Cherokee Indians. To these were added 50 more Indians, who joined him on the 15th.1 Clarke commenced the siege with but 430, and was after- ward far outnumbered, first by the desertion of some of his own men, and then by Cruger's reenforcement of Browne.
After the siege was raised, the country was searched by the British, and those whose relations were engaged in the American cause were arrested and crowded into prisons ; others who were suspected of having intercourse with any of Clarke's command were hanged without the forms of trial. Old men with hoary heads bending toward the grave were crowded into filthy places of confinement for no other crimes than those of receiving visits from their sons and grandsons after a long absence. These aged men were kept in close confinement as hostages for the neutrality of the country ; but by the inclemency of the season, the smallpox, and inhuman treatment, very few of them sur- vived to greet their friends when liberty was secured. One of them, the father of Captains Samuel and John Alexander, in the seventy-eighth year of his age, was ignominiously chained to a cart and dragged forty-two miles in two days, and when he attempted to rest his feeble frame by leaning upon the cart, the driver was ordered to scourge him with his whip.2
Clarke's men had dispersed immediately after the siege, to look after and take leave of their families, and a time and place were appointed for their rendezvous. About the last of September they met at the place appointed. Clarke
1 Tarleton's Campaigns, 162, 163.
2 McCall's Hist. of Ga., vol. II, 329, 330.
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found himself at the head of three hundred men, but they were encumbered by a train of four hundred women and children. In the devastation of the country for two years, vestiges of cultivation were scarcely anywhere now to be seen, and to leave their families behind under such circumstances was to abandon them to starvation and the barbarity of the enemy, which has just been described. With this helpless multitude Colonel Clarke commenced a march of near two hundred miles through a mountainous wilderness, to avoid being cut off by the enemy, who were now on the march to intercept them. On the eleventh day they reached the Watauga and Nolachucky rivers, on the confines of the States of North Carolina and Tennessee, in a starved and otherwise deplorable condition. They were received, however, with the greatest hospitality and kind- ness by the inhabitants of this region. Supplies of cloth- ing, substance, and shelter were in no instance withheld from them, nor were these gratuities momentary; they ceased only with the demands upon their bounty which the occasion called for.1 Colonel Cruger had started in pursuit of Clarke, and had called upon Ferguson at Fair Forest to cooperate with him; but as Cruger soon found that Clarke's course would carry him too far from Ninety- Six, he gave up the pursuit. Fortunately for the Whigs, as it afterwards happened, Ferguson adhered to the plan and moved in the direction of Gilbert Town,2 where he was in- formed McDowell, Clarke, and Shelby would rally their men.
While these partisans were gathering their clans, their compatriots immediately in the front of Cornwallis's army were not idle. Davie was again the first to take the field. He had now been appointed by Governor Nash of North Carolina Colonel Commandant of cavalry, with instructions
1 McCall's Hist. of Ga., vol. II, 332, 334.
2 Tarleton's Campaigns, 164.
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to raise a regiment. He had succeeded in raising only a part, but with his eighty dragoons and two small com- panies of riflemen commanded by Major George Davidson he crossed into South Carolina and took post at Providence, about thirty-five miles from Charlotte. Here, amid the scenes of his boyhood and among his old friends, and joined by stanch volunteers from the Low Country, he undertook again the business of watching the movements of the enemy, and interrupting their foraging parties and convoys.1
After the defeat of Gates, Lord Cornwallis withdrew his forces to Camden and rested and refreshed his men while waiting for reinforcements from Charlestown. On the 8th of September,2 his reinforcements, the Seventh Regiment and some recruits for the Provincial regiments, having arrived, with the principal column of his army,- the Seventh, Twenty-third, Thirty-third, and Seventy-first regiments of infantry, the volunteers of Ireland, Hamil- ton's corps, Bryan's refugees, four pieces of cannon, about fifty wagons, and a detachment of cavalry, - he marched by Hanging Rock toward the Waxhaw settlement ; whilst Tarleton crossed the Catawba and moved up the west side of the river with the body of the British dragoons,3 the light and legionary infantry and a three-pounder, Lord Cornwallis went into camp in the Waxhaws about forty miles from Charlotte.
Davie with his small force, now the only regularly armed
1 Wheeler's Hist. of No. Ca., 195; Lee's Memoirs of the War of 1776, 193 ; Ramsay's Revolution of So. Ca., vol. II, 186.
2 Wheeler's Hist. of No. Ca., supra. .
8 Tarleton states (Campaigns, 158) that he "crossed the Wateree and moved up the east side of the river." The British army was already on the east side, so that if he crossed he must have moved up the west, not the east, side. Mckenzie in his Strictures points this out ( Strictures, 45), and Hanger in his reply to Mckenzie states that the word "east " was a misprint.
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body of resistance in the whole Southern province, did not hesitate to confront and annoy the advance of the enemy. The prosperous settlement in the Waxhaws had in the last three months been so exhausted by the armies traversing it that the British general was straitened for provisions and obliged to send his light parties in every direction for the safety of which he had no apprehensions. Colonel Davie, knowing his lordship's necessities, and the measure he must take to supply them, watched his opportunity to avail himself of the exposure of any of his lordship's parties. An occasion soon presented itself. Ascertain- ing that whilst the main body of the enemy was encamped on the north bank of the Catawba, which here changes its course from north and south to nearly east and west, some of the light troops and the Loyalists occupied the south- ern bank of the river at some distance from the main force of the British, he determined to beat up their quar- ters in the night. With this purpose he set out on the evening of the 20th of September, and taking an extensive circuit turned to the left of Cornwallis and gained unper- ceived the camp of the Loyalists. They had changed their ground nearer to the light troops, and now were stationed at the plantation of Captain Wahub, who was a volunteer with him. Davie nevertheless persevered in his enter- prise. Being among his friends, he was sure to receive accurate intelligence ; and he had with him the best of guides, as many of his corps were inhabitants of this settlement, their property, wives, and children being now in possession of the enemy. Davie came in sight of Wahub's place early the next morning, where he discovered a part of the Loyalists and British Legion mounted and arrayed near the house, which in this quarter was in some degree concealed by a corn-field cultivated quite to the yard. Detaching Major Davidson through the corn-field
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with the greater part of the riflemen, with orders to seize the house, he himself gained the lane leading to it. The enemy were completely surprised, and being keenly pushed betook themselves to flight. Twenty killed and 40 wounded were left on the ground, and as little or no resistance was made, only one of Davie's corps was wounded. Having collected 96 horses with their equip- ments, and 120 stands of arms, Davie retired with expedi- tion, the British drums beating to arms in the contiguous quarters. Captain Wahub, the owner of the farm, spent the few moments in painful if precious converse with his wife and children, who ran out, as soon as the fire ceased, to embrace him. These brief moments were succeeded by others most bitter. For the British troops reaching the house, the commanding officer ordered it burnt. A torch was applied, and Wahub saw the only shelter of his helpless and unprotected family wrapped in flames, without the power of affording any relief to his forlorn wife and chil- dren. Davie made good his retreat and returned to his camp at Providence, having marched sixty miles in twenty- four hours.1 This affair, it will be observed, was a repetition in almost all of the details of the same officer's brilliant action at Hanging Rock on the 1st of August. In that affair Davie had surprised the British and cut to pieces a detachment in the face of the whole British camp, carry- ing off sixty horses and one hundred muskets. In this he did the same, only causing the enemy greater loss in men, horses, and arms.
On the 22d of September, Earl Cornwallis directed the
1 It is again remarkable that this affair, like that of Musgrove's Mills, is not mentioned by any British historian, nor by Ramsay, nor by John- sou. This account is taken from Memoirs of the War of 1776 (Lee), 195; Hist. of No. Ca. (Wheeler), 195 ; Howe's Hist. Presbyterian Church, 537, 538.
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British Legion and light infantry to recross the Catawba at Blair's Ford in order to form the advance guard for the immediate possession of Charlotte Town, where Cornwallis proposed to remain until he had consumed the provisions in that settlement, and then to proceed to the friendly settlement at Cross Creek. The movement was, however, delayed a day or two in consequence of the illness of Colonel Tarleton, who was prostrated with fever. The day that Davie had returned to his camp with the spoils he had secured at Wahub's plantation, Generals Sumner and Davidson had arrived there with their brigades of North Carolina militia. But on the advance of the British they retreated by the nearest route to Salisbury, leaving Colonel Davie with about 150 men and some volunteers under Major Joseph Graham to hover about the . advancing foe, to annoy his foraging parties, and to keep in touch with his light troops. Obeying these orders on the night of the 25th, Colonel Davie entered Charlotte, the British army having advanced to within a few miles of the town.
The town of Charlotte is situated on rising ground, and consisted then of about forty houses. It had two main streets crossing at right angles, and a court-house in the centre, the lower part of which was used as a market house. The left of the town was an open common, the right was covered with underwood. Davie with his small party determined not to yield the town without a strug- gle. He dismounted one of his companies and stationed it under the court-house; the other two companies were posted behind the garden fences on either side of the street by which the British approached. The British Legion now under Major Hanger led the advance, the main body following. The Legion was ordered to dis- lodge Davie's party. As they approached within sixty
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yards of the court-house, Davie opened fire upon them, from which they recoiled. Mortified at the hesitancy of the famous corps, Lord Cornwallis rode up in person and addressed them, " Legion ! remember you have everything to lose, but nothing to gain," alluding as it is supposed to the former reputation of the corps. Upon this Major Hanger ordered a charge, but, though thus taunted, no inducement of their officers could upon this occasion induce the Legion cavalry to approach Davie's men. They retreated without carrying out Lord Cornwallis's orders. Much dissatisfied, his lordship ordered the light infantry and the infantry of the Legion to advance and dis- lodge the enemy, which they immediately effected.1 "The whole of the British army," says Steadman, " was actually kept at bay for some minutes by a few mounted Ameri- cans, not exceeding twenty in number.2 Colonel Davie then ordered a retreat, and the British pursued. The pursuit lasted for several miles, in which Colonel Locke 3 of Rowan was killed and Major Graham severely wounded. About thirty others were killed, wounded, or taken prisoners.4 The King's troops did not come out of this skirmish unhurt. Major Hanger and Captains Campbell and McDonald were wounded, and twelve non-commissioned officers and men were killed and wounded.5
The British, says Tarleton, found Charlotte a place of blended conveniences and great disadvantages. The mills in its neighborhood were supposed of sufficient conse-
1 This is the account given by Mckenzie ( Strictures, 47). In his reply Tarleton, p. 55, admits that a part, for "reasons best known to them- selves," did not advance. Steadman credits Webster's brigade with the honor of driving Davie's men from behind the court-house. Hist. of the Am. War, vol. II (Steadman), 216.
2 Hist. Am. War (Steadman), ibid.
3 Nephew of Colonel Francis Locke, victor of Ramsour's Mills.
4 Wheeler's Hist. of No. Ca., 195. 5 Tarleton's Campaigns, 159.
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quence to render it for the present an eligible position, and in future a necessary post when the army advanced. But its convenience as an intermediate situation between Camden and Salisbury, and the quantity of its mills, did not counterbalance its defects. It was in the very heart of the most inveterate enemies of the King. The planta- tions in the neighborhood were small and uncultivated, the roads narrow and crossed in every direction, and the whole face of the country covered with close and thick woods. In addition to these disadvantages no estimation could be made of the sentiments of half the inhabitants of North Carolina whilst the Royal army remained at Char- lotte Town. It was evident, as the King's officers had frequently reported, that the colonies of Mecklenburg and Rowan were more hostile to England than any others in America. The vigilance and animosity of these surround- ing districts checked the exertions of the well affected, and totally destroyed all communication between the King's troops and the Loyalists in the other parts of the province. No British commander could obtain any in- formation in that position which would facilitate his designs or guide his future conduct. Every report con- cerning the measures of the Governor and Assembly would be ambiguous ; accounts of the preparation of the militia could only be vague and uncertain ; and all intelli- gence of the real force and movement of the Continentals must be totally unattainable. The foraging parties were every day harassed by the inhabitants, who did not remain at home to receive payment for the produce of their plan- tations, but generally fired from covert places to annoy the British detachments. Ineffectual attempts were made upon convoys coming from Camden and the intermediate post at Blair's Mill; but individuals with expresses were frequently cut off. An attack was directed against a
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picket at Polk's Mill, two miles from the town,1 and a foraging party in large force at a mill seven miles from Charlotte was attacked, a British captain was killed with others and several wounded, the Americans making good their retreat without loss. The detachment returned to town disappointed of the forage, and reported to Lord Cornwallis that "every bush on the road concealed a Rebel." 2
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