USA > South Carolina > The history of South Carolina in the Revolution, 1775-1780 > Part 59
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Turning now again to the Pee Dee section, Marion, it will be recollected, had on his retreat to North Carolina sent back Major James to obtain intelligence of what should occur. He returned in a few days with the news that the country through which Wemyss had marched along Black River, Lynch's Creek, and Pee Dee for seventy miles in length, and at places for fifteen miles in width, exhibited one continued scene of desolation and suffering. On most of the plantations every house was burnt to the ground, the negroes carried off, the inhab- itants plundered, the stock, especially sheep, wantonly killed, and all accessible provisions destroyed.3 Fortu- nately the corn was not generally housed, and much of that was saved. At the command of this officer the church of Indian Town was burnt, because he regarded all Presbyterian churches as "sedition shops." The Holy Bible, too, with Rous's Psalms, indicated the presence of the hated rebellious sect, and was uniformly consigned to the flames. The house of Major James was burned, and his property swept away and destroyed. Especial attention was paid to the destruction of sheep and loom- houses, because these constituted a principal element in support of the inhabitants both in food and clothing.
1 Tarleton's Campaigns, 160. 2 Wheeler's Hist. of No. Ca., 263.
3 James's Life of Marion, 57; The So .- Ca. and American General Gazette, Sept. 20, 1780 ; The Royal S .- C. Gazette, Sept. 21, 1780.
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The loom-houses were invariably reduced to ashes, and when the sheep could not be used for food, they were bayoneted or shot, and left to putrefy on the ground. Adam Cusack, a noted Whig, who had rendered himself particularly obnoxious to the enemies of his country, but who had neither given parole as a prisoner nor taken protection, was charged with refusing to transport some British officers over a ferry ; and also with having shot at them across the river, as one account states it, or as an- other, with having shot at a black servant of a Tory officer, John Brockington. He was taken prisoner soon after, and for this offence tried by a court-martial, and on the evidence of a negro condemned. His wife and children prostrated themselves before Wemyss, as he was on horse- back, pleading for a pardon, but instead he would have ridden over them had not one of his officers prevented the foul deed. From this scene he proceeded to superintend the execution of the unfortunate man. Cusack was car- ried to a spot on the road leading from Cheraw to Darling- ton, a spot in recent times occupied by the first depot of the Cheraw and Darlington Railroad, below the village of Society Hill, and was there hanged.1
The report of these cruelties and atrocities called Marion from his retreat and roused the people, whom James reported were now ready to join him. Marion in a few days returned to South Carolina by a forced march. On the second day of this march, while passing through the Tory settlement on the Little Pee Dee, he traversed sixty miles, and arriving near Lynch's Creek was joined by John James and Henry Mouzon with a considerable force. Here, about the 14th of September, he was informed that a party of Tories, more numerous than his own, lay at
1 James's Life of Marion, 58; Gregg's Hist. of the Old Cheraws, 302, 303; Ramsay's Revolution of So. Ca., vol. II, 188, 189.
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Black Mingo fifteen miles below, under the command of Captain John Coming Ball. He might soon have been reënforced, but finding his men unanimous for battle, he gratified their wishes. The Tories were posted at Shep- herd's Ferry on the south side of Black Mingo, a deep navigable creek, and had command of the passage. To approach them Marion was obliged to cross the creek one mile above, over a boggy causeway and bridge of planks. It was nearly midnight when he arrived at the bridge, and while the party was crossing an alarm gun was heard in the Tory camp. Marion immediately ordered his men to follow him in full gallop, and in a few minutes they reached the main road, which led to the ferry about three hundred yards in front of it. Here they all dismounted except a small body, which kept to their horses. Marion ordered a corps of supernumerary officers, under the command of Captain Thomas Waties, to proceed down the road and attack a house where it was supposed the Tories were posted, and at the same time he detached two companies to the right, under Colonel Hugh Horry, and the cavalry to the left to support the attack. Before the corps of officers could reach the house, the party on the right had encountered the enemy, who had left the house and were drawn up in an old field opposite to it. This circumstance gave to the latter all the advantage of a surprise, and their first fire was so severe and unexpected as to oblige Horry's men to fall back in some confusion ; these were, however, soon rallied by the great exertions of Captain John James. The Tories at the same time attacked on their flank by the corps of officers, and finding themselves between two fires, gave way after a few rounds and took refuge in Black Mingo swamp, which was in their rear.
Captain George Logan of Charlestown had been sick in North Carolina, but hearing that Marion had marched for
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South Carolina, rose from his bed of sickness, mounted his horse, and rode eighty miles the day before the action to join him, and was killed that night at Black Mingo. Two other gallant officers, Captain Henry Mouzon and his lieu- tenant Joseph Scott, were by their wounds rendered unfit for further service. The strength of neither party in this affair is anywhere stated. Marion retired into North Caro- lina with sixty followers ; ten of these were sent back under Major James to reconnoitre, but it is to be presumed with him rejoined Marion. To this small body were added at Lynch's Creek "a considerable force " under Captain John James and Henry Mouzon. With Marion there was also "a corps of supernumerary officers." From these few data it will probably be not far from the truth to estimate Marion's force on this occasion at one hundred and fifty men. The Tories were "more numerous " than the Whigs.1 The action, although of short duration, was closely and sharply contested, the losses being about equal.
Illustrating the unsettled condition of public opinion at this time, and the wavering between the parties of those who had no interest in the original cause of the war, James relates that some of those whom Marion had thus attacked, defeated, and routed, had been lately his com- panions in arms. With the tact which was as distin- guishing a feature in his character as his military genius, and with his full appreciation of the difficulties of the situation in which these men of the lower orders were placed between the contending forces, continually forced to take one side or the other in a cause they did not even understand, Marion's superior wisdom to that of Corn- wallis was exemplified. Cornwallis ordered all men who had served under him and afterwards formed on the American side to be hanged without trial. Marion boldly 1 James's Life of Marion, 58.
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took such men back into ranks, trusted them, and made them ever after his devoted followers.
As many of his party had left their families in much distress, Marion gave them leave to go to their homes and appointed them to meet him again at Snow Island on the Pee Dee, while he appears to have refreshed himself among the planters on the Waccamaw, while awaiting their re- turn.1 Becoming impatient of delay, restive under enforced inaction, and doubting whether his men would come back to him, he proposed to a few officers who were with him to abandon the hope and join the forces assembling in North Carolina. But Colonel Hugh Horry, who partook more of his confidence than any other, prevailed upon him to remain - a service on the part of Colonel Horry as meri- torious as any other by which he so greatly distinguished himself in the cause of his country. Marion's men at length came in, and he marched into Williamsburg, gaining reinforcements daily. In a short time his party was four hundred strong; with these he proceeded at once to chastise the Tories, who had assisted Wemyss in desolat- ing the country.
On his march he obtained information that Colonel Tynes was collecting a large body of Tories in the fork of Black River, distant about thirty miles. Colonel Tynes had summoned out the people of Salem and the fork of Black River, to do duty as his Majesty's subjects. Tynes lay encamped at Tarcote in the fork. Marion at once marched against him; crossing the north branch of Black River at Nelson's plantation, he came up with Tynes, sur- prised and completely defeated him without the loss of a man. The rout was universal, but as Tarcote swamp was near it was attended with more dismay than slaughter. The Tories lost twenty-six killed, and among the rest the 1 Weems's Life of Marion, 142.
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noted Captain Amos Gaskens. The most of Tynes's men soon after joined Marion and fought bravely with him.1
In all these marches Marion and his men lay in the swamps in the open air, with little covering and with little other food than sweet potatoes and meat, mostly without salt; and though it was in the unhealthy season of autumn, yet sickness seldom occurred. Marion himself fared worse than his men, for his baggage having caught fire by accident, he had literally but half a blanket to cover him from the dews of the night, and but half a hat to shelter him from the rays of the sun. Soon after the de- feat of Tynes, Marion took a position on Snow Island. This island is situated at the conflux of the Pee Dee and Lynch's Creek, is of a triangular form, and is bounded by the Pee Dee on the northeast, by Lynch's Creek on the north, and by Clark's Creek, a branch of the latter, on the west and south. Hereby having command of the rivers, he could be abundantly supplied with provisions, and his post was inaccessible except by water.
Major John Postell was stationed to guard the lower part of the Pee Dee River. While there, Captain James de Peyster of the Royal army with twenty-nine grena- diers having taken post in the house of Major Postell's father, the Major posted his small command of twenty- eight men in such position as commanded its doors, and demanded their surrender. This being refused, he set fire to an outhouse and proceeded to burn that in which they were posted, and nothing but the immediate sur- render of the whole party restrained him from sacrificing his father's valuable property to gain an advantage for his country.2
1 James's Life of Marion, 60; Ramsay's Hist. of So. Ca., vol. II, 408.
2 Ramsay's Hist. of So. Ca., 409.
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More than a month had now passed since the over- throw and complete rout of Gates's Continental army, and yet Cornwallis was barely across the South Carolina line, nor had he been able to advance to or cross it without daily insult to the Royal army of fearless attacks by par- tisan bands. Davie had not hesitated to ride into his lines and carry off in the face of his Majesty's army near a hundred horses and a large stand of arms, and leaving sixty British troops dead or wounded on the field, some of these being of the vaunted Legion itself. Nor had this same officer feared with his small band to defy the whole Royal army upon its entrance into Charlotte, and had exacted tribute in twenty killed and wounded, including among the latter the leader of the Legion, before he would yield the place to them. And in Charlotte his lordship found himself unable to send out a foraging party with- out ample escort. His difficulties were not diminishing as he had advanced. Moreover, it had happened that on the same day, the 14th of August, the British post on the Savannah and the Tory camp on the Pee Dee had been
assailed. Augusta had only been saved by stripping Ninety-Six of its garrison. The Tory camp at Black Mingo had been destroyed, and its force dispersed. Clarke, it is true, had been compelled to abandon Georgia, but he carried with him a resolute band to join Shelby - a band of men burning with wrongs and fearfully bent on revenge. Marion had established himself at Snow Island, and his lordship's communications with Charlestown were now to be subjected to continual interruption. Before Cornwallis there was a long way to Virginia, where only he could strike any effectual blow, and the road thither was beset with difficulties and dangers. Behind him was a desolate country -a country which had been pros- perous and loyal until the King's army had come, but VOL. III .- 3 c
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which now in its desolation produced only rebellion. There was no regularly organized body of Whigs in South Carolina, yet his lordship realized that the ex- tent of his conquest was measured by the tread of his sentinels.
CHAPTER XXXIV
1780
FERGUSON, it will be recollected, had recrossed the Broad as soon as he heard of the expedition against Innes at Musgrove's Mills, and had endeavored to intercept Shelby, Clarke, and Williams on their retreat. Failing in this, he had encamped for some time at Fair Forest in the Bran- don settlement, from which he had sent out detachments through the country in search of the prominent Whig leaders, overawing all opposition, plundering wherever they found anything they needed or coveted, and admin- istering the oath of allegiance to all who would take it, with liberal terms of pardon to those who had been active participators in the rebellion. He had then moved for- ward and crossed the North Carolina line into Tryon County, and had followed McDowell's men who had been beating about the mountain country since retiring from Smith's Ford on Broad River and were now retreating toward Watauga, in East Tennessee.
McDowell, unable to meet Ferguson on equal terms, planned an ambuscade at Cowan's Ford on Cane Creek, about fifteen miles from Gilbert Town, by which he suc- ceeded in striking a blow and inflicting considerable loss on the enemy, killing several and, among others, severely wounding Major Dunlap. The British then retired to Gil- bert Town, carrying their wounded with them ; while Mc- Dowell's party, numbering about one hundred and sixty only, directed their retreat up the Catawba valley.
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While at Gilbert Town, Ferguson, remembering how the mountain-men had annoyed him and his detachment on the Pacolet at Thicketty Fork and at Musgrove's Mills, paroled Samuel Philips, a distant relative of Colonel Isaac Shelby, whom he had taken prisoner, and sent him with a verbal message to the officers of the western waters of Watauga, Nolachucky, and Holston, that if they did not desist from their opposition to the British arms, he would march his army over the mountains, hang their leaders, and lay their country waste with fire and sword. This threat, says Draper, accomplished more than Ferguson bargained for. Philips, residing near Shelby's, went directly to him with the message, giving him, in addition, such intelligence as he could impart concerning the strength, locality, and inten- tions of the enemy.1 Shelby immediately rode fifty or sixty miles to meet Lieutenant Colonel John Sevier, who com- manded the militia in Washington County, North Caro- lina, now part of Tennessee, embracing the Watauga and Nolachucky settlements, to inform him of the threatening message, and to concert measures for their mutual action. The result was that they resolved to anticipate Ferguson's invasion, and to carry into effect the plan Shelby, Clarke, and Williams had formed the previous month, immediately after the battle at Musgrove's Mills, to raise all the men they could, and to surprise Ferguson in his camp, or at least attack him before he should be prepared to meet them. The day and place of meeting were agreed upon. The time was the 25th day of September, and the Sycamore Shoals on the Watauga was selected as being the most central point and abounding most in necessary supplies.
An express was at the same time sent to Colonel Cleve- land of Wilkes County, North Carolina, to apprise him of the designs and movements of the leaders on the western 1 King's Mountain and its Heroes, 169.
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waters and to request him to meet them with all the men he could raise at the appointed place on the east side of the mountain.1 Colonel Sevier began at once to arouse the bor- der men for the projected enterprise. In this he encountered no difficulty. A few days brought more men to his stand- ard than it was thought either prudent or safe to withdraw from the settlement. The whole military force of the dis- trict was estimated at considerably less than one thousand men. Fully one-half that number was necessary to man the forts and stations, and keep up scouting parties against the Indians on the extreme frontier. The remainder were immediately enrolled for the expedition. A difficulty arose from another source. Many of the volunteers were unable to furnish horses and equipment. Colonel Sevier tried to borrow money on his own responsibility to fit out and furnish the expedition; but the inhabitants, almost without exception, had expended their last dollar in tak- ing up land, and all the money of the county was thus in the hands of the entry taker. Sevier represented to that officer that the want of means was likely to retard and, in
1 See a most interesting sketch of Colonel Benjamin Cleveland in Draper's King's Mountain and its Heroes, 425-454 ; also in Roosevelt's Winning of the West, 258. Colonel Cleveland was one of the most marked of the remarkable assemblage of men at King's Mountain. He had been a mighty hunter and Indian fighter, and an adventurous wan- derer in the wilderness. He was inexorable in his treatment of the Tories. Draper has collected the traditions of numerous acts of great severity, if not cruelty, by him, but these are all traditions, and tradi- tions are unreliable. They grow as they come down from one to another. The execution of Colonel Ambrose Mills and others at King's Mountain, of which we shall have to tell, -a measure of retaliation for which he was largely responsible doubtless, - had much to do with giving color to his reputation in this respect. Colonel Cleveland was not by any means a brutal man, as he has been described. His will, providing among other things for the care of his old and infirm house servants, attests a kindly disposition ; nor was he an illiterate man for the times.
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some measure, to frustrate his exertions to carry on the expe- dition, and appealed to him to lend him the money for this purpose. John Adair was the entry taker, and his reply has worthily been preserved. "Colonel Sevier, I have no authority by law to make that disposition of this money. It belongs to the impoverished treasury of North Carolina, and I dare not appropriate a cent of it to any purpose. But if the country is overrun by the British, liberty is gone. Let the money go too. Take it. If the enemy, by its use, is driven from the country, I can trust that country to justify and vindicate my conduct. Take it." The money was taken and expended in the purchase of ammunition and the neces- sary equipments. Shelby and Sevier pledged themselves to see it refunded, or the act of the entry taker legalized by the legislature. This was scrupulously attended to at the earliest practicable moment, and Adair was exonerated. Colonel Sevier also undertook to bring into the measure Colonel McDowell and other leaders who with their fol- lowers were then in a state of exile among the western set- tlers. In this, it is scarcely necessary to say, he succeeded at once.
To Shelby was assigned the part of securing the coopera- tion of the riflemen of western Virginia. These had in many a past campaign with the pioneers of Tennessee bivouacked and fought and triumphed together over a savage foe, and it was now deemed essential to obtain the aid of these gallant men in resisting the invasion of the common country. Shelby accordingly hastened home, wrote a letter to William Campbell, Colonel Commandant of Washington County, Virginia, now part of Kentucky, and sent it by his brother, Moses Shelby, to the house of Campbell, a distance of forty miles. In this letter Shelby stated what had been determined by Sevier and himself and urged Campbell to join them with his regi-
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ment. This Colonel Campbell hesitated and at first re- fused to do. Considering his first duty to be to Virginia, he proposed to march down to the southern border of Virginia and there to be ready to meet and oppose Corn- wallis when he approached that State. With this answer Shelby was much disappointed; but he did not give up the project, and upon a second letter to Colonel Campbell, giving additional reasons in favor of the proposed cam- paign, Campbell replied, agreeing to cooperate with his whole force.
The camp on the Watauga, says Ramsey,1 on the 25th of September, presented an animated spectacle. With the exception of the few colonists on the distant Cumberland, the entire military force of what is now Tennessee was assembled at the Sycamore Shoals. Scarce a single gun- man remained at home that day. The young and ardent had generally enrolled themselves for the campaign against Ferguson. The less vigorous and more aged were left with the inferior guns in the settlements, for their protec- tion against the Indians, but all had attended the rendez- vous. The old men were there to counsel, encourage, and stimulate the youthful soldiers and to receive from the Colonels instructions for the defence of the stations during their absence. Others were there to bring in rich profusion the products of their farms, which were cheer- fully furnished gratuitously and without stint, to com- plete the outfit of the expedition. Gold and silver they had not, but substance and clothing and equipments and the good horse, anything the frontiersman owned, in the cabin, the field, or the range, was offered unostentatiously upon the altar of his country. The women were there, and with suppressed sighs witnessed the departure of hus- bands, lovers, and brothers. There were the heroic mothers,
1 Ramsey's Annals of Tennessee.
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with a mournful but noble pride to take a fond fare- well of their gallant sons. The sparse settlements of this frontier had never before seen assembled together a con- course of people so immense and so agitated by great excitement. The large mass of the assembly were volun- teer riflemen, clad in the homespun of their women folk, and wearing the hunting shirt so characteristic of the backwood soldiery, and not a few of them, the moccasins of their own manufacture. A few officers were better dressed, but all in citizens' clothing. In the seclusion of their homes in the West many of these volunteers had only heard of war at a distance, and had been in undis- puted possession of that independence for which their Atlantic countrymen were now struggling. The near approach of Ferguson had awakened them from their security, and indignant at the violence and depredation of his followers, they were embodied to chastise and avenge them. This they had done at the suggestion and upon the motion of their own leaders without any call from Congress or the officers of the Continental army. The attitude of these volunteer detachments was as forlorn as it was gallant. At the time of their embodiment, and for several days after they had marched, it was not known to them that a single armed corps of Americans was mar- shalled for their assistance or relief.
The little army organized at Sycamore Shoals consisted of 400 men from Virginia commanded by Colonel Camp- bell, 240 under Lieutenant Colonel Sevier, and 240 under Colonel Shelby, and the refugee Whigs 160 in number under Colonel Charles McDowell -all but the Virginians were from North Carolina, which then however included the present State of Tennessee. All were mounted and nearly all armed with a piece known as the Deckhard rifle, remarkable for the precision and distance of its shot.
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Without delay, early on the morning of the 26th, the little army was on the march. But before the troops left the camp the officers requested that they should assemble for the purpose of commending themselves to Divine pro- tection and guidance. They promptly complied with the request. Prayer, solemn and appropriate, was offered by a clergyman present, and the riflemen mounted their horses and started on the expedition against Ferguson. There was no staff, no quartermaster, no commissary, no sur- geon. As in all their Indian campaigns, being mounted and unencumbered with baggage, their motions were rapid. While in the settlement some beeves were driven in the rear to furnish subsistence, but they impeded the rapidity of the march, and after the first day were abandoned.1 On the second day two men disappeared. It was at once believed that they had deserted and would doubtless escape to the enemy and apprise them of their approach, which afterwards proved to be true. Acting upon the as- sumption that their movement would soon be known to the enemy, the mountain men turned aside to the left, descending by a most dangerous path. Reaching the foot of the mountains on Saturday, the 30th, they were joined on the Catawba River by the troops from Wilkes and Surry counties, under the leadership of Colonel Cleve- land and Major Winston, reported at the time at 800, but really numbering only 350.2 Resuming their march on Monday, the 1st of October, they advanced some eighteen miles, but were prevented from further progress by a rain which set in, and which delayed them the next day. While thus remaining in a camp on the 2d, in a gap at South Mountain, a consultation of the officers was
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