USA > South Carolina > The history of South Carolina in the Revolution, 1780-1783 > Part 15
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th of na are or may fall in my hands, which nothing will prevent but your re- leasing Capt. Postell immediately and using my officers as gentlemen and your prisoners as customary in all civilized nations." 2
To Balfour, the commandant at Charlestown, he wrote that, unless his flag was discharged, he must immediately acquaint Congress. He informed him of the ill treatment of other officers by Captain Saunders, and concluded : -
"Should these evils not be prevented in the future it will not be ir my power to prevent retaliation taking place. Lord Rawdon and Colonel Watson have hanged three of my brigade for supposed crimes which will make as many of your men in my hands suffer. I hope this will be prevented in the future, for it is not my wish to act bu with humanity and tenderness to the unfortunate men whom the chances of war may throw in my power."
To Watson he also wrote : 3 " The hanging of men taker prisoners and the violation of my flag will be retaliated i
1 Gibbes's Documentary Hist. (1781-82), 31.
2 We have not been able to find further information in regard to th case of Captain Clark here alluded to.
3 Gibbes's Documentary Hist. (1781-82), 30; James's Life of Marion Appendix, 25.
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a stop is not put to such proceedings, which is disgraceful to all civilized nations."
In sending these letters Marion took the precaution to send an armed party along with the flag to prevent any further detention of its bearers. Though this party was attempted to be concealed, the British were aware of their presence, and Watson, taking exception, sent his reply by a little boy.1
"It is with less surprise," he writes, " that I find a letter sent by you in all the apparent forms of a flag of truce attended by an armed party who concealed themselves within a certain distance of a place that pointed itself out for the delivery of it, than to see the contents of it exhibit a complaint from you against us for violating the law of nations."
A considerable correspondence ensued, each party charg- ing the other with conduct unbecoming civilized warfare. In this correspondence two things are noticeable : first, that Watson, who was regarded by the British as one of their best officers and esteemed by the Americans for his humanity,2 defends the burning of houses and property of the inhabitants who were their enemies, notwithstand- ing the distress it occasioned to women and children, as the custom of war; and second, that Marion takes no issue with Watson as to their right to take and to hold Postell as a prisoner who had broken his parole, but rests his complaint upon their violation of his flag. " If Captain Postell was a prisoner," he writes, "it was no reason for the violation of my flag, especially when it was sent to exchange prisoners agreed upon by Captain Saunders." Watson held that a flag of truce could not cover one of their own men. Marion held that they could not inquire or know who was under his flag of truce. He did not
1 Gibbes's Documentary Hist. (1781-82), 33, 38.
2 James's Life of Marion, 111, 112.
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meet the great question at issue as to the status of those who had given their paroles and claimed now to be released from their obligations.
This correspondence had been carried on while Marion and Watson were facing each other across the Black River, and, notwithstanding it, Marion had allowed a pass to Nel- son's Ferry for some of Watson's wounded men, and mat- ters may have been in some way accommodated between these generous foes ; but Balfour, the commandant of this department, was a man of a different character. He deter- mined to secure Postell's person against all chance of re- lease. He writes to Saunders : -
" As to Postell, you have done perfectly right. I have got his pa- role which he has broke, and which renders him wholly unfit to enter any service, as it entitles me to seize him as our prisoner wherever we can find him; no sanction whatever can defend him against a breach of the parole, by which his liberty was allowed him, and by trusting to his honor, permitted him to use the means of making his escape if he chose to break it and take the advantage of these means. He takes the chance of falling into our hands and feeling the punishment due to his breach of the laws of war. I wish you to send him by land, but if inconvenient you may send him by water in Dorrell's ves- sel or any other fast sailer when she returns with a guard; but of this do as you will, only be so good as not allow him to have a chance of escaping. I send you an answer to a letter received from Marion by a flag of truce sent to Col. Watson's post; and I also send you a copy of his letter to me. In sending it out be so good as to be careful who you send ; a non-commissioned officer will be best for fear he detains the person sent on account of Postell, which I forgot to mention to you in my last."
Balfour's caution had come too late. Captain Saunders, less wary than either Watson or Balfour, had sent to Marion a flag by an officer, Mr. Mariott of the Queen's Rangers, whereupon Marion seized and detained him as a hostage for Postell's release. Balfour and Saunders wrote, protesting against such action, insisting that the cases were
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not similar. Their arguments would not, however, have availed; but unfortunately Marion had not a jail within which to cast Mariott as Balfour had for Postell. He had only the insecure confinement of a guard in the field, and from this Mariott succeeding in making his escape, and, as was claimed by The Royal Gazette, taking off with him twenty-five men. Postell, on the contrary, underwent a long and vigorous imprisonment,1 which lasted indeed until the end of the war.
1 Gibbes's Documentary Hist. (1781-82), 29-43; James's Life of Marion, 111-112, 113; The Royal Gazette, April 4, 1781.
CHAPTER VII
1781
WHILE these events had been transpiring in this State, Green had, on the 15th of March, unsuccessfully fought the battle of Guilford Court-house, in North Carolina. News of the battle appears to have reached both parties here about the same time. The British were greatly elated at its result. The Royal Gazette of the 28th states that in- telligence of this important victory was announced to the public in Charlestown by the ringing of bells on Sunday evening the 24th. On Monday afternoon the troops in garrison, with the volunteer companies, were paraded and fired a feu de joie, while guns in the batteries on his Maj- esty's ships and the merchant vessels in the harbor thun- dered a salute. The populace, said the Gazette, joined in these military manifestations of joy by loud and continued acclamations. At night a ball was given at the State House by Mr. Cruden, the commissioner of sequestered estates, to a numerous and brilliant assembly of ladies and gentlemen. The ball lasted till the next morning, when, the Gazette states, the company broke up, rejoiced at the happy occasion of the meeting, and delighted with the politeness and attention of the gentleman whose loyalty had called so many persons together.1
1 The ladies here mentioned were doubtless those of the British officials and Loyalists, for Dr. Ramsay assures us that those of the Whigs with- stood all solicitation to grace public entertainments with their presence. Ramsay's Revolution in So. Ca., vol. II, 123-124.
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The Americans were equally disappointed, but Sumter would not admit defeat. In his letter of the 28th of March he congratulates Marion upon the happy advantage gained by Major-General Greene and the army under his command over Lord Cornwallis near Guilford Court-house.1 And though Greene had been compelled to abandon the field with the loss of his artillery, and to admit a defeat, which he attributed to the conduct of the North Carolina mili- tia, he still persuaded himself that the advantages re- mained with him. He entertained a confident hope "that although his adversary had gained his cause, he was ruined by the expense of it," 2 and this was in a great measure true. The British had lost many more than had his army, and had been able to keep the ground only because the Amer- icans were unable longer to contest it. Then Cornwallis had left the field of action in a movement which soon degen- erated into a retreat, scarce becoming a victorious army - a retreat in which he was obliged to abandon his wounded, and to leave unburied those who died.3 Greene had re- sumed the offensive and had pursued the British, but hav- ing been obliged to send away the horses of the militia for the want of forage, he had now no mounted infantry with which to support his small force of cavalry. Still more fatal to his recovery of the advantages lost at Guilford was the refusal of the Virginia and North Carolina militia longer to serve when their term expired on the 30th. This caused a halt and an abandonment of the pursuit.
1 Gibbes's Documentary Hist. (1781-82), 46.
2 Johnson's Life of Greene, vol. II, 24.
3 This is Sir Henry Clinton's contemptuous comment on Lord Corn- wallis's victory at Guilford Court-house, " ... from 3200 when he (Lord Cornwallis) passed the Catawba in January he is reduced by sickness and desertion to 1300, and after the victory, which was brilliant, to 700. With those, without provisions or arms, he invites by proclamation those poor people to join him ! " - Clinton-Cornwallis Controversy, vol. I, 396.
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Cornwallis escaped to Wilmington, with his crippled, if victorious, army.
The day after the battle of Guilford, Captain Wade Hampton arrived in the American camp there, and brought to Greene information of the movements in South Carolina since he had left the State, and the following letter from Sumter, dated Waxhaws, 9th March, 1781.1
" I marched on Tuesday the 16th ultimo from the Catawba with about two hundred and eighty men for the Congaree. I proceeded from thence to the enemies' posts at Col. Thompson's, Nelson's ferry, South Lake, etc., was within fifty miles of Charlestown, but finding I could get no assistance from Gen1 Marion, thought proper to re- turn, which I have happily effected with very inconsiderable loss- as I still labor under the misfortune of having but little use of my right hand, and writing very painful, therefore not to deprive you of a full account of my proceedings and any necessary intelligence, re- specting the situation of the enemy in So. Carolina, I have sent Capt. Hampton, a valuable and intelligent officer, who will wait upon you for that purpose, on whose information you may rely - and to whom you may communicate with safety - he is fully acquainted with my late operations and partly with my designs in future. Until your pleasure is known notwithstanding Capt. Hampton is well acquainted with my late proceedings I shall in the course of a few days transmit to you a particular account thereof in writing - a variety of things I could wish to mention but fear you are not circumstanced so as to give me the necessary assistance I want, I say nothing."
The information of Sumter's movements contained in this letter, and no doubt more fully stated by Captain Hampton, and of the condition of the British posts by one
1 Sumter's letters, Nightingale Collection, Year Book, City of Charles- ton, 1899, Appendix, 6-7. These are copies of fifty-seven letters obtained in 1894 by the South Carolina Historical Society from Mr. William Night- ingale, of Brunswick, Georgia, in whose possession the originals were held. These letters were published in the Charleston Year Book as above, but we regret to say very inaccurately edited. Some of the errors have been pointed out in the So. Ca. Historical and Genealogical Magazine, vol. I, 343-345. They will be referred to as the Nightingale Collection.
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whose intelligence could be so thoroughly relied upon, af- forded General Greene the best grounds on which to decide as to his future measures.1 How far they suggested or in- fluenced his subsequent conduct of the campaign we have no means of learning. Whether the course General Greene adopted was the outcome of his own thought, or was suggested to him by Colonel Lee, has been the subject of acrimonious discussion. Colonel Lee, in his Memoirs, without assuming the credit to himself, represents that the plan was that of another than Greene. The proposer, he says, suggested that, leaving Cornwallis to act as he might choose, the army should be led back into South Carolina ; that the main body should move upon Camden, while the light corps, taking lower direction and joining Marion, should break down all intermediate posts, breaking upon the communications between Camden and Ninety Six with Charlestown, and thus placing the British force in South Carolina in a triangle, Camden and Ninety Six form- ing the base, insulated as to cooperation and destitute even of provisions for any length of time. On the other hand, it had been proposed to the general to take a more salu- brious and distant position, with Virginia in his rear, and there to await his lordship's advance. This was pressed upon Greene by influential soldiers around him, who laid it down, as a cardinal principle never to be relinquished, or even slighted, that the safety of the South hung upon the safety of Virginia, and the sure way to afford to that State full protection was to face Cornwallis. They dwelt with much emphasis upon the singular fitness of Greene to cope with his lordship, as well as the superior capacity of his army to contend with that under Cornwallis.2
Judge Johnson takes sharp issue with Colonel Lee upon
1 Johnson's Life of Greene, vol. II, 32.
2 Memoirs of the War of 1776 (Lee), 315-322.
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this point, and insists that the idea of the movements back into South Carolina originated with Greene himself, and claims for him great merit for its conception and execution. As a commanding officer is responsible for the result of his movement, he is ordinarily entitled to the credit of it if successful, whether originating with himself or suggested by another. But the evidence is, we think, conclusive that, with whomsoever this scheme of campaign did originate, it did not originate with General Greene, nor, while adopt- ing, did he cordially approve or warmly enter into it.1 How far it may have been suggested by the report which Wade Hampton had brought from General Sumter of the operations of the partisan bands under Sumter, Marion, Pick- ens, and Harden, since Greene had left the State, and their great success in breaking up the enemy's communications between Camden and Charlestown, and thus preparing the way for such a movement, can only be conjectured ; but certain it is that from Colonel Lee's account the subject was one of discussion at headquarters - and upon which there were two parties, one urging a retreat to Virginia, and the other an advance into South Carolina.2 Dr.
1 In a note to General Greene, in the "Great Commanders Series," 231, the author says : "Greene consulted Lee concerning his plan of oper- ation and probably referred to the second Punic War, and the famous ' car- rying the war into Africa.' Lee replied on April 2, ' I am decidedly of opinion with you that nothing is left for you but to imitate the example of Scipio Africanus.' In his funeral eulogy on Greene, Hamilton says, 'This was one of those strokes that denote superior genius and constitute the sublime art of war. "Twas Scipio leaving Hannibal in Italy to overcome him at Carthage.'" But Scipio carried his heart with him into Africa. Greene left his in Virginia, where he wished to be confronting Cornwallis.
2 Major Eggleston, an officer of the Legion, in a letter to Colonel Lee dated 10th of June, 1810, writes, " I well recollect that I felt great reluc- tance to the movement from Deep River to South Carolina, as I thought it leaving our own State [Virginia] exposed to Cornwallis's army, although the event proved so fortunate to the cause of America." - Campaigns of 1781 in the Carolinas (Lee), 242.
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Mathew Irvine, a surgeon in the service, states that he carried a letter from Colonel Lee, who was then on a forag- ing expedition, to General Greene, suggesting and urging this movement ; that he was not merely the bearer of the letter, but was familiar with its contents and in full posses- sion of Colonel Lee's views, with which he was entrusted in order that he might urge them upon the general verbally in case of loss of the letter.1
General Greene followed Colonel Lee's advice, if he did not altogether adopt his views. Indeed, a want of final decision seems to have been one of the defects of his mind; he could never altogether help hankering after the rejected alternative : 2 and so it was that, throughout the ensuing campaign we shall find him turning to and longing for the field of Virginia as the proper sphere of operations for the Commander of the Southern Department. Nor, after his defeat at Hobkirk's Hill, did he hesitate to blame Colonel Lee for his advice, and to regret that he had followed it.3
1 Garden's Anecdotes, 64. Major Garden, it will be recollected, was himself an officer of the Legion, but not at this time.
2 Kinglake, in his History of the Crimean War, says of Lord Lucan, " He had decision, and decision apparently so complete that his mind never hankered after the rejected alternative." - Vol. II, 380.
3 The Honorable Peter Johnston of Virginia, Judge of the United States District Court, who had been an officer of the Legion, in a letter to Major Garden of the 11th of November, 1821, writes: "Nor has he [Lee] always done justice to himself. I am perfectly satisfied that the grand enterprise for the recovery of South Carolina and Georgia, by marching into those states when Lord Cornwallis retreated to Wilming- ton after the action at Guilford Court-house, was suggested by Colonel Lee. Accident afforded me the view of a letter written by General Greene to Colonel Lee immediately after the second battle of Camden, fought on the 25th of April, 1781, in which the General expressed a determination to abandon the scheme of continuing his progress southwardly, and directed Lee to join him immediately with his corps, which had, about that time, reduced a post of the enemy at Wright's Bluff on the Santee River. I shall never forget one expression in that letter, which goes far to prove that I am right in the opinion which I have ever since entertained. 'I
VOL. IV. - M
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Having thus reluctantly determined upon the movement to South Carolina, he wrote on the 30th of March to Sumter, probably by Hampton, giving an account of his movements since the battle of the 15th, and continuing, he went on to inform him of his proposed plans : 1 -
" They [the British] are on the route to Cross Creek, and prob- ably will fall down the country as far as Wilmington, but this is not certain. . The greater part of our militia's term of service being out will prevent our further pursuit, especially as the difficulty is very great in procuring provisions. Indeed, it would be impossible to subsist the army in the pine barrens, and as we are obliged to halt a day or two to collect provisions at this place, it will give the enemy such a start of us as leave no hopes of overtaking them if they choose to continue their flight, nor can we fight them upon equal terms after our militia leave us. All these considerations have deter- mined me to change my route and push directly into South Carolina. This will oblige the enemy to give up their prospects in this State or their posts in South Carolina, and if our army can be subsisted there we can fight them upon as good terms with your aid as we can here. I beg you will therefore give orders to Gen's Pickens and Marion to collect all the militia they can to cooperate with us. But the object must be a secret to all except the generals, otherwise the enemy will take measures to counteract us. I am in hopes by sending for- ward our horse and some small detachments of light infantry to join your militia you will be able to possess yourself of all the little out- posts before the army arrives. Take measures to collect all the pro- visions you can, for on this our whole operation will depend. I
fear, my friend,' says the general, 'that I have pursued your advice too far. I have resolved to march back with the army towards Virginia, and desire you will join me with your command as soon as possible.'"- Charleston City Gazette of the 11th of May, 1822. Republished in Lee's Campaigns in the Carolinas, 399-401 ; also quoted in Garden's Anecdotes, 64. "The letter," says Garden (ibid.), "mentioned by Judge Johnston was seen also by Dr. Irvine. He states that the general added, ' Although I am confident that your wish was to give increase to my military reputa- tion, yet it is evident to me that by listening to your advice I have forfeited my pretensions to it forever.'"
1 Sumter MSS., Year Book, City of Charleston, 1899, Appendix, 85.
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expect to be ready to march in about five days, and perhaps we may be in the neighborhood of Camden by the 20th of next month or earlier."
In this letter it is said that Greene sedulously inculcated secrecy, and enjoined that his purpose should be com- municated to none but his generals,1 that Sumter was the only officer in the Southern country to whom General Greene confided his intention of penetrating into South Carolina prior to his actual movement ; 2 and the implication is pointed that Sumter was in some way responsible that the secret was divulged. Colonel Lee, however, states that before Greene's departure from Deep River he had commu- nicated his plans to Pickens as well.3 And Ramsay asserts the same.4 He certainly did so to Marion.
It was on the 7th of April that he broke up his camp at Ramsay's Mill, on Deep River, and commenced his march to South Carolina.5 Three days before, that is, on the 4th, he writes to Marion from his camp on Deep River.6
"This will be handed to you by Capt Conyers, who will inform you what we have contemplated. He is sent forward to collect provisions for the subsistence of the army, and I beg you will assist him in this necessary business. The army will march to-morrow, and I hope you will be prepared to support its operation with a consider- able force. General Sumter is written to, and I doubt not will be prepared to cooperate with us, etc."
Nor only so. The day that he commenced his march he sent on Major Hyrne in advance with a letter requesting Sum- ter to inform that officer of what he might expect from him in the way of assistance.7 Colonel Davie, Colonel Carring- ton, and Captain Singleton of the general's staff were all
1 Johnson's Life of Greene, vol. II, 34. 2 Ibid., 68.
8 Memoirs of the War of 1776 (Lee), 325.
+ Ramsay's Revolution in So. Ca., vol. II, 227.
6 Johnson's Life of Greene, vol. II, 44.
6 Gibbes's Documentary Hist. (1781-82), 48. 7 Sumter MSS.
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informed of his purpose,1 as doubtless was necessary and proper. So far, therefore, from Sumter being the only officer in the Southern country informed of Greene's pur- pose, not only were Marion and Pickens also directly informed of it, but several subordinate officers as well. If Greene's plans were divulged, it is unjust therefore to charge Sumter with the fault on the ground that to him alone they had been confided. In the condition of the country it was impossible that any such hopes as Greene indulged as to the secrecy of his movements could have been realized. Sumter's critic, Judge Johnson, himself gives the reason. "The country," he says, "from which he had marched and that through which he had marched, was too much infested with Loyalists to admit of his mak- ing a single movement unobserved. Runners from the Tories had preceded him six days, and long enough to enable the commander of the garrison at Camden, Lord Rawdon, to summon to his aid a considerable body of Loyal- ists and recruits under Major Frasier, from the banks of the Saluda and Broad rivers ; and to his great mortification Greene found that the garrison of Camden was fully equal to the force he had brought against it. Still, however, he advanced, bent on an attempt to carry the post by assault, when, on reconnoitring, he found that his force was wholly inadequate to the purpose." 2
It will be recollected that there had already been a jar between Greene and Sumter, because of orders given to Sumter's command without communicating them to or through him; that Sumter had resented thus being passed over and ignored, and had complained of it both to General Greene and Governor Rutledge. Upon setting out to Philadelphia, Governor Rutledge, it will also be remem- bered, had again left Sumter in command of all the militia of
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