USA > South Carolina > The history of South Carolina in the Revolution, 1780-1783 > Part 24
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1 Johnston's Life of Greene, vol. II, 134.
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On the 1st of June the tower was raised as high as the enemy's works, seeing which and recognizing its fatal con- sequence, Browne attempted its destruction, but found the besiegers alive to its defence, and ready with their whole force to receive him. Pickens took command of one division of the militia in person, supported by Captain Handy's infantry company of Lee's Legion, while Clarke took command of the other, supported by Rudulph's. About ten o'clock at night Clarke's division were charged upon by about one-third of the British troops, and for some time the conflict was furious, but Rudulph's bayonets forced the enemy to retire. While the detachment was engaged against Clarke and Rudulph, Browne sallied out with his remaining force against Pickens, where the contest was equally severe until Handy pressed the bayonet, which forced Browne to retreat. Upon this occasion the loss on both sides exceeded all which had occurred during the siege except in the evacuation of Fort Grierson.
Failing in this attempt, Browne now resorted to a strat- agem which very nearly proved successful. He sent out a sergeant -a Scotchman - under the cloak of desertion, with instructions to find an opportunity of setting fire to and burning the tower. Lee received the pretended de- serter and was for a time completely deceived by him. To such an extent had the adventurer succeeded that Lee had actually arranged for the deserter's station on the tower, with a view to his directing Captain Finley's gun upon Browne's magazine, when his suspicions became in some way aroused, and he countermanded the order and put him under charge of the guard. Another threatened disas- ter to the Americans was but just avoided. Between Lee's quarters and the fort there stood four or five deserted houses, some of them near enough to the fort to be used with effect by riflemen from their upper stories. It had
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been the intention of Pickens and Lee to use these houses to aid in covering the attack when the enemy should be assaulted. Early on this night all but two of the houses were burned by Browne. The besiegers were at a loss to conjecture why the two houses were spared, especially that nearest the fort; but the general impression was that they had been purposely spared with some view of advan- tage. The fire from the tower had now dismounted the enemy's guns from the platform and raked the whole interior of the fort, and it was determined to prepare for the assault at the hour of nine on the 4th of June. In the course of the night of the 3d a party of the best marks- men were selected from Pickens's troops and sent to the house spared by Browne and nearest to the fort. The officer commanding the detachment was ordered to arrange his men in the upper story for the purpose of ascertaining the number which could with ease use their rifles out of the windows or any other convenient apertures, then to withdraw and report to Pickens. It was intended before daylight to have directed the return of the officer to the house with such riflemen as he should have reported to be sufficient. All other preparations had been made for the assault, when about three o'clock in the morning of the 4th of June a violent explosion occurred, and the house which was to have been occupied by Pickens's riflemen was blown to atoms. Browne had pushed a sap to the house, which he correctly presumed would be occupied by the besiegers when ready to strike their last blow; and hearing the noise made by the party the evening before in arranging for their stations, assumed that the approaching morning was fixed for the general assault. Then accidentally the building was prematurely blown up, and the party destined for it escaped.
On the 31st Colonel Browne had been summoned to
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surrender, but had replied that it was his duty and inclina- tion to defend the post to the last extremity. On the morning of the 3d the summons was repeated, but again refused in similar terms. The hour of nine o'clock of the 4th now approached and the columns for assault were in array, waiting the signal to advance. But Pickens and Lee, to spare further bloodshed, offered still another opportunity to the besieged to avoid unnecessary sacrifice. They wrote, proposing to Browne that the prisoners in his possession should be sent out of the fort, and that they might be con- sidered his or theirs as the siege might eventuate. This was declined. But the storming of the fort was still deferred, probably because, as the 4th of June was the king's birthday, it was supposed that as a point of honor Browne, as a king's officer, would be less inclined to sur- render on that day than on any other. And so it proved to be. For on the morning of the 5th Browne himself opened negotiations which resulted in the surrender of the fort. The fort and garrison were surrendered to Captain Michael Rudulph,1 who was appointed to take possession, and the British troops marched out and laid down their arms. The British loss during the siege was 52 killed, and 334, including the wounded, were made prisoners of war. The American loss was 16 killed and 35 wounded, 7 mortally.
Measures were immediately taken for the protection of Colonel Browne, who, from his notorious character and the barbarities committed by him, it was assumed would be in danger, surrounded as he now was by men who had been so long the victims of his atrocities. He was placed, for safety, under a strong guard of Continental troops com- manded by Captain Armstrong. The precaution was nec- essary, for young McKoy, the brother of the one who was 1 A brother of Major John Rudulph.
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but a few days before so cruelly executed by Browne, was present, seeking an opportunity of putting him to death; and doubtless there were others equally bent upon the same purpose. The American officers, unfortunately, had not been so careful in regard to Colonel Grierson, probably because they were not aware that he, too, was scarcely less odious to the Georgians than Browne himself. He was killed the afternoon of the day after the surrender of Fort Cornwallis. General Pickens, on the 7th of June, thus reports the affair to General Greene: -
" A very disagreeable and melancholy affair which happened yes- terday in the afternoon occasions my writing to you at this time. I had ridden down to Browne's fort where I had been but a few min- utes when information was brought to me that a man had ridden up to the door of a room here, where Colonel Grierson was confined and without dismounting shot him so that he expired soon after, and in- stantly made off; and though he was instantly pursued by some men on horseback he effected his escape. Major Williams, who was in the same room, immediately ran into a cellar among other prisoners; but standing in view was soon after shot at and wounded in the shoulder. I have given orders for burying Colonel Grierson this afternoon with military honors, but as Colonel Browne was also insulted yesterday, though the man was for some time confined for it, and the people are . so much exasperated against some individuals I have found it neces- sary to give orders to cross the river with the prisoners under the care of Colonel Hammond's Regiment, and Captain Smith's detach- ment of North Carolinans and march them to Ninety-Six or till I meet your order respecting them, being fully persuaded that were they marched for Savannah they would be beset on the road, but think they may go to Charlestown by way of Ninety-Six if you should so order." 1
This cotemporaneous report explains a matter about which Stedman, the British historian, becomes very indig- nant, namely, the bravado, as they allege, of marching the
1 Gibbes's Documentary Hist. (1781-82), 91; Johnson's Life of Greene, vol. II, 135.
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British prisoners taken at Augusta by way of Ninety Six, and passing them in full view of the garrison there be- sieged by Greene's army. This, Stedman says, was done with all the parade of martial music and preceded by a British standard reversed.1 Colonel Lee states that the exhibition before Ninety Six was owing to the mistake of the officer in taking the nearest road to the town, and that he reprimanded him for exposing the corps, in charge of the prisoners, to the guns of the garrison.2 How it came to Lee to do so is somewhat curious, as from General Pickens's letter it appears that the guard was under the command of Colonel Hammond, sent by General Pickens to report to General Greene. But however that may be, it is clear from General Pickens's report at the time that, as a matter of fact, the prisoners were sent by the way of Ninety Six from motives of humanity, and not with a view of intimidating the British garrison there. It does not, however, appear what cause of indignation would justly have been given, had that been the view with which the prisoners were de- spatched by way of that post.
Strange to say, while the rest of the prisoners were for their greater security sent by the way of Ninety Six, Colo- nel Browne himself was safely guarded on the road to Sa- vannah, though, says Ramsay, he had lately hanged thirteen American prisoners and delivered to the Indians some of the citizens of the country, who suffered from their hands all the tortures which savage barbarity had contrived to add poignancy to the pains of death. And this, though on his way he had to pass by the inhabitants whose houses he had lately burned, and whose relations he had recently hanged. The only adventure recorded was that at Silver Bluff. Mrs. McKoy, having obtained leave of the officer
1 Stedman's Am. War, vol. II, 369.
2 Memoirs of the War of 1776 (Lee), 371.
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in command of his guard to speak to Browne, addressed him in words to the following effect: -
" Colonel Browne, in the late day of your prosperity I visited your camp and on my knees supplicated for the life of my son. But you were deaf to my entreaties. You hanged him, though a beardless youth, before my face. These eyes have seen him scalped by the savages under your immediate command, and for no better reason than that his name was McKoy. As you are now a prisoner to the leader of my country, for the present I lay aside all thought of revenge; but when you resume your sword I will go five hundred miles to demand satisfaction at the point of it for the murder of my son."1 But, though Browne was exchanged soon after and was again in the field in Georgia,2 he survived the war, and when peace was re- stored retired first to Florida and thence to the Bahamas.3
This unfortunate affair, of the murder of Grierson and the attack upon Williams, says Johnson, was the subject of the most sensible regret of all the American officers. A similar outrage had but a short time before been com- mitted upon the person of Colonel Dunlap, and although Pickens made every effort to discover the murderer, he had failed of success. A large reward was offered by proc- lamation for the discovery of the murderer of Grierson, but principle in some, and fear and fellow-feeling in others, effectually precluded information. It has since appeared, says the author, that the attack originated in individual revenge, from the sons of some of the old men confined in Fort Cornwallis. Their children had now had access to
1 Ramsay's Revolution, vol. II, 240. It is quite safe to say that this speech of Mrs. McKoy has been doctored, - to use an expressive if not an elegant phrase, - and prepared after the event.
2 McCall's Hist. of Ga., vol. II, 406.
3 Am. Loyalists (Sabine), 180.
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them, and received from the palsied lips of their parents such tales of insult and oppression as instigated men other- wise correct and respected to the commission of these dis- graceful acts. Human passions are ever carrying on the work of deception, and the violation of the sanctity of age or female delicacy will, in precedence to all others, be deemed justifiable causes for the more bloody revenge. Perhaps the suspicion at that time entertained with regard to the fate of Major Eaton may not have been without its influence in suppressing information. Indignation and thirst for revenge because of a recent excursion of a party of Cuningham's, in which, as General Greene expresses himself, "savage cruelty never equalled the conduct of this party," was, it is said, at that time in full operation on the feelings of the Whigs. Many an eye was streaming for the murders that had been committed by that party.1 It is curious that, in commenting upon the murder of Grier- son, no comment is made by the author upon the recent monstrous conduct of Browne in turning over the captives . to the knives of the Indians, if indeed he had really done so.
Upon the capitulation on the 5th Colonel Lee immedi- ately moved forward with the valuable accession of artillery to aid in the reduction of Ninety Six. General Pickens remained at Augusta until transportation for the stores taken there and at Fort Galphin could be provided, which being accomplished in a few days, he also marched to join General Greene.
1 Johnson's Life of Greene, vol. II, 136. We do not, however, know o what this allusion refers.
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CHAPTER XII
1781
GENERAL GREENE, having determined to proceed against Ninety Six and Augusta, from his camp at Ancrum's plan- tation, on the east side of Friday's Ferry, on the 17th of May, the day upon which he returned to Sumter the com- mission he had resigned, issued to him the following instructions : -
"You will continue your command at this place and encourage the militia in all parts of the State in the best manner you can for cooper- ating with the American army. You will carefully watch the motions of the enemy below this place & advise me of all their movements & should they come out in force towards Ninety-Six you will take such route as to effect a junction with us at that place.
" You will have the fortifications at this place levelled & those of Motte's and Orangeburgh, if not already compleated, and also those of Camden.
" We shall leave part of our spare stores at this place, should the enemy make any movements this way or towards Ninety-Six, you will give the officer having them in charge orders to move up to Wyns- borough & as much higher up into the country as you may think necessary.
"Such of the negroes as were taken at this garrison (as are not claimed by good Whiggs & their property proved) belonging to the Tories or disaffected, you will apply to the fulfilling your contracts with the ten-months troops; such parts of the arms and stores, as the commissary general of Military stores & the Quarter Master General shall deliver over to you you will apply as justice and the good of the service shall require.
" But above all things pay particular attention to the arranging the militia as the safety of the country in a great measure depends thereon.
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" You will direct General Marion to take such a position & employ him in such a manner as may most effectually annoy the enemy & at the same time cooperate with us should occasion require it."1
Having thus left Sumter in the entire charge of the opera- tions in the lower country, and to guard him against Lord Rawdon, General Greene only continuing his camp at Friday's Ferry (or Fort Granby) long enough to give time for Lieutenant-Colonel Carrington, his quartermaster, to procure means of transportation, took up the direct road for Ninety Six, which he reached on the 22d.
Ninety Six, it will be remembered, was the scene of the first bloodshed of the Revolution in South Carolina, that of the siege of the 19th to the 21st of November, 1775,2- a struggle between the Whigs and the Loyalists of the State, which had resulted in a treaty between the parties, scarcely made before broken. Since that time it had been the strong- hold of Royalists, and the point from which the beautiful and rich country around had been desolated. It had been originally a post against the Indians, and had been sur- rounded with a stockade as a defence against their incur- sions. The stockade was still remaining; and upon the fall of Charlestown it had been immediately garrisoned by the British. Its situation rendered it of great importance to them, as it maintained the communication with the Indians ; indeed, it had derived its name from the circumstance that it was ninety-six miles distant from the principal town of the Cherokee Indians, called Keowee. It was, too, the most advanced post occupied by the enemy, and supported Cam- den and Augusta. As such, as we have seen, it had been an object of great solicitude by Sumter, Clarke, and McCall, and afterwards by Morgan under Greene.
Upon the fall of Charlestown the post had been com-
1 Sumter MSS.
2 History of So. Ca. in the Revolution, 1775-80 (McCrady), 89-92.
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manded for some time by Lieutenant-Colonel Balfour, upon whose removal to the command of the town he had been succeeded by Lieutenant-Colonel John Harris Cruger. This officer was a native of New York, a son-in-law of General Oliver De Lancey, and commandant of one of the three battalions known as De Lancey's corps or brigade.1 His garrison of 550 men was composed entirely of Ameri- cans. His own battalion, raised in New York, numbered about 150, and the second battalion, New Jersey volun- teers, 200. These Northern Tories were regulars and were as good troops as any in the British service. To these were added about 200 South Carolina loyal militia.2 Lieutenant-Colonel Cruger was totally ignorant of the situation of the army under Lord Rawdon ; nor had he any information of the action of Hobkirk's Hill and the evacu- ation of Camden but from an American officer who hap- pened to be taken prisoner. But he was aware of the growing disaffection of the people of Ninety Six and of a great change in the condition of affairs, even in that hith- erto most loyal region. The absence of all communica- tions with the rest of the province could not but warn him of danger. Fortunately for the king's cause, Colonel Cruger was equal to the exigencies of the occasion; and, unable to obtain information or supplies, he set about at once to put his post in the best possible state of defence. As soon as the post had come into the possession of the British, the year before, works had been added to the stockade, under Lieutenant Haldane of the engineers, an aide-de-camp to Lord Cornwallis. The principal of these, which from its form was called a star, was on the right or southeast of the village of Ninety Six, as the county town
1 Sabine's Am. Loyalists, 234, 253 ; "The Battle of Eutaw Springs," De Peyster, United Service Magazine, September, 1881, 312.
2 Stedman's Am. War, vol. II, 366.
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of Ninety Six was called. It consisted of sixteen salient and reentering angles, with a dry ditch and abatis. But none of the works were in a finished condition at this time. In this state of uncertainty the whole garrison was imme- diately set to work, the officers cheerfully sharing in the labor with the common soldiers; a bank of earth was in a short time thrown up round the stockade and the whole strengthened by abatis. Blockhouses were also erected in the village, traverses made for the security of the troops, and covered communications between different parts of the work. On the north of the village was a valley through which ran a rivulet that supplied the place with water. The county prison, having been fortified, commanded this valley on one side and a stockade covered it on the other. Such was the condition of this post and garrison, which by accident and fortitude alike were to employ almost the whole of the American army, between three and four times its numbers, for a month in a useless and unsuccessful siege, while Lord Rawdon with the rest of the British army re- covered from the effects of the loss of the other posts, received timely reinforcements and regained the ground it had lost.
Greene reached Ninety Six with his army of between one thousand and eleven hundred men on the night of the 22d of May.1 It was dark and rainy, and so favorable to the purposes of reconnoitring, Colonel Lee asserts, that General Greene committed the determination of the course and mode of approach to Count Kosciuszko, the famous Pole, who was then serving at the head of the engineers in the Southern army; and that he, not regarding the im- portance of depriving the enemy of water, for which they were dependent on the rivulet, applied his undivided atten-
1 Memoirs of the War of 1776 (Lee), 358 ; Johnson's Life of Greene, vol. II, 142.
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tion to the demolition of the star, the strongest point of the enemy's defence.1 Johnson questions this statement, and, upon the authority of a member of the general's staff at the time, states that the general himself directed the operations of the engineers, that he reconnoitred the posi- tion under cover of the favorable weather the night of their arrival, with Kosciuszko and Captain Pendleton, his aide ; and that the project of cutting off the water was well weighed and considered, and rejected on mature de- liberation because another supply could easily be obtained by digging, as was done during the siege of Williamson's men by the Tories under Robinson in November, 1775, when a well was dug and water obtained on this very spot. It was also considered, he adds, that the star commanded the other works, and that the approaches against the water would be useless against the star, while on the other hand, by the efforts to defend the rivulet the enemy weakened himself at the principal point - the star.2 But an obvious answer to the suggestion was the apparent fact that the enemy had gone to much trouble in the con- struction of a covered way to the rivulet, and incurred so great an increase of duty in defending it. This spoke for itself the importance Cruger deemed its protection. Moreover, as Johnson himself points out, the British histo- rian Stedman asserts that the attempt was made by the garrison with great labor, but that no water was found. Nor, upon a careful perusal, does the account of the siege of 1775 warrant the assurance that any great quantity of water was then obtained ; for Drayton, the historian, states that there was a total want of it from Sunday morning, the 19th of September, to Tuesday afternoon, the 21st. True, he adds, that the fatigue parties, with great labor, after
1 Memoirs of the War of 1776 (Lee), 359.
2 Johnson's Life of Greene, vol. II, 142.
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penetrating through a very tenacious clay soil forty feet deep, obtained a supply which relieved the necessities of the garrison.1 But as the siege was terminated on Wednes- day, the 22d, the water obtained on that occasion may not have been more than enough for the emergency of a few hours. But however that may be, Greene now commenced his operations on the other side without attempting or even threatening interference with the supply of water, upon which, as it really happened, the garrison depended. Whether General Greene himself decided upon this plan of the siege, or left it entirely to the direction of Kosciuszko, is not in the question now under consideration a matter of importance, as in either event the responsibility for its consequence and result must rest upon Greene as the commander.
An undulation in the ground seventy yards distant from the star works, at a point which the enemy's artillery did not cover, was chosen as the position from which to com- mence operations. Work upon a mine at this point was begun on the night of the 22d, but from this the Ameri- cans were quickly driven. Guns were at once mounted by Cruger on one of the salient angles opposite, and under their fire a party of thirty sallied out, entered the works, and put to the bayonet every one they found. Finding from this experience that the position was within the range of the enemy's fire, Greene withdrew his parties to a more secure distance. Here they broke ground on the 23d. On completing the first parallel, a mine directed against the star was commenced under cover of a battery erected on the enemy's right. Day and night the work was pressed by the besiegers, and sallies were constantly made by the besieged. The besiegers, alternately laboring in the ditches or guarding those who labored, slept only on their
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