USA > South Carolina > The history of South Carolina in the Revolution, 1780-1783 > Part 32
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"The commandant is therefore pleased to direct that all such women and children and others as above described should quit the town and province on or before the first day of August next ensuing ; of which Regulation such persons are hereby ordered to take notice and to remove then accordingly."
1 Diary (MS.) of Josiah Smith, Jr.
S d d or an ly ly en on. of had s of 1 an lohn take d by [ the
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On Monday morning Mr. Brown, the commissary, in- formed the exiles that Colonel Glazier had received directions from Colonel Balfour to permit the whole of the company to depart from St. Augustine as prisoners ex- changed either for Virginia or Philadelphia as they should choose, but by no means to grant them liberty to stop or even to touch at Charlestown. And that for their accom- modation he was to furnish them with one small schooner, which was not large enough even to carry their baggage.
The exiles thus found the day of their deliverance to which they had looked forward with so much joy a day of lamentation and distress. What was to become of their families, turned out of their habitations which had been secured to them by the terms of capitulation ? How were the helpless women and children to find the means of obey- ing the order for their departure ? And as if purposely to cut off all remaining means of doing so, Balfour followed up his former cruel orders with the following, issued on the 11th : -
"The commandant is pleased to direct that no person living under the rebel government shall have liberty, or grant power to others for so doing to let or lease any house within this town without a special licence for so doing as it is intended to take all such houses as may be wanted for the publick service, paying to the owners of those secured by the capitulation a reasonable rent for the same, as by those means government will be enabled to reinstate its firm friends in possession of their own houses."
In consequence of this mandate, those who adhered to the cause of America were turned out of their houses. which were taken possession of by the British in violation of public faith, and there was scarce an instance of com- pensation being allowed for the seizure of their property Scenes of the greatest distress ensued. More than a thou sand persons, says Ramsay, were exiled from their homes
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and thrown on the charity of strangers for their support. Husbands and wives, parents and children, some of whom had been for several months separated from each other, were not permitted to soothe their common distress by being together, but were doomed to have their first inter- view among strangers in a distant land.1
The exiles represented to Colonel Glazier the insuf- ficiency of the vessel which had been designated for their voyage to Philadelphia, who the next day offered instead that he would let them have another schooner, the East Florida, about sixty tons, on condition they would consent to pay £100 sterling towards her hire. He ultimately agreed, however, to let them have the vessel free of charge, the government assuming its hire; and that he would order four weeks' provisions to be laid in for the passage. Whereupon the exiles secured another vessel, a brigan- tine, the Nancy, at an expense of 200 guineas, made up amongst them all, and divided their party into two bodies of thirty and thirty-one, keeping as near as could be the arrangement of their messes. They then cast lots for the vessels ; the brigantine Nancy fell to the lot of the party of thirty-one, of whom Christopher Gadsden was the chief, and the schooner East Florida to that of the lot of thirty, of whom John Neufville was the chief. Both vessels dropped down the river with the prisoners aboard on the 17th of July, but did not get over the bar until the 19th. The schooner reached the capes of Delaware on the 28th and the brig on the 2d of August.
On the 25th of July many of the families who had been banished by the order of the commandant of the town embarked for Philadelphia in a brig commanded by Cap- tain Downham Newton, with a passport making her a flag of truce. How the funds were raised to provide for their
1 Ramsay's Revolution in So. Ca., vol. II, 300-301.
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removal is illustrated in a copy of the petition of Mrs. Mary De Saussure, wife of the exile, Daniel De Saussure. It is addressed "To the Honorable Lieutenant-Colonel Nisbet Balfour, Commandant at Charlestown," and is as follows : -
"The humble petition of Mary De Saussure wife of Daniel De Saussure showeth that your petitioner is unable in her present cir- cumstances to provide for the expense that must necessarily attend the removal of herself and family from their Province; therefore prays your honor will be pleased to grant her the indulgence of mak- ing sale of the furniture belonging to her dwelling house and kitchen, also a riding chaise and to grant her such further indulgence as to your honor shall seem meet and your petitioner as in duty bound will ever pray," etc.
The petition was by the commandant referred to the Board of Police, which after a week's consideration gra- ciously indorsed, " Mrs. De Saussure has permission to sell her furniture and chaise as requested."
The brig, containing ten or twelve families, numbering nearly one hundred and thirty souls, had a prosperous voy- age, and reached the capes on the 2d of August, and with a fair wind continued its course up to New Castle. Another brig had been in sight all day pursuing the same course a little behind them. The two brigs came to anchor in the evening close together; when William Johnson, on that from St. Augustine hailed that from Charlestown, and was answered, " From Charlestown " in the well-known voice of the captain. They immediately recognized each other. " Is that you, Downham Newton ?" "Ay; is that you, William Johnson? we have your family on board." Many other manly voices, says the Traditions, immediately and anxiously inquired each for his own family, and a joyful meeting then took place of many dear ones thus providentially brought together.1
1 Johnson's Traditions, 332-333.
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Balfour's cruel edict, banishing from the town the wives and families of those who would not sully their honor and conscience by taking protection, compelled the removal of a large number of men, women, children, and servants to Philadelphia, besides the exiles. These took with them such of their movable property as they could by permission and convenience remove. In all they numbered 670 men, women, and children, and 71 servants. To meet the neces- sities of these exiles, Congress on the 23d of July came to the following resolution : -
" Resolved that five suitable persons be appointed and authorized to open a subscription for a loan of Thirty Thousand Dollars for the support of such of the States of South Carolina and Georgia as have been driven from their country and possessions by the enemy; the said States respectively by their delegates in Congress pledging their faith for the repayment of the sum which shall be received by their respective citizens as soon as the legislatures of the said States shall severally be in condition to make provision for so doing and Congress hereby guaranteeing this obligation."
The commissioners under the resolution, Colonel John Bayard, Dr. James Hutchinson, Mr. George Meade, Mr. Wil- liam Bingham, and Mr. George Barge wrote letters to the executives of Virginia, Maryland, New Jersey, New York, and the New England States, soliciting their help towards the filling up of this loan and engaging the interest to be paid on the money so lent. But from the general scarcity of hard cash in these several States, - as it was said, - no assistance was obtained from any other State than Massa- chusetts, whose executive, issuing an appeal to be published in all the churches, raised the sum of $6296, including Governor Hancock's own subscription of $400. There were also two special donations of $100 each from this State. There being more money in the State of Pennsyl- vania, $15,132 were by 86 persons subscribed on the loan
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and $3312 by 236 persons on donation chiefly obtained by the address of Messrs. Bayard and Hutchinson, to whom the necessitous Carolinians and Georgians were greatly indebted for their existence. But these subscriptions, amounting together to $24,940, were by no means all paid. By the 13th of November following, Mr. Meade, the treasurer of the commission, had received and turned over to the com- mittee of the exiles appointed to receive it, $7568.72. But great or small, these contributions were of great service to the exiles, particularly so to those who could not get into any kind of business so as to earn their support, and without which some would have been near to starvation.1
Most of the officers, Continental and militia, released by the exchange, who were landed at Jamestown immediately proceeded overland to rejoin their countrymen, - and when they could their former command, -to carry on the war, which had now taken a more favorable turn for the cause on account of which they had so long endured captivity.
The question as to the condition of those who had given paroles or taken Royal protection and afterwards resumed their arms on the American side became more and more important to the British authorities. As Sumter, Marion, and Harden appeared again and again within their lines, each time they carried off with them new recruits, those who seized the opportunity of avenging themselves for injuries received or faith broken while in the power of the enemy to whom they had surrendered upon terms. It could not have escaped the observation of Balfour that the two inroads which had been made nearest to the lines of the town were each led by an officer who had renewed his allegiance to the king since the capitulation of Charles- town, and had lately gone over to the American side and, taking his life in his hands, had accepted a commission in the
1 Diary (MS.) of Josiah Smith, Jr.
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field. Colonel Hayne had surprised the outpost within seven miles of the lines of the town, and Wade Hampton had dashed in even two miles nearer, and, like Hayne, had carried off his prisoners. Some great example must be made to strike terror into those who, yet remaining quiet under their parole, might be contemplating similar conduct. Wade Hampton had escaped with his spoils, but unfortu- nately Hayne had fallen into their hands. Postell's case had in some way been referred to General Greene by the respective commissaries of prisoners, and must for the present at least be held in abeyance. The question was, What should be done with Hayne ? Balfour had now time to give his attention to the matter, and he was prompt in deciding it.
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CHAPTER XVII
1781
COLONEL HAYNE had been captured on the 8th of July. But Balfour, the valiant officer whose services during the campaign in South Carolina were confined within the gates of the town, had been too busily engaged issuing edicts for the government of the citizens under his power, annoying the American prisoners in their exchange, banishing the families of the exiles, and harassing them in their depar- ture, to give the time and attention to this case which its importance demanded. He held it back, as it were, as a choice morsel on which the cruel vindictiveness of his nature should have full leisure to expend itself. There was also a stronger motive for delay. Balfour had risen to his high position in the British army through the influ- ence of Sir William Howe; but he had no such interest with Sir Henry Clinton, who succeeded Howe, nor with Lord Cornwallis, who commanded the Southern Depart- ment. On the other hand, Lord Rawdon was a favorite with both of these, while between his lordship and him- self there existed no kindly relations, nor was the question as to their respective commands in the province free from doubt. There was a question, too, it will be remem- bered, as to rank between Lord Rawdon, who was a full colonel in a provincial regiment, and Balfour, who was a lieutenant colonel in the regular line. Colonel Balfour deemed it important, therefore, before he proceeded to the extremity he contemplated, to commit Lord Rawdon to his
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purpose. His lordship, after withdrawing from Ninety Six, had halted, it will be recollected, at Orangeburgh, where he remained at the time. To him, therefore, Balfour wrote, telling of the rising under Hayne in the rear of his army, and how luckily it had been crushed. He represented the imperative necessity of repressing the disposition to similar acts of treachery, as he termed them, by making an exam- ple of the individual who, he said, had planned as well as headed this revolt, and who had fallen into his hands; and solicited Rawdon's concurrence that it might vouch to Sir Henry Clinton, with whom he was on ill terms, for the public policy of the measure.1
For nearly three weeks Hayne lay in the provost - the basement of the Exchange -awaiting his fate, about which the two British officers were corresponding. The result he must have anticipated. Doubtless he fully realized, as did his other compatriots who acted similarly, when at last he accepted Governor Rutledge's commission, raised his regiment, and joined Harden, that he dared the gallows as well as the guns of the enemy, and that for him there would be a short shrift if taken. It was a curious coincidence that, while he lay there in the provost among the common felons, awaiting his doom, his friend, Dr. Ram- say, to whom he had been so careful to explain the circum- stances under which he had been compelled to renew his allegiance to the king, and Richard Hutson, his brother-in- law, together with the other exiles, most of whom were his friends and associates, were at sea passing Charlestown bar on their voyage to Philadelphia, just released from their long detention at St. Augustine, but still exiles from home.
Lord Rawdon declares that he had no conception that 1 Letter of Marquis of Hastings, Appendix to Memoirs of the War of 1776 (Lee), 616.
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a question could possibly be raised as to the justice of Hayne's execution, and that he replied to Balfour that there was no doubt as to the necessity of making the example, to which he would readily give the sanction of his name. He very soon followed this reply and came himself to Charlestown. Garden, in his Anecdotes, charges on the authority of a British subject of great respectability, then in the town, that Lord Rawdon's retirement at this time, when his services were most required to contend against the increasing difficulties of the situation, leaving the conduct of the army to those who were altogether unequal to meet the exigencies of the time, was much criticised; and that the plea of ill health upon which it was based was seriously questioned. 1 But the gallant career of this nobleman throughout the last year's cam- paign renders the truth of such a charge extremely improb- able, while the arduous services he had rendered, much of which had been in the swamps of the Congaree and Wateree, might well have affected his health. To add to 1
1 Lord Rawdon, Lieutenant-Colonel Doyle, and his lady sailed for Eng- land on the 21st of August, 1781 (The Royal Gazette). "Lord Rawdon applied, but in vain, to Dr. Alexander Garden, a physician of high reputa- tion, for a certificate, testifying to his inability to continue in the field. This statement is made on the authority of Mr. James Penman, a British subject of great respectability, who further assured the author of these Memoirs, that the anger of Dr. Garden was so highly excited by the scandalous dereliction of duty by Lord Rawdon that, on the manifesta- tion of a design by many Tories to pay him the compliment of a farewell address, he boldly protested against it, declaring that if they would draw up a remonstrance reprobating his determination to quit the army at a moment that he knew that there was not, in the Southern service, a man qualified to command it, his name should be the first inserted." - Garden's Anecdotes, 254.
Dr. Alexander Garden, referred to by the author of the Anecdotes, was his father ; the father and son espousing opposite sides, Dr. Garden re- fused any association with his son, the author, and left the province, going to England, where he spent the rest of his life.
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which his subsequent career at home and abroad precludes the idea that he would without good reason have deserted the Royal cause at such a time. But however brilliant his military conduct in America, on the Continent, and in India, and notwithstanding the character for humanity which he afterwards established in Parliament, his com- mand in South Carolina was signalized by the greatest severity. The difference between Balfour and himself was that he braved the dangers of the field, in which he exercised his vigorous discipline upon friend and foe alike, while Balfour indulged his cruelty in the security of the walls of the city. It must be added that in this matter, from whatever motive, or under whatever influence, his lordship's conduct was characterized by indecision and want of candor, both at the time and in his subsequent justification of his connection with it.
Lord Rawdon left the field immediately after the action at Quinby Bridge, and the withdrawal of the American forces to the Congaree. He states that on his arrival application was at once made to him by a number of ladies to save Colonel Hayne from his impending death, and that, ignorant of the complicated nature and extent of the crime, he incautiously promised to use his endeavors towards inducing Lieutenant-Colonel Balfour to lenity; that in pursuance of this promise a petition to be signed by the ladies was drawn up by one of the officers of the staff, he believed by Major Barry, the deputy adjutant general,1 to serve as a basis for his address to the commandant. It thus appears that the petition of the ladies was prepared with his knowledge and concurrence by a staff officer. Is it not curious then that the paper so drawn should be ad- dressed, " To the right honorable Lord Rawdon, Commander-
1 Henry Barry, captain Fifty-second Regiment, serving as deputy adjutant general in South Carolina.
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in-chief of his Majesty's forces in South Carolina, and to Colonel Balfour, commandant at Charlestown," if so be that he was not in fact the ranking and commanding offi- cer over Balfour as he asserts.1 The petition, which was generally signed by the ladies, appealed most earnestly to these officers for the life of the unfortunate gentleman. The paper was drawn up, as Lord Rawdon declares, as "a step gratifying to me . .. to serve as a basis for my address to the commandant." But his lordship had already committed himself to Colonel Hayne's execution by his letter from camp. Well, therefore, might Colonel Balfour be surprised at his lordship's conduct. "When I opened the matter to him," says Lord Rawdon, "he appeared much astonished, detailed to me the circum- stances of the case with which I had been completely unacquainted, requesting me to inform myself more mi- nutely upon them, and earnestly begged me to ponder as to the effect to which forbearance from visiting such an offence with due punishment (sure to be ascribed to timidity) must unavoidably produce on the minds of the inhabitants. It was a grievous error in me," he continues,
1 Letter of Marquis of Hasting, formerly Lord Rawdon, to Colonel Henry Lee, Appendix to Memoirs of the War of 1776 (Lee), 615. The Marquis writes : "Lieutenant-Colonel Balfour was my senior in the army list, and my provisional rank of colonel held for the purpose of connec- tion with the regiment raised by me did not alter that relation, as the colonels of the provincial establishments were subordinate to the youngest lieutenant colonel of the line. Sir Henry Clinton, in order to give me the management of affairs in South Carolina, subsequently promoted me as a brigadier general of provincials, but we had no intimation of this till the commission arrived after I had actually embarked for England. Lieu- tenant-Colonel Balfour would, therefore, at all events, have commanded me." This letter was written the 24th of June, 1813, thirty-odd years after the execution of Colonel Hayne, and in this time the marquis had certainly forgotten the facts. As we have before seen, he was recognized by Lord Cornwallis as commanding all the other officers in South Carolina, and so the adjutant general of the department understood.
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"that I did not at once yield to the reasoning . . . and to the conviction which it could not but impress, instead of still attempting to realize the hope which I had suffered the ladies so loosely to entertain. I unluckily persevered in the effort to reconcile a pardon with some appearance of propriety." There was an interview between Mrs. Peronneau, Colonel Hayne's sister-in-law, the wife of Henry Peronneau, who was a Loyalist, and Lord Rawdon, in which he says he frankly told her what had passed between himself and Colonel Balfour, stating the embar- rassment in which he found himself from the enormity of the transgression, but adding that, unless there should be an intervention from General Greene he would try if the difficulty could be removed. He states that, as a mode of gaining time, he solicited Colonel Balfour to have the par- ticulars of the case ascertained by a court of inquiry for his (Rawdon's) satisfaction, alleging the chance - though, he declares, he did not really believe the existence of any such -that circumstances might have been distorted by the animosity of Hayne's neighbors.
This was the situation when, on Thursday morning, the 26th of July, Colonel Hayne received a note from Major Fraser, the town major, 26th, saying :-
"SIR: I am charged by the commandant to inform you that a council of general officers will assemble to-morrow at ten o'clock, in the hall of the Province, to try you."
It will be observed that the first notice was of the sitting of a court to try Colonel Hayne. This is important in view of what follows. For in the evening of the same day, he received another notice as follows : -
"SIR: I am ordered by the commandant to acquaint you that instead of a council of general officers,1 as is mentioned in my letter
1 No doubt field officers were meant. This note is dated Thursday even- ing, 27th July, 1781, but it is evident that this was a mistake ; it should have been 26th.
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of this morning, a court of inquiry, composed of four general officers and four captains, will be assembled to-morrow at ten o'clock in the province hall, for the purpose of determininy under what point of view you ought to be considered.
" You will immediately be allowed pen, ink, and paper, and any person that you choose to appoint will be permitted to accompany you as your counsel at the same hour and place." 1
Colonel Hayne was entirely misled by the change in the tenor of these notices. He assumed that the purpose was to interpose a court of inquiry, the military form of proceeding in the nature of the civil proceedings of a grand jury, to ascertain if there really existed any ground for putting him upon trial at all, instead of putting him at once upon trial, as was intended by the first notice. Alas ! he was terribly mistaken. Lord Rawdon's letter suggests the explanation and significance of the change. " This tribunal, although a court of inquiry," he says, "was the same form of investigation as had been used in the case of Major Andre."2 And so it was. General Greene, now commanding in South Carolina, had been president of the board before which Andre had been taken, and that board had been ordered "to report a precise state of his case, and to determine in what character he was to be considered, and to what punishment he was liable." 3
Had he known these circumstances and understood the change, Colonel Hayne would at once have read in it, his death sentence. He would have understood that he was to receive the same measure as Andre had. Before that court he was accordingly taken on Saturday, the 28th.
1 Ramsay's Revolution in So. Ca., vol. II, 511, 512 ; Gibbes's Docu- mentary Hist. (1781-82), 109.
2 Letter of Lord Rawdon, then Earl of Moira, to Colonel Lee, Appendix to Memoirs of the War of 1776 (Lee), 617.
3 Marshall's Life of Washington, vol. IV, 263.
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Of the proceedings before it he has left the account in his letter of protest to Lord Rawdon and Colonel Balfour.
". . . Having never entertained any other idea of a Court of Enquiry, nor heard of any other being formed of it, than of its serving merely to precede a council of war or some other tribunal for examining the circumstances more fully, excepting in the case of a spy, and Mr. Jarvis, lieutenant marshal to the Provost, not having succeeded in finding the person whom I named for my council, I did not take the pains to summon any witnesses, though it would have been in my power to have produced many; and I presented myself before the council without any assistance whatever. When I was before that assembly I was farther convinced that I had not been deceived in my conjectures; and I found that the members of it were not sworn nor the witnesses examined on oath, and all the members as well as every person present might easily have perceived by the questions which I asked and by the whole tenor of my conduct that I had not the least notion that I was tried or examined upon an affair in which my life or death depended."
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