USA > South Carolina > The history of South Carolina in the Revolution, 1780-1783 > Part 45
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1 Johnson's Life of Greene, vol. II, 249.
547
IN THE REVOLUTION
Six caused him again to pause, as the evacuation of Cam- den had in April stopped his desertion of the State at that time.
Besides other great advantages which had been derived from the brilliant successes of Sumter, Marion, Pickens, and Lee during the first months of the year, two very marked effects resulted to the American cause. The first of these was that the number of prisoners taken from the British, in the forts captured, forced an exchange of prisoners, including not only those taken in the field, but as well the St. Augustine exiles. The second was that, by reason of the recovery of territory in which they resided, and the incapacity of the British to afford protection, many of those who had given paroles considered themselves re- leased from their obligations.
The first of these returned Henderson and many other valuable officers and stalwart men to the American ranks ; and the second returned to the service of the State the original movers in the Revolution - men of great personal influence and character. The effort to check these move- ments induced by the second of these causes led to the long imprisonment of Postell and the execution of Hayne. But, however tragic the latter event, it was as nothing to the terrors and distress of the people caused by the inter- necine war which arose as the armies swept to and fro from one end of the State to the other.
In consequence of these civil wars between the Whigs and Tories, says Ramsay, the incursions of the savages, and the other calamities resulting from the operations of the British and American armies, South Carolina exhibited scenes of distress which were shocking to humanity. The single district of Ninety Six, which was only one of seven into which the State was then divided, was computed by well-informed persons residing therein to contain within its
548
HISTORY OF SOUTH CAROLINA
limits fourteen hundred widows and orphans made so by the war. Nor was it wonderful that the country was involved in such accumulated distress. The State govern- ment was suspended and the British conquerors were care- less of the civil rights of the inhabitants. Order and police were scarcely objects of their attention. The will of the strongest was the law. Such was the general character of those who called themselves Royalists that nothing could be expected from them, unrestrained as they were by civil government, but outrages against the peace and order of society. Though among the Tories in the lower parts of South Carolina there were gentlemen of honor, principle, and humanity, yet in the interior and frontier a great pro- portion of them constituted an ignorant, unprincipled ban- ditti, to whom idleness, licentiousness, and deeds of violence were familiar. Horse thieves and others whose crimes had exiled them from society, the same class who had given rise to the Regulators a few years before, attached them- selves to parties of the British. Encouraged by their ex- ample and instigated by the love of plunder, they committed the most extensive depredations. Under cloak of attach- ment to the old government they covered the basest and most selfish purposes. They could scarcely ever be brought to the field of battle. They sometimes furnished the British army with intelligence and provisions, but on all other accounts their services were of very little impor- tance.1
This characterization of Tories by Doctor Ramsay, espe- cially of those of the Up-Country, is doubtless generally correct; but there were some in the upper part of the State who were as honorable and high-minded men as any who stood out in the Low-Country -indeed if not as true men as any of those who espoused the other side. Nothing has
1 Ramsay's Revolution in So. Ca., vol. II, 275-276.
549
IN THE REVOLUTION
ever been alleged as dishonorable of Robert or Patrick Cun- ingham or of Fletchall, Robinson, or Pearis. It is to be feared indeed that the first of these had stronger cause of complaint against the conduct of the Whigs to himself than he had ever afforded to them. Nor can we be blind to the fact that the British officers charged great atrocities, upon the part of men calling themselves Whigs, charges which are, at least in some measure, sustained by the corre- spondence of our own officers, Colonel Wade Hampton writing, as we have seen, that after the army left the neigh- borhood of Friday's Ferry for the High Hills of Santee almost every person who remained in the settlement after the army marched seems to have been combined in com- mitting robberies the most base and inhuman that ever dis- graced mankind ; and another officer declaring that the practice of plunder continued to such a degree that the poor inhabitants trembled the moment a party of men appeared in sight.1 The truth no doubt is that while gen- erally, as the war went on, the better classes of the people sided more and more with the Revolutionists, and the lower and worst with the British, mutual injuries led to revenge, and plunder was indulged in, if not recognized as a mode of legitimate warfare. It has already been pointed out in these pages how much the system of maintaining the State troops, adopted from necessity by Sumter and after- wards approved and carried out by General Greene, Gov- ernor Rutledge, and the General Assembly, encouraged this ruinous practice.
As, however, the military forces recovered possession of the State, Governor Rutledge, with such of his council as he could gather around him, proceeded to reestablish civil government, and to put a stop to lawlessness ; but this, in the condition of affairs, was but slow and gradual work.
1 Johnson's Life of Greene, vol. II, 186-187.
$
550
HISTORY OF SOUTH CAROLINA
The better to accomplish it, as General Greene moved down to the Low-Country at the end of the year, Governor Rutledge called a new Assembly, to meet at Jackson- borough in January.
When the year 1781 began, the British had possession of almost the entire State. General Greene, with his small Continental army, was but just across the North Carolina line at Cheraw. Morgan, it is true, was at Grindall's Shoals on the Pacolet, threatening Ninety Six, and Marion from Snow Island was pushing his scouting parties towards Charlestown and Georgetown; but the British authority, supported by British arms, was everywhere paramount. When the year ended British rule was practically confined to Charlestown and its immediate vicinity.
During the year sixty-two battles, great and small, had been fought in the State. If we include the days spent in the sieges of Fort Watson, Fort Motte, and Ninety Six, there had been fighting by organized and commissioned forces 100 days in the 365. In the disturbed and dis- organized condition of affairs the reports of the strength of the forces, of the killed, wounded, and prisoners lost on either side, are very defective, and in many cases, especially in the affairs under Sumter and Marion which took place during the absence of Greene, are entirely wanting. The following table has been compiled from such accounts as still exist. The engagements marked in roman letters were those in which Continental troops took part. Those in italics were fought by South Carolina partisan bands without any assistance.
AMERICAN
BRITISH
ENGAGEMENTS
DATE
KILLED AND WOUNDED
PRISONERS LOST
TOTAL
KILLED AND WOUNDED
PRISONERS LOST
TOTAL
1781
January 16 January 19 January
72
72
184
600 29
784 29
Many British and Tories killed and wounded.
Georgetown
January 24 January 24
3
3
Many British and Tories killed and wounded.
Wadboo
¿No account of losses { on either side.
Monck's Corner
January
¿No account of losses { on either side.
Halfway Swamp
February
No account of losses " on either side.
Fort Granby
February 19
§ No account of losses ₹ on either side.
February 23 February 27 March 2
18
18
March 6
18
March
20
March
March
March
March
22
2
March
March
18
34
42
76
26
26
April 9
April 8
4
7
April 8
2
1
3
8
2
10
April 13
00 8
8
120
120
IN THE REVOLUTION
551
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
Cowpens De Peyster's Capture
Sampit Road
8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26
Fort Watson
April 15-23
91
91
Thomson's Plantation Wright's Bluff Mud Lick Lynch's Creek Wiboo Swamp Mount Hope Black River Sampit Bridge Snow Island
13
66
79
Witherspoon's Ferry Dutchman's Creek Beattie's Mill Four Holes Waxhaws Church Barton's Post Pocotaligo Road Fort Balfour
March 24 April 7
3
27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34
Wiggins's Hill Horner's Corner Hammond's Mill Hobkirk's Hill Friday's Ferry
April April April April 25
18
1
19
28
132
136
268
38
220
258
May 1
May 1
May 10
90
90
35
May 8-12
150
150
36 37 38
Granby Beach Island Fort Galphin
May 21
1
10
11
4
126
130
40 41
Mydelton's Ambuscade Ninety Six
May 21-June 19
185
27
38
65
42 43
Eggleston's Capture Horse Shoe
July 8
1
14
15
44
Quarter House
July 15
1
1
50
51
Wadboo
July 16
60
45
100
145
Washington's Raid
July
8
August
18
20
80
100
Charlestown Road
August 31
8
17
25
September 9
509
8
517
417
247
664
Vince's Fort
October 25
28
28
Hays's Station
November
16
6
6
November .
November
November 27
80
80
R. Hampton's Surprise
November
11
11
Dorchester
December 1
80
Dorchester
December 29
7
8
15
Total
840
195
1405
800
2596
3526
552
HISTORY OF SOUTH CAROLINA
S British company cap- ¿ tured. S Post taken with pris- ¿ oners.
Bush River Camden Evacuation Orangeburgh
May 11
Fort Motte
May 15
340
340
May 15
6
6
39
Georgetown
June 5
June
40
July 8
45
45
45 46 47 48 49
Quinby Bridge
July 16
50
50
August 1
Cuningham's Raid Forks of Edisto Parker's Ferry
August 31
50 51 52 53 54 55 56
Cloud's Creek
November 7
16
Gowen's Fort Moore's Surprise Fair Lawn
57 58 59 60 61 62
Stevens's Creek Eutaw
September 5
553
IN THE REVOLUTION
From this table it appears that of the sixty-two engage- ments during the year the State forces, volunteer and enlisted, fought forty-five without any assistance whatever, Continental or other. One, the battle of Hobkirk's Hill, was fought by the Continental army without the assistance of any South Carolina troops. The other sixteen were fought by the combined Continentals and State troops. There was one very marked difference between the engage- ments by the partisan bands in this year from those of the preceding. In 1780 the South Carolina volunteers had had the constant and vigorous assistance of similar bodies from North Carolina, sometimes from Georgia, and in one instance, that of King's Mountain, from Virginia. But Davie had unfortunately been taken from the field by General Greene for staff duty, and his splendid little corps disbanded. Davidson had been killed at Cowan's Ford early in the year, and the other leaders of that State, Mc- Dowell, Shelby, and Sevier, had remained inactive now that the war was transferred again to South Carolina. The two latter, it is true, had, at General Greene's earnest ap- peal, come for a while; but refused to remain, and had abandoned him at a most critical moment without having fired a gun. Colonel Clarke with his band of Georgians had taken an active part with General Pickens in the affair at Beattie's Mill and at the siege of Augusta, but his opera- tions for the rest of the year had been confined to his own State.
The returns of killed, wounded, and missing in several of these engagements are entirely wanting, and in other instances are to be found only for one side or the other. From those that have been preserved it appears that, during the absence of General Greene in North Carolina, in the engagements by Sumter and Marion, the Whigs inflicted a loss upon the British and Tories in killed, wounded, and
554
HISTORY OF SOUTH CAROLINA
prisoners taken, of 249, at a loss to themselves of 101. But these figures do not include the loss to the enemy at Sam- pit on the 19th of January, in which many British and Tories were wounded, nor at Wadboo and Monck's Corner, in which the Postells attacked the posts and carried off all the stores, presumably not without considerable loss to the enemy in men, nor at Fort Granby when first besieged by Sumter, nor at Wright's Bluff which he assaulted; nor in Marion's affairs, of Mount Hope, Black River, Sampit, and Witherspoon's Ferry, though in these Marion so worsted the British that he drove them from the Santee into George- town. The statistics of these affairs would add consider- ably to the list of casualties on both sides, but would not probably alter the proportion of nearly three to one in favor of the Americans. During the year the South Carolina partisan bands in their warfare had forty-five affairs, great and small, and had put hors de combat 825 of the enemy at a loss to themselves of 263. At Hobkirk's Hill, in the evacuation of Camden, Eggleston's capture, Washington's Raid, and in the affairs at Dorchester, in which none but Continentals were engaged, the losses were not so unequal, the British losing 388 and the Americans 283. In the eleven battles in which both Continentals and State troops took part the British lost 2268; and the Americans, 859. The aggregate loss of the British in South Carolina during the year was 3526, and of the Americans, 1405.
The surrender of Lord Cornwallis at Yorktown in October had practically decided the war; but the fighting was not yet over in South Carolina. In 1782 much more blood was to be uselessly shed.
CHAPTER XXIV
1781-1782
ON the 23d of November, 1781, Governor Rutledge wrote letters to the brigadier-generals, sending them writs for the election of members of the Senate and House of Rep- resentatives. He requested these officers to insert in each writ sent them respectively the names of three such per- sons as were deemed proper to manage the elections. The writs so prepared, he directed, should be forwarded by careful hands to the persons therein named. His instruc- tions were that where an election could not be held in the parish or district for which members were to be chosen, it should be held at a point nearest to it, where the greatest number of persons entitled to vote could meet with safety and convenience. The brigadiers were to advise the man- agers whom they appointed as to the selection of polling places.1 " Cassius," in the pamphlet before alluded to, asserts that these writs of election were accompanied with printed instructions to the returning officers not to admit any person to vote but such as obeyed the governor's proc- lamation ; and that the returning officers had also further orders to choose particular men whom he named, and ac- cording to such nomination they were chosen. There is no allusion to any such instructions in the letters to Sum- ter and Marion which are preserved. But all accounts agree that it was ordered by the governor and council
1 Gibbes's Documentary Hist. (1781-82), 214 ; Sumter MSS.
555
556
HISTORY OF SOUTH CAROLINA
that at the election only such votes should be received as were offered by persons who had not taken protection, or, who having done so, had, notwithstanding, rejoined their countrymen under Governor Rutledge's proclamation of the 27th of September, 1781. Other persons, though resi- dents, were not considered as freemen of the State, or entitled to the full privilege of citizenship.1
As the governor's proclamation, says Johnson, precluded all persons from voting who had taken protection, it will readily be conjectured of what material the body elected would be composed. It was not strictly, he observes, an assembly of armed barons, but there were few, if any, whose swords had not been girt to their thighs in the common cause.2 The exchange of prisoners had liberated the exiles, and those confined on the prison ships, the influence of whose character had too long been lost to the State. These were now returning, ready to assist with their counsel in repairing the desolation of war. From all quarters, says Lee, were flocking home our unfortunate, maltreated prisoners. The old and the young, the rich and the poor, were hastening to their native soil, burying their particular griefs in the joy universally felt in conse- quence of the liberation of their country. They found their houses burnt, their plantations laid waste, and the rich rewards of a life of industry and economy dissipated. Without money, without credit, with debilitated constitu- tions, with scars and aches, this brave, patriotic group gloried in the adversity they had experienced because the price of their personal liberty and of national inde- pendence. They had lost their wealth, they had lost their health, and had lost the props of their declining years in
1 Ramsay's Revolution in So. Ca., vol. II, 334; Moultrie's Memoirs, vol. II, 304.
2 Johnson's Life of Greene, vol. II, 282.
557
IN THE REVOLUTION
the field of battle; but they had established the indepen- dence of their country.1
The Assembly about to convene was composed almost entirely of two classes: Prisoners, - the exiles to St. Augustine and those confined on the prison ships, -and officers of the Continental army, State troops, and militia. Among those who were returned from the parishes of St. Philip and St. Michael's, Charlestown, the senators were Arthur Middleton, the signer of the Declaration of Inde- pendence, an exile to St. Augustine, and Colonel Isaac Motte, who had been second in command at Fort Moultrie on the 28th of June, 1776. As representatives there were Thomas Heyward, Jr., and Edward Rutledge, the other two living signers of the Declaration; Henry Laurens, just released from the Tower in London, and Colonel John Laurens, his son; Hugh Rutledge; John Neuf- ville, the chairman, it will be recollected, of the general committee of the non-importers in 1769; Major Thomas Grimball, who commanded the Charlestown Battalion of Artillery during the siege of the city; Dr. David Ramsay, the future historian, and other exiles, with Major Thomas Pinckney and Colonel James Postell. The senator from Christ Church was Colonel Arnoldus Vander- horst, and Major John Vanderhorst a representative, two of Marion's officers. Marion himself was senator from St. John's, Berkeley. From St. Andrew's, John Rutledge, the governor ; Richard Hutson, Benjamin Cattell, exiles, and Major Peter Bocquet were among the representatives. From St. George's, Dorchester, Dr. David Oliphant, the surgeon-general, was elected as senator; General Isaac Huger, General William Moultrie, Colonel Charles Cotes- worth Pinckney, John Mathews, the member of Congress, and Edward Blake, an exile, representatives. St. James's,
1 Memoirs of the War of 1776, 450.
- ľ
558
HISTORY OF SOUTH CAROLINA
Goose Creek, chose as representatives Ralph Izard, who had been one of the American envoys abroad, and who was now serving as a volunteer in the army, and William Johnson and George Flagg, two exiles. From St. Thomas and St. Denis's, Major Isaac Harleston was senator. From St. Paul's, Joseph Bee, an exile, was senator, and Thomas Bee, formerly lieutenant-governor ; Thomas Fer- guson and Morton Wilkinson, exiles, were representatives. From St. Bartholomew's, Major Edmund Hyrne, aide-de- camp to General Greene, who had so admirably managed the exchange of prisoners on the American side, was elected a representative. From St. Helena, Major Pierce Butler 1 and Thomas Heyward, Sr., were elected. Prince George's, Winyaw, elected a strong delegation, includ- ing Colonel Hugh Horry as senator, General Christopher Gadsden, Colonel Peter Horry, Major William Benison, and Captain Thomas Mitchell. Captain William Alston, and Nathaniel Dwight, whose house Watson had burned, were the representatives from All Saints. From Prince Fred- erick's there were Colonel John Baxter, who had been so severely wounded at Quinby ; Major John James, Captain William McCottry, Captain John McCauley, and Colonel James Postell, all Marion's men. Among the represen- tatives from St. Peter's was Colonel William Stafford. The senator from Prince William's was Colonel William
1 This gentleman had been major in the Twenty-ninth Regiment, British army, and was engaged as such in the Boston Riots, the 5th of March, 1770. He had been with his regiment in South Carolina previ- ously. He subsequently returned and married Miss Mary Middleton, daughter of Colonel Thomas Middleton (who had commanded the South Carolina Regiment in the Cherokee expedition in 1761), espoused the American cause, resigned his commission in the British army, and served in the American. He and Ralph Izard were the two first United States senators from South Carolina. (See So. Ca. Gazette, April 20, 1769 ; So. Ca. and Am. Gen. Gazette, Jan. 14, 1771 ; Johnson's Traditions, 470.)
559
IN THE REVOLUTION
Harden. From the district to the eastward of the Wateree - that is, the Camden district - General Sumter was chosen senator, and among the ten representatives were James Bradley, with the marks of iron still on his wrists, where they had remained since Tarleton's brutal treatment; Joseph Kershaw, just released and returned from Bermuda, where he had been exiled with his brother Ely, who had died on the voyage of typhus dysentery taken in the prison ships ; Colonel Richard Richardson; and Major John James, who had been returned also from Prince Frederick's. From Ninety Six the senator was John Lewis Gervais, the member of the council who had gone out with Governor Rutledge from Charlestown before its capitulation, and had succeeded in keeping out of the reach of the enemy, remaining steadfast to the cause while the two other councillors who had gone with them had returned to their plantations and taken protection. General Pickens, Colonel Robert Anderson, Colonel Le Roy Hammond, Major Hugh Middleton, Patrick Calhoun, John Ewing Colhoun, and Arthur Simkins, whose house the Tories had burned, were representatives. 1 Colonels Wade Hampton and Richard Hampton were representatives from Saxe Gotha. From the upper district between the Broad and Saluda, that is, what is now Spar- anburg County, the representatives were General William Henderson, Colonel Thomas Brandon, one of the heroes of It, of vi- King's Mountain, Samuel McJunkin, father of the famous Whig partisan, Joseph McJunkin, and Colonel John Thomas, Jr., the hero of Cedar Springs. Colonel Thomas ith che red tes So. Taylor was senator from the district between the Broad nd the Catawba, and among the representatives were Colonel James Lyles, Colonel Edward Lacey, and Colonel Richard Winn. Colonel William Hill, whose iron works vere destroyed by Huck, and who had served so gallantly
560
HISTORY OF SOUTH CAROLINA
under Sumter and at King's Mountain, was a representa- tive from the New Acquisition (York). Colonel William Thomson, who had repulsed the British under Sir Henry Clinton when attempting to cross from Long Island to Sullivan's Island on the memorable 28th of June, 1776,
was senator from St. Matthew's and Orange. Major Thomas, who had captured the party on the Pee Dee in Sep- tember, 1780, was a representative from St. David's Parish.1
As already stated, Governor Rutledge had first intended to have called this Assembly to meet at Camden, but the capture of Governor Burke and his council in North Carolina had warned him of the danger of assembling the body at a place beyond the immediate protection of the army. General Greene, upon his excursion to Dor- chester, finding the country between the Edisto and Ashley possessed of sufficient military advantages to admit of his covering Jacksonborough, warmly pressed the governor and council to convene the legislature at that place - a strong consideration, doubtless, also was that so many of the Assembly were officers of the army it would have been impracticable to have formed a quorum except in its immediate vicinity. Jacksonborough was a small village on the west bank of the Edisto, where the river is known by the name of Pon Pon. ' It consisted of the court- house, jail, and two or three small houses, and was distant about thirty-five miles from Charlestown. An incidental advantage contemplated by the establishment of the seat of government at this place was the assertion of the com- plete recovery of the State.
The legislature convened, as called, on the 18th of January, 1782. By the constitution of 1778 its full mem- bership consisted of 28 senators and 174 representatives
1 For full list of members of the Jacksonborough legislature, see MS. journal of Josiah Smith, Jr., and Appendix A to this volume.
a
a e
h S A tr
th th ca
561
IN THE REVOLUTION
A quorum was constituted of 13 senators and 69 repre- sentatives. On the day appointed, 13 senators, just enough to organize the Senate, and 74 representatives, but a few more than was necessary to organize the House, appeared.1 It was indeed a notable assembly. True, some of its most distinguished members were absent, as, for instance, Henry Laurens, who, just released from the Tower, was still in London. So, too, several of the exiles were yet detained in Philadelphia, finding no means of returning, and some on the journey home had not yet arrived. Not all of the military officers could leave their posts at the same time ; nor could all elected provide for the sustenance and defence of their families in the distracted state of the country so as to allow them to attend. It was remarkable that, in the condition of affairs in the State, so large a number as that which appeared could be found to assemble. Those who did were all true and tried Whigs ; the qualifications of electors as prescribed in the proclama- tion precluded any other. Indeed, as already observed, it was charged that Governor Rutledge had himself selected and dictated who should be chosen. There appears to be, however, no evidence to support the assertion, nor could an election at this time and under the circumstances be expected to return men of any other character than those who now appeared. A more distinguished body of men had never before, and never after, met in the State of South Carolina, nor perhaps in any State in the Union. All the original leaders in the Revolution who had remained true to their principles, most of whom had endured impris- onment and exile in support of them, were there; and to these were added the new set of heroes who had taken up the cause when the first were overwhelmed in defeat and carried into captivity, and who had now recovered the
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