USA > South Carolina > The history of South Carolina in the Revolution, 1780-1783 > Part 7
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50 | Part 51 | Part 52 | Part 53 | Part 54 | Part 55 | Part 56 | Part 57 | Part 58 | Part 59 | Part 60 | Part 61 | Part 62 | Part 63 | Part 64
magnanimously supported him in his defeat. In his Campaigns he lays blame on Cornwallis for many things which at the time he himself approved. Clinton-Cornwallis Controversy, vol. I, Introduction, 17.
1 Strictures on Tarleton's Campaigns, 108.
2 Hist. Am. War (Stedman), vol. II, 323, 324.
53
IN THE REVOLUTION
particulars of which he knew as soon as the British there, Governor Rutledge having sent in a person on some pre- tence with a flag, but in fact to inform the American prison- ers of the success, news which he at once communicated to the officers at Haddrell's Point. The defeat of Tarleton, he says, chagrined and disappointed the British officers and Tories in Charlestown exceedingly. He saw them standing in the streets, talking over the affair with very grave faces. Some of the old British officers who were made prisoners and paroled to Charlestown, when they came down, were exceedingly angry at their defeat and were heard to say, " That was the consequence of trusting such a command to a boy like Tarleton. " 1
Ramsay, the historian, glorying in this American victory, asserts that Tarleton's defeat was the first link in a grand chain of causes which finally drew down ruin both in North and South Carolina on the Royal interests.2 It is scarcely to be wondered at that an author who had collected so little information in regard to the operations of the partisan bands in South Carolina and the results thereby obtained as to hold that but little impression had been made by them on the British army in the State, that Huck's defeat at Williamson's (improperly spoken of by him as Williams's) plantation, and Hanging Rock were the only checks, and these nothing more than checks, which the British arms had received before the battle of King's Mountain,8 which battle in itself was nothing more, according to him, than an " unexpected advantage," which gave new spirits to the desponding Americans, who did not even know of the battle of Musgrove's Mills -it is scarcely to be wondered that such a one should regard the victory at Cowpens as the day-dawn of success upon the cause of liberty in these
1 Moultrie's Memoirs, vol. II, 256, 257.
2 Ramsay's Rev. of So. Ca., vol. II, 200.
Ibid., 174.
54
HISTORY OF SOUTH CAROLINA
States. It is surprising, however, that one so much better informed as the author of the life of Greene should have fallen into the same mistake, asserting it in almost the same words.1
The battle of Cowpens was much nearer the end of the chain of causes which led to the redemption of these States than to its beginning. The material results of the victory at Cowpens bear no comparison to those obtained by the series of partisan actions which culminated at King's Mountain, and which were enlarged and emphasized at Fishdam, Blackstock, and Hammond's Store. As has been shown in the preceding volume, the net results of these engagements had been three to one in favor of the Americans in killed, wounded, and prisoners, and had resulted in disconcerting a campaign in which the whole American cause was involved. The victory at King's Mountain had caused the abandonment of the invasion of North Carolina and Virginia at a time most favorable to the Royal cause. It had recalled Cornwallis to South Carolina just as he was about to commence a march which but for this cause might have ended in a junction between Leslie and himself in Virginia and their united advance upon Washington in the Jerseys, and this at a time while the British fleet had command of the American waters, blockading the French at Newport. It had delayed this grand movement for 1780. De Grasse had arrived in 1781, raised the blockade of Newport, released the French army, and Cornwallis's renewed invasion ended in surren- der. If a chain is to be drawn from the fall of Charles- town to the glorious end of the war, its first link will be found at Williamson's plantation, when Bratton and Lacey rose upon Huck, and its last at the capitulation at York- town.
1 Johnson's Life of Greene, vol. I, 377.
55
IN THE REVOLUTION
The material results of the battle of Cowpens were the destruction of the best regiment in the British service, the loss to it of some others of their best troops, and the end put to the terror of Tarleton. Had the Seventy-first Regi- ment been present at Guilford Court-house it would most assuredly have rendered efficient service. But Tarleton's discredit was by no means so serious an injury to his Maj- esty's cause as the death of Ferguson, who was an abler and a better man. Nor was it more so than the capture of Wemyss. It was a glorious victory - that achieved at Cowpens; but it had no decisive effect upon the opening campaign. Cornwallis, when joined by Leslie, notwith- standing it, marched as he had purposed.
Congress, says Lee, manifested their sense of this impor- tant victory by a resolve approving the conduct of the principal officers and commemorative of their distinguished exertions. To General Morgan they presented a gold medal, to Brigadier Pickens a sword, and to Lieutenant- Colonels Howard and Washington a silver medal each, and to Captain Triplett a sword.1
And well did these distinguished officers deserve these remembrances of their services. But Campbell for King's Mountain, and Sumter for Hanging Rock, Fishdam, and Blackstock, were let go with thanks. Neither Davie, nor Shelby, nor Sevier, nor Clarke, nor Lacey received even that compliment; nor was any notice taken of McCall, under whose influence it was that Pickens was again in the field to win and merit so distinguished a mark of his country- men's approbation.
1 Memoirs of the War of 1776 (Lee), 230.
CHAPTER III
1781
GENERAL SUMTER has been much censured by the bi- ographers of General Greene for a want of cordiality in the support of that commander during his campaign in South Carolina.1 How far this censure was deserved, the reader will be able to judge as the story proceeds. It is manifest, however, that General Greene, while in the out- set warm in his encomiums upon Sumter's character and influence, upon assuming command had not appreciated what had been accomplished by Sumter, Marion, and the other partisan leaders during the months in which the State had been practically abandoned by Congress; and that he
1 Great Commanders Series, General Greene (Francis Vinton Greene), 238, 248, 255, 265, 266 ; Johnson's Life of Greene, vol. II, 210, 216. The Hon. William Johnson, the biographer of Greene, was the son of William Johnson who took so active a part in the early movements of the Revolution. He was Speaker of the House of Representatives of South Carolina at the early age of twenty-six, a judge of the State at twenty-eight, and an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States at thirty-two. The author of this work, his grand nephew, regrets to find himself unable to concur generally with the views and judgments of his distinguished relative in regard to the great leaders, Greene and Sumter. Possibly had the judge the advantage which the author has enjoyed of having before him the Sumter manuscripts, the full corre- spondence between the two, and much that has come to light since he wrote, he might have modified some of his strictures upon Sumter and have been persuaded that his hero, General Greene, was not always in the right, nor Sumter so much in the wrong. Judge Johnson's work, notwithstanding his partiality for General Greene and hostility to Sumter, is, nevertheless, the fullest and best history of the War of the Revo- lution in South Carolina.
56
57
IN THE REVOLUTION
did not believe in the system of warfare which they had so successfully waged. It has been seen, too, with what dis- paragement and affected contempt Morgan was accustomed to speak of those who had alone achieved so much. An officer could not have held the views, concerning a part of his command, expressed by Morgan in his correspondence with Greene, and indeed maintained during the rest of his life, as shown in his attempted vindication of the choice of his battle-ground at Cowpens, without imparting that opin- ion to those whom it affected. Unfortunately, too, a clash of authority occurred between Morgan and Sumter in the very commencement of Greene's command, about which, though the latter wrote most kindly to Sumter in explana- tion, he failed to remove his just cause of complaint, or even to attempt to do so. Very probably there was a jeal- ousy on the part of the heroes of Hanging Rock, Musgrove's Mills, King's Mountain, and Blackstock of the command of Continental officers, who had brought with them neither men, arms, nor clothing, and who constituted themselves nearly all the reinforcements Congress had sent. Very probably these leaders conceived that, if the struggle was still to be carried on by their men, they knew best how to conduct the warfare. In all this they may have been mis- taken. Greene and Morgan may have been abler generals and more competent to direct their movements and carry on the war; but, if so, it all the more behooved these lead- ers to be careful not to offend the sensibilities of those who, having so long and so well fought without the aid of Con- gress, were now called upon in its name to yield obedience to those whom they did not know. Morgan came with great reputation. He had been at the siege of Boston, had served with Arnold upon his expedition to Quebec, and had been distinguished under Gates at Saratoga ; but, like Greene, he had never had an independent command.
58
HISTORY OF SOUTH CAROLINA
Greene had been sent by Washington at the solicitation of the delegates of the Southern States in Congress, but his reputation rested solely upon his being the choice of his Commander-in-chief. He had never, as we have before ob- served, commanded an army or served in the field anywhere but under the command of another. He had participated in no victory except the surprise of the Hessians at Tren- ton, in which he accompanied Washington.
The assumption, too, of military superiority by the Conti- nental officers, because of their being regulars, over the parti- san leaders had really but little substantial ground on which to rest. Few of them had any more military education than those upon whom they affected to look down. Like the partisan leaders, they had almost all been plain citizens until the Revolution broke out four years before ; nor had Charles Lee nor Gates, the professional soldiers, demonstrated their greater ability in the field. It might have been a different matter had these Continental officers brought with them a body of regular soldiers sufficient to cope openly in the field with the British regiments of the line and the well- trained provincials - American Tories - from the North which constituted Cornwallis's command. But this they had not done. They had come only themselves, without a following, to command those who had already achieved no mean successes without their leadership. It was not un- natural therefore that Sumter, who had begun his military career in the French War, had served under Braddock in 1755, while Greene was but a boy, and under Richardson in 1775, in the "Snow Campaign," who had himself been a Continental officer, and who had already seen so much service in this war, should be somewhat restive under the control and criticism of those really less experienced than himself. But he exhibited no such spirit to Greene upon his arrival ; nor do we think it can be discovered afterwards.
59
IN THE REVOLUTION
General Greene brought with him to his new command an unfortunate habit. He was a voluminous writer and a moralizer. His pen was as busy as his sword. His literary style was certainly not based upon Cæsar's Commentaries, which we are told he had studied to prepare himself for the war. He wrote, not military reports,- clear and succinct accounts of the battles which he fought, and of the situa- tion and condition of his army, - but long personal letters, going into personal details, and criticism and discussions, usually of complaint. Such were his letters to Washington, to Lafayette, and to Governor Reed of Pennsylvania, to each of whom he poured out his troubles, explaining after each battle how through the fault of others it had not resulted in a brilliant victory. Such also was the character of his communications to his subordinates ; and indeed to these latter there was withal an assumption and tone of supe- riority and patronage which must have been galling to men who were his seniors in years and of greater military experi- ence. Nor did he restrict himself in this style of address to his subordinates ; he could not divest himself of it even when addressing the General Assembly of the State. To a remon- strance of the legislature against the unjust imposition upon South Carolina of the support of the cavalry of the Conti- nental army, at the end of the war, he returned, says his biographer, "a truly parental answer " 1 -a parentalanswer, forsooth, to the Rutledges, Gadsden, and the Pinckneys. It is difficult, indeed, to understand how General Greene found the time amidst his pressing duties to conduct the immense correspondence he carried on during his campaigns.
On the 3d of December, Governor Rutledge, then at Char- lotte, wrote, telling Sumter of the arrival of General Greene, and requesting him to come there as soon as his health and the weather would permit, for he was still suffering from
1 Johnson's Life of Greene, vol. II, 392.
60
HISTORY OF SOUTH CAROLINA
the wound received at Blackstock. 1 This summons Sum- ter at once obeyed ; and it also appears that upon this con- ference he urged an immediate attack upon Cornwallis ; for on the 12th Greene wrote to him: "I proposed to Generals Smallwood and Morgan the attack upon Lord Cornwallis. They are both pointedly against it, as im- practicable. I am not altogether of their opinion, and there- fore wish you to keep up a communication of intelligence, and of any changes of their disposition that may take place." In this letter Greene informed Sumter of his purpose to change his position. 2 On the 15th Greene again wrote to him : " Governor Rutledge shew [ed] me a couple of notes which you sent him, wherein you express a desire to have a detachment made from this army on the other side of the Catawba. The measure you wish I have been preparing for ever since I was with you and shall have the troops in readiness in a day or two at farthest." 3 But while both Governor Rutledge and General Greene were in constant correspondence with Sumter, as if he were in actual com- mand, as he really was, 4 his wound still prevented his per- sonally taking the field. On the 8th of January, Greene writes to him, from his camp on the Pee Dee whither Greene had moved, this remarkable letter:
"I am impatient to hear of your recovery, and of seeing you again at the head of the militia. General Morgan has gone over to the west side of the Catawba, agreeable to what I wrote you before I
1 Sumter MSS., in the possession of Miss Brownfield, General Sumter's granddaughter, in Summerville, S.C., published in the Year Book, City of Charleston, 1899 (Smyth), Appendix, 71. The correspondence between Greene and Sumter, thus published, we regret to observe, is very inaccu- rately edited.
2 Sumter MSS., Year Book, City of Charleston, 1899, Appendix, 73.
3 Letter, Sumter MSS., ibid., 73.
4 See letters of Governor Rutledge of date December 16 - 20, 21, 25, Sumter MSS., Year Book, City of Charleston, 1889, Appendix.
61
IN THE REVOLUTION
left Charlotte. But I expect he will have but few men from your brigade, until you are in a condition to appear at the head of them. Your influence in bringing them out is not only necessary but the means you have of obtaining intelligence is not less important. I lament exceedingly your wounds confining you so much longer than I was flattered with, from appearance at the time I was with you, and I esteem it no less unfortunate for the public than myself. If General Morgan don't meet with any misfortune until you are ready to join him I shall be happy as your knowledge of the country and the people will afford him great security against a surprise." 1
Breaking the thread of this flattering communication, General Greene proceeds to pronounce this treatise upon military operations in general :-
" When I was with you your soul was full of enterprise. The salvation of this country don't depend upon little strokes, nor should the great business of establishing a permanent army be neglected to perform them. Partisan strokes in war are like the garnish of a table. They give splendor to the army, and reputation to the officer, but they afford no substantial national security. They are . . . 2 should not be neglected . . . 2, they should not be preserved to the prej- udice of more important concerns. You may strike a hundred strokes and reap little benefit from them unless you have a good army to take advantage of your success. The enemy will never relinquish their plan nor the people be firm in our favor, until they behold a better barrier in this field than a volunteer militia, who are one day out, and the next at home.3
1 Sumter MSS., Year Book, City of Charleston, 1899, Appendix, 73, 75.
2 Illegible from mutilations in the original.
3 The British critics of the war at the time took a very different view of these affairs from that here' expressed by Greene. "Most of these actions," it was said, " would in other wars be considered but as skirmishes of little account and scarcely worthy of a detailed narrative. But these small affairs are as capable as any of displaying military conduct. The operations of war being spread over that vast continent by the new plan that was adopted, it is by such skirmishes that the fate of America must necessarily be decided. They are therefore as important as battles in which a thousand men are drawn up on each side."- Annual Register for 1781, vol. XXIV, 83. "Too mean an opinion of the American prow- ess seems to have prejudiced the Commander-in-chief (Sir Henry Clin-
62
HISTORY OF SOUTH CAROLINA
" There is no mortal man more fond of enterprise than myself, but this is not the basis on which the fate of this country depends. It is not a war of posts but a contest of States dependent upon opinion.1 If we can introduce into the field a greater army than the enemy, all their posts will fall of themselves, and without this they will reestablish them, though we should take them twenty times. Nevertheless, I would always hazard an attack when the misfortune cannot be so great to us as it may be to the enemy. Plunder and depredation prevails so in every quarter I am not a little apprehen- sive all this country will be laid waste. Most people appear to be in pursuit of private gain or personal glory. I persuade myself, though you may set a just value upon reputation, your soul is filled with a more noble ambition."
There was some general truth, of course, in all this. But why should Greene have taken this occasion to remind Sumter of these elementary principles of warfare ? " When I was with you your soul was full of enterprise " is the text upon which this discouraging letter is written. " The salvation of this country don't depend upon little strokes, nor should the great business of establishing a permanent army be neglected to perform them." Why write this to Sumter, who, still suffering from his ton). Thus he speaks of 'a small body of ill-armed peasants full as spiritless as the militia of the Southern provinces.' But Lord Cornwallis, who knows more of the provinces, aptly replies, 'The list of British offi- cers and soldiers killed and wounded by them since last June proves but too fatally that they are not wholly contemptible.'"- Clinton-Cornwallis Controversy, vol. I, xii.
1 And yet, strange to say, it was to be the boast of one of General Greene's biographers, claiming for him the results of Sumter's, Marion's, and Lee's achievements, accomplished with scarcely his sanction, that " by the unparalleled success of this war of posts the American leader was doubly benefited. He weakened his adversary by the prisoners he made, and strengthened himself by constant accessions to his scanty stock of ammunition and stores. This was one mode in which he created his own resources, compelling the enemy to furnish him with materials for the sub- sistence of his troops and their own annoyance. By no other plan could he possibly have maintained himself in South Carolina." -Cald well's Life of Greene, 258-259.
63
IN THE REVOLUTION
wounds, was planning such enterprises against the enemy as his limited means admitted? What had Sumter to do with the great business of establishing a permanent army ? If Washington and Greene had found Congress deaf to all their arguments in favor of such an army, why, by repeating them to him, harass Sumter, who was doing all he could to supply the omission of that body ? Why discourage him by saying that he might strike a hundred strokes and reap little benefit unless he had a good army to take advantage of his success? If it was true that the enemy would never relinquish their plan, nor the people be firm in favor of liberty, until they beheld a better barrier in the field than a volunteer militia, why remind Sumter of the fact, when Greene had himself brought no army to his assistance ? This long and carefully prepared and studied letter must have been written for a definite purpose. It must have been de- signed to influence Sumter's conduct in some way. Its purpose could not have been to have persuaded Sumter to raise an army; for Sumter was, at least, as powerless to do so as Washington himself. The only effect which the letter could produce was to dissuade Sumter from striking any more partisan blows. Again, why write all this to Sumter, who had urged the gathering of all their forces at this time and making a grand attack upon Cornwallis himself ? It was Smallwood and Morgan - Continental generals - who had opposed the scheme of a general battle, as the Continental officers did again, as we shall see, when a most favorable opportunity pre- sented itself for a telling blow.
There was doubtless, we say, some abstract truth in this letter of General Greene ; but was it true that at present the war was not one of outposts ? If so, and if, as was also true, Congress could or would provide no grand armies to
64
HISTORY OF SOUTH CAROLINA
fight great battles, then there could be no war at all -- at least in the Southern Department. This letter was writ- ten either in ignorance of what had taken place in South Carolina during the last six months, or in want of appre- ciation and disparagement of the great results which had been accomplished. The war of outposts had been so successfully waged in South Carolina, as has been shown, as to disconcert the grand plans of the enemy, affecting their movements not only in the South, but in the North as well. By this war of outposts the partisan leaders here had broken up the grand ministerial plan of the British campaign, had saved Virginia for the time from invasion, and prevented Leslie's movements in concert with Corn- wallis. The war of outposts had required Leslie's army to be diverted to supply the losses inflicted by these volun- teer soldiers upon the British forces.
But it is needless further to discuss this letter of Greene's, which his own course repudiated. In writing to Sumter that he had been preparing ever since he was with him to send a force to the other side of the Catawba, as if to assure Sumter that he was not acting upon his advice in the matter, he was careful to observe that this was a part of a plan he had had in contemplation ever since he had come to the ground. Sending Morgan to threaten Ninety Six, then, was not upon Sumter's suggestion, he was careful to assert, but upon his own. But what was the movement of Morgan's but a threat of an attack upon that outpost ? a threat emphasized at Williams's plantation where Wash- ington dispersed Cuningham's party. We shall next see Greene sending Colonel Lee with his Legion, as soon as it arrives, to join Marion in an attack upon Georgetown. So that within ten days he had two affairs of outposts fought under his own orders.
The misfortune of the letter of General Greene's was
65
IN THE REVOLUTION
that it failed to recognize the great work which had been done by the volunteer bands in South Carolina, and seemed intended purposely to belittle its results. If Sumter was at all to act upon it, he must disband his parties and cease from any further enterprises.
The letter concludes, however, with a passage which shows that Greene was not ignorant of the great difference between the men whom Sumter led and the ordinary militia. He writes: -
"I tell you in confidence - I am in distress- my fears increase respecting subsistence ; and if the State of North Carolina continues to bring out such shoals of useless militia, as they have done in the last season, it will be impossible to subsist an army in this country. Ten of the militia drawn out in classes are not worth one of your men, whose all depend upon their own bravery. What gives safety to one, brings on ruin to the other. If your militia don't fight, their families are exposed. If the others run away, their persons are safe."
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.