USA > South Carolina > The history of South Carolina in the Revolution, 1780-1783 > Part 8
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In the account of the battle of Cowpens an allusion has been made to a difference which had arisen between Gen- eral Morgan and General Sumter. This difference, which was never reconciled between these two towering spirits, which was to have lasting and far-reaching consequences, arose from Morgan's assumed control of Sumter's men, without reference to him; and as this difference between the two involved the relation of the States to the Confed- eration, and was supposed to have been also the origin of the unfortunate relations which grew up between Sumter and Greene as well, it deserves more than a passing notice.
It will be recollected that, on the 6th of October, 1780, when there was not a Continental soldier in South Caro- lina, nor any south of Hillsboro in North Carolina, Gov- ernor Rutledge had appointed Sumter brigadier general, sending him full instructions and intrusting him with
VOL. IV. - F
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great powers. He was directed to embody all the militia he could collect, and to hold them in readiness to cooper- ate with the Continental troops when they should come, receiving orders for that purpose.1 Morgan had been made a brigadier general in the Continental army on the 13th of October, 1780,2 so that Sumter's commission ante- dated Morgan's. When Greene, upon conference with Sumter, decided to send a detachment to the west of the Catawba, he appointed Morgan to that command, inform- ing him that he would be joined there by the militia of North Carolina, under the command of General Davidson, and by that lately under the command of General Sumter. "For the present," wrote Greene to Morgan, "I give you the entire command in that quarter, and do hereby require all officers and soldiers engaged in the American cause to be subject to your orders and command." Under this appointment, Morgan, as has been seen, had been sent to that region, and commenced operations threatening Ninety Six. A part of Greene's instructions to Morgan was to collect provisions and forage out of the way of the enemy, " which you will have formed," he wrote, "into a number of small magazines in the rear of the position you may think proper to take."3 Under these instructions Morgan reports to Greene on the 15th of January, from his camp at Burr's Mill on Thicketty Creek, among other things, as follows : 4-
"Sensible of the importance of having magazines of forage and provisions established in the country, I have left no means in my power unessayed to effect the business. I despatched Captain Chitty
1 Hist. of So. Ca. in the Revolution, 1775-80 (McCrady), 813.
2 Moultrie's Memoirs, vol. II, 146 ; Historical Register (Heitman), 11.
" Johnson's Life of Greene, vol. II, 347 ; collection of T. Bailey Myers of New York, News and Courier, Charleston, S.C., May 10, 1881.
+ Johnson's Life of Greene, vol. I, 370 ; collection of T. Bailey Myers of New York, News and Courier, Charleston, S.C., May 10, 1881.
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(whom I have appointed as commissary of purchases for my com- mand), with orders to collect and store all the provisions that could be obtained between the Catawba and Broad rivers. I gave him directions to call on Colonel Hill, who commands a regiment of militia, to furnish him with a proper number of men to assist him in the execution of this commission, but he, to my great surprise, has just returned without effecting anything. He tells me his failure proceeds from the want of countenance and assistance of Colonel Hill, who assured him that General Sumter directed him to obey no orders from me unless they came through him."
Upon receiving this complaint of Morgan, Greene, on the 19th of January, wrote to Sumter : 1 ___
"I imagine there must be some misapprehension about the matter, for I cannot suppose you could give an improper order, or that you have the most distant wish to embarrass the public affairs. It is certainly right that all orders should go through the principal to their dependents as well for the preservation of good government as to inspire a proper respect. This is a general rule, and should never be deviated from but in cases of necessity or when the difficulty of conveying an order through the principal will be attended with a fatal delay. In that case the order should be directed to the branches and not to the principal, and as the head is subject to the order the branches are, of course, for it would be very extraordinary if a cap- tain should presume to dispute an order from his general because it was not communicated through his colonel. At the same time that the right is indisputable, it should always be avoided but in case of absolute necessity."
General Greene then continues, assuring Sumter of Mor- gan's high regard for his character, and that if there had been interference contrary to the general principles which should govern military affairs, it must have happened through inadvertence, or from a persuasion that Sumter had not intended to exercise command during the time of his indisposition. Greene dismisses this subject in his let- ter, which is a very long one, with this appeal to Sumter's magnanimity, ending, as usual, with a moral lecture: -
1 Sumter MSS., Year Book, City of Charleston, 1899, 79.
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" If anything in his [Morgan's] conduct has had the appearance of indelicacy or neglect, I hope you will not suffer it to bias your conduct from that line which has given you might and influence among your countrymen. It is the mark of a great mind to rise superior to little injuries, and our object should be the good of our country and not personal glory." 1
If Sumter had given such a general order to Colonel Hill, about which, however, Greene expresses a doubt, he certainly erred in doing so, for occasions might arise in which it would be not only proper, but necessary, that in- termediate commanders should be for the immediate pur- pose overlooked, and the order extended directly to the subordinate officer in the absence of his immediate com- mander. But, on the other hand, nothing but pressing necessity would justify such a deviation from the general rule requiring all orders to be transmitted through the regular channels; and this case seems to have presented no such occasion for its violation. It is easy to understand
1 Sumter MSS. Greene writes in a similar strain to Morgan : "I am surprised that General Sumter should give such an order as you mention to Colonel Hill, nor can I persuade myself but that there must be some mistake in the matter, for though it is the most military to convey orders through the principal to the dependents, as well from propriety as respect, yet this may not always be convenient or even practicable, and therefore to give a positive order not to obey was repugnant to reason and common sense. As the head was subject to your orders, consequently the dependents also. I will write General Sumter on the subject, but as it is better to conciliate than to aggravate matters where everything depends so much on voluntary principles, I wish you to take no notice of the matter but endeavor to influence his conduct to give you all the aid in his power. Write him frequently and consult with him freely. He is a man of great pride and considerable merit and should not be neglected. If he has given such an order, I persuade myself he will see the impropriety of the matter and correct it in future, unless personal glory is more the object than public good, which I cannot suppose is the case with him or any other man who fights in the cause of liberty." - Collection of T. Bailey Myers of New York, News and Courier, Charleston, S.C., May 10, 1881.
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with what indignation Sumter, with his own imperious temper, received this lecture on his conduct and patriotism in a matter in which he considered himself to have been the injured party. He appears to have complained to Gov- ernor Rutledge upon the subject, for his Excellency, in a letter without other date but that of "Sunday night, nine o'clock," but which bears intrinsic evidence of having been written on Sunday the 21st,1 and which was sent by a mes- senger from Greene to Sumter, who was now carrying the letter from which we have just quoted, writes : -
"Gen'l Greene and you understand the matter with respect to you not having any command at present in a very different way - as I perceived on speaking to him a few days ago on that point. However I presume he has explained himself to you respecting it. I am sorry to hear that you mend so slowly and that the enemy are plotting to take you, but I hope you will escape all their endeavors and be able soon to take the field and render further important ser- vices to the country."
This letter, after giving Sumter the latest information from Congress, thus concludes : -
"I shall be glad that you continue to give Gen'l Greene and myself the earliest intelligence of any material movements of the enemy or any accurate information, reporting any which app: material & you will give out orders to the militia in your Brigade not already in the field with Gen'l Morgan as you conceive the good of the service renders most expedient." 2
Johnson, whose devotion to the reputation of Greene does not allow him to see any justification in the conduct of those who in any way crossed his views or plans, thus severely comments upon Sumter's conduct in this matter :
1 The Governor mentions in this letter information derived from a person who had left Camden " last Wednesday," that Leslie was there on that day. This fixes the Wednesday mentioned as the 17th of January, 1781. Leslie crossed to join Cornwallis on the 18th.
2 Sumter MSS., Year Book, City of Charleston, 1889, Appendix.
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"It is not easy to assign a satisfactory or even plausible reason for Colonel Sumpter's interference on that occasion to prevent his officers from executing the commands of General Morgan. The commander of the Southern De- partment was not only the supreme military governor of the country, but Colonel Sumpter was at that time actually out of the State and still confined by his wounds. Colonel Sumpter, it seems, complained of some interference of Mor- gan with his commands, but in what instances or to what effect we are not informed. But supposing it to have ex- isted, still the authority of General Greene was sufficient to sanction it, and although Colonel Sumpter might have had cause to complain, nothing could justify him in un- dertaking to resist the execution of an order from the com- mander of the Southern Department." 1
This criticism is scarcely in accord with the high judicial character of the author. He admits that he was not in- formed as to the cause of Sumter's complaint, but proceeds to condemn Sumter upon the supposed sanction by Greene of Morgan's conduct, which he assumes was sufficient. It will be observed that the Judge speaks of Sumter as " Colonel," when the fact is that Sumter was himself a Gen- eral, with a commission antedating that of Morgan, with whose command he is condemned for interfering. The
explanation, therefore, that Mr. Justice Johnson gives in a note,2 i.e., that Morgan had been made a general to obviate the inconvenience of his being ranked by State officers into whose districts he was sent, will not hold. Indeed, it is conclusive against Morgan's assumed superiority of rank, for it presupposes that unless his grade was higher than the State officers with whom he came in contact, he would be subject to their command. The Constitution of the United States gives specifically to Congress the power of organiz-
1 Johnson's Life of Greene, vol. I, 410. 2 Ibid., 412.
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ing, arming, and disciplining the militia of the States, and governing such part of them as may be employed in the service of the United States ; 1 and under this specific power Congress has by statute provided that militia officers, when employed in conjunction with the regular or volunteer forces of the United States, shall take rank next after offi- cers of like grade in the regular service.2 But this pro- vision is a statutory one under the present Constitution ; without it militia officers holding senior commissions would rank and command regular officers of like grade. And this was the case of Sumter; his commission from Gov- ernor Rutledge as brigadier general antedated Morgan's commission of the same grade from Congress. There was nothing in the Articles of Confederation which gave power to the Continental Congress to govern the militia of the States. 3 General Sumter was only subject to Greene's orders as directed by Governor Rutledge; and it will be observed that Governor Rutledge had not put him under Morgan's command. The governor's directions were that he should cooperate with the Continental troops, and give orders to the militia in his brigade, not already in the field with Morgan, as he (Sumter) conceived the good of the
1 Art. 8, Sec. 8, Subdiv. 15.
2 Articles of War, 124; Revised Statutes U. S., 241.
8 In 1776, when General Charles Lee undertook, it will be remembered, to direct the militia of the State without reference to the Governor, his right to do so was at once questioned, and though to avoid then any conflict of authority in the emergency, John Rutledge as President had put the command of the militia under Lee, when that officer intimated his purpose of abandoning Fort Moultrie Rutledge promptly intervened, resumed his authority, and wrote to Moultrie, "General Lee wishes you to abandon the fort. You will not without a written order from me. I would rather cut off my hand than write one." - Hist. of So. Ca. in the Revolution, 1775-80, 140, 144. And again, in 1779, upon the invasion of Charlestown, his Excellency again exhibited his jealousy of the control of Continental officers over his militia. - Ibid, 358, 359.
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service rendered most expedient. Morgan had, therefore, no right to be giving orders to Sumter himself, still less to Sumter's officers without Sumter's knowledge. But sup- posing he had the right to command Sumter, his conduct in other matters was clearly irregular and unjustified.1
General Greene, in his letter to Sumter, states very correctly the military rule that all orders to subordinates should go through intermediate commanders, and that the rule ought not to be deviated from but in case of neces- sity ; but, strange to say, he does not attempt to explain to Sumter wherein lay the propriety of the application of the exception in this case. Assuming Morgan's right, by virtue of the Continental commission, to command Sumter, whose commission, of equal grade, antedated his own, Greene writes to Sumter, upon Morgan's complaint, that Morgan was an exceedingly good officer, who perfectly understood his duty and had the highest respect for his (Sumter's) character. But that did not meet the question, even admitting Morgan's right to command. The truth was that Morgan's order to Colonel Hill did not come within the rule as stated by Greene himself. The order was not one issued in an emergency, when the difficulty of extending it through the regular channels would be
1 If General Sumter had really given such an order his precedent was followed by distinguished generals. The following extract is given from an order of General Andrew Jackson : -
" HEADQUARTERS DIVISION OF THE SOUTH, NASHVILLE. " April 22, 1817.
"The Commanding General considers it due to the principles which ought and must exist in an army to prohibit obedience of any order emanating from the Department of War to officers of this division . .. unless coming through him as the proper organ of communication. The object of this is to prevent the recurrences," etc.
General Zachary Taylor is said also to have denounced such violation of military usage. - Two Wars, an autobiography (S. G. French), 160.
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attended with inconvenience or delay. It was an adminis- trative order of a permanent character - an order directing Colonel Hill, one of Sumter's partisan leaders, to detail a number of men to assist Morgan's commissary in collecting supplies, an order detailing men from Sumter's command, without his approval or knowledge. The impropriety of the order will be still further understood when it is recollected that neither Sumter nor Hill had any men permanently in the field from which to make such details, nor was there really any militia under their command. A militia presupposes an existing established government under which citizens are organized and called into the field. It cannot exist where there is no government to regulate or support it. There was no such government in South Carolina. Nearly all the original leaders of the Revolutionary party, including, with the exception of Gov- ernor Rutledge himself, all the State officials, were either in exile at St. Augustine or confined in the prison ships in Charlestown harbor. Dictatorial powers had been intrusted to Governor Rutledge and such of his council as he could convene; but he was not even in the State. Wisely and properly, he remained just beyond its border, under the protection of Greene's small army; for, had he been cap- tured, there would not have remained a nucleus upon which to reorganize a government when the State should be redeemed. Sumter's men were volunteers, and nothing more. There was no government to call and compel their attendance, as there was none to support them while in the field or on duty. Under Sumter's call they would leave their families, and on their own horses would join him, with provisions of their own supplying for the immedi- ate occasion. But it was the immediate occasion only for which they could remain in the field. As soon as that was over, whether for good or evil, victory or defeat, they
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must return to their farms to provide for their families. It was from these people that Morgan had ordered Colonel Hill to furnish him with a detail to assist his commissary to gather forage and provisions, - not for immediate use, but to be stored away in magazines in his rear, It was to Sumter himself that Governor Rutledge had intrusted the power and authority to call out the militia, as the partisan bands were called. Whatever questions, if any, might arise when in the field, as to the right of a Con- tinental officer to supersede the authority of a State officer of equal rank, there was no power given, nor could there be any given, to Continental officers to draft citizens into the service ; nor would such an order have been tolerated in any of the States.
General Greene's explanation to Sumter of Morgan's conduct, that it had happened through inadvertence, or from a persuasion that Sumter did not mean to exercise command during the time of his indisposition, could scarcely have been expected to have satisfied the offended general, in view of the fact that Greene himself was in constant correspondence and communication with him, as was also Governor Rutledge, and that communications to Morgan himself were passing through Sumter's hands ; that during this very time, though he was still suffering from his wound, Greene was relying upon him for intelli- gence as to the enemy's movements, and treating him in all respects as if in actual command. Even supposing that this was a proper occasion on which orders might be sent to a subordinate directly, military rule required that the intermediate commander should at once have been notified, and a copy of such an order sent him; and as both Greene and Morgan were in communication with Sumter, there was not the slightest excuse for Morgan's conduct.1
1 See U. S. Army Regulations, sec. 650.
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It is true that, however Sumter might justly have com- plained of Morgan's interfering with his command, and issuing orders to his officers without even notice to him, he had no right to refuse to obey an order properly issued because of his disapproval of its policy. Nor is it charged that he did so; but, further to complicate the matter, the order to Hill was one upon a subject of great delicacy. How was this forage and these provisions, which Hill was ordered to detail men to gather and guard, to be obtained ? Greene was absolutely without money to purchase them, and the provisions thus to be taken and stored away in magazines were to be impressed; that is, taken by force from the people of a section already harried by the march- ing and countermarching, pillaging and plundering, of both the contending armies. We have seen how Washing- ton, the year before, while Greene was his quartermaster, hesitated to resort to such measures in New Jersey, though desperately pressed for supplies, and that every such attempt was resented in the Northern States.1 It was to furnish men for this purpose that Hill was called upon by Morgan. And this, too, when it was known that Sumter disapproved of the whole scheme from a military point of view.
In this opinion Sumter was undoubtedly right, as sub- sequent events fully proved. The folly of establishing magazines of supply in a country in which there was no army to protect them was manifest to him. Greene had taken a position at Cheraw which, however excellent in his opinion, left the country towards the mountains entirely open and exposed. Morgan's small force was the only American body in that region, and that was utterly inadequate to do more than strike a blow and retreat. To collect supplies in his rear therefore - more
1 Hist. of So. Ca. in the Revolution, 1775-80 (McCrady), 841.
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than sufficient for immediate use - was simply to collect them for the enemy. And as it soon happened that this country was abandoned by Greene, supplies collected there would have fallen into the enemy's hands. It is curious to observe the inconsistencies of the justifications of Greene and Morgan in this matter. Judge Johnson first charges that the opposition of General Sumter to Morgan's collecting magazines in his rear, put an end to all hope of a rapid retreat to the mountains, after he should have given battle to Tarleton.1 And yet farther on he declares that Morgan was unjustly charged with an intention of crossing the mountains. He states that nothing was less consistent with the facts than the story which first made its appearance in Ramsay's History of the Revolution in South Carolina and was repeated by General Moultrie in his Memoirs ; that even from the battle-field . the route Morgan took led away from the mountains, and towards a point where he contemplated forming a junction with the main army.2 But if so, why then blame Sumter for objecting to establishing magazines of supplies on a route Morgan did not intend even to follow? Sumter and his men had been too long holding the country for the coming of the great armies from the North, which never arrived, to be willing to strip his people of the few sup- plies they had to be stored in advance for such forces - stores which, collected, as he foresaw, must inevitably fall into the enemy's hands.
But beyond all this, and more far-reaching, was the radical misconception of Greene, to which he persistently clung throughout the campaign until Governor Rutledge's return to the State, and upon which almost all of his complaints against Sumter were based, in assuming that Sumter had a regular militia under his command which
1 Johnson's Life of Greene, vol. I, 371. 2 Ibid., 408.
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he could call out, and require to attend under adequate penalties, whenever he saw fit of himself or was called upon to do so.1 As we have before explained, and must again impress upon the reader, there was no civil govern- ment in South Carolina, during this time, and no militia; the militia, so called, were but the personal voluntary followers of Sumter, Marion, and their partisan officers, over whom they had no further control than that their own patriotism enjoined. There was, hence, nobody from whom Sumter or Hill could make details to guard stores.
Morgan and Sumter were no doubt alike imperious in their natures, and Sumter was unfitted to submit to the arrogant tone which Morgan assumed in regard to the men Sumter had led on so many hard-fought fields, still less so to Greene's lectures on patriotism and personal conduct. Very likely, from what he had himself seen, Sumter had no better opinion of the Continental troops sent to the South than Morgan affected to have had of his brave followers. But, however that may be, upon a review of the unfortunate controversy which led to the estrangement of the two principal officers in the coming campaign in South Carolina, Sumter is certainly not to bear the whole odium.
From his camp on Snow Island Marion had been carry- ing on successfully his raids upon the enemy's communi- cations with Charlestown, causing them to expend their forces in establishing a post at Nelson's Ferry, and in guarding every exposed point below the Santee. So serious were these inroads of Marion that Tarleton, it will be
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