From the Battle of Savannah to the Defeat of Gates
at Camden.
The failure of the combined forces of France and America before the
walls of Savannah, left the cause of the latter, in the South, in
much worse condition than before. The event served to depress the
Carolinians, and in the same degree, to elevate and encourage the enemy.
The allies withdrew to their ships, and, shortly after, from the coast.
General Lincoln, with the American army, retreated to the heights
of Ebenezer, and thence to Sheldon. Proceeding from this place to
Charleston, he left Marion in command of the army. On the thirty-first
of January, 1780, he writes to the latter as follows: "The state of
affairs is such as to make it necessary that we order our force to a
point as much and as soon as possible. No troops will be kept in the
field except two hundred Light Infantry and the Horse (Washington's).
You will therefore please to select from the three regiments with
you, two hundred of your best men, and those who are best clothed, and
organize them into corps, with proper officers. All the remainder, with
the baggage of the whole (saving such as is absolutely necessary for
light troops), will march immediately for this town. You will please
take command of the light infantry until Lieut. Col. Henderson arrives,
which I expect will be in a few days. After that, I wish to see you as
soon as possible in Charleston."
In the February following, Marion was dispatched to Bacon's Bridge on
Ashley river, where Moultrie had established a camp for the reception
of the militia of the neighborhood, as well as those which had been
summoned from the interior. It was to Marion that Lincoln chiefly looked
for the proper drilling of the militia. In his hands they lost the rude
and inefficient character, the inexpert and spiritless manner, which,
under ordinary commanders, always distinguish them. Feeling sure of
their Captain, he, in turn, rendered them confident of themselves.
Speaking of Marion's "PATIENCE with the militia"--a phrase of great
importance in this connection--Horry, in his own memoirs, which now
lie before us, adds, "No officer in the Union was better calculated
to command them, and to have done more than he did."* Lincoln knew his
value. The admirable training of the Second South Carolina Regiment had
already done high honor to his skill as a disciplinarian. He discovered
the secret which regularly bred military men are slow to discern, that,
without patience, in the training of citizen soldiers for immediate
service, they are incorrigible; and patience with them, on the part of
a commanding officer, is neither inconsistent with their claims nor with
their proper efficiency.
* MS. Memoir of Gen. Horry, p. 55.--
The accumulation of troops at Bacon's Bridge was made with the view to
the defence of Charleston, now threatened by the enemy. Many concurring
causes led to the leaguer of that city. Its conquest was desirable on
many accounts, and circumstances had already shown that this was not a
matter of serious difficulty. The invasion of Prevost the year before,
which had so nearly proved successful; the little resistance which had
been offered to him while traversing more than one hundred miles of
country contiguous to the Capital; and the rich spoils which, on his
retreat, had been borne off by his army, betrayed at once the wealth
and weakness of that region. The possession of Savannah, where British
Government had been regularly re-established, and the entire, if not
totally undisturbed control of Georgia, necessarily facilitated the
invasion of the sister province. South Carolina was now a frontier,
equally exposed to the British in Georgia, and the Tories of Florida
and North Carolina. The means of defence in her power were now far fewer
than when Prevost made his attempt on Charleston. The Southern army
was, in fact, totally broken up. The Carolina regiments had seen hard
service, guarding the frontier, and contending with the British in
Georgia. They were thinned by battle and sickness to a mere handful. The
Virginia and North Carolina regiments had melted away, as the term for
which they had enlisted, had expired. The Georgia regiment, captured
by the British in detail, were perishing in their floating prisons. The
weakness of the patriots necessarily increased the audacity, with the
strength, of their enemies. The loyalists, encouraged by the progress of
Prevost, and the notorious inefficiency of the Whigs, were now gathering
in formidable bodies, in various quarters, operating in desultory
bands, or crowding to swell the columns of the British army. All things
concurred to encourage the attempt of the enemy on Charleston. Its
possession, with that of Savannah, would not only enable them to
complete their ascendency in the two provinces to which these cities
belonged, but would probably give them North Carolina also. Virginia
then, becoming the frontier, it would be easy, with the cooperation
of an army ascending the Chesapeake, to traverse the entire South with
their legions, detaching it wholly from the federal compact. Such was
the British hope, and such their policy. There was yet another motive
for the siege of Charleston, considered without reference to collateral
or contingent events. Esteemed erroneously as a place of great
security--an error that arose in all probability from the simple fact
of the successful defence of Fort Moultrie--it was crowded with valuable
magazines. As a trading city, particularly while the commerce of the
North remained interrupted, it had become a place of great business. It
was a stronghold for privateers and their prizes, and always contained
stores and shipping of immense value.
The temptations to its conquest were sufficiently numerous. Ten
thousand choice troops, with a large and heavy train of artillery, were
accordingly dispatched from New York for its investment, which was
begun in February, 1780, and conducted by the Commander-in-Chief of
the British forces, Sir Henry Clinton, in person. He conducted his
approaches with a caution highly complimentary to the besieged. The
fortifications were only field works, and might have been overrun in
less than five days by an audacious enemy. The regular troops within the
city were not above two thousand men. The citizen militia increased the
number to nearly four thousand. For such an extent of lines as encircled
the place, the adequate force should not have been less than that of
the enemy. The fortifications, when the British first landed their
'materiel', were in a dilapidated and unfinished state, and, at that
time, the defenders, apart from the citizens, scarcely exceeded eight
hundred men; while the small pox, making its appearance within the
walls, for the first time for twenty years--an enemy much more dreaded
than the British,--effectually discouraged the country militia from
coming to the assistance of the citizens. Under these circumstances, the
conquest would have been easy to an active and energetic foe. But Sir
Henry does not seem to have been impatient for his laurels. He was
willing that they should mature gradually, and he sat down to a regular
and formal investment.
It was an error of the Carolinians, under such circumstances, to risk
the fortunes of the State, and the greater part of its regular military
strength, in a besieged town; a still greater to do so in defiance of
such difficulties as attended the defence. The policy which determined
the resolution was a concession to the citizens, in spite of all
military opinion. The city might have been yielded to the enemy, and the
State preserved, or, which was the same thing, the troops. The loss of
four thousand men from the ranks of active warfare, was the great and
substantial loss, the true source, in fact, of most of the miseries and
crimes by which the very bowels of the country were subsequently torn
and distracted.
It was the great good fortune of the State that Francis Marion was not
among those who fell into captivity in the fall of Charleston. He had
marched into the city from Dorchester, when his active services were
needed for its defence; but while the investment was in progress,
and before it had been fully completed, an event occurred to him, an
accident which was, no doubt, very much deplored at the time, by which
his services, lost for the present, were subsequently secured for the
country. Dining with a party of friends at a house in Tradd-street, the
host, with that mistaken hospitality which has too frequently changed
a virtue to a vice, turned the key upon his guests, to prevent escape,
till each individual should be gorged with wine. Though an amiable man,
Marion was a strictly temperate one. He was not disposed to submit to
this too common form of social tyranny; yet not willing to resent the
breach of propriety by converting the assembly into a bull-ring, he
adopted a middle course, which displayed equally the gentleness and
firmness of his temper. Opening a window, he coolly threw himself into
the street. He was unfortunate in the attempt; the apartment was on
the second story, the height considerable, and the adventure cost him
a broken ankle. The injury was a severe and shocking one, and, for the
time, totally unfitted him for service. He left the city in a litter,
while the passage to the country still remained open for retreat, in
obedience to an order of General Lincoln for the departure of all idle
mouths, "all supernumerary officers, and all officers unfit for duty."
Marion retired to his residence in St. John's parish. Here, suffering in
mind and body, he awaited with impatience the progress of events,
with which, however much he might sympathize, he could not share. His
humiliation at this unavoidable but melancholy inaction, may be imagined
from what we know of his habits and his patriotism.
The siege of Charleston, in consequence of the firm bearing of the
besieged, and the cautious policy of the British Government, was
protracted long after the works had been pronounced untenable. It was
yielded unwillingly to the conqueror, only after all resistance had
proved in vain. It fell by famine, rather than by the arms of the enemy.
The defence was highly honorable to the besieged. It lasted six
weeks, in which they had displayed equal courage and endurance. The
consequences of this misfortune leave it somewhat doubtful, whether
the determination to defend the city to the last extremity, was not the
result of a correct policy; considering less its own loss, and that
of the army, than the effect of the former upon the rustic population.
Certainly, the capture of the army was a vital misfortune to the
southern States; yet the loss of the city itself was of prodigious
effect upon the scattered settlements of the country. The character and
resolve of the capital cities, in those days, were very much the sources
of the moral strength of the interior. Sparsely settled, with unfrequent
opportunities of communion with one another, the minds of the forest
population turned naturally for their tone and direction to the capital
city. The active attrition of rival and conflicting minds, gives, in
all countries, to the population of a dense community, an intellectual
superiority over those who live remote, and feel none of the constant
moral strifes to which the citizen is subject. In South Carolina,
Charleston had been the seat of the original 'movement', had incurred
the first dangers, achieved the first victories, and, in all public
proceedings where action was desirable, had always led off in the van.
To preserve intact, and from overthrow, the seat of ancient authority
and opinion, was surely a policy neither selfish nor unwise. Perhaps,
after all, the grand error was, in not making the preparations for
defence adequate to the object. The resources of the State were small,
and these had been diminished wofully in succoring her neighbors, and
in small border strifes, which the borderers might have been taught
to manage for themselves. The military force of the State, under any
circumstances, could not have contended on equal terms with the ten
thousand well-appointed regulars of Sir Henry Clinton. The assistance
derived from Virginia and North Carolina was little more than nominal,
calculated rather to swell the triumph of the victor than to retard his
successes.
If the movements of the British were slow, and deficient in military
enterprise, where Sir Henry Clinton commanded in person, such could
not be said of them, after the conquest of Charleston was effected. The
commander-in-chief was succeeded by Earl Cornwallis, and his career was
certainly obnoxious to no such reproaches. We shall have more serious
charges to bring against him. Of the gross abuse of power, wanton
tyrannies, cruel murders, and most reckless disregard of decency
and right, by which the course of the British was subsequently
distinguished, we shall say no more than will suffice to show, in what
dangers, through what difficulties, and under what stimulating causes,
Francis Marion rose in arms, when everything appeared to be lost.
Charleston in possession of the enemy, they proceeded with wonderful
activity to use all means in their power, for exhausting the resources,
and breaking down the spirit of the country. Their maxim was that of
habitual tyranny--"might is right". They seemed to recognize no other
standard. The articles of capitulation, the laws of nations, private
treaty, the dictates of humanity and religion, were all equally set
at naught. The wealth of private families,--slaves by thousands,--were
hurried into the waists of British ships, as the legitimate spoils of
war. The latter found a market in the West India islands; the prisoners
made by the fall of Charleston were, in defiance of the articles of
capitulation, crowded into prison-ships, from whence they were only
released by death, or by yielding to those arguments of their keepers
which persuaded them to enlist in British regiments, to serve in other
countries. Many yielded to these arguments, with the simple hope of
escape from the horrors by which they were surrounded. When arts
and arguments failed to overcome the inflexibility of these wretched
prisoners, compulsion was resorted to, and hundreds were forced from
their country, shipped to Jamaica, and there made to serve in British
regiments.* Citizens of distinction, who, by their counsel or presence,
opposed their influence over the prisoners, or proved themselves
superior to their temptations, were torn from their homes without
warning, and incarcerated in their floating dungeons. Nothing was
forborne, in the shape of pitiless and pitiful persecution, to break the
spirits, subdue the strength, and mock and mortify the hopes, alike, of
citizen and captive.
* Moultrie's Memoirs, Vol. 2, 'Correspondence'.--
With those who kept the field the proceedings were more summary, if not
more severe. The fall of Charleston seems necessarily to have involved
the safety of the country from the Savannah to the Pedee. In a few weeks
after the capture of the city, the British were in peaceable possession
of the space between these limits, from the seaboard to the mountains.
They had few opponents--an isolated body of continentals, a small squad
of militia, for the first time drilling for future service, or a little
troop of horse--and these were quickly overcome. On these occasions the
British were generally led by Lieutenant-Colonel Tarleton. This officer
acquired for himself an odious distinction in his progress through the
South in the campaigns which followed. He was rather an active than a
skilful commander. Rapid in his movements, he gave little heed to the
judicious disposition of his troops, and aiming more at impressing the
fears of his enemy, than overcoming him by science, his chief successes
were the result of the panic which his surprises and his butcheries
inspired. He seems never to have been successful against an equal and
resolute foe. But, as courage and activity are, perhaps, after all,
and before all, the most necessary requisites for a soldier, Tarleton's
services were inappreciable to the invading army. In one month after its
arrival, his legion was mounted and began its career of slaughter. While
yet the city was sustaining the siege, he penetrated the country, in
pursuit of those bands of militia horse, which, by direction of the
American commander, still kept the open field. On the 18th of March,
he surprised a company of militia at Salkehatchie Bridge, killed and
wounded several and dispersed the rest. Five days after, another
party at Pon-Pon shared the same fortune. He was not so successful at
Rantowles on the 23d of the same month, where in a rencounter with Col.
Washington, his dragoons were roughly handled, and retreated with loss.
He avenged himself, however, on Washington, in less than a month after,
by surprising him at Monk's Corner. Col. White soon after took command
of the southern cavalry, and obtained some trifling successes, but
suffered himself to be surprised at Lenud's ferry on the Santee. These
events all took place prior to the surrender of the city. The activity
of Tarleton, with the general remissness, and want of ordinary military
precautions on the part of the militia which opposed itself to him, made
his progress easy, and thus enabled him to cut off every party that was
embodied in the field. He was now to succeed in a much more important
and much more bloody enterprise. A Continental force from Virginia
of four hundred men, under Col. Beaufort,* had been dispatched to the
relief of Charleston. Beaufort had reached Camden before he was apprised
of the surrender of that city. This event properly determined him to
retreat. Earl Cornwallis, meanwhile, had taken the field with a force of
twenty-five hundred men, and was then in rapid progress for the Santee.
Hearing of the advance of Beaufort, he dispatched Tarleton in quest of
him, with a select body of infantry and cavalry, in all, seven hundred
men. Beaufort was overtaken near the Waxhaw settlements, and summoned to
surrender. This person does not seem to have been designed by nature for
military operations. He halted at the summons, hesitated awhile, sent
his wagons ahead, consulted with his officers, and did little or
nothing farther, either for flight or conflict. While thus halting and
hesitating he was attacked by the impetuous Tarleton, offered a feeble
resistance, unmarked by conduct or spirit, suffered the enemy to gain
his rear, and finally grounded his arms. He either did this too soon or
too late. His flag was disregarded in the flush of battle, the bearer
of it cut down by the hand of Tarleton, and the British infantry, with
fixed bayonets, rushed upon the inactive Americans. Some of Beaufort's
men, seeing that their application for quarter was disregarded, resolved
to die like men, and resumed their arms. Their renewed fire provoked the
massacre of the unresisting. A terrible butchery followed. The British
gave no quarter. From that day, "Tarleton's Quarters", implying the
merciless cutting down of the suppliant, grew into a proverbial phrase,
which, in the hour of victory, seemed to embitter the hostility with
which the American strove to avenge his slaughtered comrades.
* Generally given as Buford in other documents. Simms also
states "the Warsaw settlements" in the original text, but
Waxhaw is correct. According to local tradition, the mother
of Andrew Jackson, the future president, was one of those
who aided the survivors. Jackson himself later served, at
the age of 13, in Davie's cavalry, as a messenger, and was
the only member of his family to survive the war.
--A. L., 1996.--
The defeat of Beaufort, with the only regular force remaining in the
State, following so close upon the fall of Charleston, paralyzed
the hopes of the patriots. The country seemed everywhere subdued. An
unnatural and painful apathy dispirited opposition. The presence of a
British force, sufficient to overawe the neighborhood, at conspicuous
points, and the awakened activity of the Tories in all quarters, no
longer restrained by the presence in arms of their more patriotic
countrymen, seemed to settle the question of supremacy. There was not
only no head against the enemy, but the State, on a sudden, appeared to
have been deprived of all her distinguished men. Moultrie and others who
might have led, were prisoners of war. Governor Rutledge, a noble spirit
and famous orator--the Patrick Henry of Carolina,--had withdrawn to the
North State, to stimulate the energies of the people in that quarter and
gain recruits. His example was followed by Sumter, Horry and others,--by
all, in fact, who, escaping captivity, were in condition to fly. The
progress of Cornwallis and Tarleton left mere distinction, unsupported
by men, with few places of security. Marion, meanwhile, incapable of
present flight, was compelled to take refuge in the swamp and forest.
He was too conspicuous a person, had made too great a figure in previous
campaigns, and his military talents were too well known and too highly
esteemed, not to render him an object of some anxiety as well to friends
as foes. Still suffering from the hurts received in Charleston, with
bloody and malignant enemies all around him, his safety depended on his
secrecy and obscurity alone. Fortunately he had "won golden opinions
from all sorts of people." He had friends among all classes, who did
not permit themselves to sleep while he was in danger. Their activity
supplied the loss of his own. They watched while he slept. They assisted
his feebleness. In the moment of alarm, he was sped from house to house,
from tree to thicket, from the thicket to the swamp. His "hair-breadth
'scapes" under these frequent exigencies, were, no doubt, among the most
interesting adventures of his life, furnishing rare material, could they
be procured, for the poet and romancer. Unhappily, while the chronicles
show the frequent emergency which attended his painful condition, they
furnish nothing more. We are without details. The melancholy baldness
and coldness with which they narrate events upon which one would like to
linger is absolutely humbling to the imagination; which, kindled by the
simple historical outline, looks in vain for the satisfaction of
those doubts and inquiries, those hopes and fears, which the provoking
narrative inspires only to defraud. How would some old inquisitive
Froissart have dragged by frequent inquiry from contemporaneous
lips, the particular fact, the whole adventure, step by step, item by
item,--the close pursuit, the narrow escape,--and all the long train of
little, but efficient circumstances, by which the story would have been
made unique, with all its rich and numerous details! These, the reader
must supply from his own resources of imagination. He must conjecture
for himself the casual warning brought to the silent thicket, by the
devoted friend, the constant woman, or the humble slave; the midnight
bay of the watch dog or the whistle of the scout; or the sudden shot,
from friend or foe, by which the fugitive is counselled to hurry to
his den. A thousand events arise to the imagination as likely to have
occurred to our partisan, in his hours of feebleness and danger, from
the rapid cavalry of Tarleton, or the close and keen pursuit of the
revengeful Tories. To what slight circumstances has he been indebted
for his frequent escape! What humble agents have been commissioned by
Providence to save a life, that was destined to be so precious to his
country's liberties!
How long he remained in this situation is not exactly known,--probably
several months. As soon as he was able to mount his horse, he collected
a few friends, and set out for North Carolina. A Continental force was
on its way from Virginia under Baron De Kalb. His purpose was to
join it. It was while on this route, and with this object, that he
encountered his old friend and long tried associate in arms, Col. P.
Horry.*
* There were two Horrys, brothers, both of whom were very
brave and distinguished adherents of our partisan. Peter
Horry held a captain's commission in the same regiment with
Marion, at the battle of Fort Moultrie. Hugh Horry was the
particular favorite of his General. A life of Marion,
purporting to be in part by the former, but really composed
entirely by the Rev. M. L. Weems, from facts furnished by
Horry, is already well known to the public. A MS. life of
Peter Horry is now before me, and has furnished me with
several illustrations of the war, during this narrative.
Both of these brothers served under Marion, to the close of
the war, with equal courage and fidelity.--
Horry describes his ankle, at this meeting, as still "very crazy"--so
much so that it required his help and that of Marion's servant to lift
him from his horse. But his spirits were good. He was still cheerful,
and possessed that rare elasticity of character which never loses its
tone under privations and disappointments. Weems, who, we are compelled
to admit, very frequently exercised the privilege of the ancient
historian, of putting fine speeches into the mouth of his hero, tells us
that he jeered at the doleful expressions of his companion, Horry, who,
discussing the condition of the country, lamented that their "happy days
were all gone." "Our happy days all gone, indeed!" answered Marion--"on
the contrary, they are yet to come. The victory is still sure. The
enemy, it is true, have all the trumps, and if they had but the spirit
to play a generous game, they would certainly ruin us. But they have
no idea of that game. They will treat the people cruelly, and that one
thing will ruin them and save the country." Weems, speaking for
Horry, describes in ludicrous terms, their journey through North
Carolina,--through a region swarming with Tories, but, fortunately for
our travellers, who were venomous without being active. Our fugitives
were without money and without credit, and "but for carrying a knife,
or a horse fleam, or a gun-flint, had no more use for a pocket than a
Highlander has for a knee-buckle. As to hard money we had not seen a
dollar for years." In this resourceless condition--a condition, which,
it may be well to say in this place, continued throughout the war, they
made their way with difficulty until they joined the Continental army.
Gates had superseded De Kalb in its command, and was pressing forward,
with the ambition, seemingly, of writing a dispatch like Caesar's,
announcing, in the same breath, the sight and conquest of his enemy.
Marion and his little troop of twenty men, made but a sorry figure in
the presence of the Continental General. Gates was a man of moderate
abilities, a vain man, of a swelling and ostentatious habit, whose
judgment was very apt to be affected by parade, and the external show of
things. Some of his leading opinions were calculated to show that he was
unfit for a commander in the South. For example, he thought little of
cavalry, which, in a plain country, sparsely settled, was among the
first essentials of success, as well in securing intelligence, as in
procuring supplies. It was not calculated therefore to raise the troop
of our partisan in his esteem, to discover that they were all good
riders and well mounted. Marion, himself, was a man equally modest in
approach and unimposing in person. His followers may have provoked the
sneer of the General, as it certainly moved the scorn and laughter of
his well-equipped Continentals. We have a description of them from the
pen of an excellent officer, the Adjutant General of Gates' army. He
says, "Col. Marion, a gentleman of South Carolina, had been with the
army a few days, attended by a very few followers, distinguished by
small leather caps, and the wretchedness of their attire; their number
did not exceed twenty men and boys, some white, some black, and all
mounted, but most of them miserably equipped; their appearance was in
fact so burlesque, that it was with much difficulty the diversion of the
regular soldiery was restrained by the officers; and the General
himself was glad of an opportunity of detaching Col. Marion, at his own
instance, towards the interior of South Carolina, with orders to watch
the motions of the enemy and furnish intelligence."*
* Narrative of the Campaign of 1780, by Col. Otho Williams.--
From such small and insignificant beginnings flow greatness and
great performances. We, who are in possession of all the subsequent
events--who see this proud, vain Commander, hurrying on with the
rapidity of madness to his own ruin--can but smile in the perusal
of such a narrative, not at the rags of Marion's men, but at the
undiscerning character of those who could see, in the mean equipment,
the imperfect clothing, the mixture of man and boy, and white and black,
anything but a noble patriotism, which, in such condition, was still
content to carry on a war against a powerful enemy. The very rags and
poverty of this little band, which was afterwards to become so famous,
were so many proofs of their integrity and virtue, and should have
inspired respect rather than ridicule. They were so many guarantees
of good service which they were able and prepared to render. It was in
defiance of the temptations and the power of the foe, that these men
had taken the field against him, and had Gates been a wise commander, he
would have seen even through their rags and destitution, the small but
steady light of patriotism; which, enkindled throughout the State by the
example of Marion, Sumter, and a few others, was to blaze out finally
into that perfect brightness before which the invader was to shrink
confounded.
Gates was wise enough to take counsel of Marion, if nothing more; and
even this might not have been done, but for the suggestions of Governor
Rutledge, who, at that time in the camp of the Continentals, might very
well have informed him of the value of the man whose followers inspired
only ridicule. It was with Marion that the plan was concerted, and not
improbably at his suggestion, for moving into the very heart of the
State. This, subsequently, was the policy of Greene, and had Gates
adopted the deliberate caution of that commander, his successes would
unquestionably have been the same. The object of such a movement was
to give an opportunity to the native patriots to rally--to compel the
British to concentrate their scattered forces, call in their detached
parties, and thus circumscribe their influence, within the State, to the
places where they still remained in force. To effect these objects, the
Fabian maxims of warfare should have been those of the American General.
Few of his militia had ever seen an enemy. He had but recently joined
his troops, knew nothing of them, and they as little of him. Their
march had been a fatiguing one. Time and training were necessary
pre-requisites for their improvement and his success. Unhappily, these
were the very agents with which the vanity of the unfortunate commander
made him most willing to dispense. The victory at Saratoga had spoiled
him for ever, and thinking too much of himself, he committed the next
great error of a military man, of thinking too lightly of his foe. It
would be idle and perhaps impertinent, to suggest that if Marion had
been suffered to remain with him, the issue of this march might have
been more fortunate. Gates was quite too vain-glorious to listen and
Marion quite too moderate to obtrude his opinions; and yet Marion was a
man of equal prudence and adroitness. He could insinuate advice, so
that it would appear to self-conceit the very creature of its own
conceptions. Had Marion remained, could Gates have listened, we are very
sure there would have been no such final, fatal disaster as suddenly
stopped the misdirected progress of the Continental army. There would
have been some redeeming circumstances to qualify the catastrophe. All
would not have been lost. At all events, with Marion at their head, the
militia would have fought awhile,--would have discharged their pieces,
once, twice, thrice, before they fled. They would have done for the
born-leader of militia, what they refused to do for a commander who
neither knew how to esteem, nor how to conduct them.
It was while Marion was in the camp of Gates, that a messenger from
the Whigs of Williamsburg, then newly risen in arms, summoned him to be
their leader. It was in consequence of this invitation, and not
because of the awkwardness of his position there, that he determined to
penetrate into South Carolina, in advance of the American army. Such an
invitation was not to be neglected. Marion well knew its importance, and
at once accepted the commission conferred upon him by Governor Rutledge.
He took leave of Gates accordingly, having received, as is reported,
certain instructions from that unhappy commander, to employ his men in
the destruction of all the scows, boats, ferry-flats and barges on
the route, by which the enemy might make his escape. The fancy of the
American General already beheld the army of Lord Cornwallis in full
flight. His great solicitude seems to have been how to secure his
captives. He had, strangely enough for a military man, never taken
counsel of the farm-yard proverb, which we need not here repeat for the
benefit of the reader.* With the departure of Marion, his better genius
left him,--the only man, who, in command of the militia, might have
saved him from destruction. Leaving our partisan, with his little squad,
to make his way cautiously through a country infested with Tories, we
follow for the present the progress of the Continental army. On the
night of the fifteenth of August, 1780, the Americans moved from
Rugely's Mills. At midnight, without dreaming of an enemy, they
encountered him. The first intelligence communicated to either army of
the presence of the other, was from the fire of the British advance upon
the Americans. The two armies recoiled and lay upon their arms the
rest of the night. So far the affair was indecisive. The Americans had
sustained themselves in the face of some disadvantages, chiefly the
result of their leader's imprudence. A night march of raw militia in
the face of a foe, and in column of battle, was itself an error which a
sagacious commander would never have made. It is not to be denied, that
the Americans were not satisfied with their situation. Some of their
officers openly declared their discontent. But it was too late for a
retrograde movement, nor is it likely, feeling as he did and sanguine as
he was, that Gates would have believed any such movement necessary. The
ground was equally unknown to both commanders; but Cornwallis had one
advantage: he was in the command of veterans, who are generally cool
enough in such situations to look about them, and make the most of their
exigencies. The American line was soon formed and in waiting for the
dawn and the enemy. The first Maryland division, including the Delawares
under De Kalb, was posted on the right; the Virginia militia under
Stevens on the left; the North Carolinians, led by Caswell in the
centre; and the artillery, in battery, upon the road. Both wings rested
on morasses, and the second Maryland brigade was posted as a reserve, a
few hundred yards in the rear of the first. The British formed a single
line, with each wing covered and supported by a body in reserve. They
were much less numerous than the Americans, but they were picked men,
the choice of the regiments in Charleston and Camden. The American
militia, of which the greater part of Gates' army consisted, had
never felt an enemy's fire. The Maryland and Delaware troops were good
soldiers, well trained and in confidence of their leaders. With the
break of day, and the advance of the American left, the action began.
This division of the army consisted of Virginia militia under Stevens.
Handled with unexpected severity by the British fire, they yielded
before it and fled in panic, many of them without even discharging their
pieces. The wretched example was followed by the North Carolina militia,
with the exception of a single corps, commanded by Major Dixon. The
cavalry under Armand, a foreign adventurer, broke at nearly the same
moment; and a charge of the British cavalry, happily timed, put an
end to all hope of rallying the terror-stricken fugitives. The devoted
Continentals alone kept their ground and bore the brunt of the action.
They were led by the veteran De Kalb--the Commander-in-Chief having
hurried from the field in a vain attempt to bring the militia back. The
artillery was lost, the cavalry dispersed;--the regulars, numbering but
nine hundred men, were required to bear the undivided pressure of two
thousand of the best troops in the British service. With the example
before them, the desertion of their General, and their own perfect
isolation, they would have been justified by the necessity of the case,
in instant flight. But, as if the cowardice of their countrymen had
stung them into a determination to show, at all hazards, that they, at
least, were made of very different stuff, they not only resisted
the attack of the enemy, but carried the bayonet into his ranks. The
combatants rushed and reeled together with locked weapons. But this
struggle could not last. The conflict was prolonged only until the
British cavalry could return from pursuing the fugitives. Their sabres
gave the finishing stroke to the affair. De Kalb had fallen under eleven
wounds, and nothing remained, but flight, to save this gallant body
from the mortification of surrender on the field of battle. It was no
consolation to Gates, while fleeing to North Carolina, to be overtaken
by messengers from Sumter, announcing a gallant achievement of that
brave partisan, by which forty wagons of booty and nearly three hundred
prisoners had fallen into his hands. Such tidings only mocked his own
disaster. He could only, in reply, relate his own irretrievable defeat,
point to his fugitives, and counsel Sumter to immediate retreat from
his triumphant and now returning enemy. Unhappily, ignorant of Gates'
disaster, and of a bold, incautious temper, Sumter was approaching,
rather than hastening from, danger. His flight, when he did retire, was
not sufficiently rapid, nor sufficiently prudent. He was one of
those men who too quickly feel themselves secure. He was surprised by
Tarleton, but two days after, his troops utterly dispersed, he, too, a
fugitive like Gates, with all the fruits of his late victory taken from
his grasp. In almost every instance where the Americans suffered defeat,
the misfortune was due to a want of proper caution--an unobservance of
some of the simplest rules of military prudence. In a brilliant sortie,
a manful charge, a sudden onslaught, no troops could have surpassed
them--nay, we find as many examples of the sternest powers of human
endurance, under the severest trials of firmness, in their military
history, as in that of any other people. But to secure what they
had won--to be consistently firm--always on their guard and beyond
surprise,--were lessons which they were slow to acquire--which they
learned at last only under the heaviest penalties of blood. Marion was
one of the few Captains of American militia, that never suffered himself
to be taken napping.
* As farm-yards are becoming rare, it may benefit future
readers to know that this proverb is almost certainly,
"Don't count your chickens before they hatch."--A. L., 1996.--