The pen of the historian is not always as impartial as it should be. It
has its spites and prejudices; and it frequently happens that the men
who wield the pen with which history is written, have their whims,
their likes, and their dislikes. It is certain that two of the hardest
fighters in the War for Independence--two of the most distinguished
officers that Georgia gave to the cause--have had tardy justice done
to their valor. The names of these men are General James Jackson and
General Elijah Clarke. The independence and the individuality of these
men stand clearly out in all the records that we have of them, and it
is no doubt true that these qualities made them to some degree unpopular
with those who inspired the early chroniclers of the Revolution in the
South. Neither of these officers was capable of currying favor with his
superiors, or of doing injustice to the humblest of his comrades. They
were not seekers after the bubble reputation, but had their minds and
all their energies bent on liberating Georgia and her sister Colonies.
General James Jackson was born in the county of Devon, England. He
came to this country in 1772, landing at Savannah penniless and almost
friendless. He began the study of law; but when the Liberty Boys began
their movement for resisting British oppression, he placed his books
on their shelves, and gave himself entirely to the cause of the people.
When only nineteen years old, he was one of the volunteers that fired
the British armed vessels sent to attack Savannah by water, while Major
Maitland and Major Grant attacked it by land. The crews of these vessels
were compelled to escape without their clothes and arms. General Jackson
served in the lower part of Georgia until the fall of Savannah in 1778,
when he and his friend John Milledge made their way to the patriot
troops, commanded by General Moultrie. Such was the condition of these
men, both of whom afterwards became governors of Georgia, that they
were compelled to make the greater part of their journey barefoot and in
rags. Their appearance was so much against them that they were arrested
as spies by some American soldiers, and would have been hanged but for
the timely arrival of a gentleman who knew them.
General Jackson was at the siege of Savannah, and, after the disastrous
result of that affair, returned to South Carolina. The victory of the
Americans at Blackstock's House, in South Carolina, was almost wholly
due to the Georgians who were there. Sumter commanded at the beginning
of the action, but a severe wound compelled him to retire from the
field. The command then devolved upon the oldest Georgia officer,
General John Twiggs, who was assisted by Jackson, Clarke, and Chandler.
In this engagement Tarleton, the famous leader of the British dragoons,
was defeated for the first time, and he was never able to recover the
prestige he had lost. Tarleton fled from the field, and Jackson was
ordered to pursue him. It was owing only to the fleetness of his horse
that Tarleton escaped.
[Illustration: General James Jackson 093]
At the battle of The Cow-pens, Jackson again distinguished himself.
"Major Jackson," says General Andrew Pickens, "by his example, and firm,
active conduct, did much to animate the soldiers and insure the success
of the day. He ran the utmost risk of his life in seizing the colors of
the 71st British Regiment, and afterwards introducing Major Mc-Arthur,
commanding officer of the British Infantry, as a prisoner of war to
General Morgan." His services brought him to the attention of General
Greene, and he was sent on a tour of difficult duty through North
Carolina. He was so successful in this, that the commanding general
authorized him to raise a partisan legion of infantry and cavalry for
service in Georgia. By means of his native eloquence, which was said
to be almost irresistible, he succeeded in raising the legion in a very
short time. Wherever he addressed the people, there were loud cries of
"Liberty and Jackson forever!" When his legion had been organized, he
was appointed lieutenant colonel. His dragoons were clothed and armed by
themselves, with the exception of their pistols. Their coats were made
of dressed deerskins, and faced with the little blue that could be
procured.
Just before the siege of Augusta, Jackson was called upon to employ
his eloquence in preventing the militia from giving up in despair
and returning to their homes. These men were utterly worn out. Being
ignorant men, they could see no ray of hope. They lacked every necessary
of life. Jackson roused their drooping spirits, restored their hopes,
and revived their old-time enthusiasm. At the siege of Augusta these men
fought fiercely. Jackson himself led one of the advance parties. After
the surrender of the town, he was ordered to level the fortifications,
and he was appointed commandant. He was afterwards ordered to take
position midway between Augusta and Savannah. While he held this
position, a conspiracy was formed in the infantry to kill him in
his bed. A soldier named Davis, who waited in the commander's tent,
suspected that something was wrong. So he mingled among the men, and
applied many harsh epithets to Jackson. Thinking to make Davis useful to
them, the conspirators told him their plans, which he made haste to lay
before his superior officer. Shortly afterwards the infantry were drawn
up in line, and the ringleaders in the conspiracy arrested, tried, and
executed.
After the war the Legislature gave Davis a horse, saddle, and bridle,
and five hundred acres of land, as a reward for his fidelity.
Jackson was with General Wayne in his Georgia campaign, and was
intrusted by him with many hazardous duties. When Savannah surrendered,
General Wayne issued an order in which he said, "Lieutenant Colonel
Jackson, in consideration of his severe and fatiguing service in the
advance, is to receive the key of Savannah, and is allowed to enter the
western gate."
In 1786, Jackson was made brigadier general, and had command of the
forces operating against the Indians. Between 1788 and 1806 General
Jackson held almost every high office within the gift of the people of
the State,--member of the Legislature, governor when only thirty-one
years old, member of the first Congress held under the Federal
Constitution, member of the State Constitutional Convention,
presidential elector, and United States senator.
With General Jackson in many of his engagements was General Elijah
Clarke, who in many respects was the most remarkable soldier
that Georgia contributed to the War for Independence. With fairer
opportunities than he had, he would have made a great commander. He had
small knowledge of tactics, but he had what is better,--the skill to
take advantage of quickly passing events, and the coolness that made him
complete master of all his resources. He was a man of the most striking
characteristics, and he came out of the war with many bitter enemies
among those with whom he came in contact. This feeling was perpetuated
by the political campaigns in which his son, John Clarke, took part
after the war. A trace of this is to be seen in the sketch which
Governor Gilmer gives to Elijah Clarke in his curious book entitled
"Georgians." It is undoubtedly true that Elijah Clarke was ignorant of
what is called book knowledge, but he was not much worse off in this
respect than the famous Confederate General Forrest, who is thought by
some high military critics to have been the most remarkable commander
on the Southern side in the civil war. Elijah Clarke, as well as General
Forrest, had something that served them a better turn than a mere
knowledge of books. They had a thorough knowledge of men, and a quick
eye for the situations that follow each other so rapidly in a skirmish
or battle.
[Illustration: Elijah Clarke 097]
Elijah Clarke was born in North Carolina, but moved to Georgia in 1774.
He was among the first of the inhabitants of Upper Georgia to take
up the cause of American independence; and his example, for he was a
notable man even in private life, did much to solidify and strengthen
those who leaned to that cause. When the British troops marched from the
coast into Upper Georgia, Elijah thought the time had come to take
his gun from the rack over the door, and make at least some show of
resistance. His courage, and the firmness and decision of his character,
made him the natural leader of those of his neighbors whose sympathies
were with the Liberty Boys in other parts of the State, and he soon
found himself a commander without commission or title. He cared less
for these things than for the principles of liberty for which he was
fighting.
For a while Elijah Clarke and his followers fought as partisan rangers,
but he soon drew around him a compact and disciplined body of men who
were ready to go wherever he might lead them. He did not confine his
efforts to his new neighborhood We hear of him with Howe's ill-fated
expedition against East Florida, where, at Alligator Creek, he was asked
to perform the impossible feat of storming with a troop of horse a camp
intrenched behind logs and brushwood. He was no doubt amazed at the
stupidity of General Howe in issuing such an order, but he attempted to
carry it out with his usual courage. He did succeed in floundering over
the logs with his troops, but he came to a ditch that was too wide for
his horses to leap, and too deep to be ridden through. At this moment he
and his men were saluted with a heavy fire from the enemy, and they were
compelled to retire in confusion. In this attempt Elijah Clarke was shot
through the thigh. Later he was in South Carolina, at Blackstocks, and
at The Cowpens.
In some quarters an effort has been made to blacken the reputation of
General Clarke by comparing his treatment of the Tories with the mild
and humane policy pursued by Francis Marion. There was, indeed, some
misunderstanding between the two men in regard to the methods that might
be adopted. The policy of Marion was undoubtedly the correct one, so far
as South Carolina was concerned; but if the Tories in that Province had
been guilty of the crimes committed by their brethren in Wilkes and the
surrounding region, General Marion's policy would not have been very
different from that of General Clarke. The Tories with whom Clarke was
familiar were guilty of murder, rapine, pillage, and incendiarism. The
Tories in South Carolina were kept under by the presence of Marion and
his men. Clarke went wherever his services were needed; and during his
absence, the Tories of the Broad River region were free to commit
every excess. Marion refused to leave the region where he made his name
famous, and thus kept the Tories in constant fear and dread.
Who shall say that Marion would not have been as ready to exterminate
the Tories as Clarke was, or that Clarke would not have been as humane
as Marion, if each of these distinguished patriots had been in the
other's place?
At the battle of Kettle Creek, in what is now Wilkes County, Elijah
Clarke distinguished himself by his readiness and skill as a commander.
The Americans under Colonel Pickens were in pursuit of the British under
Colonel Boyd. Their line of march was the order of battle, and following
the vanguard came the right and left wings. The left wing was commanded
by Elijah Clarke. The center was led by Colonel Pickens, who was in
command of the expedition. Colonel Boyd, the British commander, appeared
to be unconscious of pursuit. He had halted on a farm on the north side
of Kettle Creek. His horses were left to forage on the young cane that
grew on the edge of the swamp; and his men were slaying cattle and
parching corn, preparing for a feast after their short rations. The
British encampment was formed near the creek, on a piece of open ground
flanked on two sides by a canebrake. Colonel Boyd was in utter ignorance
of the approach of the Americans, who advanced at once to the attack.
The British colonel formed his line in the rear of his encampment, and
there received the assault. The battle was hotly contested for more than
an hour, and then the Tories retreated through the swamp.
Elijah Clarke, seeing a piece of rising ground on the farther side
of the creek, on which he suspected the Loyalists would try to form,
ordered the left wing to follow him, and was about to cross the stream
when his horse was shot under him. Mounting another, he soon crossed
the creek, followed by not more than a fourth of his division. There had
been some mistake in sending the order along the line. Clarke gained the
hill that had attracted his eye just in time to attack Major Spurgen, a
brave British officer, who was forming his command. The firing attracted
the notice of the rest of Clarke's division, and they soon joined their
leader. Pickens and Dooly also pressed through the swamp, and the battle
was renewed with great vigor. For a while the result was in doubt,
but at the end the Americans held the hill. The Tories fled in all
directions, leaving seventy dead on the field, and seventy-five wounded
and captured. Of the Americans, nine were slain, and twenty-three
wounded. To Elijah Clarke must be given the credit for this victory,
which, coming at the time it did, revived the hopes and courage of the
Liberty Boys in all parts of the country.
The Tories, on the other hand, were so depressed by it, that many
of them left that part of the State, and those who remained became
comparatively quiet. The situation was so encouraging, that many of the
people of Georgia, who had been driven from their homes by the cruelty
of the Tories, returned with their families. They were not long left in
peace, however. The British and the Tories had their active agents among
the Creeks and Cherokees, urging these tribes to take up arms and attack
the Americans. In view of this, Clarke was sent to guard the frontier
forts. Then the Tories again began to pillage and devastate the Broad
River region. Some of the crimes they committed would have disgraced
savages. Clarke's house was burned, and his family ordered to leave
the State. Mrs. Clarke and her two daughters started on their perilous
journey with nothing but a small pony of little value, and even this was
taken from them before they had gone very far. This only served to renew
the activity of Clarke in behalf of the American cause. He defeated
the Tories wherever he met them; and if he gave them no quarter, it was
because they had shown no mercy to the Americans. The savage character
of the warfare waged by the Tories against men, women, and children,
must ever stand as an explanation and as an excuse for the fierce spirit
displayed by Clarke and the Americans who lived in the Broad River
region.
In the battle near Musgrove's Mill, Clarke defeated the British, killing
sixty-three men, and wounding and capturing one hundred. During the
battle he was twice severely wounded on the head and neck; and once he
was surrounded by the enemy, captured, and placed in charge of two men.
One of these he knocked down with a blow of his fist, and the other
fled. At one time, acting without orders, he was near taking Augusta,
and was only prevented by the desire of his men to see their families.
After this he returned to Wilkes County, where he was compelled to take
under his protection nearly four hundred women and children who had been
driven from their homes by the savage Tories. He resolved to carry
these to a place of safety, and, with a sufficient guard, set out for
Kentucky. Cornwallis, hearing of this movement, and taking for granted
that it was a retreat, sent one hundred men under Captain Ferguson to
cut Clarke off, the supposition being that the great partisan fighter
would march through South Carolina, but he had re-crossed the mountains
in the Piedmont region. Hearing of this movement, Clarke detached
Major Chandler and Captain Johnston with thirty men to take part in
the operations against Ferguson. Thus it was the pursuit of Clarke that
brought on the memorable battle of Kings Mountain, which resulted in
a great victory for the cause of American independence; and although
Clarke was not there in person, his heroic spirit animated the brave men
who won the day.
He was the first to teach the militia to stand against the bayonets of
the British; and at Blackstocks, in South Carolina, at the head of his
Wilkes riflemen, he charged and drove the British light infantry in an
open field,--a movement that turned the enemy's right flank, and insured
the victory of the Americans. At the siege of Augusta, Clarke had
anticipated the movement of Colonel "Light Horse Harry" Lee, and had
confined the British garrison to their works for weeks before Colonel
Lee's arrival.
At the close of the Revolution, Clarke led the movement against the
Indians. He defeated the Creeks in the battle of Jacks Creek. After
peace was declared, Clarke, who had been made a general by a grateful
State, settled on lands that had been reserved to the Indians. For this
he has been criticised very severely; but it is curious that the policy
for which he was attacked, shortly afterwards became the policy of the
whole people. The States and the United States have made treaties
with the Indians, only to break them. Having personal knowledge of the
Indians, and having been made the victim of some of their raids, he had
no respect for them or for their rights. To this view the whole country
afterwards came, and the red men disappeared before it.
It will be well to bear in mind, that, whatever failings he may have
had, there was not a more heroic figure in the Revolution than General
Elijah Clarke.