Tag: Maj. Gen Nathanael Green

NOV1781-DEC1781: Charleston Remains Occupied as Patriots Tighten the Noose

In my last post about Francis Marion and his militia, I had mentioned that port city of Wilmington, NC had been evacuated by the British Empire, but that even with the huge victory at Yorktown, VA, this war is far from over.

Maj. Gen Nathaniel Greene had hoped with Cornwallis gone and the British evacuation of Wilmington, NC on November 14th that the French navy might be asked to come to Charleston and/or the Continentals would be deployed to SC to push the Brits out to sea. But the French navy in alliance with Spain went to Jamaica and lost to the British in the attempt to capture that island.

Greene did receive about 300 mountain men from Tennessee but they stayed only for for one engagement but left after they experienced the boredom and heat of the low-country of South Carolina, even in November!.

The final liberation of SC were in the hands of Greene and Marion as Pickens were deployed to the western regions to deal with the various tribes of American Indians and loyalists in that area and Sumter was directed to lead a post in Orangeburg.

Typical of the independent nature of militia leaders, Sumter came up with a secret plan to expedite the liberation of South Carolina but was ignored by Marion.

Brig. Gen. Francis Marion was then given total autonomy by Greene in future operations so on 15NOV1781 two forces were dispatched to the area below Eutaw Springs to stop British plundering. Due to the poor turnout of the militia as harvest time operations were in process, as well as the diminishing threat from British troops in areas away from Charleston, Governor Rutledge and Continental commander Greene agree to create two new regiments of South Carolina State Troops.

From J. D. Lewis’ 2014 work: http://www.francismariontrail.com/EvolutionMarionsBrigadeJDL.htm

On 16-17NOV1781, new elections are held all across South Carolina
to elect new representatives for the General Assembly, which is planned
to be held in early JAN1782. Three men from the militia including Marion are elected to the South Carolina state senate and 25 men from the militia are elected to the South Carolina House of Representatives.

The circumstances of a 17NOV1781 raid on the Fairlawn Plantation where the Brits has munitions and provisions that doubled as a hospital shows that the British resolve to fight has diminished.  Marion takes advantage of the turnover of personnel and sends Lt. Col. Hezekiah Maham with 180 of his men plus 200 North Carolinians under Col. Isaac Shelby and Col. John Sevier,  to Fair Lawn Plantation on the banks of the Cooper River near Moncks Corners. Lt. Col. Maham and his group even  pass another British post and attempt to entice the British cavalry out to a fight, but they refuse.

At Fair Lawn, the patriots consider the main house too formidable to take, so they decide to attack one of the outbuildings, which is a British hospital. At this point the NC riflemen cover the redoubt while Lt. Col. Maham and his cavalry ride up to the building and demand its surrender. The medical defenders offer no resistance at all.

The patriots capture 300 stands of arms and other goods. About 150 patients and staff are made prisoners. Eighty prisoners could walk and are
taken back to Brig. Gen. Marion’s camp, the rest are paroled. Capt. MacLaine’s garrison watch all of this happen, but do nothing. The hospital is burned and the patriot’s ride away.

Two days later, northeast of Charleston, at Wappetaw Meeting House, the British come under attack by the same state troops commanded by Lt. Col.
Hezekiah Maham. The enemy abandoned this post as soon as they saw the Carolinians approaching with no shots exchanged per at least one
source. Apparently, the British enjoyed no long-range success in keeping Brig. Gen. Francis Marion’s patrols out of the vicinity of Charleston.

By the end of the month, North Carolina’s Col. Isaac Shelby and Col. John Sevier leave South Carolina under the command of Brig. Gen. Francis Marion and Lt. Col. Hezekiah Maham, and head back across the mountains to home.

In hindsight, we see this season as the calm before the last storm of this attempt at independence from the British Empire:

Designed by Scott Aiken to show Marion’s impact and activity from 1780-1782. http://www.francismariontrail.com/MarionData.htm

In DEC1781 things seem to get even more quite. The news that Gov. John Rutledge writes a letter to Brig. Gen. Francis Marion and requests an escort of 25 men and a proper officer from Lt. Col. Hezekiah Maham’s regiment of cavalry means that there is a cautious return towards civil government rule as the new legislature commences in the new year. Obviously this will not take place in Charleston itself but at some other location away from the remaining British forces still in port.

During the week before Christmas, Marion’s men sweep around Moncks Corner and get as far as Dorchester. The entire area is quiet as the British are hunkered down in and right around Charlestown.

On Christmas Day 1781, in an act of revenge, patriots known as “The Bloody Legion” headed by Capt. John Leacraft and his Hilton Head Company of Militia attack a local Loyalist militia commander Capt. Philip Martingale in his home, killing, or more accurately, murdering him. Apparently, this was to avenge the bloody ambush on Hilton Head Island earlier in 1781 by British Maj. Maxwell and Loyalist Capt. Philip Martingale of Daufuskie
Island, who led a raiding party to Hilton Head and ambushed Patriots at Two Oaks Plantation.

On 31DEC1781, Maj. Gen. Nathanael Greene relays Gov. Rutledge’s
announcement for the newly-elected legislators to meet on 08JAN1782 at
Jacksonborough, South Carolina. So the stage is set for civil government to return. The question is, will the British allow this to proceed naturally as rumors of a peace process rising in the British Parliament had yet to change the mind of King George or Lord Germain. The hope for a better future was still something that seemed just out of reach.

Stay tuned for 1782, as hindsight tells us, the Treaty of Paris in 1783 is yet over a year away!

-SF1

Fall 1781: Momentum of the Revolutionary War Shifts, So Does “The Cause”

There is light at the end of the tunnel, and there is movement afoot that takes place mainly north of the Potomac River that I contend is normal in this broken world. When freedom breaks out, there are those that instill fear in the people that politics, bigger and more centralized, is needed to secure our future.

While this article is a bit dated (I believe I was still in the US Navy at the time), it does point out a few things that I have been saying off and on in my blog over the past year or so. I bring it up now since my ongoing coverage of Francis Marion’s activities in South Carolina, which actually saved the colonies in their efforts to exit the British Empire, is entering the post-Yorktown phase where military conflicts and such give way back to the political.

The standard American myth celebrates the Constitution as the triumphant culmination of the American Revolution. This is largely untrue and misleading.

Everyone in government schools has heard, the Articles of Confederation was weak and ill equipped to govern the thirteen colonies, let alone all the additional lands that the Treaty of Paris granted in 1783:

The facts, and not that era’s fake news, paints a much different scene:

The alleged “critical period” between the end of the Revolution and the Constitution’s adoption was not dominated by economic depression, political turmoil, and international peril, jeopardizing the independent survival of the American experiment in liberty.

There was no actual threat, but a threat was thought up in the minds of those politicians whose political descendants include the politicians that orchestrated the War of 1812, the Mexican-American War, the so-called Civil War and so on. In each of these instances, there was a fear introduced into the population that without a war, catastrophe was imminent.

In context, backing up to the period of time before even the Declaration of Independence was penned (raw thoughts by Thomas Paine and edited by Thomas Jefferson), there was a joining of efforts from people in the thirteen colonies across a political and philosophical spectrum. On one hand, we have the RADICALS:

The American Revolution, like all great social upheavals, was brought off by a disparate coalition of competing viewpoints and conflicting interests. At one end of the Revolutionary coalition stood the American radicals—men such as Samuel Adams, Patrick Henry, Thomas Paine, Richard Henry Lee, and Thomas Jefferson.

Although by no means in unanimous agreement, the radicals objected to excessive state power in general and not simply to British rule in particular. Spearheading the Revolution’s opening stages, they were responsible for the truly revolutionary alterations in the internal status quo: the abolition of slavery in the northern states, the separation of church and state in the southern states, the rooting out of remaining feudal privileges everywhere, and the adoption of new, republican state constitutions containing written bills of rights that severely hemmed in government power.

These were change agents, those daring visionaries that can see life lived differently, and at the same time knew that this would not be a utopia, but in reality would be a struggle, but a rewarding one.

On the other hand, was a class of people that we might consider to be nationalists or those whose major agenda was that of mercantilism:

At the other end of the Revolutionary coalition were the American nationalists; an array of mercantile, creditor, and landed interests. The nationalists went along with independence but opposed the Revolution’s libertarian thrust. They sought a strong American state with the hierarchical features of the 18th-century British state, only without the British.

So by the fall of 1781 as the British catastrophe at Yorktown reverberated throughout the British Empire, there were nationalist forces that were already parting ways with the radicals, and even the militias that brought them to this day.  By 1783, Francis Marion saw the writing on the wall. The NOV1782 election meant that Marion had to leave Pond Bluff yet again for the 06JAN1783 legislative session. Writing from there on January 18th he shared the inequalities that tainted his excitement about the future of the colony as well of the federation of states. It seems that the Rhode Islander Continental Nathaniel Greene was awarded 10,000 guineas from SC toward the purchase of a SC plantation and quoted an old saying “that kissed goes by favor”.  Georgia had also given Greene 24,000 acres as well. Marion eventually was awarded 300 acres in 1785.

It should be noted that the correspondence Marion had with Greene stopped abruptly as the hostilities stopped in DEC1782. Marion had hoped that Congress would follow through on the promise of a lifetime of half-pay for officers but it would be 50 years before that practice would finally start. Marion lamented that “idle spectators of war” were in charge now.

So too were the more nationalistic military leaders that benefited from a larger government:

Military conservatives such as George Washington induced Congress to focus the Revolutionary effort on a costly conventional force, the Continental Army, rather than the militias. By the 1781 Yorktown campaign, popular disgust at the army’s continuing hand-to-mouth existence gave the nationalists uncontested control of Congress. They proceeded to implement a financial program that gave the central government much more power.

While the nationalists attempted to strengthen the Articles of Confederation, their attempts through 1784 were met with resistance from the Radicals after the Treaty of Paris. The economic state of the states were generally fine economically except for two groups that put out a very public fuss:

In reality, American merchants were after uniform navigation laws, because they wanted some coercive means of monopolizing the American carrying trade. And American artisans wanted uniform protective tariffs to stop their customers from buying the cheap foreign goods flooding American markets at the end of the war. The unique economic fortunes of these two groups and their quest for special privileges contributed much to the exaggerated impression of postwar depression.

As we see today, coercive means to monopolize as well as protective tariffs are tools used yet today in 2019. Capitalism will always look to enhance their position by government if it will let them. Corporatism is the curse of politics gone too far.

So the Coup d’etat of the cause for the freedoms gained by the American Revolution would come at a convention in Philadelphia in 1787 whose purpose was to rework the Articles of Confederation, however:

Its official function was to propose revisions to the Articles. But the delegates, meeting in secret, quickly decided to draft a totally new document. Of the 55 delegates, only 8 had signed the Declaration of Independence. Most of the leading radicals, including Sam Adams, Henry, Paine,Lee, and Jefferson, were absent. In contrast, 21 delegates belonged to the militarist Society of the Cincinnati. Overall, the convention was dominated by the array of nationalist interests that the prior war had brought together: land speculators, ex-army officers, public creditors, and privileged merchants.

Things had definitely changed in one decade’s time, and not for the better! Look how far we have come since then.

Not cool!

We are much “safer” today as a result of the this early course change in this nation’s history, safe as slaves.

-SF1

08SEP1781 – Eutaw Springs: Continentals and Militias Assemble for a Coordinated Push Against the British

Artist rendering of the Battle of Eutaw Springs

In my last post, Marion was west of Charleston working his routing of British forces caught off guard when Marion set the stage on the last day of August 1781:

On 31AUG1781 at Parker’s Ferry Marion finally gets his battle with Lt. Col. Ernst Leopold von Borck. The British on 29AUG1781 had moved to Isaac Hayne’s Plantation where Issac was just buried and Brig. Gen. Marion had followed this force again and sets up his camp only five miles away. Marion conceals his men in a swamp beside the causeway and directs Col. William Harden’s men o move back 100 yards from the ambush line so they can be used as reserves. Maj. Samuel Cooper and sixty swordsmen are told to attack the rear of the enemy after the ambush is initiated. They then wait for an opportunity.

That opportunity came and Marion’s victory had the balance of British forces in South Carolina outside of Charlestown a bit nervous. The Continentals under Maj. Gen. Nathaniel Green also used the momentum from the summer’s push against the British to make his move.

Nathaniel Greene had completed resting his troops in the cooler climate of the High Hills of the Santee (only 15 miles from the British, each could see the other’s camp fires) about the same time that Marion went to the aid of Harden the other side of Charleston, he decided to engage the 1500 men under Rawdon’s replacement Alexander Stewart.

Separated by an impassible lake swollen with the summer rains Greene decided to go against the logic of moving south and then upriver to engage the Brit forces directly. Greene chose to go counter-clockwise at a slow pace moving only in the cool morning and early evening to conserve the men’s strength.

Greene himself had 1250 men but needed militia to help make up the difference. Virginia had promised 2000 militia but with Cornwallis in their backyard they opted to have them stay there. Greene’s route took him close to NC where he picked up some untested militia (150-200) under French commander Malmady. He also picked up 300 men under Pickens (some were former Sumter troops), William Henderson’s (Sumter replacement) 200 SC state troops and William Washington’s Virginia Continental Cavalry.

Lt. Col. Alexander Stewart had heard of Greene’s intention and moved 40 miles south down the Santee to Eutaw Springs specifically to take on supplies from Charleston. The supply line from Georgetown as no more and only a single stand of supplies was available to this British force.

Greene was well aware that Marion was working the other side of Charleston but was hoping he could make it back in time to be a factor now against the Brits who we on the move towards Charlestown. Greene stalled on 02SEP1781 in case he heard of Marion’s location. This allowed the British to feel secure near Eutaw Springs as the summer heat held on in the Carolinas. In summary, it is early in September and the 1,400 well-equipped British camp in cool shade beside the gushing springs of Eutaw, little dreaming that the fairly large Patriot army is close upon their heels.

Present day Eutaw Springs environment (photo taken Nov 2018 from the Eutaw Springs battlefield north overlooking the nearby waters)

Communique sent on 04SEP1781 to Marion that said Greene was collecting his force and planning to attack the British on the next day. On 05SEP1781, Greene received Marion’s Parker Ferry report and found out that Marion was only 20 miles south of Eutaw Springs. Yet another communique was sent and Marion used the nighttime to circle clockwise around Stewart’s Brit forces and by 07SEP1781 was together with Greene at Burdell’s Tavern just seven miles above Eutaw Springs. Marion’s plantation at Pond Bluff was only four miles away, this was home turf for the Swamp Fox.

Maj. Gen. Greene, hearing of the French plan to have Gen. George Washington’s encircle and embarrass the British at Yorktown, determines to prevent southern aid from reaching the beleaguered Lt. Gen. Charles, Lord Cornwallis. Contingents under generals Marion and Pickens, and lieutenant colonels Henry Lee, William Washington, Henry Hampton, among other South Carolina leaders are called together, and many units from other states join them.

One has to understand the condition of these 2,080 poorly-equipped, underfed, and near-naked Americans camp on September 7 th on the Congaree River Road at Burdell’s Tavern, only seven miles from Eutaw Springs. While the strategy for the ensuing attack is accredited to the genius of the dreaded “Swamp Fox,” Brig. Gen. Francis Marion, who knows every foot of the Santee swamps and river, it is no cake-walk as the patriots have been worn down enough that disciple can and will most likely break down during this battle.

Lt. Col. Alexander Stewart, a 40 year old Scot with a high opinion of himself, was caught off-guard by the proximity of 2000 patriot forces and even disbelieved a couple of patriot deserters who showed up in camp and proclaimed that a force of several thousand was near. Stewart did however dispatch a cavalry commander to check and he ran into the patriots only two miles away, engaged them and was overwhelmed and escaped to make it back to report to Stewart.

Marion and Greene then used the “Cowpens-model” by having militia (one-third of his total force present) at the center and cavalry on the flank with solid troops and by 9am 08SEP1781, the battle was green-lighted.

It should be noted that Stewart had no Hessians with him on this day and offered a single line on the other side of the battle field. Marion’s men advanced surging with Pickens’ and Henderson’s men on their left they continued to fire volley after volley, SEVENTEEN in all, a testament to the character of men Marion had formed.

The NC militia quit the field after only three rounds and left a hole in the middle (“the line is faltering”) which then encouraged the Brits to use a bayonet charge just when Greene’s seasoned Maryland and Virginia Continentals surged themselves with a bayonet charge to give the Brits a taste of their own medicine. This was the first and only time seasoned Brit troops were in full retreat back to their camp.

The rout pushed the point of the battle back 300 yards to a garden area adjacent to a brick house that the Brits used as a defensive line of last resort. The left flank of the patriots had the British commander Maj. John Marjoribanks putting up a devil of a fight and it was the Delaware Continentals, the cream of the crop for patriot troops drove his forces back to the garden area as well.

Then IT happened. The condition of these men and the heat of the region and of the day all factored in what happened next.

Greene’s troops, who had been “rummed-up” prior to the battle located the British alcohol in camp and decided to quench their thirst in the 90 degree SC sun. It was here that the patriots lost all their cannon and experienced a British counterattack.

So after four hours of fighting, Greene ordered a retreat. While many believe that this was a defeat for the patriots, what is known is that:

  • The British did not hold the field but were driven back to their camp
  • Stewart left 70 wounded men and his dead buried behind
  • Greene buried BOTH sides dead and cared for the enemy’s wounded
  • Strategically, the British decided to fall back to Charlestown.

This was great news for South Carolina but in no way did it mean the war was done. The British Empire at this moment of time could have had Cornwallis return to South Carolina to almost start all over again as the British had resources, but not possibly the will, they could pull from their global footprint.

At this point Marion and Greene were still in the mode of anxious anticipation of the next British move.

Stay tuned!

-SF1

18-31JUL1781: Marion Takes a Well Needed Break and Reflects on the Past Year

My last post on the adventures of Francis Marion written about a month ago, his militia was down to 100 men and they had just written off fellow militia leader Thomas Sumter and his tactics.

Marion goes to Cordes’s Plantation and sets up camp to break from the exhaustive mid-July battles at Quinby’s Bridge and Shubrick’s Plantations. After one year of fighting the British, much of which without direct support from the Continentals, he had to be proud of what was accomplished. These last few months in the summer of 1781 with the Continentals had its positives, but it also had its negatives.

Lt. Col. Henry Lee and his Continentals proceed to bury their dead and move to join Maj. Gen. Nathanael Greene in the High Hills of the Santee as the militia melts back to their homes in South Carolina.

Reflecting on these days later, Greene told Lafayette that the “Dog Days Campaign” had some success but admitted it was far short of what needed to be accomplished. Driving the British out of Monck’s Corner and Dorchester only lasted a few weeks before the Brits were back. On the plus side, 140 prisoners, 200 horses and ammunition were to be had.

The rift between the principled Marion and the opportunist Sumter was also widened by another of Sumter’s actions, in that 720 guineas (gold coins) were found and distributed to Sumter’s men and some of Lee’s men BUT not Marion’s.

Sumter’s men were also getting disillusioned as his 10-month enlistees were on their way home at this point, dissatisfied with Sumter’s Law.

Sumter now was desperate, and tried to plunder more by going near Georgetown and seizing slaves, horses, indigo and salt from the Tories there.  The British retaliated on 01AUG1781 by bombarding Georgetown from a warship with many innocent people caught in the crossfire. Gov. Rutledge generally favored harsh treatment of Tories BUT finally started seeing this from Marion’s point of view as that practice usually gave significant blowback.

Finally, on 05AUG1781, Rutledge signed a proclamation strictly forbidding plundering for any purpose essentially nullifying Sumter’s Law. Sumter took this personally and resigned but Greene talked him into staying on but that would old last a few months as Sumter had fought his last battle.

Just as the patriots alter their ways to ensure they were seen as leading a noble cause, respecting the innocent people’s life, families and property, the British decide once more to turn the burner up on violence. The British decide towards “making an example” of someone, in a typical bully move.

The British proceed to arrange a public hanging that took place in CharlesTown South Carolina which was still in British hands. On 04AUG1781 a 35 year old Col. Issac Haynes, a much beloved planter/patriot in the Low-country region, was hanged as an example to the people of the colony of South Carolina.

There is quite a backstory to this event that will be the subject of my next American Revolutionary post .. coming soon!

Stay tuned.

-SF1

JUL1781: Dog Days (Campaign) are a Real Thing in South Carolina in the Summertime

In my last update on the slow attrition of British forces in South Carolina the summer of 1781 as well as the condition of the American Continentals:

Summer fighting in South Carolina requires a lot of a man should he come from Virginia or further north. Greene concluded that the American forces were weakened by the heat and could not survive on the rice in the region and needed bread again. With no beef they resorted to frogs and alligators, because they taste like chicken.

After the next encounter in July 1781, Greene would then moved his troops to the High Hills of the Santee for the rest of the summer.

To recap quickly, Georgetown and Ninety-Six had fallen and so two significant outposts remained slightly inland, Monck’s Corner 30 miles north of Charleston and Dorchester 20 miles northwest of Charleston.The only other occupied outpost is Ninety-Six which has a Loyalist contingent in place there many miles away from the action down state.

The British army was basically in Charleston, in these outposts, and then just one regular British army in the field at Orangeburg. Sumter convinced Greene that he should take out the two outposts cutting off the Brit army in Orangeburg from Charleston, using Lee’s and Marion’s forces of course. Greene’s objective was then to get the Brits stuck on the coast in a land siege and then pray the French Navy could bottle them up in Charleston.

05JUL1781: American Continental leader Maj. Gen. Nathanael Greene orders Brig. Gen. Francis Marion and his militia to march from Ancrum’s Plantation towards Moncks Corner in an attempt to cut off Lord Rawdon who is in the field at Orangeburg.  Marion and his men passes around Lord Rawdon, whose troops are sick, exhausted, and almost mutinous and goes in the direction of Moncks Corners and the British forces that are in route to Orangeburg.

08JUL1781: At “o’dark thirty”, Marion quietly breaks camp
and begins moving stealthily down the highway between Orangeburgh
and Moncks Corner looking for Lt. Col. Alexander Stewart and his forces. They pass each other as they took different roads and so at daylight, Marion learns of this mistake and sends Lt. Col. Peter Horry back to pursue Stewart but it is too late. Marion gets word to return to Ancrum’s Plantation where Greene finally has almost all of his army with him at one location – Sumter, Marion, Washington, and Lee. Pickens is the only SC Brigadier General not there.

12JUL1781: July 12th marks the day that Marion followed his orders and took his 180 man force to Moncks Corner while Lee and his 150 man force moved on Dorchester. Sumter remained in the rear with his 200 infantry and one six-pounder.

Marion’s force had just went through some leadership changes with Hugh Giles retiring, a 27 year old John Ervin taking his place and Greene’s commissioning of Peter Horry and Hezekiah Maham to lead two dragoon forces within the Continental Army which meant signing on for one year. Complicating the matter was that both promotions were dated the same day, and if that was not enough, it was never made clear as to who they really reported to .. Greene OR Marion. This was never made clear and made for issues down the road from this day.

The target Greene had in sight at Moncks Corner was a British force of 500-600 redcoats from 19th Regiment of Foot was led by Lt. Col James Coates which had two field howitzers. In addition to this force were 100-150 provincial cavalry under Major Fraser (SC Royalists) which were remnant forces from SC Rangers and Queen’s Rangers, all native SC men who knew the back-country as well as Marion and Sumter.

16JUL1781: Sumter wanted to surround Coates cutting off his escape routes and any reinforcements from Orangeburg. Lee easily pushed the British out of Dorchester and so upon hearing this Coates surprises the patriots by moving five miles northeast to St. James Goose Creek Church which is locally called Biggin Church (a structure with three foot thick walls and where Marion himself worshiped as a boy). As the patriots adjusted to Coates new position, Maham’s dragoons were sent to destroy Wadboo bridge so Coates would not have an easy time getting to Charleston, unfortunately, Coates men were able to repair if overnight and were all set to escape down the Cooper River if and when they needed to.

17JUL1781: With insignificant skirmishing on July 16th at 4am the next morning the Biggin Church was ablaze and Coates had a head start toward Charleston. As the patriots chased Coates they found the Wadboo bridge had been destroyed by the British this time, and so they had to ford the river farther upstream wasting valuable time.

The Brits then went 18 miles south and settled briefly at a vacant plantation of patriot Col. Thomas Shubrick. They posted a howitzer at Quinby Bridge to guard the crossing and started tearing up the planks when Lee, Wade Hampton and some of Marion’s cavalry arrived. Some of the men crossed the creek and started their assault on the British forces, Lee himself chose not to send his cavalry across the 20-yard wide creek due to the muddy bottom. On the other side there was a causeway that led to deadly hand-to-hand combat. Many of the green recruits of the 19th Foot threw down their weapons and fled only to realize how few patriots made is across the creek. The Brits were able to fight their way back to the plantation for cover. Fraser’s Brit cavalry left for Charleston for reinforcements.

Lee and Marion saw the plantation to well fortified and chose to wait for Sumter and his six-pounder. When Sumter arrived WITHOUT his cannon he decided to attack anyway against Lee and Marion’s advice. Marion’s men had to advance across open field and then finding Taylor’s men facing a bayonet charge (NOTE: there are no bayonets on patriot rifles) diverted on an oblique to save Taylor and his men but took a lot of causalities. Forty minute battle was finally called off by Sumter whose troops as well as Lee’s remained in reserve. Fifty killed or wounded, mainly from Marion’s men was the result.

Reflection time: What does one do when a superior, errr, I mean a higher ranking officer gives an ill-advised order? Well the obedient will “just follow orders”, however, the militia volunteers will never forget!

Taylor let it be known that he would not fight alongside the Gamecock Sumter again, putting his men at risk for a poor objective and with no backup. From J.D. Lewis’s “Evolution of Marion’s Brigade after the Fall of Charlestown 1780 to 1782“:

.. Maj. John Baxter is knocked from his horse by a musket ball. He shouts to Lt. Col. Peter Horry, “I am wounded, colonel.” Horry replies, “Think no more of it, Baxter, but stand to your post.”

Baxter shouts, “But I can’t stand, I am wounded a second time!” Horry shoots back, “Lie down then, Baxter, but quit not your post.”

Baxter is hit a third time and says, “They have shot me again, colonel, and if I stay any longer here, I shall be shot to pieces.” Horry then says, “Be it so, Baxter, but stir not.”

Baxter obeys, but he was hit a fourth time.

Fifty of Brig. Gen. Marion’s men are killed or wounded in this assault.  Col. Thomas Taylor finds Brig. Gen. Sumter “sitting cooly under the shade of a tree.” He says, “Sir, I don’t know why you sent me forward on a forlorn hope, promising to sustain me and failed to do so, unless you designed to sacrifice me. I will never serve a single hour under you,” and then retires from Brig. Gen. Thomas Sumter’s command.

There is no post battle comments are on record from Marion to Sumter but to Greene he implied that he too was sent on a fools errand. Most evident of Marion’s true feelings was that he and Lee left the night of the battle and went 15 miles away to camp without informing Sumter. All but 100 of Marion’s men left at this point and Marion internally knew he was done with Sumter.

Within a month, things would change in the leadership of the South Carolina state militias yet again.

Stay tuned for what the conclusion of the “Dog Days Campaign”, what was won and what was lost.

-SF1