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.
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:
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