Tag: Banastre Tarleton

04AUG1781 – The Hanging of Col. Issac Haynes (Age 35) Who Was Beloved by the People

In my last post regarding the American Revolution, specifically the actions in and around South Carolina that Brig. Gen. Francis Marion was heavily and sacrificially involved with, I eluded to the backstory around the British hanging of a beloved 35 year old, probably as an example towards intimidating the colony’s inhabitants.

Issac Haynes was a popular planter and patriot military officer who during the summer of 1780, after Charlestown’s fall to the British, was traveling from his plantation to Charlestown to obtain a doctor and medical supplies for his very ill wife and children. The British would not allow him to pass through their lines back home without swearing an oath of allegiance.

With the early 1781 successes of the militia in South Carolina, the British sought to enlist Issac in the Loyalist militia. At the same time, patriot militia groups were also hoping Issac would join them as Francis Marion had been told another 200 men would follow this beloved planter. Eventually, Marion himself issued a commission which made Issac a Lt. Col. in the South Carolina militia. After some reluctance on the part of Issac, he relented and joined the cause.

In early July 1781, Issac led the militia near Charlestown to capture former patriot leader Andrew Williamson who took British protection a year prior. British leadership at Charlestown countered by sending Thomas Fraser with 90 cavalry to retrieve Williamson and took Issac Haynes prisoner. The British served justice in a way that tyrants do by not allowing Issac any counsel and was unable to call any witnesses. He found himself sentenced to death.

This news caused such an uproar in Charlestown among the ladies their and even some high-society Loyalists that the British decided to stand firm and united in this decision. Balfour, Rawdon and even Charlestown police chief Charles Fraser (brother to Thomas) all concurred. Haynes had countered to the charge of switch allegiance was due to the lack of British protection in the countryside from the Whig groups which was the exchange for his taking this oath.

While there was logic to this argument, the British were not ready to have hundreds of others seeking justice due to the British inability to honor their end of this agreement. The British decided, in a Banastre Tarleton way, to make an example out of Issac Haynes.

So on 04AUG1781, after a farewell session with his family, he was paraded through the streets of Charlestown past crowds who were moved to tears to the gallows. He took control of this even in a firm and serene way, proceeded to pull the cap over his own eyes, shook hands with the three gentlemen who would oversee his children’s care and himself gave the signal to move the cart to let him hang.

The firestorm ensued and emotions ran high, not just in Charlestown, or in the colony of South Carolina, but even overseas as well as even the British Parliament considered a motion to condemn Rawdon in this decision. The Southern Region Continental leader Greene stressed restraint (was Marion an influence here?) as the cycle of violence would result in revenge hangings across the colony.

This event had its blow-back, causing a potent rallying cry for southern patriots to be created. While there were other men closer to Charleston who quit the field thinking they were next, those away from the last British stronghold were more fervent in their cause.

Gen. Nathanael Greene soon orders Marion to attack British lines of
communication around Charleston. From his base on the Santee, Marion departed with his 200 men and picked up another 150 with the destination being south of Charleston on the Ashepoo River called the Horseshoe. The forces opposite his was a Hessian led force of over 500 men (180 Hessians, 150 British Redcoats, 130 Tory Loyalists and 80 dragoons under Fraser). This was essentially a foraging party that were transporting rice back to Charleston.

On 27AUG1781, Marion attempted an ambush at Godfrey’s Savannah. Lt. Col. Ernst Leopold von Borck was in charge of this British contingent, Maj. Thomas Fraser was the real target of this effort, but in the end he has to abort his plan. There were multiple failures to follow his orders as it was pretty apparent with the enemy’s two field pieces (none for the patriot militia), this would not end well.

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.

Lt. Col. Ernst Leopold von Borck leaves Hayne’s Plantation in mid-afternoon with his infantry and has placed his two pieces of artillery in front of the column while Maj. Thomas Fraser and his mounted SC Royalists are in the rear of the column. It is almost dark on the 31st when they stumble into a firefight between Marion’s men and handful of Loyalist that have just discovered them.

Lt., Col. von Borck orders Maj. Fraser to drive off the Patriots so he sends Lt. Stephen Jarvis charging forward while he places his three other divisions on the road, and also to the left and right of the road.

Brig. Gen. Marion’s mounted men charge Lt. Jarvis, who reverses course quickly. Maj. Fraser believes that these are Col. William Harden’s men and
orders his cavalry in full gallop to intercept them.

Marion now has the enemy right where he wants them. He signals his hidden men, and instantly Maj. Fraser’s horsemen are surrounded. At a distance of 40 yards, the Patriots open up with buckshot and the dragoons go down.

Maj. Fraser rallies his men and tries to charge, but the Patriots deliver a second volley, and then a third volley. There is no way for Maj. Fraser to attack in the swamp so he has to withdraw down the causeway down the full length of the ambush. Maj. Fraser is badly bruised when his horse is killed and the rest of his cavalry rides over him as he lies in the road.

The patriots militia continue to occupy the causeway for three more hours until Marion sees British infantry with a field piece coming their way. His riflemen fire upon the field piece wounding and killing many accompanying it. Brig. Gen. Marion could have easily slaughtered
more of the SC Royalists with his rifles, but he is low on ammunition and his men have also not eaten in 24 hours, so he has them all just slip away
into the swamp.

Brig. Gen. Francis Marion reports that 20 Loyalist dragoons and 23 horses are dead on the spot. Brig. Gen. Francis Marion loses one man killed.
Col. William Stafford loses three wounded. The British evacuate the area and move back to Charlestown and Brig. Gen. Marion sends a party after them and they find 40 dead horses on the road. He then returns “home” to the Santee with his prisoners.

Mission accomplished! August 1781 has concluded with a further tighening around Charleston to keep the British foraging parties more heavily armed. Issac Haynes’ hanging motivates the true patriots to stay the course and drive the British Empire out of the colony of South Carolina.

-SF1

Total War and Unconditional Surrender: America’s Export to the World

If one were to believe the history books, the American Experience and Exceptionalism shone bright and clear from the effort and success to leave the British Empire to the rescue of Europe in WWI and WWII. Actual history shows that our exceptional export of ideas and character were not a rosy as the history books might paint.

There was a way that nations fought from the 1600s and into the 1700s that had been influenced by both Christianity as well as those who understood that war happened when politics failed, which meant that the people in general were caught in the middle of various power struggles in Europe. The American Revolution was fought mainly around large population centers usually having armies square up to each other in open fields and having at it. There were exceptions on both sides where military leaders like Banastre Tarleton and even some patriot militia would discard honorable warfare to achieve short-term military objectives, but in the end those tactics had their own “blowback”. The civilian sentiment played an important role in the way the effort for independence of each of the 13 states would play out before the British grew tired of the conflict and costs.

Even the War of 1812 was fought this way and the treaty signed a few years later involved both parties at the negotiation table just like what they did in Paris in 1783 after the American Revolutionary War. Once again, principles, honorable principles prevailed even when warfare was “in session”.

The War Against Southern Independence (called the American Civil War in US government history books) unveiled the inherit evil that is at the core of humans in a broken world. Driven by desperation, principles are cast aside in the effort to short-cut to a desired outcome.

The truth be known, the seven states that seceded actually took the high ground in formulating their reason for divorce with the federation. They knew that the US Constitution, the law of the land, was to be central in their rationale in desiring to exit, just like the 13 colonies did with England 80 years prior. Lawyer speak made these documents stress the way the slavery issue made the separation a necessity. The Constitution had allowed chattel slavery, and so the seven southern states made their case based on this “issue”.

In reality, the main issue was financial and economic in nature, but to prove that based on the Constitution would have been a tough fight. The southern region in general was the wealthiest in 1776 when the Declaration of Independence was penned but by 1860 this region had seen their power be eclipsed by the North and the West (existing Midwest). Tariff revenue sources were a hot issue since the South bore the brunt of that expense. Additionally, this revenue funded not only the general government but also internal improvements, mainly in the northern states. Also, industries like the railroad and steel industry received corporate welfare at the expense of the southern businessmen. Additionally, southern plantations were financed by the Northeast elite bankers and until 1808 these same businessmen supplied the slave ships that would transport blacks rounded up by other blacks on the African continent to the United States and other areas in the Caribbean after it was illegal to do so in the US. The southern chattel slavery economic profitability was on the downward trend as most economists expected maybe 5-10 years left in this business model.

It should also be noted once more that Lincoln offered the seven southern states “perpetual legal slavery” via the proposed 13th amendment (Corwin Amendment) if they re-entered the union. Not one state considered that. They really wanted independence and all the risks that entailed instead of a continued marriage to the northern states. Even if it meant that run-away slaves making their way to the United States (all but those seven states that seceded) would indeed be free and not be required by law to be returned as the Fugitive Slave Act mandated. Most people in the North did NOT want ex-slaves fleeing north to take the lowest paying jobs, as even Lincoln feared this.

With that long introduction and setting of context, there was an article that brought to light (for me anyway) what this internal conflict offered to the world. A clip from it said:

So in a very literal sense the Civil War was the first World War. It not only created a powerful nation of organized resources and potential military might, but the greater world wars took their pattern from the American one, even to the trench system Lee set up at Petersburg .. What this country brought to Europe was unconditional surrender. The actual phrase was used by Roosevelt in the Second World War, but it was not his phrase. Grant had delivered it to the Confederate Command at Fort Donelson in February, 1862. Its implication is total surrender or total destruction, or slavery, or whatever. A strange alternative to be delivered by one Christian state to another; and yet it had precedent in Sherman’s harrying the lands of Mississippi and Georgia ..

U.S. (Unconditional Surrender) Grant or William Tecumseh (Total War) Sherman transitioned warfare to not only be brutal for military personnel and civilians in proximity, but also back to the way pre-Christian influenced empires operated, the slaughtering/slaving of the people in conquered lands.

The nineteenth century abandoned God officially, and the faith of Christian communicants was absorbed into the powerful western will; and this will set out, openly at last, to know and control not only nature but the universe. In the late stages of any society there is always the aging form and the formlessness of the new pistis, but this is no new faith; it is a perversion of faith, the final and open acceptance of Machiavelli’s science of politics, the politics whose end is absolute power, whose technique is reason without any theological restraint.

The transition from a republic that was a federation of states to a democracy that makes politics a god, will always keep evolving lower and lower in morality as the narcissist leaders practice power over principles.

Sherman said “War is Hell,” and by this he meant total war, openly carried out upon the civil population, with the shrewd understanding that if the source of supply was cut off, the armies would dwindle and perish.

This policy was then brought to the American Indians, then to the Spanish empire after Spain was falsely accused of blowing up the USS Maine in Havana, Cuba and to the Germans during WWI as well as the failure to include the Germans in the negotiated surrender, treating Germany like the North treated the South after the war with military districts, corrupt politics and the hatred of the people.

Yes, this part of the American “Exceptionalism” is rarely taught in schools or even in “approved” books. I would rather have American history taught in books like the authors of the Bible described the events of the Hebrew people, the nation Israel and the leaders of Jesus’ day .. communicating the good, the bad and the ugly.

Truth.

Truth-seekers these days have to expend a lot of effort to mine the accounts of days gone by, but it is written that “the truth shall set you free”

-SF1

 

 

Collateral Damage: Can We Make Civilians Spectators Again? Probably Not

I am fully aware that the term “collateral damage” as used by the US Empire refers to the “unfortunate” death of innocent civilians as a result of “pre-war” sanctions. The most popular clip on the Internet is Secretary of State Madeline Albright being interviewed about the 500,000 children that died as a result of sanctions on Iraq between Gulf War I and II:

The reason I ‘air-quote’ the term pre-war is that in all reality, sanctions themselves are an act of war, even though it is on the economic variety. While there are no guns used, there is force used to ensure that the economic activity sanctioned actually does not take place, and that is indeed backed by guns. It is both coercion and violence-based. The state dictates that peaceful trade can not take place and its edicts will be followed, as the consequences to any business is well known. No business can go rogue in the sanction war.

Truth be told, we in the US on the domestic front are again close to having personal conversation scrutinized for words of support towards these sanctioned countries filled with people who desire peaceful trade with American citizens. If one supports Palestinian people, one is assumed to be anti-Semitic, if one supports Russian people, one is assumed to be a Russian-bot.

There was a time when war’s harm toward civilians caught in the crossfire was recognized and attempts were made toward international rules that safeguarded citizens as much as possible from the political conflicts that broke out across the world. By the 1700s in fact, this was the norm, which is why there was such disgust when British dragoon leader Banastre Tarleton would kill both the wounded enemy as well as civilians that appeared to “aid the enemy”.

By the time seven states decided to leave the American union in 1861, this norm had not yet changed. Most of the civilized world’s battles took place on the outskirts of cities.

From an article written by one who has seen war with his own eyes since Vietnam, Tom’s Dispatch writes about this time period:

In fact, the classic American instance of war-as-spectator-sport occurred in 1861 in the initial major land battle of the Civil War, Bull Run (or, for those reading this below the Mason-Dixon line, the first battle of Manassas). “On the hill beside me there was a crowd of civilians on horseback, and in all sorts of vehicles, with a few of the fairer, if not gentler sex,” wrote William Howard Russell who covered the battle for the London Times. “The spectators were all excited, and a lady with an opera glass who was near me was quite beside herself when an unusually heavy discharge roused the current of her blood — ‘That is splendid, Oh my! Is not that first rate? I guess we will be in Richmond tomorrow.’”

Yes, a picnic lunch adjacent to a large battle. You now know how everyone assumed that civilians would not be targeted. People in Iraq and Afghanistan as well as Syria, Pakistan, Yemen and Libya pretty much know the opposite is true with the US Empire in the 21st century.

Reflecting back once more:

That woman would be sorely disappointed. U.S. forces not only failed to defeat their Confederate foes and press on toward the capital of the secessionist South but fled, pell-mell, in ignominious retreat toward Washington. It was a rout of the first order. Still, not one of the many spectators on the scene, including Congressman Alfred Ely of New York, taken prisoner by the 8th South Carolina Infantry, was killed.

By in large, the southern armies were driven by principles. The leadership time and again desired to spare the civilian population of the havoc of war. When Robert E. Lee’s army invaded the northern states of Maryland and Pennsylvania, his men were under strict orders NOT to help themselves to the resources of these civilians but rely on their own supplies. This was even apparent at the end of the war in 1865 when a hungry, tired and destitute southern army under Robert E. Lee retreated from Richmond and came across a rare cow in the countryside. Robert E. Lee directed his hungry men to return that cow to its rightful owner.

We do however know that there were civilian deaths during this internal conflict where one section of the country desired to depart in peace. Tom’s Dispatch explains:

Judith Carter Henry was as old as the imperiled republic at the time of the battle. Born in 1776, the widow of a U.S. Navy officer, she was an invalid, confined to her bed, living with her daughter, Ellen, and a leased, enslaved woman named Lucy Griffith when Confederate snipers stormed her hilltop home and took up positions on the second floor.

“We ascended the hill near the Henry house, which was at that time filled with sharpshooters. I had scarcely gotten to the battery before I saw some of my horses fall and some of my men wounded by sharpshooters,” Captain James Ricketts, commander of Battery 1, First U.S. Artillery, wrote in his official report. “I turned my guns on that house and literally riddled it. It has been said that there was a woman killed there by our guns.” Indeed, a 10-pound shell crashed through Judith Henry’s bedroom and tore off her foot. She died later that day, the first civilian death of America’s Civil War.

We know she was not the last to die. Many would die as Union army cut swaths through the south in Georgia, South Carolina and North Carolina. Civilian’s fields, silver and homes would not be spared, nor were their personal bodies as many women were raped by the marauding troops from the north. As in many countries in the Middle East today, these atrocities would not soon be forgotten.

Tom’s Dispatch (Nick Turse) continues:

No one knows how many civilians died in the war between the states. No one thought to count. Maybe 50,000, including those who died from war-related disease, starvation, crossfire, riots, and other mishaps. By comparison, around 620,000 to 750,000 American soldiers died in the conflict — close to 1,000 of them at that initial battle at Bull Run.

So by 1865 these ratios were starting to change. Civilian deaths are hard to estimate, but you can be assured that military deaths these days are minimal when compared to those of innocent civilians.

In Vietnam, we saw this on black and white TV before the government decided to control more of what the masses would view:

A century later, U.S. troops had traded their blue coats for olive fatigues and the wartime death tolls were inverted. More than 58,000 Americans lost their lives in Vietnam. Estimates of the Vietnamese civilian toll, on the other hand, hover around two million. Of course, we’ll never know the actual number, just as we’ll never know how many died in air strikes as reporters watched from the rooftop bar of Saigon’s Caravelle Hotel ..

Since the 1960s, this trend has only accelerated and has not only produced more of what our own CIA calls “blowback” (I mean, when you blow up funeral processions with drones, you will multiply the number of freedom-fighters, errr I mean “terrorists” in a region) but it also has cause economic and political refugees seeking a better life in other regions of the world. For both the military-industrial complex and politicians, this is actually a win-win for them. How sick is that?

Tom’s Dispatch article winds down by saying:

In this century, it’s a story that has occurred repeatedly, each time with its own individual horrors, as the American war on terror spread from Afghanistan to Iraq and then on to other countries; as Russia fought in Georgia, Ukraine, and elsewhere; as bloodlettings have bloomed from the Democratic Republic of Congo to South Sudan, from Myanmar to Kashmir. War watchers like me and like those reporters atop the Caravelle decades ago are, of course, the lucky ones. We can sit on the rooftops of hotels and listen to the low rumble of homes being chewed up by artillery. We can make targeted runs into no-go zones to glimpse the destruction. We can visit schools transformed into shelters. We can speak to real estate agents who have morphed into war victims.  Some of us, like Hedrick Smith, Michael Herr, or me, will then write about it — often from a safe distance and with the knowledge that, unlike Salah Isaid and most other civilian victims of such wars, we can always find an even safer place.

A safer place. I am sure this is what those imprisoned in Gaza feel, or those in Libya near Tripoli these days, or in various areas of Iraq and Afghanistan and even in areas of Syria.

This will probably all “come home to roost” as our foreign policy of intervention and disruption plus regime change causes people to uproot and move. There is always “baggage” involved when violence displaces families.

This all will not end well, nor will this country be exempt from the fallout.

-SF1

15NOV1780: Georgetown Targeted by Marion’s Militia

 

As a follow-up to my last blog post where Marion’s militia out foxes the undefeated British Legion commander Tarleton, it is apparent that the burning of homes of patriots in the region was Tarleton’s attempt at rattling Marion and his men psychologically and again tempt them to come out in the open to fight. It is essential for the guerrilla commander not to act emotionally but to act strategically and tactfully if they are to keep their forces intact against a larger force, in this case, an empire’s force in North America in the colony of South Carolina.

The lull in Marion’s activities of only a few days gave Tarleton the prideful thought that he had put Marion in his place and therefore used this time to issue a proclamation on 11NOV1780:

“It is not the wish of Britons to be cruel or to destroy, but it is now obvious to all Carolina that treachery, perfidy, and perjury will be punished with instant fire and sword,” his proclamation read. “The country seems now convinced of the error of insurrection,” he boasted to Cornwallis … offering pardons to any rebels who returned to their homes to live peaceably and promised to alert the Tory militia leaders to any future insurrections…

Oller, John. The Swamp Fox: How Francis Marion Saved the American Revolution

Gen. Lord Cornwallis seemed to believe the reports and assumed that Tarleton’s pushing the fox to the swamp would convince the locals, especially those that leaned more patriotic, that “there was a power superior to Marion”. Flush with this euphoric feeling that Marion was marginalized, the British Camden HQ changed their commander on 13NOV1780 as Francis, Lord Rawdon relieved Lt. Col. George Turnbull who had contracted malaria. The next day, 14NOV1780, Lt. Col. Tarleton leaves Camden and heads towards Winnsboro in pursuit of another militia leader, Thomas Sumter.

So with the Sumter distraction towards North Carolina, this allowed Marion to move on Georgetown, the opposite direction from Camden and Tarleton. Marion had received Intel that only 50 wounded soldiers were guarding this port city, key in one of the supply lines to inland British forces and was in need of ammunition, clothing, and salt. Marion was surprised, due to dated Intel, to find that a force of 200 Loyalists under Capt. Jesse Barefield had entered Georgetown to reinforce it. Marion then splits his forces into two separate reconnaissance parties and engage in two skirmishes, one at Allston’s plantation and the other at White’s plantation.

At the White’s plantation, Marion’s militia found civilian cattle being slaughtered. The militia engages this force suffering some losses but also killing the commander of up to 200 men, a Capt. James Lewis.

At Allston’s plantation, two companies of militia (one from SC the other from GA) come upon Capt. Jesse Barefield and his Loyalists forces. Both sides fire at the same time and the Loyalists capture Lt. Gabriel Marion and begin clubbing him with their muskets until he is knocked senseless. A mulatto named Sweat recognizes who he is and he fires a load of buckshot into his heart, killing him instantly.

Lt. Gabriel Marion was Francis’ favorite nephew from his brother Gabriel’s family:

Marion’s horsemen killed a Tory captain and wounded the redoubtable Jesse Barefield on the head and body before he got away. The patriots also took twelve Tory prisoners. But Marion’s men suffered a grievous loss of their own. In the scuffle with Barefield, Marion’s nephew Gabriel Marion, a lieutenant in the brigade, was captured and then shot through the chest at point blank when the Tories learned his identity. Recently turned twenty-one at the time of his death, Gabriel was Marion’s favorite nephew—the son of Marion’s closest and late brother, Gabriel, who had done so much to help Marion financially over the years. … Marion, childless himself, mourned young Gabriel’s death as a father would a son. But his official report of the skirmish was typically laconic: “Our loss was Lt. Gabriel Marion and one private killed and three wounded.” When, the day after the skirmish, one of Marion’s soldiers put a bullet through the head of a captured mulatto man suspected—without evidence—of having killed his nephew, a furious Marion severely reprimanded the captain of the prisoner guard for failing to prevent it.

Oller, John. The Swamp Fox: How Francis Marion Saved the American Revolution

It was in this epic seesaw of an internal civil war in the South Carolina colony that rapid buildup of British forces seem to happen overnight. The same day the skirmishes occurred north of Georgetown,  15Nov1780, that British Lt. Col. Nisbet Balfour sends out 275 men, with two three-pounders from Georgetown towards Kingstree. This force was made up of Provincials, Loyalist Militia and Hessian mercenaries.

Upon returning to camp at Black Mingo on 17NOV1780, Marion writes to his friend Brig. Gen. Henry William Harrington (NC) and relates his
two recent engagements and that his men have less than six rounds of ammunition each. By 21NOV1780, Marion camps along the Pee Dee River near Britton’s Ferry and writes a letter to Maj. Gen. Horatio Gates telling him about the large enemy force now encamped at Kingstree and openly wonders when the Continental Army was planning to return to South Carolina:

“Many of my people has left me and gone over to the enemy, for they think that we have no army coming on, and have been deceived,” he informed Gates. “As we hear nothing from you a great while, I hope to have a line from you in what manner to act, and some assurance to the people of support.” The next day he wrote Gates to reiterate the point. “I seldom have the same [militia] set a fortnight,” he lamented, “and until the Grand Army is on the banks of Santee, it will be the same.”

Oller, John. The Swamp Fox: How Francis Marion Saved the American Revolution

Marion understands that the dynamic nature of his volunteer forces tests his leadership ability and his patience. He appeals to those who could bend the ears of the Continental army leadership that with things still in play in South Carolina, that it might be a good time to take the fight south again, undoubtedly with different leadership then they had back in August in their embarrassing loss to the British at Camden, SC.

Harvest time is drawing to a close, but Francis Marion still has several objectives in mind to keep the pressure on the British so that they have to stay in the Southern Theatre of the Revolutionary war and preserve Gen. George Washington’s stalemate in the north.

Stay tuned ..

-SF1

08NOV1780: Tarleton Can’t Catch Francis Marion – Inadvertently Calls Him a Fox

When I last updated y’all on Marion’s activities in the fall of 1780, Cornwallis had “green lighted” Tarleton via his commander at Camden, George Turnball.

From Camden on November 1 Turnbull wrote to Tarleton at Winnsboro, imploring him to gather up his Legion to hunt down Marion. Tarleton rarely paid any compliments to his rebel adversaries, but he respected Marion, later writing that “Mr. Marion, by his zeal and abilities, shewed himself capable of the trust committed to his charge.” … He [Tarleton] welcomed the opportunity to pursue him, and Cornwallis approved the operation, telling Tarleton, “I … most sincerely hope you will get at Mr. Marion.”

Oller, John. The Swamp Fox: How Francis Marion Saved the American Revolution

The reason for the “green-light” to Cornwallis’ favorite field commander was the impact, both physical and psychological, that Francis Marion and his militia had in South Carolina and in the Southern Theatre of Operations of the Revolutionary War just since August 1780:

Cornwallis was desperate to end Marion’s dominance in the country between the Santee and Pee Dee Rivers. Nisbet Balfour, the commandant at Charleston, worried that unless further measures were taken, all communication between Charleston and Cornwallis’s army would be “at an end.” Marion was bleeding the British to death by a thousand cuts.

Oller, John. The Swamp Fox: How Francis Marion Saved the American Revolution

By now, Banistre Tarleton had the name “Bloody Ban” based on reports from how his men at the conclusion of their 150 mile / 54 hour pursuit of Col. Abraham Buford who was late to reinforce Charleston in May 1780 so Buford and his 350 Virginia Continentals were on the run toward North Carolina. This event was called “Buford’s Massacre” and set the stage for a reversal of alliances for the people of the colony of South Carolina over the coming months! The words “Tarleton’s quarter” (meaning take no prisoners) became legend and his character traits were woven into the person called “Colonel Tavington” in the movie ‘The Patriot'[2000].

Tarleton and his Green Dragoons along with a force of Tories called Harrison’s Rangers set out from Camden on 05NOV1780 moving south based on Intel they received that had Marion’s militian in the High Hills of the Santee. They did not find Marion there as he was but but thirty miles farther south near Nelson’s Ferry with two hundred men on the evening of 05NOV1780.

By 07NOV, Tarleton and his forces moved to the plantation of the recently widowed Dorothy Richardson, whose late husband, Brigadier General Richard Richardson, had been the victorious Whig commander in the Snow Campaign in 1775. This was no coincidence to camp right at a famous patriot’s home. Intel continued to play an important role as Tarleton learned that Marion was camped now just sixteen miles south. Marion too heard reports of Tarleton’s presence.

Marion and his men laid an ambush at Nelson’s Ferry and waited until night expecting Tarleton to cross there but was disappointed as Tarleton backtracked as though he himself sensed a trap. Marion then maneuvered to within three miles of Tarleton’s camp, intending to surprise him. Both of these leaders possessed a high level of intelligence in the ways of military strategy.

Tarleton was crafty as well: he spread the rumor that his main body had returned to Camden and sent out small patrols with instructions to show little signs of fear by leaving camps abruptly with food still cooking in order to draw Marion to attack. He lit bonfires at Richardson’s Plantation designed to give the impression that he was burning the home of a revered patriot family. In the meantime he wheeled out two small artillery pieces capable of a kind of firepower Marion’s men were not used to facing. Then, knowing Marion’s penchant for making surprise attacks at night, Tarleton hid in the woods with his force of four hundred and waited for Marion to come to him.

Oller, John. The Swamp Fox: How Francis Marion Saved the American Revolution

It is about to get real at this point. Knowing that the smoke from the fires would be good bait to draw Marion’s militia forces into this trap, all Tarleton had to do was wait.

At this critical point, the widow of Gen. Richard Richardson prompted her son, the 39 year old Richard Richardson Jr. to escape the plantation’s main home undetected and warn the militia of this trap. Major Richardson’s Intel was that  Tarleton had 100 cavalry and 300 dragoons plus two artillery pieces and that one of Marion’s men deserted to the British/Tory forces and was now Tarleton’s guide in the area.

In light of this brush with death for his men and himself, Marion decided to separate himself from this force by taking his men in the dark on a ride through the swamps toward safety near Jack’s Creek.

The next morning, Tarleton is surprised that the trap was not sprung. This “cat-n-mouse” game was getting real and getting intense!

… he [Tarleton] sent a few men to find out why. They brought back a prisoner who had managed to escape from Marion’s brigade during the previous night’s mad dash. He informed them that Marion would have attacked him had some “treacherous women” (the widow Richardson and others) not smuggled out an emissary to warn Marion of Tarleton’s actual number. Tarleton immediately ordered his men to their arms and mounts, but they soon discovered that Marion had already flown from his camp at Jack’s Creek in the direction of Kingstree.

Oller, John. The Swamp Fox: How Francis Marion Saved the American Revolution

This started a day of adventure for both of these forces as Tarleton moved his men 26 miles through swamps in seven hours while Marion’s men racked up 35 miles in staying out of range of their pursuers.

As Tarleton reported to Cornwallis, due to Marion’s head start and “the difficulties of the country,” he was unable to catch him. He abandoned the chase at Ox Swamp, outside of present-day Manning, which was wide, mucky, and without roads for passage. It was there Tarleton is said to have uttered the words that gave Marion his immortal nickname. “Come my boys! Let us go back, and we will soon find the Gamecock [Thomas Sumter]. But as for this damned old fox, the Devil himself could not catch him.”

Oller, John. The Swamp Fox: How Francis Marion Saved the American Revolution

Now you might think that Tarleton would just move on back toward Camden and try to capture militia leader Thomas Sumter, however, a man of Tarelton’s character would ensure that his frustration would be felt on the innocent people and homes along the path toward Camden:

Tarleton’s frustration was evident from his actions immediately afterward. As he told Cornwallis, he “laid… waste” to all the houses and plantations of the rebels around Richardson’s Plantation and Jack’s Creek. (As usual, Cornwallis turned a blind eye to such depredations.)

Tarleton paid a visit back to the widow Richardson’s home and, as Marion reported to Gates, “beat” her to “make her tell where I was.” Doing what he had earlier pretended to do in order to lure Marion to battle, Tarleton then burned Mrs. Richardson’s home and some of her cattle, destroyed all her corn, and left her without so much as a change of clothes.

From Nelson’s Ferry to Camden he destroyed the homes and grain of thirty plantation owners.

Worst of all, Marion reported, Tarleton had “behaved to the poor women he has distressed with great barbarity.… It is beyond measure distressing to see the women and children sitting in the open air round a fire without a blanket, or any clothing but what they had on, and women of family, and that had ample fortunes; for he spares neither Whig nor Tory.” *

Oller, John. The Swamp Fox: How Francis Marion Saved the American Revolution

So we see here that Tarleton had two points of weakness, pride and revenge. The trait of revenge, especially on innocent women and children would help turn the tide of the “civil war” inside South Carolina itself, drying up Tory sympathies, and for many generations instilling the thought that war taken to the civilian population itself was not only uncivilized, but also brought “blowback”.

The empire of today (United States) could learn well from this lesson of the past. That thought though will have to be captured in yet another future post. As we leave November 1780, we find the British’s top performing field commander frustrated by militia whose leader now has a new name. Although the name Swamp Fox will not emerge until decades after the conclusion of this war, there is something to be said for this moment in time when guerrilla fighting techniques would be the deciding factor as to why the American Revolution did not end in 1780.

As a result, are we thankful today on Thanksgiving Day 2018? I know I am. Thank you Francis Marion and your faithful men in your stand against the empire of your day. You have given the generations that follow hope in the love, liberty and life that your efforts inspired. Amen.

-SF1