As it happened time and again in the Revolutionary War in South Carolina, many men changed sides for various reasons. Sometimes their house was burned down or horses were stolen. Other times, just the tide of war changing into the other “team’s” favor led men to leave one cause for another.
The pattern we have seen in the previous victories by Marion’s new milita force come into play once more. Intel is received on 03SEP1780 that Francis Marion keeps to himself that a larger Tory/loyalist force of 250 men lies north of them. Marion uses the element of surprise to move TOWARD the threat, a great military tactic, the next morning and engages a subset of this force under ex-Patriot Gainey who is known to be quite the hot-head.
As Marion’s 50 or so men scatter this force which emboldens Marion to quickly followup and engage the full force just three miles north. Marion then decides to quickly disengage, and retreat back to a savannah area described by J.W. Lewis and his work at his Carolana site:
He conceals his men at Blue Savannah, an open sandy area surrounded by scrub pines. Capt. Barefield leads his men right into the ambush. Col. Marion charges with 50 men, weapons firing and swords flying. Capt. Barefield’s men send one volley that hits three men, and then his men break and run. Col. Marion’s men pursue to the edge of the nearby swamp, but do not penetrate it. They know that a cornered enemy is very dangerous
Whether you count this as 3 for 3 (Nelson’s Ferry win, Kingstree win, Blue Savannah win) or 2 for 2 if you see Kingstree without Marion was only a skirmish, you should know that THIS will probably get Cornwallis’ attention. Never the less, Marion returns to his “home” in Britton’s Neck:
The next day Marion marched back to his camp at Britton’s Neck, where sixty new volunteers from Colonel Hugh Giles’s militia joined him, doubling the size of his yet small force. Two weeks earlier his name was unknown to the British, and now suddenly he was capable of operating behind Cornwallis’s lines and harassing his right (eastern) flank. It was a vexation his Lordship needed to eliminate before he could launch his planned invasion of North Carolina. The success of Marion’s hit-and-run tactics so infuriated the British high command that at least half a dozen death squads, beginning with Wemyss, were dispatched in sequence to go after him.
From: Oller, John. “The Swamp Fox: How Francis Marion Saved the American Revolution” (Kindle Locations 1063-1068). Da Capo Press. Kindle Edition.
The pressure would be on soon, but Marion keeps receiving valuable intel, this time on 07SEP1780 he hears how about 150 British regulars and Tories were burning the very homes of the men serving under Marion near Williamsburg. Marion would yet again do something that goes against military protocol, divide his smaller force into three forces:
- Sending Maj. James and a small group towards the British forces who were unleashing their frustration against the civilian population in the area
- Keeping 25 men at camp at Britton’s Neck
- Moving the remaining men, about 75 in all, towards Indiantown where he would meet up again with Maj. James who had even more intel to share
Once Francis Marion adds up all the numbers of British regulars and Tories that are in the area AND their mission, the North Carolina border (seen in the map above) will look real good!
-SF1