Tag: Charleston

15-28MAY1781: South Carolina is able to Expel British/Tory Forces from Key Strongholds

From my last post about South Carolina’s effort in MAY1781 to leave the British Empire for good I said:

… seems that the tide is turning into a flood, and mid-May 1781 will come more changes as this internal civil war rages on in South Carolina between Tories and Whigs, British regulars and Continentals and everyone else caught in between …

The flood keeps surging in mid-May as more good news is received that the British force at Orangeburg fell to Sumter and Lt. Col. Henry Lee moved to Fort Granby and accepted surrender of British forces there on May 15th.

Seems the typical hot-headed “Gamecock”, Brig. Gen. Thomas Sumter was ticked that HE was not allowed to accept the surrender on the siege he had started two weeks before.  Sumter threatened resignation but ended up getting munitions and slaves to pay his men via “Sumter’s Law”.  Greene also at this time ensured that Sumter was top dog and could order Marion where he needed him.

Continental leader Maj. Gen. Nathaniel Greene and his forces continued on to Ninety-Six where the last inland detachment of British were entrenched.  Lt. Col. Henry Lee is dispatched 16MAY to join Brig. Gen. Andrew Pickens and to place a seige on Augusta, Georgia and to work with militia leader Elijah Clarke in taking Fort Galphin on May 21st then on to assist the militia leader Brig. Gen. Andrew Pickens in taking out smaller forts around that key city.

In the meantime, on 19MAY, Marion sends news to Greene that Francis, Lord Rawdon is still at Moncks Corner and GeorgeTown is now garrisoned by only ~80 men, including Redcoats and Loyalists. Marion requests approval to go take Georgetown.

On 26MAY, Marion receives a conditional “yes” (as long as Sumter would not be exposed and Rawdon did not move on Ninety-Six) and moved on Georgetown and laid siege, learning from Fort Watson and Fort Motte experiences.  Again he was without cannon but that did not keep him from using black painted peeled logs!

The British leadership had already been given permission to exit should they be pressed and so on the same day the siege started (28MAY) the British spiked their cannons, boarded their ships and left the city. These forced lingered safely in the bay a few days (until 11JUN1781 actually) and then sailed for CharlesTown.

With the occupation of GeorgeTown, Brig. Gen. Marion is able to replenish his wardrobe and fit himself out in a new suit of ‘regimentals’. He is then ordered by Maj. Gen. Nathanael Greene to assist with the next siege attempt, that of Ninety-Six, so he leaves a small force in Georgetown under the command of Lt. Col. Peter Horry and marches away with the captured British supplies.

His militia, seeing that the job in GeorgeTown is finished, quietly go back to their homes. Frustrated by the fluidity of volunteer militia, Brig. Gen. Marion begins gathering a new militia to harass Francis Lord Rawdon on his way to Ninety-Six.

Ninety-Six lay in the middle of Tory country and so a siege was tough sledding.  It actually should never had taken place except the orders from Rawdon to Cruger (commander at ’96) to leave Ninety-Six for Augusta was intercepted by the rebels and never delivered. The fortification was intense and artillery consisted of three three-pounders and 550 motivated soldiers knowing that this was the last significant outpost in the interior of South Carolina where once the British had over 30 strongholds and now only had a dozen mainly located near CharlesTown.

In addition to this difficulty, there was a rumor afloat that on about 02JUN1781, Col. Pasten Gould landed another 2,000 new British Regulars from Cork, Ireland at CharlesTown.

June 1781 would be a rough month in this seesaw set of events that can easily occur when an empire can land more troops at will from anywhere in the globe.

Stay tuned for what happens at Ninety-Six!

-SF1

Big Picture – When an Empire Starts Invading Your Region (Part 2 of 2)

This post is Part #2 of an overview that shows how South Carolina fought to keep the British Empire at bay. This is a continuation of Part #1 where in my previous post I showed how twice South Carolina, specifically the port of Charleston, was able to resist the British advances to date. However, in my last paragraph I mentioned how the American Continental’s unsuccessful siege at Savannah, Georgia in the fall of 1779 caught the attention of British general Clinton in the port of New York City who decided the time was right to send part of his fleet and troops south to the Carolinas and roll them all up the coast to finally crush this rebellion.

Clinton assembled an 8500 man expeditionary force on this large flotilla of ships that would take six-weeks in bad weather to reach the shores of South Carolina about 25 miles south of Charleston. The June 1776 attempt to enter the port taught the British that maybe the land approach would be more successful. The British had to throw all their horses overboard in the rough Atlantic Ocean weather and so targeting replacement horses in South Carolina would be one of the first orders of business.

The British landed on February 11th near Beaufort, South Carolina and joined the British forces from Savannah in an attempt to encircle Charleston, lay siege to the city and force a surrender.  The people of South Carolina were not real excited about the defense of Charleston as the militia refused to deploy there for fear of smallpox, the locals refused to have trees cut down to keep the British from having cover during the siege. Cooperation was at an all-time low.

In early April 1780 the British had laid siege to Charleston and by mid-April, Continental General Benjamin Lincoln ordered all officers without an assigned command and any who were unfit for duty to leave the garrison and retire to the countryside. Francis Marion, who had injured his ankle attempting to escape an officer’s party that had turn into a drunken affair, retired to his plantation 50 miles north and inland from the port of Charleston. On 14APR1780 the noose tightened as the British cavalry commander Tarleton surprised a larger force of American Continentals at Monck’s Corners 30 miles north of Charleston and secured 400 horses for the British. The American commander in Charleston with 5000 men had been requested to defend Charleston at all costs and now had no escape route.

By early May 1780, Charleston was indeed cutoff from the rest of the colony and the British almost had free reign of the land routes throughout the region. Charleston ran up the white flag on 11MAY1780 and the next day the entire Continental force under Lincoln surrendered. The power vacuum was quickly replaced by the British as the following towns also were occupied in the next three days by 15MAY1780:

Monck’s Corners, Cheraw, Orangeburgh, Ninety-Six and Dorchester. The port of Georgetown would be occupied by July 11th.

The next major town to be occupied would be Camden by August 16th and this would be the low-point of the patriot cause in South Carolina during the Revolutionary War or better described as the War for the Independence of Thirteen Sovereign Colonies from the British Empire!

SF1

July 1780 Continentals Attempt Quick Victory Against British in South Carolina

13JUL1780: Major General Horatio Gates (BLUE) arrives in Hillsborough, NC. He served the British army before he moved to the American Colonies and volunteered as a Staff Officer in the Continental Army in 1775. In September and October 1777 he commanded the army that defeated the British invasion from Canada at Saratoga, NY. He sends out notice to all Continental officers still at liberty in the south to join him as soon as possible.

Note that for South Carolina forces alone, most regiments were at 10% strength as compared to their JAN1780 numbers. While SC Governor John Rutledge fled to North Carolina before MAY1780, SC Lt. Governor Christopher Gadsden was a POW, as well as 10 of 13 officers (Major General Lincoln, Brigadier Generals and Colonels) in the highest ranks. In addition to this, the British have occupied SIX major areas of South Carolina since the fall of Charleston on 12MAY1780.

One would think that this is the low ebb for the patriot/rebel cause in South Carolina, but things are going to get much worse before they get better.

25JUL1780: Gates meets Major General Baron DeKalb at Deep River, NC (just south of Greensboro) and assumed command of the Southern Military Department of the Continental Army. Lt. Colonel Francis Marion (decades later called “Swamp Fox”) and Lt. Colonel Peter Horry along with 20 others including servants are present to offer their services and receive direction.

27JUL1780: The Continentals and the SC militia unit start their 150 mile march toward Camden, SC. Faulty intelligence and a route that offered little in the way of food for these troops meant that their condition upon arrival in South Carolina will not be good.

03AUG1780: The Continentals and SC militia are joined by NC militia at the Pee Dee River in Anson County, NC. A week later Lt. General Lord Cornwallis would lead his British forces north from Charleston, SC for a showdown.

Stay tuned.

SF1

 

July 1780 -Kickoff Time for Francis Marion (Swamp Fox) to Morph into a Militia Leader

Life is a process. We are never the same person we were born as, as this process ebbs and flows culminating into the legacy we leave as we depart this world. Such is the case of Francis Marion, an officer in the Continental Army who escaped capture by the British due to his being at his home nursing a injured ankle due to his “character”!

So, I am sure you are wondering about that last line. What could his character have to do with his injured ankle? Apparently, it was common practice of senior officers in the military to hold a drinking party in their home and lock the doors so fellow officers could not leave until they were all plastered, king of a 1700s version of a “team-building” event! Francis Marion, as of 20 January 1780 a Lt. Col., commands the 2nd South Carolina Regiment. On the night of 19 March 1780 at a party on Tradd St. in Charleston being more of a ‘man of moderation’ he decided to exit the party and therefore slipped (no pun intended) out of a window and fell to the street injuring or breaking his leg or ankle. As a result, he returned to his home in Pond Bluff which is 50 miles north of Charleston.

The British decided in early 1780 to redouble their shift in their focus to the southern colonies where they believed they had much more support and then roll up through Virginia and cornering the balance of the Continentals under George Washington near New York City in quick fashion. The British had already captured Savannah, Georgia early in the war in December 1778 after it had failed to capture Charleston on 28 June 1776 when British attacked Sullivan’s Island from the sea while Francis commanded the guns at Fort Sullivan (later called Fort Moultrie). The British naval attack failed when the palmetto logs held against bombardment.

Francis Marion also participated in the attempt to retake Savanna, Georgia in the fall of 1779 but the Continentals and militia failed in their siege. So early in 1780 the British captured and occupied Beaufort, South Carolina on 03 February 1780 and then turned its focus on Charleston.

Starting 28 March 1780 the British laid siege to Charleston and by 12 May 1780, Charleston surrendered. Maj. Gen. Benjamin Lincoln surrendered all of the existing Continental Army in SC, plus much of the SC militia and NC Militia. Most of the Continental Army officers and men were captured, over 5000 men in all, and signed documents stating that they would not take up arms against the British ever again.

In the days after this the British moved into the South Carolina back country as they had the momentum as news spread causing many people to switch allegiances and now back the British. On 29 May 1780 Lt. Col. Banastre Tarleton and his Legion bayoneted 113 Continental soldiers of Col. Abraham Buford’s Virginia unit. Subsequent captures included South Carolina strategic locations such as Moncks Corners, Cheraw, Orangeburgh, Ninety-Six, and Dorchester. A month later on 11 July 1780 they also occupied Georgetown on the South Carolina coast as well, getting very close to Francis Marion’s plantation near St. Stephens.

Francis Marion is 48 years old at this point in time and is 5′ 2″ tall. His ability to lead men mainly on horseback over the next 24 months will be critical to the success of South Carolina and the rest of the colonies to finally break with the largest empire in the world.