After the British got possession of the town the arms taken from the Americans, amounting to 5,000 stand, were lodged in a laboratory near a large quant.i.ty of cartridges and loose powder. By incautiously snapping the muskets and pistols the powder ignited and blew up the house, and the burning fragments, which were scattered in all directions, set fire to the workhouse, jail, and old barracks, and consumed them. The British guard stationed at the place, consisting of fifty men, was destroyed, and about as many other persons lost their lives on the disastrous occasion.
Clinton carried on the siege in a cautious but steady and skilful manner. Lincoln was loaded with undeserved blame by many of his countrymen, for he conducted the defense as became a brave and intelligent officer. The error lay in attempting to defend the town, but, in the circ.u.mstances in which Lincoln was placed, he was almost unavoidably drawn into that course. It was the desire of the State that the capital should be defended, and Congress, as well as North and South Carolina, had encouraged him to expect that his army would be increased to 9,000 men--a force which might have successfully resisted all the efforts of the royal army. But neither Congress nor the Carolinas were able to fulfill the promises which they had made, for the militia were extremely backward in taking the field, and the expected number of Continentals could not be furnished. Lincoln, therefore, was left to defend the place with only about one-third of the force which he had been encouraged to expect. At any time before the middle of April he might have evacuated the town, but the civil authority then opposed his retreat, which soon afterward became difficult, and ultimately impracticable.
At General Lincoln"s request Congress pa.s.sed a resolve directing the Commander-in-Chief to cause an inquiry to be made concerning the loss of Charleston and the conduct of General Lincoln while commanding in the southern department. Washington, who knew Lincoln"s merit well, determined to give Congress time for reflection before adopting any measure which had the least appearance of censure. The following extract from his letter to the President of Congress (10th July, 1780) points out clearly the impropriety of the hasty proceedings which had been proposed in regard to this able and deserving officer:
"At this time," Washington writes, "I do not think that the circ.u.mstances of the campaign would admit, at any rate, an inquiry to be gone into respecting the loss of Charleston, but, if it were otherwise, I do not see that it could be made so as to be completely satisfactory either to General Lincoln or to the public, unless some gentlemen could be present who have been acting in that quarter. This, it seems, would be necessary on the occasion, and the more so as I have not a single doc.u.ment or paper in my possession concerning the department, and a copy of the instructions and orders which they may have been pleased to give General Lincoln from time to time and of their correspondence. And besides the reasons against the inquiry at this time, General Lincoln being a prisoner of war, his situation, it appears to me, must preclude one till he is exchanged, supposing every other obstacle were out of the question. If Congress think proper, they will be pleased to transmit to me such papers as they may have which concern the matters of inquiry, that there may be no delay in proceeding in the business when other circ.u.mstances will permit."
The fall of Charleston was matter of much exultation to the British and spread a deep gloom over the aspect of American affairs. The southern army was lost, and, although small, it could not soon be replaced. In the southern parts of the Union there had always been a considerable number of persons friendly to the claims of Britain. The success of her arms roused all their lurking partialities, gave decision to the conduct of the wavering, encouraged the timid, drew over to the British cause all those who are ever ready to take part with the strongest, and discouraged and intimidated the friends of Congress.
Clinton was perfectly aware of the important advantage which he had gained, and resolved to keep up and deepen the impression on the public mind by the rapidity of his movements and the appearance of his troops in different parts of the country. For that purpose he sent a strong detachment under Cornwallis over the Santee toward the frontier of North Carolina. He dispatched an inferior force into the center of the province, and sent a third up the Savannah to Augusta. These detachments were instructed to disperse any small parties that still remained in arms, and to show the people that the British troops were complete masters of South Carolina and Georgia.
Soon after pa.s.sing the Santee, Cornwallis was informed that Colonel Buford was lying, with 400 men, in perfect security, near the border of North Carolina. He immediately dispatched Colonel Tarleton, with his cavalry, named the Legion, to surprise that party. After performing a march of 104 miles in fifty-four hours, Tarleton, at the head of 700 men, overtook Buford on his march, at the Waxhaws, and ordered him to surrender, offering him the same terms which had been granted to the garrison of Charleston. On Buford"s refusal, Tarleton instantly charged the party, who were dispirited and unprepared for such an onset. Most of them threw down their arms and made no resistance, but a few continued firing, and an indiscriminate slaughter ensued of those who had submitted as well as of those who had resisted. Many begged for quarter, but no quarter was given. Tarleton"s quarter became proverbial throughout the Union and certainly rendered some subsequent conflicts more fierce and b.l.o.o.d.y than they would otherwise have been. Buford and a few hors.e.m.e.n forced their way through the enemy and escaped; some of the infantry, also, who were somewhat in advance, saved themselves by flight, but the regiment was almost annihilated. Tarleton stated that 113 were killed on the spot, 150 left on parole, so badly wounded that they could not be removed, and 53 brought away as prisoners. So feeble was the resistance made by the Americans that the British had only 12 men killed and 5 wounded. The slaughter on this occasion excited much indignation in America. The British endeavored to justify their conduct by a.s.serting that the Americans resumed their arms after having pretended to submit, but such of the American officers as escaped from the carnage denied the allegation. For this exploit, Tarleton was highly praised by Cornwallis.
After the defeat of Buford there were no parties in South Carolina or Georgia capable of resisting the royal detachments. The force of Congress in those provinces seemed annihilated and the spirit of opposition among the inhabitants was greatly subdued. Many, thinking it vain to contend against a power which they were unable to withstand, took the oath of allegiance to the King or gave their parole not to bear arms against him.
In order to secure the entire submission of that part of the country, military detachments were stationed at the most commanding points, and measures were pursued for settling the civil administration and for consolidating the conquest of the provinces. So fully was Clinton convinced of the subjugation of the country and of the sincere submission of the inhabitants, or of their inability to resist, that, on the 3d of June (1780), he issued a proclamation, in which, after stating that all persons should take an active part in settling and securing his majesty"s government and in delivering the country from that anarchy which for some time had prevailed, he discharged from their parole the militia who were prisoners, except those only who had been taken in Charleston and Fort Moultrie, and restored them to all the rights and duties of inhabitants; he also declared that such as should neglect to return to their allegiance should be treated as enemies and rebels.
This proclamation was unjust and impolitic. Proceeding on the supposition that the people of those provinces were subdued rebels, restored by an act of clemency to the privileges and duties of citizens, and forgetting that for upward of four years they had been exercising an independent authority, and that the issue of the war only could stamp on them the character of patriots or rebels. It might easily have been foreseen that the proclamation was to awaken the resentment and alienate the affections of those to whom it was addressed. Many of the Colonists had submitted in the fond hope of being released, under the shelter of the British government, from that hara.s.sing service to which they had lately been exposed, and of being allowed to attend to their own affairs in a state of peaceful tranquility; but the proclamation dissipated this delusion and opened their eyes to their real situation. Neutrality and peace were what they desired, but neutrality and peace were denied them.
If they did not range themselves under the standards of Congress, they must, as British subjects, appear as militia in the royal service. The people sighed for peace, but, on finding that they must fight on one side or the other, they preferred the banners of their country and thought they had as good a right to violate the allegiance and parole which Clinton had imposed on them as he had to change their state from that of prisoners to that of British subjects without their consent.
They imagined that the proclamation released them from all antecedent obligations. Not a few, without any pretense of reasoning on the subject, deliberately resolved to act a deceitful part and to make professions of submission and allegiance to the British government so long as they found it convenient, but with the resolution of joining the standards of their country on the first opportunity. Such duplicity and falsehood ought always to be reprobated, but the unsparing rapacity with which the inhabitants were plundered made many of them imagine that no means of deception and vengeance were unjustifiable.
Hitherto the French fleets and troops had not afforded much direct a.s.sistance to the Americans, but they had impeded and embarra.s.sed the operations of the British Commander-in-Chief. He had intended to sail against Charleston so early as the month of September, 1779, but the unexpected appearance of Count D"Estaing on the southern coast had detained him at New York till the latter part of December. It was his intention, after the reduction of Charleston, vigorously to employ the whole of his force in the subjugation of the adjacent provinces, but information, received about the time of the surrender of the town, that Monsieur de Ternay, with a fleet and troops from France, was expected on the American coast, deranged his plan and induced him to return to New York with the greater part of his army, leaving Cornwallis at the head of 4,000 men to prosecute the southern conquests. Clinton sailed from Charleston on the 5th of June.
After the reduction of Charleston and the entire defeat of all the American detachments in those parts, an unusual calm ensued for six weeks. Imagining that South Carolina and Georgia were reannexed to the British empire in sentiment as well as in appearance, Cornwallis now meditated an attack on North Carolina. Impatient, however, as he was of repose, he could not carry his purpose into immediate execution. The great heat, the want of magazines, and the impossibility of subsisting his army in the field before harvest, compelled him to pause. But the interval was not lost. He distributed his troops in such a manner in South Carolina and the upper parts of Georgia as seemed most favorable to the enlistment of young men who could be prevailed on to join the royal standard; he ordered companies of royal militia to be formed; and he maintained a correspondence with such of the inhabitants of North Carolina as were friendly to the British cause. He informed them of the necessity he was under of postponing the expedition into their country, and advised them to attend to their harvest and to remain quiet till the royal army advanced to support them. Eager, however, to manifest their zeal and entertaining sanguine hopes of success, certain Tories disregarded his salutary advice and broke out into premature insurrections, which were vigorously resisted and generally suppressed by the patriots, who were the more numerous and determined party. But one band of Tories, amounting to 800 men, under a Colonel Bryan, marched down the Yadkin to a British post at the Cheraws and afterward reached Camden.
The people of North Carolina were likely to prove much more intractable than those of South Carolina and Georgia. They were chiefly descendants of Scotch-Irish settlers--stern Presbyterians and ardent lovers of liberty. When Tryon was their governor, they had resisted his tyranny under the name of Regulators, and at Mecklenburg had published a declaration of independence more than a year before Congress took the same att.i.tude of defiance. Such were the North Carolinians; and their State was destined to be the scene of many battles in which the power of Britain was bravely resisted.
Having made the necessary dispositions Cornwallis entrusted the command on the frontier to Lord Rawdon and returned to Charleston in order to organize the civil government of the province and to establish such regulations as circ.u.mstances required. But Cornwallis showed himself more a soldier than a politician, and more a tyrant than either. Instead of endeavoring to regain, by kindness and conciliation, the good will of a people whose affections were alienated from the cause in which he was engaged, Cornwallis attempted to drive them into allegiance by harshness and severity. Indeed, many of the British officers viewed the Americans merely in the light of rebels and traitors, whose lives it was indulgence to spare; treated them not only with injustice, but with insolence and insult more intolerable than injustice itself; and exercised a rigor which greatly increases the miseries without promoting the legitimate purposes of war.
By the capitulation of Charleston, the citizens were prisoners on parole, but successive proclamations were published, each abridging the privileges of prisoners more than that which had gone before. A board of police was established for the administration of justice, and before that board British subjects were allowed to sue for debts, but prisoners were denied that privilege; they were liable to prosecution for debts, but had no security for what was owing them, except the honor of their debtors, and that, in many instances, was found a feeble guarantee. If they complained they were threatened with close confinement; numbers were imprisoned in the town and others consigned to dungeons at a distance from their families. In short, every method, except that of kindness and conciliation, was resorted to in order to compel the people to become British subjects. A few, who had always been well affected to the royal cause, cheerfully returned to their allegiance, and many followed the same course from convenience. To abandon their families and estates and encounter all the privations of fugitives required a degree of patriotism and fort.i.tude which few possessed.
In that melancholy posture of American affairs, many of the ladies of Charleston displayed a remarkable degree of zeal and intrepidity in the cause of their country. They gloried in the appellation of rebel ladies, and declined invitations to public entertainments given by the British officers, but crowded to prison ships and other places of confinement to solace their suffering countrymen. While they kept back from the concerts and a.s.semblies of the victors they were forward in showing sympathy and kindness toward American officers whenever they met them.
They exhorted their brothers, husbands, and sons to an unshrinking endurance in behalf of their country, and cheerfully became the inmates of their prison and the companions of their exile--voluntarily renouncing affluence and ease and encountering labor, penury, and privation.
For some time the rigorous measures of the British officers in South Carolina seemed successful and a deathlike stillness prevailed in the province. The clangor of arms ceased and no enemy to British authority appeared. The people of the lower parts of South Carolina were generally attached to the revolution, but many of their most active leaders were prisoners. The fall of Charleston and the subsequent events had sunk many into despondency, and all were overawed. This gloomy stillness continued about six weeks when the symptoms of a gathering storm began to show themselves. The oppression and insults to which the people were exposed highly exasperated them; they repented the apathy with which they had seen the siege of Charleston carried on, and felt that the fall of their capital, instead of introducing safety and rural tranquility, as they had fondly antic.i.p.ated, was only the forerunner of insolent exactions and oppressive services. Peaceful and undisturbed neutrality was what they desired and what they had expected; but when they found themselves compelled to fight, they chose to join the Provincial banners, and the most daring only waited an opportunity to show their hostility to their new masters.
Such an opportunity soon presented itself. In the end of March (1780) Washington dispatched the troops of Maryland and Delaware, with a regiment of artillery, under the Baron de Kalb, to reinforce the southern army. That detachment met with many obstructions in its progress southward. Such was the deranged state of the American finances that it could not be put in motion when the order was given. After setting out it marched through Jersey and Pennsylvania, embarked at the head of Elk river, was conveyed by water to Petersburgh in Virginia, and proceeded thence towards the place of its destination. But as no magazines had been provided, and as provisions could with difficulty be obtained, the march of the detachment through North Carolina was greatly r.e.t.a.r.ded. Instead of advancing rapidly, the troops were obliged to spread themselves over the country in small parties, in order to collect corn and to get it ground for their daily subsistence. In this way they proceeded slowly through the upper and more fertile parts of North Carolina to Hillsborough, and were preparing to march by Cross creek to Salisbury, where they expected to be joined by the militia of North Carolina.
The approach of this detachment, together with information that great exertions were making to raise troops in Virginia, encouraged the irritation which the rigorous measures of the British officers had occasioned in South Carolina; and numbers of the inhabitants of that State, who had fled from their homes and taken refuge in North Carolina and Virginia, informed of the growing discontents in their native State, and relying on the support of regular troops, a.s.sembled on the frontier of North Carolina.
About 200 of these refugees chose Colonel Sumter, an old Continental officer, called by his comrades the "Gamec.o.c.k," as their leader. On the advance of the British into the upper parts of South Carolina, this gentleman had fled into North Carolina, but had left his family behind.
Soon after his departure a British party arrived, turned his wife and family out of door, and burned his house and everything in it. This harsh and unfeeling treatment excited his bitterest resentment, which operated with the more virulence by being concealed under the fair veil of patriotism.
At the head of his little band, without money or magazines, and but ill provided with arms and ammunition, Sumter made an irruption into South Carolina. Iron implements of husbandry were forged by common blacksmiths into rude weapons of war; and pewter dishes, procured from private families and melted down, furnished part of their supply of b.a.l.l.s.
This little band skirmished with the royal militia and with small parties of regular troops, sometimes successfully, and always with the active courage of men fighting for the recovery of their property.
Sometimes they engaged when they had not more than three rounds of shot each, and occasionally some of them were obliged to keep at a distance till, by the fall of friends or foes, they could be furnished with arms and ammunition. When successful, the field of battle supplied them with materials for the next encounter.
This party soon increased to 600 men, and, encouraged by its daring exertions, a disposition manifested itself throughout South Carolina again to appeal to arms. Some companies of royal militia, embodied under the authority of Cornwallis, deserted to Sumter and ranged themselves under his standard.
Cornwallis beheld this change with surprise: he had thought the conflict ended, and the southern provinces completely subdued; but, to his astonishment, saw that past victories were unavailing, and that the work yet remained to be accomplished. He was obliged to call in his outposts and to form his troops into larger bodies.
But Cornwallis was soon threatened by a more formidable enemy than Sumter, who, though an active and audacious leader, commanded only an irregular and feeble band, and was capable of engaging only in desultory enterprises. Congress, sensible of the value and importance of the provinces which the British had overrun, made every effort to reinforce the southern army; and, fully aware of the efficacy of public opinion and of the influence of high reputation, on the 13th of June (1780) appointed General Gates to command it. He had acquired a splendid name by his triumphs over Burgoyne, and the populace, whose opinions are formed by appearances and fluctuate with the rumors of the day, antic.i.p.ated a success equally brilliant. [4]
On receiving notice of his appointment to the command of the southern army, Gates, who had been living in retirement on his estate in Virginia, proceeded southward without delay, and on the 25th of July (1780) reached the camp at Buffalo ford, on Deep river, where he was received by De Kalb with respect and cordiality. The army consisted of about 2,000 men, and considerable reinforcements of militia from North Carolina and Virginia were expected. In order that he might lead his troops through a more plentiful country, and for the purpose of establishing magazines and hospitals at convenient points, De Kalb had resolved to turn out of the direct road to Camden. But Gates, in opposition to De Kalb"s advice, determined to pursue the straight route toward the British encampment, although it lay through a barren country, which afforded but a scanty subsistence to its inhabitants.
On the 27th of July (1780) he put his army in motion and soon experienced the difficulties and privations which De Kalb had been desirous to avoid. The army was obliged to subsist chiefly on poor cattle, accidentally found in the woods, and the supply of all kinds of food was very limited. Meal and corn were so scarce that the men were compelled to use unripe corn and peaches instead of bread. That insufficient diet, together with the intense heat and unhealthy climate, engendered disease, and threatened the destruction of the army. Gates at length emerged from the inhospitable region of pine-barrens, sand hills, and swamps, and, after having effected a junction with General Caswell, at the head of the militia of North Carolina, and a small body of troops under Lieutenant-Colonel Porterfield, he arrived at Clermont, or Rugely"s Mills, on the 13th of August (1780), and next day was joined by the militia of Virginia, amounting to 700 men, under General Stevens.
On the day after Gates arrived at Rugley"s Mills, he received an express from Sumter, stating that a number of the militia of South Carolina had joined him on the west side of the Wateree, and that an escort of clothes, ammunition, and other stores for the garrison at Camden was on its way from Ninety-Six and must pa.s.s the Wateree at a ford covered by a small fort nor far from Camden.
Gates immediately detached 100 regular infantry and 300 militia of North Carolina to reinforce Sumter, whom he ordered to reduce the fort and intercept the convoy. Meanwhile he advanced nearer Camden, with the intention of taking a position about seven miles from that place. For that purpose he put his army in motion at 10 in the evening of the 15th of August, having sent his sick, heavy baggage, and military stores not immediately wanted, under a guard to Waxhaws. On the march Colonel Armand"s [5] legion composed the van; Porterfield"s light infantry, reinforced by a company of picked men from Stevens" brigade, marching in Indian files, two hundred yards from the road, covered the right flank of the legion, while Major Armstrong"s light infantry of North Carolina militia, reinforced in like manner by General Caswell, in the same order, covered the left. The Maryland division, followed by the North Carolina and Virginia militia, with the artillery, composed the main body and rear guard; and the volunteer cavalry were equally distributed on the flanks of the baggage. The American army did not exceed 4,000 men, only about 900 of whom were regular troops, and 70 cavalry.
On the advance of Gates into South Carolina, Lord Rawdon had called in his outposts, and concentrated his force at Camden. Informed of the appearance of the American army, and of the general defection of the country between the Pedee and the Black river, Cornwallis quitted Charleston and repaired to Camden, where he arrived on the same day that Gates reached Clermont.
The British force was reduced by sickness, and Cornwallis could not a.s.semble more than two thousand men at Camden. That place, though advantageous in other respects, was not well adapted for resisting an attack; and as the whole country was rising against him, Cornwallis felt the necessity of either retreating to Charleston, or of instantly striking a decisive blow. If he remained at Camden, his difficulties would daily increase, his communication with Charleston be endangered, and the American army acquire additional strength. A retreat to Charleston would be the signal for the whole of South Carolina and Georgia to rise in arms; his sick and magazines must be left behind; and the whole of the two provinces, except the towns of Charleston and Savannah, abandoned. The consequences of such a movement would be nearly as fatal as a defeat. Cornwallis, therefore, although he believed the American army considerably stronger than what it really was, determined to hazard a battle; and, at 10 at night, on the 15th of August, the very hour when Gates proceeded from Rugely"s Mills, about thirteen miles distant, he marched towards the American camp.
About 2 in the morning of the 16th of August (1780) the advanced guards of the hostile armies unexpectedly met in the woods, and the firing instantly began. Some of the cavalry of the American advanced guard being wounded by the first discharge, the party fell back in confusion, broke the Maryland regiment which was at the head of the column, and threw the whole line of the army into consternation. From that first impression, deepened by the gloom of night, the raw and ill-disciplined militia seem not to have recovered. In the reencounter several prisoners were taken on each side, and from them the opposing generals acquired a more exact knowledge of circ.u.mstances than they had hitherto possessed.
Several skirmishes happened during the night, which merely formed a prelude to the approaching battle, and gave the commanders some notion of the position of the hostile armies.
Cornwallis, perceiving that the Americans were on ground of no great extent, with mora.s.ses on their right and left, so that they could not avail themselves of their superior numbers to outflank his little army, impatiently waited for the returning light, which would give every advantage to his disciplined troops. [6]
Both armies prepared for the conflict. Cornwallis formed his men in two divisions; that on the right was under the command of Lieutenant-Colonel Webster, that on the left under Lord Rawdon. In front were four field pieces. The Seventy-first regiment, with two cannon, formed the reserve; and the cavalry, about 300 in number, were in the rear, ready to act as circ.u.mstances might require.
In the American army the second Maryland brigade, under General Gist, formed the right of the line; the militia of North Carolina, commanded by General Caswell, occupied the center; and the militia of Virginia, with the light infantry and Colonel Armand"s corps, composed the left; the artillery was placed between the divisions. The First Maryland brigade was stationed as a reserve 200 or 300 yards in the rear. Baron de Kalb commanded on the right; the militia generals were at the head of their respective troops, and General Gates resolved to appear wherever his presence might be most useful.
At dawn of day Cornwallis ordered Lieutenant-Colonel Webster, with the British right wing, to attack the American left. As Webster advanced he was a.s.sailed by a desultory discharge of musketry from some volunteer militia who had advanced in front of their countrymen, but the British soldiers, rushing through that loose fire, charged the American line with a shout. The militia instantly threw down their arms and fled, many of them without even discharging their muskets, and all the efforts of the officers were unable to rally them. A great part of the center division, composed of the militia of North Carolina, imitated the example of their comrades of Virginia; few of either of the divisions fired a shot, and still fewer carried their arms off the field. Tarleton with his legion pursued and eagerly cut down the unresisting fugitives.
Gates, with some of the militia general officers, made several attempts to rally them, but in vain. The further they fled the more they dispersed, and Gates in despair hastened with a few friends to Charlotte, eighty miles from the field of battle.
De Kalb at the head of the Continentals, being abandoned by the militia, which had const.i.tuted the center and left wing of the army, and being forsaken by the general also, was exposed to the attack of the whole British army. De Kalb and his troops, however, instead of imitating the disgraceful example of their brethren in arms, behaved with a steady intrepidity and defended themselves like men. Rawdon attacked them about the time when Webster broke the left wing, but the charge was firmly received and steadily resisted, and the conflict was maintained for some time with equal obstinacy on both sides. The American reserve covered the left of De Kalb"s division, but its own left flank was entirely exposed by the flight of the militia, and, therefore, Webster, after detaching some cavalry and light troops in pursuit of the fugitive militia, with the remainder of his division attacked them at once in front and flank. A severe contest ensued. The Americans, in a great measure intermingled with British, maintained a desperate conflict.
Cornwallis brought his whole force to bear upon them; they were at length broken and began to retreat in confusion. The brave De Kalb, while making a vigorous charge at the head of a body of his men, fell pierced with eleven wounds. His aide-de-camp, Lieutenant-Colonel de Buysson, embraced the fallen general, announced his rank and nation to the surrounding enemy, and while thus generously exposing his own life to save his bleeding friend, he received several severe wounds, and was taken prisoner with him. De Kalb met with all possible attention and a.s.sistance from the victorious enemy, but that gallant officer expired in a few hours. Congress afterward ordered a monument to be erected to his memory.
Never was victory more complete or defeat more total. Every regiment was broken and dispersed through the woods, marshes, and brushwood, which at once saved them from their pursuers and separated them more entirely from each other. The officers lost sight of their men and every individual endeavored to save himself in the best way he was able. The British cavalry pursued; and for many miles the roads were strewed with the wrecks of a ruined army. Wagons or fragments of wagons, arms, dead or maimed horses, dead or wounded soldiers, were everywhere seen.
General Rutherford, of the North Carolina militia, was made prisoner, but the other general officers reached Charlotte at different times and by different routes.
About 200 wagons, a great part of the baggage, military stores, small arms, and all the artillery fell into the hands of the conquerors. This decisive victory cost the British only 80 men killed and 245 wounded.
Eight hundred or 900 of the Americans were killed or wounded, and about 1,000 taken prisoners. The militia endeavored to save themselves by flight; the Continentals alone fought, and almost half their number fell.
While the army under Gates was completely defeated and dispersed Colonel Sumter was successful in his enterprise. On the evening in which Cornwallis marched from Camden he reduced the redoubt on the Wateree, took the stores on their way to Camden, and made about 100 prisoners.
On hearing, however, of the disastrous fate of the army under Gates, Sumter, fully aware of his danger, retreated hastily with his stores and prisoners up the south side of the Wateree. On the morning of the 17th (September, 1780) Cornwallis sent Tarleton, with the legion and a detachment of infantry, in pursuit of him. That officer proceeded with his usual rapidity. Finding many of his infantry unable to keep pace with him he advanced with about 100 cavalry and sixty of the most vigorous of the infantry, and on the 18th (September, 1780) suddenly and unexpectedly came upon the Americans.
Sumter, having marched with great diligence, thought himself beyond the reach of danger, and his men being exhausted by unremitting service and want of sleep, he halted near the Catawba ford to give them some repose during the heat of the day. In order to prevent a surprise he had placed sentinels at proper stations to give warning of approaching danger, but overcome by fatigue and equally regardless of duty and safety the sentinels fell asleep at their post and gave no alarm. Tarleton suddenly burst into the encampment of the drowsy and unsuspecting Americans, and, though some slight resistance was at first made from behind the baggage, soon gained a complete victory. The Americans fled precipitately toward the river or the woods. Between 300 and 400 of them were killed or wounded. Sumter escaped, galloping off on horseback, without coat, hat, or saddle, but all his baggage fell into the hands of the enemy, while the prisoners and stores which he had taken were recovered. About 150 of his men made good their retreat.
By the complete defeat and dispersion of the army under Gates and of Sumter"s corps, South Carolina and Georgia appeared to be again laid prostrate at the feet of the royal army, and the hope of maintaining their independence seemed more desperate than ever.
Affairs did not seem desperate, however, to Washington. He knew the defensible nature of the country--intersected in every direction by rivers and swamps, and affording every facility for partisan warfare against regular troops, and he knew that the infamous conduct of the British in the South had thoroughly roused the indignation of the people. While Gates was gathering together a new army and stationing detachments in different posts near Hillsborough, Washington received intelligence of the disastrous battle of Camden. The sad news came unexpectedly, as the previous reports had given hopes of some brilliant feat on the part of Gates. The unlooked-for disaster, however, did not for a moment dishearten Washington. He was fully aware of the determination of the British to conquer the South, and if possible to detach it from the confederacy, and he was determined on his part to defeat their purpose. This was to be done chiefly by rousing the South itself to action, since the position of affairs at the North did not admit of large detachments from the force under his own immediate command. He ordered, however, that some regular troops enlisted in Maryland for the war should be sent to the southward. To show how attentive he was to all the details of the necessary measures for defending the South we copy his letter of September 12th (1780) to Governor Rutledge, of South Carolina, who had been armed with dictatorial power by the Legislature of that State. [7]
"I am fully impressed," he writes, "with the importance of the southern States, and of course with the necessity of making every effort to expel the enemy from them. The late unlucky affair near Camden renders their situation more precarious and calls for every exertion to stop at least the further progress of the British army. It is to be wished that the composition of our force in this quarter, our resources, and the present situation of the fleet and army of our ally would admit of an immediate and sufficient detachment, not only to answer the purpose I have just mentioned, but to carry on operations of a more serious and extensive nature. But this not being the case, for reasons which must be obvious to you, let it suffice that your Excellency be informed that our views tend ultimately to the southward.