1780

 

__________

 

“DeKalb was an American too – by adoption.”

 

Benjamin Andrews

__________

General Greene bedevils stronger British forces.

“To strike and get away.”

 

May: In the spring of this year, Francis Marion launches his career as a guerrilla fighter. Fanny E. Coe, provides this description in Makers of the Nation (1914):

 

The partisan method of warfare was unusual. With numbers so small that they could not fight in the open field, the leaders sought at all times the sudden surprise. A sleeping camp, a small detachment of British escorting American prisoners, an isolated post – these were what they fell upon like a bolt from the blue. Such was the suddenness of these appearances and the fierceness of their attack that they were almost always successful. Ten or a dozen of the foe killed, American prisoners set free, needed stores secured – these were the results obtained. They were not large in themselves, but what was of importance was that the British were never at ease.

 

[Marion and his band] were seldom more than seventy in number, and sometimes their ranks fell as low as sixteen.

 

The food was plain and often scanty. Hominy, rice, and sweet potatoes were the staples. Marion and his men could live very well on such far. The story is told of a British officer who came to their camp under truce. Great was his astonishment when he found that the dinner consisted of nothing but roasted sweet potatoes, and that they were served on pieces of bark. But, as Marion said, “Hunger is the best sauce.”

 

…They rode the finest and fleetest horses, and this was wise, for their lives often depended upon the swiftness of the steeds they rode. To strike and to get away was Marion’s policy.

 

Every month the enemy was harassed by some daredevil deed of Marion’s In August, 1780, an English party with one hundred and fifty prisoners taken at Camden, were near Nelson’s Ferry on the Santee River. At daybreak Marion’s men swooped down upon them, freed the American prisoners, captured twenty-six of the escort, and then sped off.

 

Another time the brigade actually entered Georgetown and carried away the commander of the post from the midst of his men. The very insolence of the deeds infuriated the enemy.

 

Scores of stories might be told of the daring of individuals in the band. One man was closely pursuing a British officer through the forest. He had far outdistanced his comrades, so that he was now alone. Suddenly he found himself riding directly upon a company of Tories. With enemies all around him, he played the game of bluff. Turning in his saddle, he waved his arm and shouted: “Here they are, boys. Come on!” The Tories thought the whole band was at his heels, and turned and fled.

 

*

 

May 12: Ten thousand British troops have Charleston, South Carolina surrounded by land and cut off by a enemy fleet.

 

[Gen. Benjamin] Lincoln was forced into an unconditional surrender that turned his 5,000-odd Continentals and militia into prisoners of war. Huge quantities of supplies were lost, and nearly all the patriot leaders of South Carolina, political and military, were seized, leaving the whole Charleston Revolutionary movement headless, save for Governor John Rutledge and one or two others whom Lincoln had contrived to slip out of the city. The American cause had suffered the severest disaster of the entire conflict. (48/300)

 

*

 

June: Massachusetts voters ratify the new state constitution. A list of thirty different rights is included.

 

Still, as Benjamin Andrews would later write,

 

All the States still had Sunday laws; most of them had religious tests. In South Carolina only members of a church could vote. In New Jersey an office-holder must profess belief in the faith of some Protestant sect. Pennsylvania required members of the legislature to avow faith in God, a future state, and the inspiration of the Scriptures. The new Massachusetts constitution provided that laws against plays, extravagance in dress, diet, etc., should be passed. Property qualifications continued to limit suffrage.  (2/66)

 

*

 

July: A French fleet arrives off Newport, Rhode Island, and General Comte Donatien de Rochambeau is rowed ashore. Rochambeau informs Gen. Washington that he has 5,000 French regulars on transports, and that they are assigned to help him “for the duration.”

 

They are also to be under Washington’s orders. (48/327)

 

*

 

THE BRITISH had 7,000 men in S.C. and Ga. So, Washington “detached from his scanty army 2,000 Maryland troops and the Delaware regiment – all veterans – and sent them south under [Gen. Johann] DeKalb, a brave officer of German blood, who had seen long service in France.”

 

*

 

August 15: [Gen. Horatio Gates]:

 

made a night march to secure a more favorable position near Camden. Cornwallis happened to have chosen the same night for an attack upon Gates. The two armies unexpectedly met in the woods, nine miles from Camden. 

 

The American position was strong, a swamp protecting both flanks, but at the first bayonet charge of the British veterans the raw militia threw away their guns and “ran like a torrent.” The Maryland and Delaware Continentals stood their ground bravely, but were finally obliged to retreat. DeKalb fell, with eleven wounds.

 

The whole army was pursued for miles and completely scattered. Arms, knapsacks, broken wagons, dead horses strewed the line of retreat. The Americans lost 900 killed and wounded, and as many more prisoners. The British loss was less than 500. Gates, who had been literally borne off the field by the panic-stricken militia, rode in all haste two hundred miles north to Hillsborough, N. C., where he tried to organize a new army.

 

There was now no organized American force in the Carolinas, and Cornwallis began a triumphant march northward.

 

*

 

ANDREWS adds this story: “DeKalb was an American too – by adoption.” It is said he warned Gates about fighting unprepared at Camden. Gates “intimated cowardice.” The old fellow replied, “To-morrow will tell, sir, who is the coward.”

 

Like a “bull” the German held the field the following day.

 

A monster British grenadier rushed on him, bayonet fixed. DeKalb parried, at the same time burying his sword in the grenadier’s breast so deep that he was unable to extract it. Then seizing the dead man’s weapon he fought on, thrusting right and left, till at last, overpowered by numbers, he slipped and fell, mortally hurt. (2/155-156)

 

*

 

LANCASTER AND PLUMB present an equally negative view of Gates, noting that he marched south, “piling blunder onto blunder.”

 

At one point, he was shown returns that indicated his army numbered only 3,000 men, not the 7,000 he thought. Gates exclaimed dramatically, “Sir, there are enough for our purpose.”

 

With Gate’s army wrecked, Washington dispatched Gen. Nathaneal Greene to take charge of the campaign against Cornwallis and his victorious redcoats. His subordinates were soon impressed. Colonel William Polk of North Carolina, for one, found that by the morning after his arrival on the scene, Green “understood [supply problems] better than Gates had done in the whole period of his command!”

 

Greene found only 800 men fit for duty, when he arrived, out of 2,300. “Morale was very low, the camps were filthy and badly sighted; yet Greene senses something might be made of this command.” The army was bolstered by the arrival of Gen. Daniel Morgan, who had been in “retirement,” miffed after having been passed over by Congress for promotion. He was also joined by Colonel Henry Lee, soon to become famous as “Light-Horse Harry,” and his green-jacketed, helmeted Legion of 300 finely trained men. (48/303, 308-309)

 

*

 

October 7:

 

The brave mountaineers of North Carolina and Virginia rose in arms. [A thousand] riflemen fell upon a detachment of 1,100 British, strongly posted on King’s Mountain, N.C., and after a sharp struggle killed and wounded about 400, and took the rest prisoners. … The King’s Mountain victory filled the patriots with new hope and zeal, and kept the loyalists from rising to support the British. Cornwallis marched south again. (2/104-109)