The day after the major patriot defeat at Camden, Tarleton led 350 men after Thomas Sumter and his partisans who were loaded down with loot and British prisoners captured from a supply convoy. Ignoring the blazing summer heat, Tarleton drove his men and horses as ruthlessly as usual. Leaving 200 infantry behind, he put 60 infantry doubled up with 100 dragoons and pushed forward until he found the partisans at Fishing Rock on August 18. Sumter believed that he was far enough away that he could relax, so Tarleton caught them dozing in the shade. Actually, guards had been posted but when they fired at the approaching dragoons, Sumter’s officers believed that it was their own men shooting cattle for dinner. Tarleton had 160 men against Sumter’s 800, but he immediately ordered a charge, and the attack was so fast and terrifying that most of the partisans did not linger to count the enemy, they just ran for their lives. Unlike most of his men, Sumter managed to escape. Tarleton had 16 casualties against 150 patriot casualties and 310 prisoners, as well as freed the British prisoners and retook the supplies.
 
However, not everything favored the British cause. A day later, on August 18, 200 partisans, mainly Georgia militia under Elijah Clarke and Over-Mountain men under Isaac Shelby, beat a force of 500 Tory regulars at Musgrove’s Mill in South Carolina, by sending out a small party as bait and then luring the Tories into an area where the guerrillas had built defensive positions. The trap worked perfectly, and by the end of a fierce hour long fight, almost half of the loyalists were dead, wounded or captured against 11 casualties for the patriots. It was an impressive victory marred only by news of the disaster at Camden, but they resolved to keep fighting.  

When partisan leader Francis Marion first heard of the defeat at Camden, he did not tell his men because he thought they would quit. Fortunately, that same day he learned that more than 100 prisoners were guarded by 36 British soldiers nearby, so he led an attack at dawn on August 20. It was a short battle since the British weapons were stacked neatly outside the house where they were sleeping, and Marion’s men managed to get to the weapons before the soldiers could stumble outside. 26 British were killed or captured, and 147 Americans were freed.  

Learning that Major Micajah Ganey was searching for him with 250 Tories, Marion decided to seek him out even though he only had 53 men. When Marion’s advance guard found Ganey and his advance guard on September 4, Ganey was taken completely by surprise, and 30 of his men were quickly killed or wounded. Another partisan leader would have then attacked the infantry trudging along, but Marion had no desire to rush headlong against 200 men who were already warned and ready. Instead, he retreated to a swampy area called Blue Savannah, where he set up an ambush. The Tory infantry had been disciplined enough when they feared a cavalry charge, but chasing cavalry on foot in August is hot, sweaty, tiring work, and the troops had become a long, straggling line by the time Marion sprung his trap. The collection of scattered groups of exhausted men had no time to form up before Marion’s cavalry was among them, and most of the men ran into the nearby swamp where Marion wisely refused to follow.

Two victories in two weeks made Marion the alpha guerrilla and he graduated from minor annoyance to serious threat. Cornwalis knew that the threat had to be dealt with before he could move into North Carolina as planned, so Cornwalis told Major John Wemyss of the 63rd Foot to recruit Tory militia and root out any rebel sympathizers in order to provoke Marion to fight. Wemyss embraced his task with enthusiasm, and he quickly hanged and burned his way up to the number 2 spot, behind Tarleton of course, on the most hated list among rebels in the Carolinas. Wemyss confiscated horses from rebel sympathizers and he left nothing but desolation behind him. He torched 50 homes, hung several men, and burned a church, gristmills, and blacksmith shops to deny them to the rebels, while all animals that were not taken away were slaughtered, which naturally drove people to join Marion.

Knowing that his little band of guerrillas would be crushed by Wemyss’ 600 men, Marion dismissed every man who wanted to check on his family, and with his remaining 60 men he did what any intelligent person outnumbered 10 to 1 would do, he moved as far away from Wemyss as he could. However, although Wemyss succeeded in temporarily driving Marion away, he failed to eliminate Marion as a long-term threat. The locals boiled with hatred, and Marion would return as soon as the British left, while the Tory militia were too few to handle Marion’s partisans.

Cornwalis recognized this situation and was none too pleased with Wemyss. Worse, his march northwards towards North Carolina had stopped because fever raged through his army. Tarleton was one of the sick, so the Legion was commanded by his second-in-command, Major George Hanger, who shared Tarleton’s love of the mad charge without his judgment of when to charge. Therefore, Colonel William Richardson Davie, another rebel leader who had refused to give up, and 150 North Carolina militia were able to surprise the Legion on September 21 when it was resting at Wahab’s plantation, and force them to retreat, leaving 20 dead behind them. When Cornwalis moved his army towards Charlotte on September 24, Hanger led the advance guard and when he encountered Davie’s men behind a stone wall, he ordered a cavalry charge, instead of waiting for infantry to push them out of their position into the open where the cavalry could cut them down. The Legion was sent reeling back and Davie’s men continued to harass Cornwalis’ army, attacking British foraging parties and killing any courier who did not have an escort, so that the British army was essentially blockaded at Charlotte.

Meanwhile, the survivors of Camden were making their way to Hillsboro in North Carolina, where Gates was preoccupied with explaining why the defeat at Camden was not his fault. By late September, Daniel Morgan and William Washington had arrived at Hillsboro, and the rebels were given badly needed time to reorganize because much of Cornwalis’ army was sick with fever.

Once Marion learned that Jemyss had rejoined Cornwalis, he led his band back to South Carolina, and drove Tory Colonel John Ball and his men away from Shepherd’s Ferry, where they had controlled the road. This victory provided one more example that Tory militia were unable to handle rebel partisans on their own, and drove another nail into the coffin of the belief of an army of loyalists in the Carolinas. This myth was destroyed once and for all when the force of Tory militia guarding Cornwalis’ left flank was broken at Kings Mountain on October 7.

The defeat at King’s Mountain crushed Tory morale, which allowed the rebel partisans to operate at will. The Tories had ceased to exist as an organized force on his western flank, while South Carolina was overrun by partisans. Andrew Pickens operated in the upper part of the state that bordered Georgia, Sumter was raising considerable forces in the middle, and Marion’s partisans operated at will in the lower part of the state, emerging from the swamps only to smash loyalist units and threaten Cornwalis’ lines of communication. Furthermore, Cornwalis had realized that if there were any Tories in North Carolina they were unwilling to appear in public, even when they knew that Cornwalis and his army were moving into North Carolina.

The only territory that he held was where his army was at the moment and the men were sick with fever, so during the first week of November Cornwalis decided to leave Charlotte and march to Winnsboro, South Carolina, where the army could rest and it would be easier to maintain communication with Charleston. It took fifteen days to cover the seventy miles, as the troops dragged themselves along muddy roads. Wagons with supplies had to be left behind, there was almost no food, and any foraging parties were mauled by Davie’s militia. The lack of Tory support was partially due to the open contempt they received from the British officers, a contempt that reached such a level that Cornwalis had to issue orders to treat the Tory militia with kindness, although the orders that had little if any effect. This contempt seems odd since what little food the army had to eat had been found by the Tory militia after exhausting and dangerous searches of the surrounding countryside.

Cornwalis’ army then spent the winter of 1780-81 cooped up in Winnsboro, away from any population center and most important, away from the British navy, their connection to Britain, because the partisan bands and militia made it almost impossible to maintain lines of communication. With the British army out of the picture, the already ineffective Tories were left to fight on their own. Marion found a newly formed Tory militia unit that had not set enough sentries, and during the middle of the night of October 26, his men destroyed yet another Tory unit before it could actually do anything, and Tory morale plunged even lower, if that was possible.

Realizing that it would be impossible to build up an effective Tory force until Marion was beaten, Tarleton and the British Legion were sent on November 5 to take care of him. When he heard that Tarleton was hunting him, Marion understood that he had to move carefully, Bloody Ban knew his trade well, and he had 400 mounted men and two light cannon. Instead of his usual method of riding horses into the ground and charging straight at the enemy, Tarelton moved slowly and tried to lure Marion into a trap. In fact, he would have succeeded if Marion had not been warned by a patriot sympathizer. Tarleton chased him but gave up after seven hours, not wanting to risk pursuing “that damned old fox” into the swamp, so Marion became known as the Swamp Fox.

Marion may have escaped, but his supporters did not. Tarleton instructed the local populace of the “Error of Insurrection” by burning 30 plantation homes and their harvests. However, Marion refused to budge from the swamp until after Tarleton was recalled on November 14, when he returned to his old habit of hunting Tories.

Despite his crushing defeat at Fishing Creek, Thomas Sumter had been made commander of all South Carolina militia by Governor Rutledge, so he had been able to recruit more men, and was back in the field ten days later. As a result, when Major John Wemyss informed Cornwalis on November 7 that Sumter and 300 men were only 30 miles from Winnsboro, his own 100 mounted infantry were supplemented by 40 of Tarelton’s dragoons, and he was sent to attack the partisans. Despite being outnumbered 2 to 1, Wemyss had little fear of partisans, so he ignored Cornwalis’ order to only attack during daytime, and moved against Sumter’s camp around 1AM on the night of November 9. While Sumter may have not been one to pay attention to security, his colonels were understandably nervous about their close proximity to the British army, and had placed pickets all around the camp, as well as told the men not to sleep close to the campfires.

Wemyss was in the lead when his cavalry ran into the rebels’ pickets, and he was shot off his horse, so the relatively inexperienced Lieutenant John Stark took command and ordered the cavalry to charge. However, the rebels were safe in the darkness while the light of the campfires made the British excellent targets. Seeing that the attack was not going smoothly, Stark moved away from the camp, and then had the infantry dismount and form up to attack on foot, but the partisans refused to break, so Stark finally had to retreat, leaving the wounded Wemyss to be captured. Sumter’s victory over British regulars during a nighttime surprise attack attracted numerous recruits.

Cornwalis could not accept a victory by a partisan leader so close to his camp, so he recalled Tarleton on November 14, 1780. He also sent Major Archibald McArthur with 250 men of the 1st Battalion of Fraser’s Highlanders and 80 men from Wemyss’ unit to meet Tarleton. By this time Sumter had close to 1,000 men and was unaware of Tarleton’s impending arrival. Tarleton’s 190 men reached McArthur at Brierly’s Ferry on November 18, but he gave his men and their horses no rest, crossing the ferry and sending out search parties to find Sumter. His scouts found Sumter the next day, and Tarleton marched his men that night to striking distance from Sumter’s camp but he lost the element of surprise when the partisans were warned by a British deserter. Sumter had been joined by Georgia militia under Elijah Clarke, and the senior officers knew that their 1,000 militia outnumbered Tarleton 2 to 1, but Tarleton had never been beaten. They also knew that if they retreated he would cut them to pieces when they were strung out along the road. Their best hope was to choose a good defensive position, and fight it out.

Blackstock’s Farm was selected, and the men were placed in buildings and behind a strong fence, which would not have stopped artillery, but in his haste Tarleton had left his infantry and artillery behind. However, he paused as soon as he saw the relatively flat and open terrain, knowing that he was heavily outnumbered and did not have the advantage of surprise. However, there was only one hour of daylight left and he did not want to let Sumter slip away again. He sent the 80 men of the 63rd Foot to clear away part of the rebels, and although they were initially successful, there were simply too many rebels. Tarleton led a charge that covered the infantry’s retreat, but he lied in both his report and his history, saying that he broke through the rebel defenses and scattered them. Actually, his charge was broken by the steady fire from the rebels, who were sheltered behind walls while the British were out in the open. It is difficult to give an exact figure for British casualties since Tarleton’s report did not give the true figures, but estimates range from 50 to 150 casualties, while the rebels lost 3 dead and 4 wounded. Tarleton planned to attack again the next day after the infantry and artillery had arrived, but the partisans had slipped away by then.

This was Tarleton’s first defeat, but Sumter suffered a wound that put him out of action for the next two months, just when a new commander was coming to take charge of the Southern Department and the rebels’ fortunes in the South were about to change.

Further Reading:

The Road to Guilford Courthouse: The American Revolution in the Carolinas-John Buchanan, New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 1997.

The author’s descriptions of the terrain show that he has spent a great deal of time visiting historical sites in the Carolinas, which bring the terrain to life for the reader, although the overly detailed descriptions can be a bit distracting at times. Although it focuses on the Carolinas Campaign (February 1780 to August 1781), the author provides brief but insightful biographical sketches and portraits of all of the major leaders in the South on either side in order to provide more depth. It is not a one stop examination of the Carolinas Campaign since it ends with the battle at Guilford Courthouse in March 1781, hence the name. Buchanan is the rare historian who is an excellent researcher and an entertaining writer, and he has produced a superb book that sets the standard for other works in the field.

This Destructive War: The British Campaign in the Carolinas, 1780-1782. John S. Pancake, The University of Alabama Press, Alabama, 1985.

As the title states, the book concentrates on the campaign in the South but it also gives a brief yet insightful recapitulation of the American Revolution from 1775 to 1780, which explains that the French entry into the war in February 1778 meant that the Revolution had become part of a global war, therefore the British had fewer resources to devote to suppressing the rebellion. Unlike The Road to Guilford Courthouse, which limits itself solely to the campaign in North and South Carolina, Pancake also shows that the British failed to learn from their abortive attempt to conquer Georgia in early 1779, which was due to their inability to recruit sufficient militia to hold a large area without the support of British regulars. This lesson would be painfully re-learned in the Carolinas. Pancake also provides a quick explanation of the limitations of the main weapons used in the Revolution, examines what made the redcoat so formidable and looks at the evolution of the Continental Army into a trained, professional army that was capable of facing British regulars on equal terms. This background information is similar to that provided in 1777: Year of the Hangman, which he also wrote, and while it is useful, it occupies a quarter of the book, so there is less time to spare for the personality conflicts that made the war in the south so fascinating.

South Carolina and the American Revolution-A Battlefield History-John W. Gordon, Columbia, South Carolina: University of South Carolina Press, 2003.

The author is a former professor of history at the Military College of South Carolina, therefore he is well-suited for the subject. Given his background, it comes as no surprise that he provides an excellent explanation of how armies fought in the 18th century. Since Gordon covers every single battle during the entire war in South Carolina from the beginning of the Revolution in 1775 until the British surrendered Charleston, their last stronghold, in December 1782, in 184 pages, his discussions of individual battles are necessarily brief. What makes the book stand out among a crowded field is his examination of how the war in South Carolina was truly a civil war, even more so than the actual Civil War almost a century later, since there were no clear geographical divisions. Instead, the conflict was a savage war fought by guerrillas on both sides, punctuated by formal battles between standing armies. In the end, the Americans won in South Carolina because their generals, namely Nathanael Greene and Daniel Morgan, learned best how to work in tandem with the guerrillas. My main complaint is that the maps fail to do what they are supposed to do, namely present the strategic situation in visual terms, instead they only show where the battles took place within each state.

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