CHAPTER XXV.

THE WAR IN THE SOUTH.

CORNWALLIS AND GATES.

1780.

RIVALRY between Clinton and Cornwallis already glowed under the ashes. Clinton had written home more truth than was willingly listened to; and, though he clung with tenacity to his commission, intimated a wish to be recalled. Germain took him so far at his word as to give him leave to transfer to Cornwallis the chief command in North America.

In 1780 all opposition in South Carolina was for the mo ment at an end, when Cornwallis entered on his separate command. He proposed to keep possession of all that had been gained, and to advance as a conqueror to the Chesapeake. Clinton had left with him no more than five thousand effective troops in South Carolina, and less than two thousand in Georgia; to these were to be added the regiments which he was determined to organize out of the southern people.

As fast as the districts submitted, the new commander enrolled all the inhabitants, and appointed field-officers with civil as well as military power. The men of property above forty years of age were made responsible for order, but were not to be called out except in case of insurrection or of actual invasion; the younger men who composed the second class were held liable to serve six months in each year. Hundreds of commissions were issued for the militia regiments. Major Patrick Ferguson, known from his services in New Jersey and greatly valued, was deputed to visit each district in South Carolina, to procure on the spot lists of the militia, and to see that the orders of Cornwallis were carried into execution. Any

Carolinian thereafter taken in arms against the king might be sentenced to death for desertion and treason. Proposals of those who offered to raise provincial corps were accepted; and men of the province, void of honor and compassion, received commissions, gathered about them profligate ruffians, and roamed through the state, indulging in rapine, and ready to put patriots to death as outlaws. Cornwallis never regarded a deserter, or any one whom a court-martial sentenced to death, as a subject of mercy. A quartermaster of Tarleton's legion entered the house of Samuel Wyly near Camden, and, because he had served as a volunteer in the defence of Charleston, cut him in pieces. The Presbyterians supported the cause of independence; and indeed the American revolution was but the application of the principles of the reformation to civil government. One Huck, a captain of British militia, fired the library and dwelling-house of the clergyman at Williams's plantation in the upper part of South Carolina, and burned every Bible into which the Scottish translation of the psalms was bound. Under the immediate eye of Cornwallis, the prisoners who had capitulated in Charleston were the subjects of perpetual persecution, unless they would exchange their paroles for oaths of allegiance. Mechanics and shopkeepers could not collect their dues, except after promises of loyalty.

Lord Rawdon, who had the very important command on the Santee, raged equally against deserters from his Irish regiment and against the inhabitants. To Rugely, at that time a major of militia in the British service and an aspirant for higher promotion, he on the first of July addressed the severest orders for securing straggling soldiers, adding: "I will give the inhabitants ten guineas for the head of any deserter belonging to the volunteers of Ireland, and five guineas only if they bring him in alive."

The chain of posts for holding South Carolina consisted of Georgetown, Charleston, Beaufort, and Savannah on the sea; Augusta, Ninety-Six, and Camden in the interior. Of these, Camden was the key between the North and South; and, by a smaller post at Rocky Mount, it kept up a communication with Ninety-Six.

At the end of June, Cornwallis reported that he had put an end to all resistance in Georgia and South Carolina, and in September, after the harvest, would march into North Carolina to reduce that province. On hearing of the violence of the British, Houston, the delegate in congress from Georgia, wrote to Jay: "Our misfortunes are, under God, the source of our safety. The enemy have overrun a considerable part of the state in the hour of its nakedness and debility; but, as their measures seem as usual to be dictated by infatuation, when they have wrought up the spirit of the people to fury and desperation they will be expelled from the country."

Patriots of South Carolina took refuge in the state on their north. Among them was Sumter, who in the command of a continental regiment had shown courage and ability. To punish his flight, a British detachment turned his wife out of doors and burned his house with everything which it contained. The exiles, banding themselves together, chose him for their leader. For their use, the smiths of the neighborhood wrought iron tools into rude weapons; bullets were cast of pewter, collected from housekeepers. With scarcely three rounds of cartridges to a man, they could obtain no more but from their foes; and with the arms of the dead and wounded in one engagement they must equip themselves for the next.

On the rumor of an advancing American army, Rawdon called on all the inhabitants round Camden to join him in arms. One hundred and sixty who refused he crowded during the heat of midsummer into one prison, though some of them were protected by the capitulation of Charleston. More than twenty were loaded with chains. On the twelfth day of July, Captain Huck was sent out with thirty-five dragoons, twenty mounted infantry, and sixty militia, on a patrol. His troops were posted in a lane at the village of Cross Roads, near the source of Fishing creek; and women were on their knees to him, vainly begging mercy; when suddenly Sumter and his men, though inferior in number, dashed into the lane at both ends, killed the commander, and destroyed nearly all his party. This was the first advantage gained over the royal forces since the beginning of the year.

The order by which all the men of Carolina were enrolled

in the militia drove into the British service prisoners on parole and all who had wished to remain neutral. One Lisle, who thus suffered compulsion in the districts bordering on the rivers Tyger and Enoree, waited till his battalion was supplied with arms and ammunition, and then conducted it to its old commander who was with Sumter in the Catawba settlement.

Thus strengthened, Sumter, on the thirtieth of July, made a spirited though unsuccessful attack on Rocky Mount. Having repaired his losses, on the sixth of August he surprised the British post at Hanging Rock. A regiment of refugees from North Carolina fled with precipitation; their panic spread to the provincial regiment of the prince of Wales, which suffered severely. In the beginning of the action not one of the Americans had more than ten bullets; before its end they used the arms and ammunition of the fallen. Among the partisans who were present in this fight was Andrew Jackson, an orphan boy of Scotch-Irish descent, whom hatred of oppression and love of country impelled to deeds beyond his years. Sumter drew back to the Catawba settlement, and from all parts of South Carolina patriots flocked to his standard.

So far the South had rested on its own exertions. Relying on the internal strength of New England and the central states for their protection, Washington was willing to incur hazard for the relief of the Carolinas; and, with the approval of congress, from his army of less than ten and a half thousand men, of whom twenty-eight hundred were to be discharged in April, he detached General Kalb with the Maryland division of nearly two thousand men and the Delaware regiment. Marching orders for the southward were given to the corps of Major Lee. The movement of Kalb was slow for want of the means of transportation. At Petersburg in Virginia he added to his command a regiment of artillery with twelve cannon.

Of all the states, Virginia, of which Jefferson was then the governor, lay most exposed to invasion from the sea, and was in constant danger from the savages on the west; yet it was unmindful of its own perils. Its legislature met on the ninth of May. Within ten minutes after the house was formed,

Richard Henry Lee proposed to raise and send twenty-five hundred men to serve for three months in Carolina, and to be paid in tobacco, which had a real value. Major Nelson with sixty horse, and Colonel Armand with his corps, were already moving to the south. The force assembled at Williamsburg for the protection of the country on the James river consisted of no more than three hundred men; but they too were sent to Carolina before the end of the month. North Carolina made a requisition on Virginia for arms, and received them. With a magnanimity which knew nothing of fear, Virginia laid herself bare for the protection of the Carolinas.

The news that Charleston had capitulated found Kalb still in Virginia. On the twentieth of June he entered North Carolina, and at Hillsborough halted to repose his wayworn soldiers. He found no magazines, nor did the governor of the state much heed his requisitions or his remonstrances. Caswell, who was in command of the militia, disregarded his orders from the vanity of acting separately. Yet, under all privations, the officers and men of his command vied with each other in maintaining order and harmony. In his camp at Buffalo ford, on Deep river, while he was still doubting how to direct his march, he received news of measures adopted by congress for the southern campaign.

Washington wished Greene to succeed Lincoln; congress, not asking his advice but not ignorant of his opinion, on the thirteenth of June unanimously appointed Gates to the independent command of the southern army. He received his orders from congress and was to make his reports directly to that body. He might address himself directly to Virginia and the states beyond it for supplies; of himself alone appoint all staff-officers; and take such measures as he should think most proper for the defence of the South. From his plantation in Virginia, Gates made his acknowledgment to congress without elation; to Lincoln he wrote in modest and affectionate language. He enjoined on all remnants of continental troops in Virginia to repair to the southern army with all possible diligence.

Upon information received at Hillsborough from Huger of South Carolina, Gates formed his plan to march directly to Camden, assured of its easy capture. To Kalb he wrote: