Conceived in Liberty (261 page)

After his severe mauling, Cornwallis retreated southeast to Cross Creek; but there he made a fateful decision that was to bring the war to a close: disregarding Clinton’s instructions to safeguard Charleston and South Carolina above all, he abandoned the entire South below Virginia. Pushing on to Wilmington, on the coast of North Carolina, where he could obtain supplies by sea, he allowed Greene to turn into South Carolina, leaving the Tories of Cross Creek to their fate. Never a man to assume a strategic defensive, as a withdrawal into South Carolina would have been, Cornwallis decided on his own to march north into the “privileged sanctuary” of Virginia, the supply route for the Carolinas, where other British forces were already deployed. For this unilateral change in fundamental British strategy in abandoning the South and the southern Tories, Clinton sharply criticized Cornwallis.

As Cornwallis pushed northward into Virginia at the end of April 1781, Clinton and the British could only come up with a middle states variant of the now abandoned southern strategy: the plan now was to conduct a campaign in Maryland, Delaware, and lower Pennsylvania, where, again, Tories could supposedly be relied upon to organize and control the area after its conquest by British troops. Cornwallis, disgusted with the extent of Tory support, now scorned the Tory strategy and continued the offensive against Virginia, an offensive Clinton knew to be unworkable because, unlike the middle states, there were few Tories in that state to hold it after conquest. In this quarrel, each man was right in his criticisms of the other; on the one hand, Virginia ultimately could not be held; on the other hand, there were not sufficient Tories to implement Clinton’s new project.

Greene was far too expert a strategist to pursue Cornwallis; instead, he took the opportunity to wheel southwest and march against South Carolina, for which he was hailed by many American leaders. Shorn of the Virginia and North Carolina militia, whose terms were now up, Greene marched swiftly into northern South Carolina with about 1,700 men, and mobilized Sumter in the north and Pickens in the west to help him. Greene also sent Lee’s crack legion to join Marion on the lower Pee Dee River. Lord Rawdon, in charge of the British troops after Cornwallis’ abandonment, had over 8,000 men under his command, but these were scattered throughout Georgia and South Carolina, most of them at Savannah and Augusta in Georgia, in the forts ranging up the Santee River and its tributaries in central South Carolina (Watson, Motte, Granby, and Ninety-Six); and at Georgetown at the mouth of the Pee Dee. The main striking force of 1,500 was at Camden.

Lee and Marion, uniting forces on April 14, quickly laid siege to Fort Watson on the lower Santee River. After days of siege, Col. Hezekiah Maham, of Marion’s South Carolina force, imaginatively thought of building a high wooden tower from which the riflemen could shoot down into the fort. Fort Watson was forced to surrender on April 23, the Americans taking over a hundred prisoners while losing but a few men. Rawdon had dangerously depleted 500 of his Tory troops, sending them under Col. John Watson to save the fort; as it was, they were lucky to escape Lee’s and Marion’s forces. In the meantime, Greene’s main force, having begun to march southwest on April 5, arrived before Camden and encamped at Hobkirk’s Hill. Rawdon had only 900 men against more than 1,400, and
he decided to attack Greene’s force where they were stationed before Sumter, Lee, and Marion might unite with him. Actually, Sumter apparently had no intention of cooperating with Greene, and Lee and Marion were still chasing Watson’s troops.

Rawdon attacked on April 25; the fighting was a fiercely waged tactical battle of wits, with Rawdon outmaneuvering Greene on the field. Greene tried to take advantage of Capt. Simon Morgan’s advance on a narrow front by executing a double envelopment; but Rawdon quickly broadened his line and forestalled defeat. A break in the line of Maryland Continentals and subsequent defeat could have been more serious had not Washington’s cavalry saved the American guns. The battle was an undoubted victory for the British, but once again a tactical victory was soon to turn to the ashes of a strategic defeat. For one thing, both armies had lost about 270 men, and Rawdon’s force could scarcely afford this loss. For another, after finally being joined by Watson’s force on May 7, he marched northwest to fight Greene once more, but was outfoxed and gave up the pursuit to return to Camden.

At this point, Greene could have surrounded and captured Rawdon at Camden if Sumter had joined him with his 1,000 South Carolina guerrillas, but Sumter simply refused to do this. The Virginia and North Carolina militia failed to assemble and reinforce Greene, and Congress did not send any aid. But Rawdon was in no position to take advantage of these weaknesses. Increasingly, guerrilla bands were cutting him off from food and supplies, while his Tories were threatening to mutiny because several Tory deserters had been hanged by the Americans after being taken prisoner at Hobkirk’s Hill. Their exposed position now rendered the British decidedly uneasy. With food dwindling and his men restive, Rawdon evacuated Camden on May 10 to withdraw to lower South Carolina, where he finally stopped at Monck’s Corner, 40 miles north of Charleston.

This withdrawal acted as the signal for widespread guerrilla attacks on the other British forts on the Santee chain. On May 11, Sumter easily seized Orangeburg, in the central part of the state without the loss of a man; the archers of Marion and Lee fired flaming arrows into Fort Motte and induced it to surrender on May 12. On May 15, Lee cleverly induced the strong Tory garrison at Fort Granby to surrender by promising that they could keep any private property in their possession. Only Georgetown, Ninety-Six, and Augusta remained to the British in the entire lower south, outside of the Charleston-Savannah coastal plain and the port of Wilmington.

Lee and Pickens, with a troop of Georgia and South Carolina militia, were sent west against Augusta, which they besieged on May 22. On the same day, Greene laid seige to Ninety-Six; Marion was sent to Charleston, but his attack did not begin until about a month later.

There were two British forts in Augusta; the smaller was first surrounded and captured, the Tory Colonel Grierson being shot after capture by one of the Georgia militia. The larger fort was a much tougher prey; even the erection of a “Maham Tower” could not hasten surrender. But finally, the 300-man Augusta garrison surrendered on June 5. Georgetown also proved to be no problem; Marion had hardly begun his attack when the British evacuated hurriedly by sea on June 20 and retreated to Charleston. After capturing Augusta, Lee and Pickens joined Greene at Ninety-Six. The fort had a strong Tory garrison of 550 crack troops under Col. John Cruger, and Greene tried everything in his arsenal against it— approaches built by Kosciuszko, Maham Tower, flaming arrows—all to no avail. Only cutting off the fort’s water supply was taking any toll. Finally, Rawdon received reinforcements from overseas, and, with his 2,000 men, he marched swiftly from Charleston to relieve the garrison; Sumter failed to intercept and delay him, and the Americans were forced to retire from Ninety-Six on June 20. They had lost nearly 150 men to the enemy’s 85. But once again a tactical defeat only delayed a strategic victory, for Rawdon pursued Greene’s force northeastward in vain. The British prudently decided to abandon Ninety-Six on July 3 and fall back on the lower part of the state.

Both armies were now exhausted by the heat; Rawdon stationed his troops at Orangeburg, while Greene summered to the northeast on the cool and healthy plateau of the High Hills of Santee. During this rest period, Marion, Sumter, and Lee managed to force the British to evacuate Monck’s Corner, while Rawdon, broken in health by the campaign, sailed for England, leaving Col. Alexander Stuart in charge of all British forces south of Virginia.

At the end of August, Greene, with 2,000 refreshed troops, was ready to attack. He was eager to crush Stuart to forestall any possible two-front war in case Cornwallis should decide to move south from Virginia. He was not able to cross the swollen rivers between him and the British troops directly, so he marched north to Camden, picked up Sumter, Marion, and Pickens to swell his force to 2,200, crossed the river, and marched southeast to Eutaw Springs in the lower part of the state, where Stuart had cautiously withdrawn with his 2,000 men. Paradoxically, Stuart’s force consisted mostly of Tory regulars and deserters from the Continental Army, while many of Greene’s Continentals had deserted from the British.

Greene’s attack on Stuart at Eutaw Springs almost took the British by surprise, and they captured 150 members of a largely unarmed unit before the battle, nearly equalizing the numbers of the two forces. The Battle of Eutaw Springs, on September 8, 1781, was a fierce confrontation; the quality was high on both sides, each army consisting of crack troops. It
turned out to be Greene’s last battle of the war and, characteristically, it was another tactical defeat and another strategic victory.

At first, Greene did very well; he placed his men in the Morgan manner, with militia in the front line and Continentals in the second. The first line fought well for a long time; when it began to give way, the British rushed forward in disorder and seeming triumph, only to meet a devastating volley and bayonet charge. The Americans routed the British, with only the cavalry and light infantry of Maj. John Marjoribanks on the British right flank holding firm. But, as luck would have it, on the point of a truly shattering victory, the rank and file of Virginia and Maryland Continentals abandoned pursuit and stopped to loot the food and liquor in the British camps. This lapse permitted the almost shattered British to re-form, and, while the battle was yet undecided, Greene prudently withdrew from the field. Stuart could only race back to Charleston, and reinforcements on the march prevented the Americans from falling upon his army. Losses were extremely heavy on both sides; but Greene’s 520 casualties were more than matched by the nearly 870 men lost by the British—over 40 percent of their force. Once again, the British had a narrowly technical win, thanks to the sudden failure of American discipline; but the losses meant a smashing strategic defeat.

Eutaw Springs was the last major battle of the war in the lower South. The British now held only the ports of Charleston and Savannah (and Wilmington in North Carolina). All the rest of the Carolinas and Georgia were back in American hands, and the state governments there were quickly reestablished. Greene stayed in South Carolina to keep the British penned in at Charleston.

The previous two years had not been easy for Virginia, and she was ill-prepared for the part she now had to play, for Cornwallis’ decision to march north in April 1781 meant that the main theatre of war now had shifted to her territory.

In May 1779, Gen. Edward Mathew and 1,800 men had landed unopposed at Portsmouth, in the southeastern corner of that state, and plundered and burned all the towns and plantations in the Portsmouth-Suffolk area, inflicting a property loss of 2 million pounds without the loss of a single man.

At the end of December 1780, Gen. Benedict Arnold was sent from New York with 1,600 men to destroy military supplies and provide a diversion for Cornwallis’ operations. Arnold sailed up the James River, but Virginia, apathetic and its supplies exhausted by furnishing provisions for Greene, failed to assemble militia even in the face of the Arnold threat.

Virginia was indeed in desperate straits. The fault lay neither with the people of that state nor with its governor, Thomas Jefferson. All during 1780, as it became clear that the South was the major theatre of war, Jefferson had pleaded for supplies from the Continental Congress; yet, beginning in the spring of 1780, Congress refused and continued to send all of its men and munitions to the North where they were scarcely needed, George Washington having concurred in this ghastly decision. Congress, in fact, incredibly decreed that the whole burden of the war in the South had to be borne by the southern states themselves; and with the capture of Georgia and the Carolinas, this meant that upon the citizens of Virginia alone was placed the entire burden of supplying both the North
Carolina theatre and George Rogers Clark and the war in the West. All of Virginia’s stock of ammunition was therefore poured forth to aid the Carolina campaign during 1780, and no entreaties could move either Washington or the Continental Congress. As a result, by the end of 1780 there were only 2,500 pounds of vital lead on hand in Virginia, and only a little over 50,000 pounds of essential gunpowder, and much of this was damaged.
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It was no wonder that such Virginia leaders as Richard Henry Lee were bleakly pessimistic by the end of 1780.

Arnold sliced in to capture the capital, Richmond, on January 5, again without resistance from the demoralized Virginians, and burned it to the ground, including its stores and records. He also destroyed Virginia’s only powder laboratory, at Westham, its only cannon foundry, and five or six tons of gunpowder. He then retired to Portsmouth for the winter. Jefferson is often criticized for being unprepared, but despite the exhaustion of the state’s resources, he managed to save about fifteen tons of arms and ammunition at Westham.

Virginia was finding itself beset on every side. The speaker of the Virginia House, Benjamin Harrison, rushed to Philadelphia in mid-February to beg Congress for supplies, but Congress only agreed to send a mere four tons of powder. This in spite of the British capture of St. Eustatius that same month, cutting off Virginia’s best source of foreign powder. Washington, despite his comfortable position at Morristown, New Jersey, had not sent a single Continental soldier to aid his home state. Instead, he hoarded supplies, refused to send aid, and led the denouncing of “lifeless and inactive Virginia.” Greene and Steuben, detailed by Washington to recruit men and arms for the southern army, kept blaiming Virginia for its troubles. (As a means of striking a blow against the Jefferson administration, Steuben even engineered the ouster of George Muter as head of the Committee of the War Office of Virginia, making him a scapegoat for the success of Arnold’s raid.) And with the French fleet nowhere in sight, the British fleet harassed and blockaded the Virginia coast, their gunboats ranging up and down Virginia’s rivers, plundering in hit-and-run raids.