Prior to the American Revolution, the British began taxing American colonies to raise revenue, particularly outraging South Carolinians with the Townsend Acts that taxed tea, paper, wine, glass, and oil. To protest the Stamp Act, South Carolina sent wealthy rice planter Thomas Lynch, 26-year old lawyer John Rutledge, and Christopher Gadsden to the Stamp Act Congress, held in 1765 New York. Other taxes were removed, but tea taxes remained. Soon South Carolinians, in emulation of the Boston Tea Party, began to dump tea into the Charleston Harbor, shortly followed by many boycotts and protests.

Many of the South Carolinian battles fought during the American Revolution were with loyalist Carolinians and the Cherokee tribe which had allied itself with the British. This was to General Henry Clinton’s advantage, whose strategy was to march his troops north from St. Augustine and sandwich George Washington in the North. Clinton alienated loyalists and enraged Patriots by attacking a fleeing army of Patriot soldiers that posed no threat. He also threatened to take away the parole of Patriot prisoners of war unless they took up arms against their fellow Americans.

After its capture, Patriots regained control of Charleston and South Carolina with untrained militiamen by trapping Tarleton’s troops by trapping them along a river. In 1787, John Rutledge, Charles Pinckney, Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, and Pierce Butler went to Philidelphia where the Constitutional Convention was being held and constructed what served as a detailed outline for the U.S. Constitution.

Contents

1 Prewar causes
2 Battles begin
3 General Clinton’s mistakes
4 Tides turn for the Americans
5 The Consitution

Prewar causes

After a poverty-stricken crown began taxing the American colonies to raise revenue, to protest the Stamp Act, South Carolina sent wealthy rice planter Thomas Lynch, 26-year old lawyer John Rutledge, and Christopher Gadsden to the Stamp Act Congress, held in 1765 New York. Gadsden, leader of the pro-Independence “Liberty Boys,” is often grouped with James Otis and Patrick Henry as the prime agitators for American independence by historians. Gadsden designed the “Don’t Tread on Me” flag, first used on December 3, 1775 on the Alfred, featuring a rattlesnake with 13 rattles representing each colony.

In 1767 the Townsend Acts made new taxes on glass, oil, wine, tea, paper, and other goods. Gadsden led the opposition, and, although Britain removed the taxes on everything except tea, Charlestonians mirrored the Boston Tea Party by dumping a shipment of tea into the Cooper River. Other shipments were allowed to land, but they rotted in Charles Town storehouses.

Delegates from the colonies, except for Georgia, came together for the First Continental Congress in 1774. Five South Carolinians, including those who represented the colony in the Stamp Act Congress, headed for Philidelphia, and Henry Middleton served as president for part of Congress. The following January the South Carolina colonial assembly was disbanded by Royal Govenor William Cambell, and it was reformed as the extralegal Provincial Congress. During this meeting and following meetings, in June 1775 and March 1776, the South Carolinians created a temporary government to rule until the colony had settled things with England. The state declared its independence from Great Britain and set up its own government on March 15, 1776. Henry Laurens and John Rutledge were voted “president” of the state.

Most loyalists came from the Upcountry, which thought that domination by the rich, elitist Charles Town planter class in an unsupervised government was worse than remaining under the rule of the British Crown. Judge William Henry Drayton and Reverend William Tennent were sent to the Back Country to gain support for the “American Cause” and Lowcounty’s General Comittee and Provincial Congress, but did not have much success. In September 1775, the Royal Governor William Campbell dissolved the last-ever Royal Assembly in South Carolina and left for the safety of the British warship Tamar in the Charleston Harbor.

Battles begin

Throughout the course of the American Revolution, 137 significant battles were fought within South Carolina, more than in any other state. On November 19, 1775, revolutionists fought loyalist forces in the old western Cherokee lands at 96 District, spilling the first South Carolinan blood of the war. Colonel Richard Richardson sent a large party of Whigs, or revolutionists, to the Upcountry to stop uprisings there and to assert the power of the revolutionary General Committee over the entire colony.

Britain’s strategy was to take advantage of strong loyalist support in the South, begin a military drive in Charleston, and perhaps sweep through the Upcountry, North Carolina, and Virginia while gathering men to take on Washington in the North along the way. Under William Moultrie, the South Carolinans defeated the British Navy at Sullivan’s Island in late June 1776 and brought the American army its first major victory. In Philidelphia, the news reached Colonial delegates a few days later and emboldened them to write and sign the Delcaration of Independence from England. The battle at Sullivan’s Island also caused the British to rethink their strategy and leave the South for approximately three years.

The new state legislature met the next December to complete the state constitution made the previous October, de-establishing the Anglican Church. In the Upcountry, the British had convinced the Cherokee to fight on their side. Although the British officer in charge of the operation had told the Cherokee to attack only patriot soldiers in organized groups, soon murder and cabin burnings were widespread on the frontier. The Whigs Andrew Williamson, Andrew Pickens, and James Williams, who had been battling loyalists in the Upcountry, launched a successful campaign against the Cherokee. In 1777 they ceded their remaining lands to the South Carolina government. On February 5, 1778 South Carolina became the first state to ratify the first constitution of the United States, the Articles of Confederation. In 1780, the British had returned to South Carolina, causing the loyalists and patriots to fight the state’s first civil war.

In 1780, the British attempted to try their original strategy a second time. They planned to trap George Washington’s troops by pushing their troops up from the South while Washington defended himself in the North. The British moved up from St. Augustine, Florida, landing on John’s Island, moving to James Island, and attacked Charles Town. General Benjamin Lincoln had allowed his men to get bottled up on the peninsula, and, after a two month siege, he was forced to surrender practically every Continental soldier in the Carolinas to British General Clinton. Another army of Continentals under General Gates came into the state to reclaim it for the patriots, but were defeated at Camden. Henry Middleton, once president of the Continental Congress, was forced to take an oath of allegiance to the Crown as prisoner.

Lincoln begged John Rutledge and the rest of the state’s council to leave Charles Town while there was still time, and they did. Rutledge traveled around the state, printing proclaimations and other state papers on a printing press he had with him, and sending numerous letters demanding that the Continental Congress send the Continental Army to relieve South Carolina.

General Clinton’s mistakes

General Clinton thought that South Carolina was a loyalist colony that had been bullied into Revolutionary actions by a small minority. His idea was to increase British presence in the entire state and bring back the confidence of moderates in the area so that they would fight for the British. Clinton alienated royalists by spending all of the money on extra arms and soldiers rather than doctors.

Colonel Buford and his body of Virginia patriots had set south in hopes of defending Charles Town, but turned back when they realized they were too late. Lieutenant Colonel Banastre Tarleton was unwilling to let the rebels escape back to the North and chased after them, another act that alienated more loyalists. Tarleton caught up with them on May 29 near the present town of Lancaster, and Americans were told to surrender, but refused. They were attacked furiously by the British, and, realizing that they had no chance of victory or escape, threw down their arms and begged for quarter, or mercy. The British refused and butchered the unarmed Americans. This spawned the battle cry that Southern patriots would use for the rest of the war, “Tarleton’s quarter!”

The second British blunder was Clinton revocating the Carolinians’ paroles. He broke his promise that, if the Carolinians who surrendered did not actively seek to harass the British government, he would leave them and their paroles alone. On June 3, he proclaimed that all prisoners of war could either take up arms against their fellow Americans or be considered traitors to the Crown. Many soldiers, whose pride had already been bruised, reasoned that if they were going to have to take the chance of getting shot again, they might as well fight on the side they wanted to win.

The third British mistake was burning the Stateburg home and harassing the incapacitated wife of an inconsequential colonel named Thomas Sumter. Because of his fury toward this, “The Gamecock” became one of the fiercest and most devastating guerilla leaders of the war. The Lowcountry partisans fighting under Francis “The Swampfox” Marion and Upcountry partisans fighting under Andrew Pickens, whose home had also been burned, plagued the British by using guerilla warfare in the mountains, woods, and swamps of the state.

Tides turn for the Americans

On October 7, 1780, at Kings Mountain, Pickens led a body of North and South Carolinians and attacked British Major Patrick Ferguson and his body of American loyalists on a hilltop. America’s first major poet, William Cullen Bryant, described the homefield advantage that led to the Patriot victory in one of his poems. This was a major victory for the patriots, especially because it was won by militiamen and not trained Continentals. It was provided a great swing of momentum for the moderate Uplanders who had grown tired of British brutality. Kings Mountain is considered to be the turning point of the Revolution, especially since it forced General Cornwallis to split his troops, sending Lieutenant Colonel Banastre “No Quarter” Tarleton into the South Carolina Upcountry to recapture it. This made Cornwallis’s plan for a major push north impossible because it had required a strong body of loyalists to stay behind and keep the peace in the Carolinas.

That December, General Nathanael Greene arrived with an army of Continental troops. When Green heard of Tarleton’s approach, he sent Daniel Morgan and his backwoodsmen over the Appalachian Mountains to stop him. On January 17, 1781, the two forces met at an enclosure being used as a cow pen. Pickens and his guerilla soldiers joined Morgan directly before the battle. Morgan still felt they were not strong enough to take on Tarleton’s trained troops and wanted to cross a river that would separate them from the British and secure them a chance to retreat. Pickens convinced Morgan that staying on the British side of the river would force his men to fight it out in what some historians consider the best-planned battle of the entire war. The patriots defeated the British and later victories at Hobkirk’s Hill and Eutaw Springs would further weaken the Redcoats.

In December 1782, the British evacuated Charles Town. The overjoyed residents changed the name to “Charleston” because it sounded “less British.”

The Consitution

In 1787, John Rutledge, Charles Pinckney, Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, and Pierce Butler went to Philidelphia where the Constitutional Convention was piecing together the Constitution. 30 years old, Charles Pinckney had long been a critic of the weak Articles of Confederation. Although he was wealthy by birth and quite the epicurean, Pinckney became the leader of democracy in the state. On May 29, 1787, he presented the Convention with a detailed outline for the United States constitution, and John Rutledge provided valuable input. Pierce Butler’s only contribution was the clause for the return of fugitive slaves.

The federal, and Federalist-leaning, Constitution was ratified by the state in 1787, and the new state constitution was ratified in 1790 without the support of the Upcountry. The Lowcountry elite, who only had a quarter of the state’s white inhabitants, still ruled the state, controlling three-quarters of South Carolina’s wealth.

Source Wikipedia

The Battle of the Rice Boats was a battle of the American Revolution that took place in the Savannah River on the border between the Province of Georgia and the Province of South Carolina. The battle, which pitted colonial militia against the British Navy, took place on March 2 – March 3, 1776. It is sometimes referred to as the battle of Yamacraw Bluff.

In the early days of the American Revolution, Georgia had managed to remain relatively neutral in the conflict. In early 1776, Georgia’s Royal Governor James Wright ordered the provisioning of several British warships anchored in the Savannah River. The militia-sympathizing assembly refused to allow this and drove Wright out of the capital. Wright, along with several dozen loyalists, took shelter on the warships.

Further north, a group of merchant ships carrying rice was attacked by British warships on March 2, 1776 and their cargoes of rice were seized. Georgians reacted quickly. About 600 Georgian militia joined by about 500 Whigs from South Carolina set the ship Inverness ablaze and cut it loose. The fire ship drifted into the British brig Nelly. These two ships drifted downstream, setting three more ships on fire. The British squadron was forced to retire.

Source Wikipedia

The Battle of Cowpens (1781) was an overwhelming victory by American revolutionary forces under Brigadier General Daniel Morgan. This battle is loosely depicted in the climax of the film The Patriot.

Contents

1 Overview
2 Preparation
3 Events
4 Results

Overview

The Battle of Cowpens was one of the many engagements between the Americans and the British during the Southern campaign during the American Revolution. The commanders specifically involved were American Brigadier General Daniel Morgan, commander of some 700 militia, including some Overmountainmen and cavalry, and 300 Continentals, and Englishman Colonel Banastre Tarleton, who headed a legion of 1,100 dragoons, regulars, Tory loyalists, and Highlanders.

General Cornwallis instructed Tarleton and his legion, who had been successful at battles such as Camden and Waxhaws in the past, to destroy Morgan’s command. Morgan called Americans to gather at the cow pens (a grazing area), which were a familiar landmark. Tarleton attacked without caution and regard for the fact Morgan had had much more time than himself to prepare, and was consequently caught in a double envelopment. Only about 160 British troops escaped, but the Americans suffered only 73 casualties (12 dead and 61 wounded).

Preparation

Daniel Morgan knew that he should use the unique landscape of Cowpens and the time available before Tarleton’s arrival to his advantage, and so he set up three lines of soldiers: one of skirmishers (sharpshooters), one of militia, and a main one.

The 150 select skirmishers were from North Carolina (Major McDowell) and Georgia (Major Cunningham). Behind these men were 300 militiamen under the command of Andrew Pickens. Realizing that poorly trained milita were unreliable in battle, especially when they were under attack from cavalry, Morgan decided to ask the militia to fire two shots and then retreat have them reform under cover of the reserve (cavalry commanded by William Washington and James McCall) behind the third, more experienced line of militia and continentals. The third line, composed of the remainder of the forces (about 550 men) was composed of Continentals from Delaware and Maryland, and militiamen from Georgia and Virginia. Colonel Howard commanded the Continentals and Colonels Tate and Triplett the militia. The goal of this strategy was to weaken and disorganize Tarleton’s forces, which would be attacking the third line uphill, before attacking defeating them.

At 2:00 AM on January 17, 1781, Tarleton roused his troops and continued his forcemarch to the cow pens. His Tory scouts had told him of the countryside Morgan was fighting on, and he was certain of victory because Morgan’s soldiers, mostly militiamen, seemed to be caught between mostly experienced British troops and a flooding river. As soon as he reached the spot, he formed a battle line, which consisted of dragoons on his flanks, with his two grasshopper cannon in between the British regulars and American loyalists. More cavalry and the 71st Highlanders composed his reserve. Sure of an easy victory, he sent his unrested men into battle.

Events

Morgan’s strategy worked perfectly. After killing fifteen dragoons, the skirmishers retreated. The British pulled back temporarily, but attacked again, this time reaching the militiamen, who (as ordered) poured two volleys into the British, who, with 40% of their casualties officers, were astonished and confused. They reformed and continued to advance. Pickens’s militia broke and apparently fled to the rear and were eventually reorganized. Tarleton responded by ordering one of his officers, Ogilvie, to charge with some dragoons into the “defeated” Americans. Triplett’s riflemen attacked, severely damaging the British, and the cavalry of Washington and McCall charged. Completely routed, the dragoons fled to their own rear. Despite this, Tarleton sensed he could still win with only one line of Americans left and sent his infantry in for a frontal attack. In addition to this, the Highlanders were ordered to flank the Americans.

Under the direction of Howard, the Americans retreated. Flushed with victory and now disorganized, the British ran after them. Abruptly, Howard pulled an about-face, fired an extremely devestating volley into his enemy, and then charged. Having dismantled Ogilvie’s forces, Washington then also charged into the British.

With Tarleton’s right flank and center line collapsed, there remained only the 71st Highlanders still fighting part of Howard’s line. This battle was ended by Pickens’s reformed militia, who attacked again. Desperate to save something, Tarleton assembled a group of cavalry and tried to save the two cannon he had brought with him, but they had been taken, and so Tarleton decided to save himself. He was temporarily stopped by Colonel Washington, whose horse Tarleton shot out from under him and thus made his escape.

Results

Coming on the heels of King’s Mountain, Cowpens was a decisive blow to Cornwallis, who would have defeated much of the remaining American resistance had Tarleton won Cowpens. As it was, the Americans were encouraged to fight further and the loyalists and British were demoralized. If the Battle of Cowpens had turned out differently, Cornwallis probably would not have begun the Yorktown campaign, and the war may have ended differently.

Source Wikipedia

The Siege of Charleston is one the major battles which took place towards the end of the American Revolutionary War in which the British began to shift their focus towards the southern colonies. From 1777-1778, they had a considerable amount of success, namely in Georgia with the Siege of Savannah. The prestige thus won by the British in the south in 1779 was immensely increased in the following year, when they victoriously swept up through South and North Carolina.

Failing, as stated, to achieve any advantage in the north in 1779, Sir Henry Clinton, under instructions from government, himself headed a combined military and naval expedition southward. He evacuated Newport, R.I. (October 25), left New York in command of the German general Wilhelm von Knyphausen, and in December sailed with 8500 men to join Prevost at Savannah. Cornwallis accompanied him, and later Lord Rawdon joined him with an additional force. Marching upon Charleston, Clinton cut off the city from relief, and after a brief siege, compelled Lincoln to surrender on the 12th of May. The loss of this place and of the 3000 troops included in the surrender was a serious blow to the American cause. The apparent submission of South Carolina followed. In June Clinton returned to New York, leaving Cornwallis in command, with instructions to reduce North Carolina also. Meanwhile an active and bitter partisan warfare opened. The British advance had been marked by more than the usual destruction of war; the Loyalists rose to arms; the whig population scattered and without much organization formed groups of riflemen and mounted troopers to harass the enemy. Little mercy was shown on either side. The dashing rider, Colonel Banastre Tarleton, cut to pieces (April 14, 1780) a detachment of Lincoln’s cavalry, and followed it up by practically destroying Buford’s Virginia regiment near the North Carolina border. On the other hand, daring and skilful leaders such as Francis Marion and Thomas Sumter kept the spirit of resistance alive by their sudden attacks and surprises of British outposts. Hanging Rock, Ninety-Six, Rocky Mount and other affairs brought their prowess and devotion into notice. By the month of August 1780, with the main British force encamped near the North Carolina line, the field seemed clear for the next advance.

Source Wikipedia

The Battle of Eutaw Springs was a battle of the American Revolutionary War, the last engagement of the war in the Carolinas.

On May 22, 1781, General Nathanael Greene of the Continental Army had attempted to storm the strong British post at Fort Ninety-Six but was repulsed.

On 8 September 1781 he attacked the British again at Eutaw Springs, South Carolina. In the first part of the action Greene was successful after a desperate conflict; in the pursuit, however, the Americans failed to dislodge the British from a stone house which they held, and their severe loss in both engagements was over 500 men. The British lost about 1,000, one-half of whom were prisoners.

Better success attended the American partisan operations directed by Greene and conducted by Marion, Sumter, Andrew Pickens, Henry Lee and William Washington. They fell upon isolated British posts established to protect the Loyalist population, and generally captured or broke them up. Rawdon found himself unable with his diminishing force to cover the country beyond Charleston; and he fell back to that place, leaving the situation in the south as it had been in the early part of 1780. On the American side, Greene was hailed as the deliverer of that section.

Source Wikipedia

The Battle of Hobkirk’s Hill was on April 25, 1781. The colonists, led by Major-General Nathanael Greene, won over the British, led by Lord Francis Rawdon, in a series of attacks.

Source Wikipedia

The Battle of Kings Mountain was a fight in the Southern campaign of the American Revolutionary War, fought on October 7, 1780. American Patriot militia forces overwhelmed the loyalist militia, led by Major Patrick Ferguson. In his history The Winning of the West, Theodore Roosevelt wrote of Kings Mountain: “This brilliant victory marked the turning point of the American Revolution.”

From the American Patriot perspective, this might be called The Battle of the Colonels as there was no overall command structure. Colonels William Campbell, John Sevier, Joseph McDowell, Benjamin Cleveland, James Williams, and Isaac Shelby each appeared in command of parts of their militia units. Even some of lesser rank, such as Captain Joseph Winston, Edward Lacey, and Frederick Hambright commanded largely autonomous units.

Contents

1 Background
2 Forces
3 Description of the battle
4 Aftermath

Background

After the defeat of Horatio Gates’s Patriot army at the Battle of Camden, British General Cornwallis was convinced that Georgia and South Carolina had been brought back under British control, and he began working on plans to move into North Carolina. However, a brutal civil war between the rebel colonists and loyalists (known as Tories), continued to rage all over South Carolina. The Whig frontiersmen, led by a group of self-proclaimed colonels of the rebellion—Isaac Shelby, Elijah Clark, and Charles McDowell—conducted hit-and-run raids on Loyalist outposts. To protect his western flank against the rebel American colonists, Cornwallis employed Major Patrick Ferguson to command the Loyalist militia.

Cornwallis invaded North Carolina on September 9, 1780, and reached Charlotte on September 26, 1780. Ferguson followed and established a base camp at Gilbertown and issued a challenge to the Patriot leaders to lay down their arms or he would: “lay waste to their country with fire and sword.” But the tough-talking words only outraged the frontiersmen of the Appalachian Mountains who decided to bring the battle to Ferguson himself rather than wait for him to come to them.

Learning of the Patriot approach from a deserter, Ferguson withdrew towards Charlotte, but he stopped at Kings Mountain, a rocky forested hill less then a mile south of the South Carolina border, to face his enemies.

Forces

With the exception of Major Patrick Ferguson, all of the participants of the battle were Americans. Ferguson commanded over 1,000 Loyalist well trained and drilled milita, while the rebel Patriots, about 900 strong, were under the command of a group of frontiersmen colonels.

Description of the battle

The battle opened on October 7, 1780 where 900 Colonial frontiersmen approached the base of Kings Mountain in the early dawn hours. The rebel army split up in eight groups of 100 to 200 men intended to surround the mountain and destroy Ferguson’s Loyalists in detail. Two storming parties, led by Colonels John Sevier and William Campbell, would assault the ‘high heel’ of the mountain, the smallest area but highest point, while six additional storming groups, led by Colonels Shelby, Williams, Cleveland, Chronicle, McDowell and Winston, would attack the main Loyalist group around the ‘ball’ base beside the ‘heel’ crest of the mountain.

The frontiersmen crept up the hill in Indian-fashion and opened fire on the scarlet-red clad Loyalists from cover of the rocks and trees. Ferguson rallied his troops together and launched a bayonet charge against the attacking frontiersmen being led by Campbell and Sevier. With no bayonets of their own, the frontiersmen were forced to retreat down the hill and back into the woods. But Campbell rallied his troops as soon as the Loyalist charge spent itself and returned to the base of the hill to open fire again against the Loyalists. Two more times, Ferguson launched bayonet attacks against the attacking rebel colonists advancing up the hill. During one of the charges, Colonel Williams was killed, and Colonel McDowell was wounded. But each time, the frontiersmen retreated deep into the woods and returned to the base of the hill once the Loyalist counter-assaults were spent.

By this time, Loyalist casualties were increasing, and the situation was becoming increasingly grim for Ferguson. As the frontiersmen began to overrun the positions, Ferguson rode back and forth across the hill trying to rally his men to stand and fight by yelling orders and blowing his silver whistle used to signal charges. But at the crest, as the frontiersmen began over running the Loyalists positions, Ferguson was struck by about a dozen rifle balls fired by the frontiersmen and fell dead off his horse.

After seeing their leader fall, most of the Loyalists lost heart and began to raise their arms signaling their surrender. But this time, it was the Patriot frontiersmen who wouldn’t stop firing. Seeing the Loyalists beginning to surrender, they continued firing at them and even began shouting “Give ‘em Tarleton’s Quarter!” Many of the rebel frontiersmen, eager to avenge their fellow Patriot’s defeats at the Waxhaw Massacre and elsewhere where in no mood to take prisoners. But after a few more minutes of bloodletting, the several American Patriot colonels began to slowly get their men under control and rounded up over 600 Loyalist prisoners.

On the Loyalist side, 157 were killed and 163 were seriously wounded, and the remainder (698 men) were taken prisoner. The Patriot frontiersmen lost 28 killed and 62 wounded. Those Loyalist prisoners well enough to walk were herded away to camps several miles away. The dead and wounded were left behind on the battlefield. As many as nine of the Loyalists were hanged when several frontiersmen discovered that they originally fought for the Rebellion and then changed sides.

Aftermath

In 1931, the Congress of the United States created the Kings Mountain National Military Park on the site of the battle. The park is headquartered in Blacksburg, South Carolina and hosts over a quarter of a million visitors each year.

Source Wikipedia

The Battle of Camden was an important battle in the southern theatre of the American Revolutionary War. On August 16, 1780 British Forces under Lt. General Charles Cornwallis routed the American forces of Major General Horatio Gates about six miles north of Camden, South Carolina. American Forces numbered 4,100 of which about 3,000 were fit for duty, as opposed to 2,239 in the British force.

Contents

1 Background
2 Battle
3 Aftermath

Background

The threatening situation in the Carolinas alarmed Congress and Washington and measures were taken to protect the distressed section. Before Cornwallis could be brought to bay he was faced successively by four antagonists–Generals Gates, Greene, Lafayette and Washington. They found in him the most capable and dangerous opponent of the war. Greene called him “the modern Hannibal.” With Lincoln’s surrender of nearly all the continental soldiers in the south, a new force had to be supplied to meet the British veterans. Two thousand men, mainly the Maryland line, were hurried down from Washington’s camp under Johann de Kalb; Virginia and North Carolina put new men into the field, and the entire force was placed under command of General Gates.

Battle

Gates marched towards Camden, S.C., and on the 16th of August encountered Cornwallis near that place. Each army by a night march attempted a surprise of the other, and fought a confused skirmish at Waxhaws. The next morning, both armies drew up face to face. Gates placed De Kalb’s troops on his right flank and the militia on his left, and ordered De Kalb forward. Cornwallis, meanwhile, sent his right flank forward as well, and Gates’ inexperienced militia fled. The British regulars wheeled around and flanked De Kalb.

Gates was utterly routed, and fled the field. The reputation he had won at Saratoga was ruined on the occasion by over-confidence and incompetence. De Kalb was killed in the action. General Greene, standing next to Washington as the ablest and most trusted officer of the Revolution, succeeded Gates. Cornwallis marched leisurely into North Carolina, but before meeting Greene some months later he suffered the loss of two detachments sent at intervals to disperse various partisan corps of the Americans. On the 7th of October 1780 a force of 1100 men under Major Patrick Ferguson was surrounded at King’s Mountain, S.C., near the North Carolina line, by bands of riflemen under Colonels Isaac Shelby, James Williams, William Campbell and others, and after a desperate fight on the wooded and rocky slopes, surrendered. Ferguson himself was killed. On the 17th of January 1781 General Daniel Morgan was attacked at Cowpens, south-west of King’s Mountain, by Colonel Banastre Tarleton with his legion. Both were leaders of repute, and a most stirring action occurred in which Morgan, with Colonel William Washington leading his cavalry, practically destroyed Tarleton’s corps. Despite the weakening his army suffered by these losses, Cornwallis marched rapidly through North Carolina, giving Greene a hard chase nearly to the Virginia line.

Aftermath

American casualties were 683 killed, wounded, and captured with another 50 missing, and included the loss of General Baron de Kalb. The Americans also lost most of the supplies currently in the Southern Department, and all of its artillery. British losses were 68 killed, 245 wounded, and 11 missing.

Source Wikipedia

The Waxhaw Massacre was one of the most important, and is one of the most neglected, events in the American Revolution. The earliest references are to “Buford’s Defeat” or the “Waxhaw Massacre”, but some have since called it “Buford’s Massacre” or “The Battle of the Waxhaws” – both of which seem unsatisfactory, as Buford was not responsible, and a Battle implies both sides were fighting.

The Massacre

Col. Abraham Buford led a force of about 350 Virginian Continentals to assist the American forces in the siege of Charleston, South Carolina. Before arriving, they learned that the city had been taken, and turned back to Virginia. However, the British Col. Banastre Tarleton learned of this, and pursued with a force of roughly 700 dragoons and mounted infantry. On May 29, 1780, Tarleton caught up with Buford in the Waxhaws – at a crossroads in what is now called Buford, S.C. Seeing that he was hopelessly outnumbered, Col. Buford ordered his men to stack arms and surrender, which they promptly began to do.

Reports differ as to what happened next. Somehow a gun may have gone off. British sources say that Tarleton’s horse was shot from under him, and his men believed that he had been killed, but other circumstances suggest this was a fabrication. In any case, the British forces (who were mostly American Loyalists, or Tories) proceeded to murder the mostly unarmed Virginians. Again, accounts differ, but many place the dead at 113 for that day. However, perhaps another 150 were wounded, and most died in the next few days.

Before the massacre, popular opinion held that the Southern States were lost to the American cause, and would stay loyal to Britain. The Waxhaw Massacre may have changed the direction of the war in the South. Many who would have stayed neutral flocked to the American cause, and “Tarleton’s Quarter!” became a rallying cry for the Whigs. This massacre was also directly responsible for the over-mountain men (from what is now Tennessee) forming a volunteer force that utterly destroyed Major Patrick Ferguson’s command at Kings Mountain, North Carolina.

It is interesting to note that American history books commonly included reference to the Waxhaw Massacre up to the 20th century, but somewhere along the way dropped it – perhaps due to a combination of excessive zeal in early reports of the number of dead (the number 400 was frequently circulated), and a desire not to offend British sensibilities after becoming allies in the First World War.

Nitpicks

Military buffs may note that a Dragoon and a Mounted Infantryman are essentially the same thing, but in this case the difference is significant. Tarleton had a force of about 350 dragoons with horses, but the British had not had time to get enough mounts for their troops, so in order to catch up with Buford with an overpowering force Tarleton doubled up on the mounts – one dragoon and one infantryman per horse.

Contemporary sources claimed that there were 400 men under Buford’s command, and all but a handful were killed – but this should be understood to be the hyperbole of propaganda. A number of sources claim 113 dead at the site, 150 wounded, and 53 taken captive. However, the number of 113 is much too low, as most sources concur that well over 100 of the wounded died of wounds within the next few days.

Source Wikipedia