Saturday, November 10, 2007

Siege, Imprisonment & Exile

From The History of South Carolina in the Revolution, 1775-1780, by Edward McCrady, pub. 1901, Macmillan & Co., Ltd.:

    "Charlestown, the only city in America to endure a British siege during the war, was [in 1780] occupied by British troops and ruled by [Lt. Col. Nisbet] Balfour, an officer who reserved his valor for the oppression of defenceless men, unprotected women, and innocent children. But Balfour could not quell the spirit of his prisoners, however much he might curtail their liberties and despoil them of their property. Henry Laurens was in the Tower of London, Christopher Gadsden was in a dungeon in the Castle at St. Augustine, whither forty-three other principal citizens of the State had been sent in exile in August, and where in November, twenty-two more had been added to their company. (The names of these were: Joseph Bee, Richard Beresford, Benjamin Cudworth, John Berwick, Henry Crouch, John Splatt Cripps, Edward Darrell, Daniel de Saussure, George A. Hall, Thomas Grimball, Noble Wimberly Jones, William Lee, William Logan, Arthur Middleton, Christopher Peters, Benjamin Postell, Samuel Prioleau, Philip Smith, Benjamin Waller, James Wakefield, Edward Weyman, and Morton Wilkinson. With these were also sent General Rutherford and Colonel Isaacs of the State of North Carolina. Colonel Joseph Kershaw was sent to the British Honduras, and Captain Ely Kershaw to Bermuda, but died en route from New Providence to Bermuda.)"