The Cunningham Mess, part 4: A Defection, A Lie & First Blood

From The History of South Carolina in the Revolution, 1775-1780, by Edward McCrady, published 1901, Macmillan & Co., ltd., South Carolina, pp. 89-92:

In the meanwhile the Congress men under Williamson and the King's men under Cuningham continued embodying their forces. Williamson lay almost a fortnight at Ninety-Six Court House, receiving those who came in and waiting for Colonel Thomson with the Rangers. Captain Richard Pearis, who, then acting with the Revolutionary party, had accompanied Mr. Drayton on his visit to the Indians, disappointed that he had not received the military position he desired, now changed sides and joined the King's party. He charged the Council of Safety with the design of bringing down the Cherokees upon the settlements to cut off all the King's men. He went so far as to make affidavit that the ammunition taken by Patrick Cuningham was on the way to the Cherokee Nation for that purpose. As it was known that he had brought the Indians who had met Mr. Drayton in September, it was naturally supposed that he was acquainted with the intentions of the Council, and his assertions were readily believed. The King's party was thus speedily swelled in numbers, while Williamson's militia came in but slowly. Williamson, however, could not believe that the Loyalists would dare to attack him, until the 18th of November, when he received certain information that they were in full march upon him and had actually crossed the Saluda River for the purpose. Major Mayson now joined him with a small party of Rangers and proposed to march at once, themselves assume the offensive, and attack their opponents in camp. A council of war was called which, as councils of war usually do, overruled this vigorous plan of operations. On the contrary, Williamson with his forces fell back to a position near the Court House, where they fortified themselves as far as they could before the appearance of the opposing forces. They had hardly closed their slight fortification when on Sunday, the 19th of November, Major Robinson and Captain Patrick Cuningham appeared with their party. A conference was called, and a meeting took place between Major Mayson and Captain Bowie on the one side, and Robinson, Cuningham, and Evan McLaurin on the other. Robinson and his party demanded that Major Williamson's militia should surrender their arms and disband. While Williamson was considering this demand two of his men were seized by the other party, whereupon he gave orders to rescue them, and thus brought on a conflict, the first bloodshed in the Revolution in South Carolina. For two hours and a half the firing on both sides was incessant. The garrison including officers consisted of 562 men, while the number of besiegers was about 1890. The siege lasted two days, during which Major Williamson's men suffered great hardship, though but one man was killed and twelve wounded; while on the other side several were killed and about twenty wounded. On Tuesday, the 21st, at sunset the King's party displayed a white flag and called a parley, in which Major Robinson renewed his former demand, allowing only one hour for answer. Captain Bowie was sent at once with the joint answer of Majors Williamson and Mayson, that they were determined never to resign their arms. In two hours Major Robinson returned with Captain Patrick Cuningham, and upon their withdrawing the peremptory demand for surrender it was agreed that a conference should take place the next morning. Accordingly, at the appointed hour, Majors Williamson and Mayson with Captains Pickens and Bowie met Major Robinson, Captain Cuningham, Evan McLaurin, and Pearis, when it was agreed that hostilities should immediately cease, that the garrison should be marched out of their improvised fort and their swivels given up, which by a secret agreement for that purpose were in a day or two privately restored. This mock surrender of the swivels was agreed upon by the leaders to appease a large party of the besiegers who, while the negotiation was progressing, demanded their surrender. The treaty further stipulated that the public differences should be submitted to Lord William Campbell the Governor on the part of the King's men, and to the Council of Safety on the part of Major Williamson and those under his command; that each party should send messengers to their principals, and twenty days be allowed for their return; that Major Robinson should withdraw his men over the Saluda River, and keep them there or disperse them as he pleased until he should receive his Excellency's orders; that no person of either party should be molested in returning home; that should reinforcements arrive, they should be bound by the treaty; that all prisoners should be set at liberty, the fortifications levelled, and the well which had been dug in the forts filled up.

The Cunningham Mess, part 2: The Ammunition

From The History of South Carolina in the Revolution, 1775-1780, by Edward McCrady, published 1901, Macmillan & Co., ltd., South Carolina, page 87:

... Drayton while on his mission in that part of the country [Ninety Six District] had had a "talk" with the Cherokees, and had promised to send them a supply of powder and lead; and in compliance with this promise the Council of Safety on the 4th of October [1775] had dispatched a wagon with one thousand pounds of powder and two thousand pounds of lead as a present to them. It unluckily happened that about this time Robert Cuningham's arrest became known; whereupon Patrick Cuningham immediately assembled a party of about sixty armed men to rescue his brother. They failed in doing that, but seized the ammunition on its way to the Indians. Upon this Major Andrew Williamson, who then resided in Ninety-Six, embodied his militia for the purpose of recovering the powder and lead. He formed a camp at Long Cane, and sent a letter to Edward Wilkinson and Alexander Cameron, the Indian agents then in the Cherokee Nation, informing them of the seizure, and requesting that the matter should be explained to the Indians so as to prevent them from revenging themselves upon the people of this frontier. On the other hand, the Cuningham party represented that the ammunition had been sent to the Indians to arm them against the King's friends, who formed so large a part of that population. This unfortunate event added greatly and not unnaturally to the opposition to the government of the Congress and was of great influence in assisting the collection of a considerable force in arms between the Broad and Saluda.

The Cunningham Mess, part 1: The Arrest

From The History of South Carolina in the Revolution, 1775-1780, by Edward McCrady, published 1901, Macmillan & Co., ltd., South Carolina, pp. 86-87:

1775
On the day the Congress met, the 1st of November, it was informed that Captain Robert Cuningham [sic] had been taken into custody and brought to Charlestown. He had been arrested under orders from Major Andrew Williamson upon the affidavit of Captain John Caldwell, charging him with seditious words. Cuningham having been brought before the Congress did not deny that he had used the words with which he was charged; he did not believe, he said, that Captain Caldwell had perjured himself; but though he did not consider himself bound by the treaty at Ninety-Six, he averred "that he had since behaved himself as peaceably as any man, and although he had opinions he had not expressed them but when asked." Upon this frank statement Captain Cuningham was committed to the jail of Charlestown by a warrant under the hand of William Henry Drayton as President; Thomas Grimball the Sheriff was directed, however, to afford him every reasonable and necessary accommodation at the public charge. But he was enjoined not to suffer him to converse or correspond with any person whomsoever, or to have the use of pen, ink, or papers unless by express leave from the Congress. The arrest of Cuningham was deeply resented by the people of the Upper Country, and in connection with another matter, which occurred about the same time, occasioned further trouble and a far more serious disaffection of the people in that region. They were led to believe that the Revolutionists on the coast were intriguing with the Indians to bring them down upon the frontier settlements because the people there hesitated to join them against the King.

The Siege of Williamson's Fort

From South Carolina Revolutionary Battles: Part I, Institute for Southern Studies, University of South Carolina:

In the final days of October [1775], the Council of Safety had dispatched a wagon load of ammunition as a present for the Cherokees. Patrick Cunningham's band of Tories had intercepted the shipment at Mine Creek, in present Saluda County, and had taken possession of it. If the Patriots were apprehensive that the Indians might side with the King's men in this struggle, the Loyalists were equally suspicious of the Patriots' motives in sending them ammunition. Before long, both factions were again massing troops.
The conflict finally came on November 19-21 at Ninety Six. The Patriot army under Major Andrew Williamson and Major James Mayson hastily erected a stockade fort at Savage's old field, the plantation of John Savage, some distance west of the court house town. They were invested by a Loyalist force three times their number, commanded by Major Joseph Robinson and Captain Patrick Cunningham. Thus commenced the siege of Williamson's Fort not to be confused with William's Fort or Williamson's Plantation, which will be mentioned later. During the course of the fighting, both sides sustained a number of casualties, and James Birmingham became the first South Carolina Patriot to die in the cause of Liberty. The affair ended in a truce on the evening of the 21st.

Francis Salvador (1747-1776)

Francis Salvador was born in London in 1747, the fourth generation of Salvadors to live in England. His great grandfather Joseph, a merchant, established himself as a leader of England's Sephardic community and became the first Jewish director of the East India Company. When George III ascended the British throne, Joseph Salvador arranged an audience for the seven-man delegation that officially congratulated the king on behalf of the Jewish community.
Even before Francis Salvador's birth, his family developed interests in America. Salvador's grandfather teamed with two other leaders of the London Jewish community to raise funds to send some of London's destitute Jews to the new British colony in Savannah, Georgia. The Georgia trustees subsequently voted to ban Jewish immigration to Georgia but not before grandfather Salvador and his two associates had landed forty-two Jewish settlers in Savannah in July 1733. When the founder of the colony, James Oglethorpe, intervened on behalf of the Jews, the trustees decided to let them stay. The Salvador family then purchased personal land holdings in South Carolina.
As a young man, Francis Salvador was raised in luxury in London. He was well educated by private tutors and traveled extensively. At age twenty, he married his first cousin, Sarah, and took his place in the family shipping firm. The devastating effects of a 1755 earthquake in Lisbon, where the family had extensive interests, weakened the family fortune. The failure of the East India Company completed its ruin. By the early 1770's, virtually the only thing left of the Salvador family's immense wealth was the large plot of land they had purchased in the South Carolina colony.
In 1773, in an attempt to rebuild the family fortune, Francis Salvador moved to South Carolina. Intending to send for his wife Sarah and their children when he had prepared a proper home for them, Salvador arrived in Charleston in December and established himself as a planter on a seven thousand acre tract he acquired from his uncle. Salvador found himself drawn to the growing American movement against British rule and unhesitatingly threw himself into the patriot cause. Within a year of his arrival, at the age of 27, Salvador was elected to the General Assembly of South Carolina. He became the first Jew to hold that high an elective office in the English colonies. He would hold the post until his sudden death.
In 1774, Francis Salvador was elected as a delegate to South Carolina's revolutionary Provincial Congress, which assembled in Charleston in January 1775. The Provincial Congress framed a bill of rights and prepared an address to the royal governor of South Carolina setting forth the colonists' grievances against the British crown. Salvador played an important role in the South Carolina Provincial Congress, which appointed him to a commission to negotiate with Tories living in the northern and western parts of the colony to secure their promise not to actively aid the royal government.
When the second Provincial Congress assembled in November 1775, Salvador urged that body to instruct the South Carolina delegation in Philadelphia to vote for American independence. Salvador played a leading role in the Provincial Congress, chairing its ways and means committee and serving on a select committee authorized to issue bills of credit to pay the militia. Salvador was also part of a special commission established to preserve the peace in the interior parts of South Carolina, where the English Superintendent of Indian Affairs was busily negotiating treaties with the Cherokees to induce the tribe to attack the colonists.
When the Cherokees attacked settlements along the frontier on July 1, 1776, massacring and scalping colonial inhabitants, Salvador, in an act reminiscent of Paul Revere, mounted his horse and galloped nearly thirty miles to give the alarm. He then returned to join the militia in the front lines, defending the settlements under siege. During a Cherokee attack early in the morning of August first, Salvador was shot. He fell into some bushes, where he was subsequently discovered and scalped. Salvador died forty-five minutes later. Major Andrew Williamson, the militia commander, reported of Salvador that, "When I came up to him after dislodging the enemy and speaking to him, he asked whether I had beaten the enemy. I told him 'Yes.' He said he was glad of it and shook me by the hand and bade me farewell, and said he would die in a few minutes."
His friend Henry Laurens reported that Salvador's death was "universally regretted," while William Henry Drayton, later Chief Justice of South Carolina, noted that Salvador had "sacrificed his life in the service of his adopted country." Dead at twenty-nine, never again seeing his wife or children after leaving England, Salvador was the first Jew to die waging the American Revolution. Ironically, because he was fighting on the frontier, he probably did not receive the news that the Continental Congress in Philadelphia had, as he urged, adopted the Declaration of Independence.

(Source: "Francis Salvador: Martyr of the American Revolution", by Michael Feldberg, director of the American Jewish Historical Society, Jewish World Review Feb. 12, 2001)

Col. James Hawthorn

From King's Mountain and Its Heroes, by Lyman Copeland Draper, pub. 1881, P.G. Thomson:

"James Hawthorn was born in County Armagh, Ireland about 1750. His family were early Scots-Irish settlers of the back country of South Carolina, where the mother, two daughters and James, her 12-year-old son, were captured by Indians—the mother and girls were killed. James Hawthorn was at length released. He learned the blacksmith's trade in York district, South Carolina, where he married Mary 'Polly' Neel, a daughter of Colonel Thomas Neel.
"Hawthorne fought in several major battles and an unknown number of skirmishes during the Revolutionary War. He served under Col. Neel in the Snow Campaign in 1775, on Andrew Williamson’s Campaign of 1776, and as a Captain on the Florida Campaign of 1778-79. He served as Lt. Col. under Col. William Hill, under General Thomas Sumter, who fought at the Battles of Rocky Mount, Hanging Rock, Carey’s Ford, Fishing Creek, Fish Dam Ford, and Blackstocks. He took command of Col. Hill’s Regiment at the Battle of Kings Mountain after Hill was wounded. James Hawthorn was Lt. Col. to Col. Thomas Neel prior to Neel’s death in the Battle of Stono. Hawthorn was wounded twice during the war. He died about 1808 in Livingston County, Kentucky."

Samuel Campbell Clegg (1740-1779)

There's a great little book, Partisans & Redcoats: The Southern Conflict That Turned the Tide of the American Revolution, by Walter Edgar, © 2001. It focuses on the South Carolina campaign, which, much like Washington's January 1777 Battle of Princeton, was an ultimate tide-turner when things were going terribly wrong for the patriots. Most interesting (to me, at least) was how, between the covers of this book, the Neels, McDowells, and other ancestors of mine all came together in this relatively small area of the Carolina backcountry, the Waxhaws. Apart from the patriots, though, I have to remember my loyalist 6x great-grandfather Samuel Campbell Clegg.

After the successful siege of Savannah by the British forces, a Colonel Boyd was dispatched to recruit a band of Loyalist militia in the back country of the Carolinas and to join the British forces in Augusta, Georgia. Colonel Andrew Pickens and his patriot forces planned to engage the Loyalists before they could cross the Savannah River. However, his scouts discovered the Loyalist band of about 600 men encamped on Kettle Creek, near present day Washington, Wilkes County, Georgia. On 14 February 1779 the Loyalists were surprised and defeated by the Whigs commanded by Colonels Andrew Pickens, John Dooly and Elijah Clarke. About 20 men were captured and 78 surrendered. All were marched to the stockade in Augusta, Georgia.
South Carolina authorities proclaimed the men criminals under civil jurisdiction, rather than prisoners of war; and most of them were marched to the Ninety Six jail in South Carolina. "On March 8, the prisoners crossed the Savannah and were held one night at Mathis Pond near Edgefield. A second night they were crowded into an unsanitary, cramped bull pen on Williamson's [Col. Andrew Williamson] Whitehall Plantation. They arrived under guard at the Ninety Six jail on March 10." They were charged with sedition and treason, crimes punishable by hanging and forfeiture of all property. For various reasons, about half of the men were released and charges dropped. About 20 men were sentenced to death and scheduled to be executed on April 17. The men were transferred to Orangeburg for security reasons. All but five men were granted reprieves and those were marched back to Ninety Six where they were hanged at Star Fort in late April 1779. The five men were Samuel Clegg, James Lindley, John Anderson, Aquilla Hall, and Charles Draper. (Source: Wikipedia)

Within Col. Elijah Clarke's command were my 5x great-grandfather William Lewis Queen, his brother (my uncle) Samuel Queen, and my 4x great-grandfather Joseph Wise. William Lewis Queen had been previously wounded and captured by the Tories, and imprisoned for about six weeks at Ninety Six. He probably had few regrets about what went down in 1779, but who knows. Seems the Southern campaign during the Revolution was essentially a civil war, loyalists vs partisan patriots, sometimes brother vs brother, with few Brits involved outside the officers. Very emotionally complex times.