Allaire's Diary, 1780

Excerpts from Loyalist Lieutenant Anthony Allaire's Diary, March-April 1780:

Tuesday, 14th. Found several horses, a quantity of furniture, Continental stores and ammunition, hid in a swamp by one John Stafford, a sort of Rebel commissary who lives at Coosawhatchie, and is, by the by, a cursed fool, which alone prevents his being a damned rogue.

Monday, 20th. The army got in motion, marching about two miles. Received orders to halt, the rear guard being fired on; it proved to be the York Volunteers, getting the boats on the carriages at the river, were fired on by a skulking party of rascals on the other side of the stream.

Tuesday, 21st. The army got in motion. Marched to Fish Pond river. Here we were detained to repair the bridge till evening. Before we crossed we moved on about three miles, through a swamp, over an exceeding bad causeway. This day Col. Tarleton, with his dragoons, joined us from Beaufort, where he had been to get horses—his being all lost on the passage from New York.

Thursday, 23d. All the army, except the Seventy-first regiment, and greatest part of the baggage, crossed the river in boats and flats, the bridge being destroyed. Col. Tarleton came up with a party of Rebel militia dragoons, soon after crossing the river at Gov. Bee's plantation. He killed ten, and took four prisoners. Gov. Bee was formerly Lieut. Gov. under His Majesty, is now one of the members of Congress, and Lieut. Gov. of South Carolina.

Monday, 3d. Marched to Ashley Ferry to cover the Dragoons of the Legion whilst crossing the river. Marched from this up the river to Henry Middleton's plantation; passed several famous country seats, one called Drayton's Hall, belonging to William Henry Drayton, deceased, who was a member of Congress, and died at Philadelphia. Constant firing at our works from the Rebels all day.

Saturday, 8th. ... About four o'clock this afternoon the fleet hove in sight, coming up under full sail with a fresh breeze at south west, and passed Fort Moultrie--the Rebel fort that they boasted of on Sullivan's Island, which no fleet could ever pass.

Wednesday, 12th. Received orders to march. The North Carolinians were ordered to join Col. Ferguson.

(Lt. Allaire, a New York-born Loyalist, served under British commander Patrick Ferguson.) 

Georgia Enters The Revolution

From Our Country, a "Household History for All Readers," Vol. II, by Benson J. Lossing, published 1877:

Georgia, tardy in joining the Continental movement, felt the flame of patriotism warming the hearts and minds of her sons early in 1775. In February, the inhabitants of the parish of St. Johns, in that province, chose Lyman Hall to represent them in the second Congress, and he took his seat as such at the middle of May. In July the Provincial Convention that had been formed adopted the American Association, and chose delegates to represent the whole province in the Congress; and then the bright galaxy of the "Old Thirteen" was perfected. The royal governor, Sir James Wright, had tried in vain to suppress the rising tide of republicanism in Georgia. So early as May, 1775, when it was suspected that he was about to imitate General Gage, by seizing the ammunition of the province, several members of the Council of Safety and others broke open the magazine, sent a greater portion of the powder to Beaufort, South Carolina, and hid the remainder in their own garrets. When the governor and the Tories were preparing to celebrate the king's birthday, on the 4th of June, by firing the cannon on the battery in Savannah, some of the leading Whigs spiked the guns there, and hurled them to the bottom of the bluff. Not long afterward, a letter written by the governor to General Gage, asking him to send troops to Georgia to suppress the rising rebellion there, was intercepted at Charleston. The republicans were greatly exasperated; and a day or two afterward they seized a British ship at the mouth of the Savannah River, with thirteen thousand pounds of gunpowder on board. The spirit of resistance waxed from stronger and stronger, until, in January, 1776, the Whigs resolved to endure the adverse influence of the governor and the Tories no longer. Joseph Habersham, a member of the popular legislature, with some armed volunteers, seized Governor Wright and made him a prisoner on parole at his own house. A sentinel was placed before it, with orders not to allow any intercourse between the governor and the Loyalists. During a stormy night in February, Sir James escaped through a back window of his house, walked five miles down the borders of the river with a friend, and then entering an open boat, fled in the pelting rain, under the cover of darkness, for shelter to the British vessel-of-war Scarborough, lying in Tybee Sound. [John] Stuart, the Indian agent for the Southern Department, had fled for safety to St. Augustine. He had incurred the bitter resentment of the patriots by trying to execute an atrocious order from Gage, as commander-in-chief of the forces, in these words:
"The people of Carolina in turning rebels to their king have lost all faith; improve a correspondence with Indians to the greatest advantage, and even when opportunity offers make them take arms against his majesty's enemies, and distress them all in their power; for no time is now to be kept with them; they have brought down all the savages they could against us here, who, with their riflemen, are continually firing upon our advanced sentries; in short, no time should be lost to distress a set of people so wantonly rebellious; supply the Indians with what they want, be the expense what it will, as every exertion must now be made on the side of government."
Gage had borne the same false testimony concerning the employment of the savages by the Americans, to the British ministry, as an excuse for his barbarous recommendations to make allies of them with the British army. At the same time the British emissaries were among the savage tribes of the north trying to form alliances with them, and to incite them to war against the Patriots. 
So was ended royal rule in Georgia.

Gen. William Moultrie (1730-1805)

Until 1760 William Moultrie had a fairly undistinguished career as a member of South Carolina's provincial assembly. But after playing a central role in putting down a Cherokee uprising, he became a leader in his colony's military affairs. Early in the Revolution his expertise won him command of the Continental army's Second Regiment. Moultrie commanded the fort on Sullivan's Island on June 28, 1776, and he was successful in repulsing the British fleet when they tried to enter Charleston harbor. It is said that during the bombardment of Fort Sullivan, General Charles Lee continuously tried to micromanage Moultrie's situation from a distance. While the battle raged, Lee sent a letter to Moultrie by an aide, saying, "If you should unfortunately expend your ammunition without beating off the enemy or driving them on the ground, spike your guns and retreat with all order possible; but I know you will be careful not to throw away your ammunition." Moultrie, instead, asked for more gunpowder. In appreciation of his efforts the fort was subsequently renamed after him. He was promoted to brigadier general in the Continental service, and thereafter operated independently. After the fall of Savannah (1778), he decisively defeated the British forces at Beaufort in February of 1779. Moultrie was captured by the British after the fall of Charleston in 1780 and sent as prisoner to St. Augustine. Exchanged in 1782, he was then promoted to major general.
Following the war, William Moultrie was elected to the South Carolina House of Representatives in 1783. In 1784, he served as Lieutenant Governor. He was then elected governor for a two-year term in 1785. While governor, Moultrie created the county court system, and relocated the South Carolina capital from Charleston to Columbia in 1786. He was elected to the State Senate in 1787. He was elected to his second two-year term as governor in 1792, and retired from public office in 1794. In 1802 his Memoirs of the American Revolution were published in two volumes. William Moultrie died in Charleston on 27 September 1805 and was interred at Windsor Hill Plantation.

South Carolina Districts, 1769-1784

(click image to enlarge)

Georgetown District extended from the North Carolina line to the Santee River. Charleston District lay between the Santee and the Combahee Rivers. Beaufort District sat between the Combahee and the Savannah Rivers. Northwest of Georgetown was the Cheraws District, bounded on the west by Lynches River; west of the Cheraws was the large district of Camden, bounded on the west by the river system of the Santee, Congaree, and Broad; south and west of Camden, two more large districts extended to the Savannah River—Orangeburg District to the south, and Ninety-Six District to the north.

(Source: South Carolina Department of Archives and History, http://www.state.sc.us/scdah/guide/countymap2.htm)