Prelude to Kings Mountain, August 1780

The disparaging news of Thomas Sumter's embarrassing defeat by Banastre Tarleton and his legion at Fishing Creek on 18 August 1780 did not stop the strategic movements of the backcountry militia. On the upside, for the patriot rebels, August 18th was the day two hundred horsemen rode forth from Colonel Charles McDowell's rebel camp on the Broad River. They were headed for Musgrove's Mill on the Enoree.

Having obtained information that a party of four or five hundred tories were encamped at Musgrove's Mill, on the south side of Enoree River, about forty miles distant, Col. McDowell again detached Shelby and Cols. Williams and Clarke to surprise and disperse them.

—John Haywood*

As battle at Musgrove's was winding down after a strategically arduous, yet ultimately decisive victory for the rebels, news of Horatio Gates's defeat at Camden on the 16th of August arrived. Retreat was rapid and long, but timely. Isaac Shelby returned to the western side of the mountains as Colonel Elijah Clarke escorted their seventy prisoners to a northern "place of safety."

It was after this, the Loyalist defeat at Musgrove's Mill, but, moreover, the unabashed British victory at Camden, that British commander Patrick Ferguson sent forth Samuel Phillips, a prisoner-of-war, to deliver a message to the “officers on the Western waters,” that if they did not: 

“...desist from their opposition to the British army, and take protection under his standard, he would march his army over the mountains, hang their leaders, and lay their country waste with fire and sword.”

—Isaac Shelby**

Word was sent out for the western militia to muster at Sycamore Shoals. Momentum was about to gather again. 

*John Haywood, The Civil and Political History of the State of Tennessee, published 1823 by W. H. Haywood; reprinted 1891, Publishing House of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South; Nashville, Tennessee

** Isaac Shelby, Gov. Shelby's Pamphlet. Battle of Kings Mountain. To the Public., published 1823, excerpt

The Battle of Camden, 16 August 1780

In May 1780 the regular Continental army, those not imprisoned, had retreated northward to Hillsborough, North Carolina, above Durham, and even as far as Virginia, in the aftermath of Charleston's surrender to the British. The Waxhaw Massacre of Abraham Buford's troops that month also signaled retreat for anyone lucky enough to survive.

Late in July, though, with Major General Horatio Gates at the helm, the Continental army returned southward into the Carolinas. They gathered at Charlotte to regroup, calling in the local militia to meet with Continental Army officers. Gates was intent upon taking on Lord Cornwallis and regaining South Carolina. 

He was targeting Camden in particular, a key crossroads which had become a Loyalist stronghold of about a thousand men under British commander Lord Francis Rawdon. Lord Cornwallis was advised of Gates's movement days earlier and arrived on the scene to support Rawdon with additional troops, including Banastre “Butcher” Tarleton and his notorious dragoons.

Soon after your Lordship had first taken possession of Camden, you detached me to Waxhaw with my own regiment, thinking that as it was an Irish corps it would be received with the better temper by the settlers of that district, who were universally Irish and universally disaffected. My conduct towards the inhabitants, and the extraordinary regularity of the troops under my command, I must assert to have been such as ought to have conciliated their firmest attachment; yet I had the fullest proofs that the people who daily visited my camp, not only held constant correspondence with the rebel militia then assembling at Charlotteburg, and with those who were harassing Lieut.-Colonel Turnbull's detachment, but also used every artifice to debauch the minds of my soldiers, and persuade them to desert from their colours. The encouragement which they gave to the men, and the certain means of escape with which they furnished them, succeeded to a very alarming degree, and the rage of desertion was not stopped by our return to Camden.

When your Lordship left me to command in the Back Country, you left me in the territory of an enemy, awed solely by apprehension of our force from open opposition. I soon found (as your Lordship's experience since will readily lead you to believe) that I was betrayed on every side by the inhabitants. Several small detachments from me, were attacked by persons who had the hour before been with them as friends in their camp. As the rebels, however, had not strength to assail the body of the army, they endeavoured to weaken it by treachery. I had the clearest conviction that the militia who swarmed daily in our camp, not only held forth every allurement that could entice the soldiers to desert, but actually furnished horses to such as would go off, and forwarded them from house to house till they were beyond the reach of pursuit.

—Letter from Lord Francis Rawdon to Lord Charles Cornwallis, excerpt

(It is not indicated nor probable that any of the Burke County, North Carolina, McDowells or their overmountain colleagues participated in the Battle of Camden. Thomas Sumter, William Davie, and Francis Marion were more likely to be leading the South Carolina militia. Gates had even reduced his own regular army numbers by sending support troops to Sumter and Marion, who had been sent back to the swamps by Gates. The battle is, however, important in context of what followed for those men.)

Horatio Gates made some questionable choices, especially the choice to hold a large portion of his regular army in reserve. Despite his known lack of faith in militia, he chose to create the entire left  flank from them, while the opposite flank was regular army helmed by Baron Johann de Kalb. In sum, early morning 16 August 1780, within an hour of the first volley, the Continental Army was totally routed by Lord Rawdon and his men. The militia dropped their arms and fled. Baron de Kalb suffered three bullets and eight bayonet wounds, then took three days to die. The battle was still playing out when General Gates mounted his horse and galloped for Charlotte. There, he procured a fresh horse and fled another 120 miles north to Hillsborough. He ran. His troops that were able to flee, aimed for the safety of Charlotte. 

General Gates fled & left his army a great many of whom was killed & taken prisoner and the balance thrown into utter confusion.

–Pension application of Richard Crabtree, excerpt

Errors were made by an overconfident General Gates, and the total collapse of his left flank left about 800 Continentals facing over 2000 British troops. Cornwallis sent in a charge by Tarleton  and his legion. The Continentals turned tail and fled. 

Brigadier General Griffith Rutherford of the Carolina militia had accompanied commander Horatio Gates to Camden. Rutherford was wounded, captured, and ultimately incarcerated in the British prison at St Augustine, Florida, until his exchange in summer of 1781. Gates's regular army and its officers ultimately retreated to Hillsborough, leaving no provision for the patriot militia. 

…and the mortified militia, were left to depend upon their own exertions, and their own fortitude; which, notwithstanding the discouragements they had met with, did not fail. They assembled—formed themselves into small partisan corps—and actually combated successfully, the first detachments of the enemy that came afterwards into their country. These are facts which entitle the patriots of Mecklenburg and Waxsaws, [sic] to a whole page of eulogium, in the best history that shall record the circumstances of the revolution.

—Otho Holland Williams, Adjutant to General Horatio Gates*

In the meantime, militias on the county and local levels, if not casualties or prisoners, disappeared back into the countryside to regroup and continue to strategize. Colonel Charles McDowell and his militia withdrew to the west of the mountains.

* Otho Holland Williams, A Narrative of the Campaign of 1780, transcribed by William Johnson, included in Johnson's Sketches of the Life and Correspondence of Nathanael Greene, published 1822 by A.E. Miller, Charleston, South Carolina

Skirmishes & Huck's Defeat, Summer 1780

Ramsour's Mill set the stage as July and early August of 1780 played out as a series of skirmishes traversing the Carolina backcountry. The absence of regular Continental army and any real general command structure allowed the rise of notable, innovative militia leaders such as Francis Marion, Andrew Pickens, Thomas Sumter (apart from his Fishing Creek episode), William Davie, and others. (Continental Line General Horatio Gates would not arrive in the Carolinas until late July.) Innovation and spontaneity were key factors within the geography of swamps, dense forests, thick underbrush, along with fickle weather patterns, which created challenges not traditionally experienced by British officers. The locals, both Patriot and Loyalist, knew the environment and how to best exploit it to advantage. Loyalists, however, had mostly British commanders who hadn't a clue as to the local terrain, but had to trust the locals for guidance. 

The men of the backcountry had been militarily seasoned, if not trained, by their "savage neighbors."* The Indian tactics they learned, out of necessity, were tree-to-rock, rock-to-tree, rifle, knife, and hatchet. They became experts of the surprise raid and hasty retreat, the silent disappearance into woods and swamps. These were precursors of modern guerrilla warfare.

Incidents at militia outposts such as Earle's Ford, Thicketty Fort, Rocky Mount, Cedar Creek, and Hanging Rock kept the game on, but the most pivotal encounter took place as a side effect of British Commander George Turnbull's order to apprehend backcountry rebel commanders John McClure and William Bratton. Colonel Turnbull was under the impression that Captain McClure and Colonel Bratton had returned home to oversee their wheat harvests. Captain Christian Huck, a fervent Loyalist, was on the receiving end of Turnbull's order and set out from Rocky Mount July 10th with a company of thirty-five British dragoons, twenty New York volunteers, and about fifty mounted Loyalist militia. 

"You are hereby ordered, with the Cavalry under your command, to proceed to the frontier of the province, collecting all the royal militia with you on your march, And with said force to push the rebels as far as you may deem convenient."

—Colonel George Turnbull to Captain Christian Huck, excerpt

Huck and his troops descended upon both the McClure and Bratton households, invoking terror as they might. McClure's brother and brother-in-law were captured and sentenced to hang. The McClure house was set afire. Mrs Bratton put up a good fight, despite being physically threatened with a reaping hook. She stood her ground and refused to give up any information. Huck, frustrated, moved along in his search to James Williamson's plantation. Bratton and McClure, in the meantime, had gotten wind of Captain Huck's pursuit and tactics, and devised a strategy to intercept Huck at Williamson's. They amassed a sizeable militia force from the surrounding countryside. At sunrise on July 12th, the patriot forces managed to trap the Loyalists in a fenced-in lane which ran from the main road to the Williamson home. The attack was a total surprise. Huck tried to rally his dragoons, but a single bullet from a sharpshooter killed the captain instantly. This was Huck's Defeat. The battle lasted only about ten minutes, but its implications would resonate far longer.

[Huck's Defeat] was the first check the enemy had received after the fall of Charleston; and was of greater consequence to the American cause than can be well supposed from an affair of small a magnitude as it had the tendency to inspire the Americans with courage & fortitude & to teach them that the enemy was not invincible. 

—Colonel William Hill*

* A nod to Peter Silver, Our Savage Neighbors, published 2008, W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., New York, N.Y.
* William Hill, Colonel William Hill's Memoirs of the Revolution, Columbia, South Carolina

Clinton's 3rd Proclamation rallies the Backcountry

… that unfortunate Proclamation of the 3d of June has had very unfavorable consequences. The majority of the Inhabitants in the Frontier Districts, tho’ ill disposed to us, from the circumstances were not actually up in arms against us; they were therefore freed from the Paroles imposed by Lt. Colonel Turnbull and myself; and nine out of ten of them are now embodied on the part of the Rebels.

—Letter from Lord Francis Rawdon to Lord Charles Cornwallis dated 7 July 1780, excerpt

On 3 June 1780 Sir Henry Clinton inadvertently (and figuratively) shot himself in the foot. On that day he issued the third of his "Proclamations" in the aftermath of the Continental Army's surrender of Charleston. It was well and good that the proclamation released from parole all prisoners, excepting those taken during the British siege of Charleston, and restored to them their full rights as citizens. The stray bullet, so to speak, was the stipulation that all released parolees were required to take an oath of allegiance to the British empire, or else to be considered in rebellion. In other words, there was no such thing as neutrality subsequent to parole.

Sir Henry Clinton, with one piece of paper, guaranteed the continuance of the American Revolution in the Southern theatre. Not long afterward, Clinton and his fleet returned northward, to New York, and left the Carolinas to the jurisdiction of Charles, Earl of Cornwallis, aka Lord Cornwallis. The Loyalist troops of the Southern theater were his to command, and the Carolinas his to secure. 

The Continental regular army was either imprisoned or headed northward, so any Carolina patriot action in the aftermath of Benjamin Lincoln's surrender of Charleston was left to local and county militias. Paroled prisoners, not wishing to abide by Clinton's ultimatum, rallied to the patriot cause. As Cornwallis dispersed forces northward from Charleston into the Carolina backcountry to subdue remaining belligerents, patriot Colonel Charles McDowell, with networked knowledge of the advancing enemy, gathered his growing militia at a position at Smith's Ford on Broad River between Spartanburg and Rock Hill, South Carolina. 

The Propaganda of Patrick Ferguson

An appeal to the inhabitants of the Carolina backcountry to join the Loyalist militia serving under the King:

Denard's Ford, Broad River,

Tryon County, Oct. 1, 1780.

Gentlemen: Unless you wish to be cut up by an inundation of barbarians, who have begun by murdering an unarmed son before the aged father, and afterwards lopped off his arms, and who by their shocking cruelty and irregularities, give the best proof of their cowardice and want of discipline; I say, if you wish to be pinioned, robbed, and murdered, and see your wives and daughters, in four days, abused by the dregs of mankind--in short, if you wish or deserve to live and bear the name of men, grasp your arms in a moment and run to camp.

The Backwater men have crossed the mountain; M'Dowell, Hampton, Shelby, and Cleaveland are at their head, so that you know what you will have to depend upon. If you choose to be p––d for ever and ever by a set of mongrels, say so at once, and let your women turn their backs upon you, and look out for real men to protect them.

PAT. FERGUSON,

Major 71st Regiment.

More on the "Shirt Men"

From Washington's Crossing, by David Hackett Fischer, published 2004, Oxford University Press, page 24:

Backcountry regiments from western Virginia were called "shirt men," from their homespun backcountry hunting shirts made of sturdy tow cloth that had been "steeped in a tan vat until it became the color of a dry leaf." In woods or high grass they were nearly invisible. Congress recommended on November 4, 1775, that their hunting shirts and leggings be adopted for the entire army.

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 Backcountry & the Scots-Irish

From The 1780 Presbyterian Rebellion and the Battle of Huck's Defeat, by Sam Thomas, Curator of History, Culture & Heritage Commission of York County:

In the Backcountry, due to their isolation from the coast, past resentments could be put aside - at least temporarily. When war arrived after 1776, at first the Scotch-Irish were rather lukewarm toward the idea of independence from Great Britain. Here they were content to remain neutral so long as they were left alone. The conflict as most of the Scotch-Irish saw it was between the British Crown and the Charleston aristocrats, whom they resented as much as the British officials and so it did not involve them. But the problems between the Backcountry and the Crown finally boiled to the surface in 1780 as "The Presbyterian Rebellion." In 1778 an unknown Hessian officer recorded his observations on the war. "Call this war by whatever name you may, only call it not an American Rebellion: it is nothing more or less than a Scotch-Irish Presbyterian Rebellion." George Washington also remarked on the contribution to the war effort with a tribute to the Scotch-Irish from his headquarters at Valley Forge when he declared, "If defeated everywhere else, I will make my last stand for liberty among the Scotch-Irish . . ." It is this Backcountry Rebellion which is so closely identified with the battles of Kings Mountain, Cowpens, Hanging Rock, and Huck's Defeat.

Ramsour's Mill: America's First Civil War

From The History of South Carolina in the Revolution, 1775-1780, by Edward McCrady, published 1901, Macmillan & Co., ltd., South Carolina, pp. 587-588:

That there were great differences of sentiment in regard to the Revolution even among the people of the Low Country of South Carolina has abundantly appeared in the pages of this history. Friends and families were divided in opinion as to its cause, and still more so in regard to the course of events which had followed resulting in the Declaration of Independence. But these differences in the Low Country had caused little bloodshed by native Carolinians at the hands of each other. Few of the Tories in this section took up arms against their fellow-countrymen. In the new field of war [i.e., the back country], alas! as at Ramsour's Mill, the people who had not been interested in the questions which brought on the trouble were to fight every one against his brother, and every one against his neighbor. The most dreadful internecine strife was now to rage throughout the country beyond the falls of the rivers. The Scotchmen in Charlestown—especially the Scotch merchants, had almost unanimously opposed the Revolution; and so had the many Scotch traders in the Piedmont region. The Scotchmen in Charlestown, however, contented themselves with passive resistance to the Revolutionary party until the fall of the town, and then did little more than congratulate Sir Henry Clinton upon his victory over their rebellious fellow-townsmen; but in the Up Country they rose with the advance of the British and with heroism and determination took part in the war. It would be well if the historian was bound to add nothing more in regard to their conduct; but truth requires the statement that the heroism of these people in maintaining their loyalty to their King was tarnished by deeds of cruelty and bloodthirstiness. It will indeed appear, as we follow the fortunes of the war in their section, that South Carolina experienced all the dire effects which from civil discords flow.
Before Tarleton had overtaken Buford the Tories in this section had begun to gather and organize. As early as the 26th of May—that is, three days before the massacre in the Waxhaws, a party of them had collected at Mobley's Meeting-house, about six miles west of Winnsboro in the present county of Fairfield; to meet this Colonel William Bratton of York and Captain John McClure of Chester gathered the Whigs and defeated and dispersed them. A similar uprising at Beckham's Old Field in the vicinity of Fishing Creek, in what is now Chester County, had been put down with equal ease, the Rev. John Simpson, then the Presbyterian minister of the congregation in that neighborhood, being one of the principal movers in the affair. We have no account of the casualties on either side of these affairs.

Lord Rawdon in the Backcountry

Francis Rawdon-Hastings, 1st Marquess of Hastings, was a British politician and military officer. He was born in County Down, Ireland, the son of John Rawdon, 1st Earl of Moira and Elizabeth Rawdon, 13th Baroness Hastings.
He joined the British Army in 1771 and served in the American Revolutionary War, particularly at the battles of Bunker Hill, Brooklyn, White Plains, Monmouth and Camden, at the attacks on Forts Washington and Clinton, and at the siege of Charleston. Hastings commanded the "Volunteers of Ireland", a Tory regiment raised by General Sir Henry Clinton. In the aftermath of the Battle of Camden, Lord Rawdon wrote to General Cornwallis:

"Soon after your Lordship had first taken possession of Camden, you detached me to Waxhaw with my own regiment, thinking that as it was an Irish corps it would be received with the better temper by the settlers of that district, who were universally Irish and universally disaffected. My conduct towards the inhabitants, and the extraordinary regularity of the troops under my command, I must assert to have been such as ought to have conciliated their firmest attachment; yet I had the fullest proofs that the people who daily visited my camp, not only held constant correspondence with the rebel militia then assembling at Charlotteburg, and with those who were harassing Lieut.-Colonel Turnbull's detachment, but also used every artifice to debauch the minds of my soldiers, and persuade them to desert from their colours. The encouragement which they gave to the men, and the certain means of escape with which they furnished them, succeeded to a very alarming degree, and the rage of desertion was not stopped by our return to Camden. When your Lordship left me to command in the Back Country, you left me in the territory of an enemy, awed solely by apprehension of our force from open opposition. I soon found (as your Lordship's experience since will readily lead you to believe) that I was betrayed on every side by the inhabitants. Several small detachments from me, were attacked by persons who had the hour before been with them as friends in their camp. As the rebels, however, had not strength to assail the body of the army, they endeavoured to weaken it by treachery. I had the clearest conviction that the militia who swarmed daily in our camp, not only held forth every allurement that could entice the soldiers to desert, but actually furnished horses to such as would go off, and forwarded them from house to house till they were beyond the reach of pursuit."

Choosing Sides

From The Road to Guilford Courthouse, by John Buchanan, ©1997, John Wiley & Sons, page 124:

"The origin of the settlers played a key role in choosing sides. Generally, the native born as well as foreign born who had been in America long enough to have migrated down the Great Wagon Road from Pennsylvania became Rebels. Recent arrivals from Ulster and other areas of North Britain tended to become King's Friends. This certainly indicates that the Scotch Irish and their cultural allies who had spent some decades in Back Country America were well along the road to their personal vision of liberty, which did not translate into an orderly imperial society. Independence was their goal, and it was unencumbered by economic motives.
But as in all causes different degrees of fervor could be found. There were, claimed [Revolutionary soldier] James Collins, three kinds of patriots: 'those who were determined to fight it out to the last let the consequences be what it might ... those who would fight a little when the wind was favorable but so soon as it shifted to an unfavorable point would draw back and give up all for lost ... those who were favorable for the cause, provided it prospered and they could enjoy the benefit but would not risk one hair of their heads to attain it.'"

Gen. Nathanael Greene, re: The Backcountry

From The Road to Guilford Courthouse, by John Buchanan, ©1997, John Wiley & Sons, page 140:

"Even General Nathanael Greene, whose highly critical views of militia were well known and often justified, in a letter to Alexander Hamilton nevertheless admitted that 'there is a great spirit of enterprise among the back people; and those that come out as Volunteers are not a little formidable to the enemy. There are also some particular Corps under Sumpter, Marion and Clarke that are bold and daring.'"

Col. Samuel Watson (1731-1810)

From the "Nearby History" column of historian Louise Pettus in South Carolina's York Observer:

"On the 6th of April 1765 [Samuel] Watson registered two plots of land totalling 760 acres , whereon Watson now liveth, in Mecklenburg on Rockey Allison's Creek . . ."
At this time much of present-day York County was claimed by Mecklenburg County, North Carolina. Watson's house, like his Pennsylvania home, was constructed of brick. The house was located about half way between the town of York and the Catawba River on Highway 49. Whatever the date of his arrival, the Allison Creek land grant places Watson in the heart of the Bethel congregation, which was located in the northeastern area of the part of York County west of the Catawba. The Bethel congregation covered 10 miles in every direction. As a Bethel elder, Watson became an influential member of the church as well as highly respected in the community.
The Lyman Draper papers at the University of Wisconsin describe Watson as a man 5 ft, 5 in. in height, of compact build, and genial in disposition. However, like most Scotch-Irishmen of his time, he had no love for the English. When talk of rebellion became general, Watson quickly rose to the cause.
Watson was elected to the South Carolina Provinicial Congress of 1775-1776, one of 46 delegates from the back country. In February of 1776 Watson participated in the framing of South Carolinas first written constitution. The British, naturally, saw this constitution as defiance of their sovereignty. Watson volunteered his services to the South Carolina Regulars. It was not long before the S. C. troops were made a part of the Continental Army of the newly-formed Continental Congress.
By 1778 Watson was a lieut-colonel in Col. Thomas Neel's New Acquisition District Regiment of Horsemen, a part of Thomson's Regiment of Rangers. He went with Neel in what is called the Charleston Expedition in the summer of 1779. Neel was killed at Stono Ferry on June 20, 1779 and Watson took his place.
In June 1780 nearby Hill's Ironworks were burned by the British. The terrified workers fled to Watson's plantation which quickly became a center of resistance. A commissary was set up there to issue supplies to any Whigs who would carry a musket against the British.
At the Battle of Hanging Rock in lower Lancaster County, a musket ball hit Watson's sword, breaking his ribs and knocking him off his horse. The grandson wrote Draper that the family kept the prized sword with the ball half buried in its metal along with Watson's giant musket which kicked mightily.
Watson was also at the skirmish at Williamson Plantation near Brattonsville. The encounter is also called the Battle of Hucks Defeat in some of the literature. Other battles in which Watson participated were Rocky Mount, Sumter's Defeat and Biggin Church....
In his old age Samuel Watson was paralyzed. He died November 25, 1810 at the age of 79 and is buried in Bethel Cemetery in York County.

The Carolina Backcountry

From Historical Properties of York County, South Carolina, York County Historical Commission:

"The Carolina back country was nearly devoid of European settlers prior to 1750, but by the time the American Revolution reached the area in 1780, the back country contained an estimated population of more than a quarter of a million. The largest proportion of these were Scots-Irish Presbyterians, although there were also numbers of English, Welsh, native Irish, native Scots, Swiss, French, and Germans."

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.