None the less, General Lincoln might well hope to wear down our patience, if he could keep his twenty thousand mouths well fed: for the entrenchments that he had raised since our fleet was first sighted were strong enough. They extended in the rear of the city from Ashley River across the whole tongue of land to Cooper River, a distance of one mile and a half. The first obstruction presented to our people was a broad canal filled with water; this terminated at either end in a morass, commanded by a fort with a clear field of fire along the canal. Next came abattis—trees buried slant-wise in the earth, their sharply lopped branches pointed outward—then a dry ditch with two rows of palisades, and lastly a chain of redoubts connected by trenches. There was also a big horn-work made of masonry in the centre of the line, which formed a sort of advanced citadel. Such were their defences against our sole approach by land; and on the waterfronts numerous strong batteries forbade the approach of ships, while stakes and other obstructions discouraged a landing from boats. Our fleet lay outside the harbour, below Sullivan’s Island, but came no nearer because of the fort there, which was provided with heavy guns to dispute the passage.
A part of the army was busy as bees in a tar-barrel on the night of All Fool’s Day when Sir Henry, or rather Major Moncrieff who conducted the siege as Chief Engineer, set two thousand men digging siege-works within half a mile of the American lines. Our regiment now lay at a place named Linning’s, on the further bank of Ashley River immediately opposite these works, and our task was to carry over tools, wooden frames and other engineers’ stores in small boats. During the night the working parties threw up two strong redoubts, each enclosing about a quarter of an acre of ground, which were not discovered by the enemy until daybreak. On the next night, they added a third redoubt sited between the two others, and for a whole week every night continued digging like beavers in the wet soil and constructing emplacements for our artillery.
On April 9th, in the early afternoon, we heard very heavy gun-fire from beyond the town and presently learned that the fleet had courageously forced the river passage, with only trifling loss, and become masters of the harbour. However, General Lincoln had sunk a number of vessels across Cooper River from Charleston, which made an impassable boom against our fleet; he also held the opposing bank of the river with three regiments of cavalry. The Americans were thus able to convey a regular supply of provisions across Cooper River into the city; and on April 10th seven hundred good Virginian troops came down the stream in small craft and joined the garrison unopposed. ‘So much the better,’ we thought. ‘The more fish in the seine, the greater will be our haul.’ We were now ourselves reinforced by three thousand troops from New York.
That same day a white flag was sent to General Lincoln summoning him to surrender his army as prisoners of war, with a promise of protection to the inhabitants’ persons and property; for Sir Henry had not yet bombarded the city and did not wish to do so without fair warning. General Lincoln replied shortly that he would have quitted the city two months before had he intended to avoid battle.
So the siege was on, and our ten-inch mortars soon began dropping carcasses, or incendiary metal, into the city; which fired five or six houses and greatly alarmed the inhabitants. Besides that, we had three eight-inch howitzers at work and seventeen twenty-four-pounders, with Coehorns, Royals and other guns. They made a deal of noise. Through a spy-glass I saw a shell break against the tower of St. Michael’s church where the enemy had an observation-post. The fleet also assisted in this bombardment.
Another week, and our people across Ashley River had sapped forward and completed another parallel of trenches a quarter of a mile nearer the enemy. Meanwhile our cavalry, having found horses to replace those lost, by a forced sale from the planters of Port Royal near Savannah, had crossed Cooper River thirty miles upstream and cut to pieces the whole American cavalry division posted there. Infantry followed them, securing all the posts on the further banks, so that now the net was closed. Charleston was invested from every side.
On April 21st, General Lincoln sent a white flag to our lines and called for a truce. He proposed to march out with his garrison, drums playing and colours flying, and to take all his arms and ammunition too. Sir Henry must undertake not to pursue this column for ten days, and the few American ships anchored under cover of the batteries must be allowed to put out to sea equally unmolested. This offer was of course refused, as based upon a comical misreading of the true situation.
On with the siege again! A third parallel was now advanced close to the enemy’s moat, which was bled at the northern, or Cooper River end, by a ditch driven forward into it. The moat was dry in two days: and a company of German Jaegers, or sharpshooters, used it for cover to gall with close rifle-fire the American sentinels in the trenches. Our losses by enemy fire were now about seven or eight a day. On May 8th, some batteries of guns being advanced within a hundred yards of the garrison, Sir Henry, from motives of humanity, offered the same terms as before. But General Lincoln still played his hand as if it were richer in tricks than we knew it to be. He returned a haughty answer and there was a great deal of defiant huzzaing heard and a violent cannonade from every gun that they could fire, seemingly in a drunken frenzy, but without any loss to us. It was true that when the hot weather came our army might well lose many thousands of men from fever; and that the French might be expected soon to attempt to raise the siege. But Sir Henry was aware that no more than one week’s supply of fresh provisions remained in the city, and that the daily ration of maize was reduced to six ounces for every person. He knew too, by spies in Congress, that no plans of combined operations between the French expedition and General Washington’s armies were to be concerted until the former arrived in American waters. He therefore ordered the cannonade to continue.
The first shot sent was a shell filled not with explosive powder but with rice and molasses, as an indication that we were aware of their shortage of food. This shell was returned half an hour later with a message chalked upon it: ‘Intended for the 71st Regiment and their brother Scots.’ It then contained sulphur and hog’s lard. This laborious joke referred no doubt to the famous Scottish itch, caused by the overheating of Caledonian blood with too simple a diet of oatmeal. The lard was for external use as an emollient and the sulphur as an internal purificant. The Scots were among the most loyal subjects of King George, and those settled in the Carolinas had not budged from their principles either. After this raillery the earnest shot and shell began to fly again.
Our people sapped closer still and preparations for a general assault were made. Yet, after all, it did not come to a storm, for citizens and militia very soon forced General Lincoln to surrender; the original terms being still generously held out to them. The capitulation took place on May 12th. The garrison were allowed some of the honours of war: for example, all officers were to keep their swords and pistols, and their baggage was to remain unsearched. The troops in general were to march out of the town, their arms clubbed, not at the shoulder, and abandon them by the canal. Their drums were not given the honour of beating a British or German march—though they might play Yankee Doodle if they pleased—nor might their colours be unfurled from the casings. The regular troops and seamen were then to become prisoners of war; the militia to disperse to their homes on parole and, while they kept the same, to continue safe in their lives and properties; other able-bodied citizens to be treated in the same manner.
Out they all came at two o’clock in the afternoon of the 12th, to be disarmed: five thousand, six hundred of them, with seven generals, two hundred other officers, and a thousand seamen. The Americans never pile up their arms, but lay them upon wooden racks, or, more generally, ground them; which was now done. We were also yielded four hundred guns, quantities of ammunition, five stout warships and a vast amount of public stores. The regular troops who took over the city (the Loyalists not being trusted to enter, lest they should rob and insult their fellow-countrymen) behaved very discreetly and without exultation.
There was satisfaction among us all to know that, with this surrender of the whole American Southern army, at a cost to ourselves of only two hundred and fifty killed and wounded, about the same as theirs, an enormous extent of country had been restored to the Crown. It had been hoped among the rank and file that the order for storm would be given, which would have meant the wild intoxication of battle and, by ancient usage, liberty to plunder when the city was taken. But I, for one, was glad that it had not come to this. I had seen enough of blood and detested the notion of plunder, which evokes from the breast of man all that is most brutal and odious.
This, by the bye, was the first instance in which the Americans had ventured to defend a town against regular troops; and the result demonstrated General Washington’s wisdom in advising against such an attempt. It is, however, just to remark that Charleston was the only considerable city in the Southern part of the Confederacy, and worth preserving by every possible exertion; and that near ten thousand Americans were fast marching to its relief. Some turned back upon hearing news of the capitulation; others were caught and routed by our cavalry. A large French fleet, convoying six thousand soldiers in transports, was also on the way; but, hearing the news at Bermuda, sailed instead against our Northern forces.
CHAPTER IX
Sir Henry Clinton returned to New York with most of the army, the French fleet being soon expected in Northern waters. He left behind four thousand men under the Earl of Cornwallis; among whom were the Royal Welch Fusiliers, then numbering about five hundred men. Before he sailed, he issued a proclamation, freeing from their parole all prisoners except regular soldiers; but declared at the same time that any person who refused allegiance to King George would be considered a rebel. He promised the Carolinians reinstatement in their ancient rights and immunities, and exemption from all taxes except those imposed by their own provincial government. Lord Cornwallis was instructed to keep his hold on the province at all events, and to encourage or oblige its able-bodied men to form a militia to assist him in this task.
South Carolina was inhabited by a great variety of peoples. Since its foundation a hundred years before by a small number of English settlers, it had successively received French, Swiss, Germans, Dutch, Scottish and Irish immigrants, all of the Protestant faith. To them had recently been added fortune-seekers from Pennsylvania and Virginia. These races did not readily mix, but formed separate settlements on the several broad rivers, or their numerous tributaries, which watered the country. Each race had its own political convictions. There were seven main classes of opinion: viz. staunch Whigs, timid Whigs, Whigs, jacks of both sides, Tories, moderate Tories, and furious Tories.
The hot climate of the South encouraged the passions, so that crimes of violence were extraordinarily frequent, by comparison with the settled parts of the Northern States. In the North, in time of peace at least, no man ever troubled to take a gun with him on any excursion except in hope of game; and did not even bar his door at night. In the South, robberies on the road, burglaries by night, and perpetual family feuds were the general rule. A man who went even to his place of worship without a loaded pistol in his belt would be considered a fool. Drunkenness was universal and the morning slings and midday draughts of strong grog were rightly admitted by the people themselves as the chief curse of their country; though the great sultry heat was advanced as sufficient excuse for the error. It can therefore readily be understood why the merciless, cruel deeds that the rival partisans of King and Congress did to one another were in this torrid zone often beyond description in print.
On the whole, the white people of the Carolinas, and of the South in general, formed two classes: the rich and the poor. The poor were not (as is usual in other climes) supported by the rich, since the rich owned slaves whose labour was cheaper and whose black and oily skins fitted them better to withstand the climate than did that of the poor whites. The rich engrossing all the land and all the trade, the poor whites grew still poorer and more low-spirited. Enough food to live upon was easily come by in the South, where sixpence would buy rice for a month, fruit abounded and every creek was populous with fish—why, that noblest fish of all, the sturgeon, who in England is accounted royal and whenever caught must be rendered to the King’s household as a right, him the negroes and poor whites captured easily and often, for their own use, as he took his midday sleep in the muddy waters of the great rivers. This ‘white trash’, as the poor whites were called, seldom got money and what little they did get they laid out in apple or peach brandy. A more indolent, vicious and uncivilized race of men I never met, yet they would boast themselves as the Lords of Creation when speaking of the negroes. It was a great misfortune that so many of them attached themselves to our forces, in hopes of plunder, and with their cries of ‘God Save the King’ as they robbed, burned and ravished, disgraced our own good name.
The Royal Welch Fusiliers were ordered to Camden. This small township lay one hundred miles inland from Charleston, but not two hundred feet above the level of the ocean, and in a very hot, damp situation near the banks of the Catawba River which ran between swamps. These swamps abounded with juniper and cypress; live oaks, bearded with lichen; and a long rich grass which fattened the cattle driven into it. Parts of these swamps were absolutely impervious to travellers because of close tangled thickets, the chosen lurking-places of foxes and racoons. Other parts were quaking bog or mere morass filled with strange creatures, horny or slimy, and gave off a sickly, putrescent smell, which breathed of fever.
Our men were warned by the Surgeon to avoid water that was not cleansed with a small addition of spirits. Nor should they eat any fruit, such as the luscious pineapple, or the golden persimmon that puckered the mouth, if it were still warm with the sun; else these would surely give the eater colic. We were also warned against eating fresh pork in these hot months, and some who disobeyed died of poisoning. Moses was a wise law-giver in forbidding pork to the Jews in sultry Palestine. We acquired a taste for the great green water-melon with its pink flesh and black seed. We used, overnight, to pour a gill of rum into a hole bored at one end, which became absorbed and deliciously incorporated in the fruit by breakfast time.
Life in tents was excessively hot and it was not until the summer was well advanced that materials were brought us for making huts. Our drills we performed in the early morning and we were often taken for route-marches at night; partly in order to accustom us to finding our way through difficult country in the dark, but partly to shake the heavy humours out of our blood. In spite of every such precaution against fever, and the constant taking of Bark, we lost a number of men, though not so many as the other regiments. If any continuous labour was required of us by day, we sweated so profusely that we became quite faint. For this we found a remedy in adding a little salt to our drink, which restored what had been lost by sweating. The cattle and hogs of the Dutch plantation near us used the same remedy. They would come out from the swamp and down to the quay where our barrels of salted provisions were landed; crowding around them to lick off the brine. By their greediness they made it very difficult for us to roll the barrels up to the encampment. Their need of salt was so great that I once saw a great old hog come up to a sweating mare, tied to a post by an officer’s marquee, and rearing up on his hind legs greedily lick her neck, flanks and legs.
A good deal of maize was grown hereabouts. The slaves who tended the crops of this plantation went stark naked and seemed a most discontented cattle, compared with Captain Gale’s property. I heard that in the West India Islands there was a descending gradation in the humanity severally shown by the different European races, and that the same rule generally applied on the American continent. The most indulgent were the Spaniards; the next most indulgent were the French; the English were not so kind; but the most severe and merciless of all were the Dutch. It was strange that this was the same order into which the political governments then fell, in descending gradation of absoluteness—from the sacred autocracy of Spain to the obstinate republi
canism of the Dutch. But that ‘Republicans are always the worst masters’ is an old saying, and a good argument (if any were needed) in favour of Royalty.
The poor negroes here were over-worked and under-fed in a manner that would have been considered shameful had they been horned cattle. They were called up at daybreak, and herded out immediately into the corn field. There they laboured without any intermission until noon, when half an hour was allowed them for their meal, which invariably consisted of maize-flour made into coarse cakes and baked on their working hoes. To this was added a little brine washed from the salted herrings which the Dutch household ate. At dusk they returned, after labouring all the remaining hours of daylight, and to keep them out of mischief were given a large quantity of Indian corn to husk. If they did not complete their allotted task, they were tied up in the morning and ruthlessly lashed by their drivers. The hours for sleep were seven, nor was the least rest or refreshment allowed them on Sundays or holidays. They slept on the bare ground. If any negro tried to escape into the swamp he was flogged nearly to death when apprehended; and after, if it was his second attempt, he was hanged in sight of his fellows. A negro who dared to raise his hand against a white man, even in defence against barbarity and outrage, was sentenced by the Law to have the whole limb lopped off. However, this was seldom done, because it was more profitable merely to give the fellow as many lashes as his constitution would stand, and then sell him to another master. Our proximity to this barbarous plantation was very disagreeable to us, and a party of sergeants privately warned the driver that if he did not at once mitigate his severity towards ‘the cattle’, his own back would be scarred.
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