This disaster dulled the martial ardour of ‘the Saints’ for the remainder of the war; yet we were not greatly benefited by it. The British troops in America were insufficient for its conquest and more could not be spared from our Islands. The contesting nations resembled two boxers, badly battered, struggling in a clench, hardly able to stand, each unable to raise raw knuckles and deal a deciding blow to the other’s jaw. General Arnold believed that he knew how victory could be achieved. ‘Money will go farther than arms in America,’ he wrote to Lord George Germaine. ‘Offer the Continental troops all the arrears of pay owing to them, equal to about £400,000, half-pay for seven years, two hundred acres for every private soldier, and proportionately more for every officer, together with a bounty of twenty guineas hard money on their coming over. Thus you shall draw two or three thousand of the best soldiers in America to the King’s Service.’ He believed that this force would be sufficient to take West Point and cut off the Northern States from the rest. General Washington would then be obliged either to fight on our ground or disband his army; for his supplies of meat were on the East side, and his supplies of bread-stuffs on the West. If this operation were deemed too hazardous, another plan offered, which was to leave but a small garrison in New York and concentrate the whole army to seize Baltimore, at the head of the Chesapeak Bay which divides the State of Maryland; and, after overawing Maryland, Delaware and Virginia, which lie contiguous, proceed against Philadelphia from the south. Natural obstacles, such as mountains, swamps, forests, rivers were few in this quarter. However, General Armold was not heeded; and is likely to have been in error at least about the expected desertion of so many American soldiers. When, in fact, the mutinous Ulstermen of Morristown were approached by British emissaries, with offers to receive them in the Royal camp, they turned these tempters over to the hangman.
It is, however, to be remarked that Joseph Galloway, the Congressman from Pennsylvania who came over to our side from disgust with the Adamses and with the French alliance, declared that not one soldier in four of General Washington’s army was a native-born American, one half being Irishmen and the remainder British, with some German deserters and a sprinkling of Northern negroes; and, if his testimony is to be doubted, we have General Greene’s word for it that he fought us towards the close of the war largely with British soldiers. The American has ever been impatient of discipline and long engagements to the degree that he loves independence, and General Washington’s regular army was trained in the European style. Few native-born Americans were therefore inclined to enlist in it, but preferred the easy and insubordinate militia life, where the ranks ruled the officers, not the officers the men, and all fought in Indian fashion, shooting from ambush and avoiding the onset.
The Commander-in-Chief, Sir Henry Clinton, was for commencing no further military operations on a grand scale, but conserving his gains and ‘breaking windows’ until the Revolution collapsed from exhaustion. Perhaps his way was wisest; though it depended for its success upon British supremacy at sea, which by the Earl of Sandwich’s criminal neglect of our fleet and dockyards we had now forfeited to the French, Spanish and Americans. Yet Sir Henry did not have the last word, for Lord George Germaine was still bent upon conducting the war from Downing Street in his own remarkable fashion.
In South Carolina, Major Ferguson’s defeat had encouraged the revolutionary cause to a dangerous degree. Our rear and flanks were threatened, our provisions cut off, our posts attacked.
Colonel Tarleton, with his Greens, returned blow for blow, but the guerrilla bands could not be exterminated and now overran the whole province. General Washington appointed General Greene to replace General Gates in North Carolina, to oppose our expected invasion of North Carolina, and in December he arrived at Charlotte, where he collected two thousand men—insufficient to attack us, but enough to do us mischief if used in detachment. The Earl of Cornwallis immediately broke camp and marched us up the right bank of the Catawba against him. General Greene then divided his army into two columns, one of which, under General Daniel Morgan, was ordered to work around our front and harass our posts in Georgia. This column contained the famous Virginian riflemen, and some good regular troops, cavalry and infantry, of the Continental Line. Lord Cornwallis made a similar division of his forces; sending Colonel Tarleton with a strong column in pursuit of General Morgan, who decisively defeated him at The Cowpens, fifty miles north of Wynnsborough and half that distance from the camp that we had reached on our advance up the river.
At The Cowpens, Colonel Tarleton lost eight hundred men, including the whole of our Light Infantry, two guns, the Colours of the Seventh Regiment, and the confidence of all the remaining Loyalists in the province. He had over-marched his men—an imprudence characteristic of cavalry-commanders—and besides, General Morgan’s riflemen were the best light troops in the whole American Army. As usual, they concentrated their fire upon our officers, and disposed of a great number at the first onset. General Morgan also had a stroke of luck, for which he was honest enough not to claim credit: the left wing of his second line at a late stage of the fighting decided to retire two hundred paces, in order to conform with a manœuvre of the right. This increased the distance of the charge that our people, already out of breath from hustling back the first line of militiamen, were called upon to make; and coming on in a broken crowd were halted and confused by a very cool volley. They broke under the counter-attack. Colonel Tarleton escaped, with most of his cavalry; but the news of the disaster shook us greatly, especially as General Morgan’s force had been rather the weaker in numbers and suffered almost no loss in the fighting.
Yet even so Lord Cornwallis could not bring himself to abandon once more his proposed invasion of North Carolina. Valuable reinforcements had arrived from New York, including the Brigade of Footguards; and these (until the disaster of The Cowpens) had brought our numbers up to the total of four thousand men. The reinforcements were intended by Sir Henry Clinton for defensive rather than offensive use, but Lord Cornwallis, who had obtained from Lord George Germaine the right to communicate directly with him rather than at second hand through Sir Henry Clinton, now felt himself at liberty to behave as though his army were an independent command. He should have been warned by the fate of General Burgoyne, who had similarly embarked upon an independent invasion, trusting to the same broken reed to concert the movements of the New York Army with his own. His Lordship had even so disobeyed General Clinton’s instructions, about securing South Carolina at all costs, that he had dismantled the fortifications of Charleston—to prevent Loyalists from seizing and holding it, I suppose, while we were away. He had now assembled enough arms, guns and provisions for a regular campaign and it seemed a pity not to use them. At least, he must do his utmost to cut off General Morgan’s retreat and prevent him from rejoining General Greene.
Since we had lost our light troops, Lord Cornwallis determined that the whole Army should, for the sake of speed, travel as light as possible. He therefore ordered the destruction of all our superfluous baggage; no wagons were kept except those that carried ammunition, salt, and hospital stores, and four empty ones for the conveyance of the sick and wounded. He set an example to his officers, whose coffers were crammed with a superfluity of hats, clothes and footwear, novels, plays, wine, condiments, perfumery, silver, glass and bed-linen, by first reducing the size and quantity of his own possessions. There was no objection raised by either officers or men to this sacrifice, even though it deprived us of all future prospect of spirituous liquors. It was a sorry sight to see so many hogsheads of good rum staved in; and a great novelty for the quarters of a British General, and an Earl at that, to be incapable of affording even a glass of wine to visitors, and for his table to be as destitute of comforts as a common soldier’s.
Lord Rawdon remained behind with a small force at Camden; which had now been well fortified.
The first difficulty that faced us on our march was the re-crossing of the upper Catawba River, the opposing b
anks of which were strongly held by the enemy. This our main army was to accomplish at a point well across the North Carolina frontier, by a private ford, M’Gowan’s, while a diversion was made six miles lower down by another of our columns. M’Gowan’s Ford, which was about half a mile over, lay within a short distance of the Blue Mountains, now covered with snow; and the crossing was made just before dawn on February 1st, 1781, on a dark and rainy morning.
I will not trouble my readers with a close geographical account of our three-hundred-mile pursuit of General Greene’s divisions, which succeeded in re-uniting in the second week of February. We were endeavouring to cut him off from Virginia, the next province to the north, whence he received his supplies. Suffice it to tell that we marched through North Carolina, at the average rate of nearly twenty miles a day, by way of Salibury and the pine-clad, clayey foot-hills of the Blue Mountains; gaining every day upon our adversaries and unmolested by their rear-guard. The air was invigorating and the sunshine on fine days delightful. But it rained very heavily, with intervals of snow and sleet, fully half the time, and we were greatly fatigued by our exertions. General Greene was making for the Dan River, across which lay Virginia and safety. We should have caught him and compelled to give battle, had Lord Cornwallis not been deceived by pretended Loyalists who told him that the lower fords of this river were impassable, which they were not, and persuaded him to use the upper ones. General Greene by forced marches reached the lower fords, and finding a sufficiency of boats got his last stragglers across on February 15th, just as our vanguard arrived. But a great part of his militia had already deserted and dispersed to their homes. His line troops were in a very bad case, having but one blanket for every three men and very few boots; so that we might have followed them by the trail of blood the poor fellows left, like wounded animals. Like us, they had no tents.
Since General Greene had escaped us, we were marched slowly back to Hillsborough which, though the chief town of upper North Carolina, did not boast a hundred houses. There Lord Cornwallis erected the Royal Standard and issued a proclamation calling upon the province to return to its allegiance. We were greeted upon our arrival with the news that General Benedict Arnold, now fighting upon our side, had taken a force of American Loyalists up the James River into Lower Virginia, and for three weeks ‘broken windows’ to some purpose. He had captured several ships in cargo, blown up an iron-foundry where cannon were manufactured and burned a vast quantity of public and private stores. The fragrant smoke of tobacco rolled in clouds over the country, not diffused through clay pipes, calumets or cigars, but issuing from the roofs of burning warehouses at Richmond and Norfolk. General Arnold returned without loss to his base at Portsmouth, at the mouth of the river.
I cannot omit to mention a most foul transaction that took place not far from Hillsborough on February 25th. The Loyalists to our immediate south having risen in numbers in answer to the Proclamation, Colonel Tarleton was sent forward to assist their organization; but Colonel Harry Lee of the American Light Horse was there beforehand and the three hundred Loyalists mistaking Lee’s column, whom they met in a narrow lane, for Colonel Tarleton’s, approached them with friendly shouts. They were at once surrounded; though they begged for quarter, the relentless Americans refused it, and they were all butchered in cold blood. Had twenty revolutionary Americans thus fallen to British arms, how would the pages of Ramsay, Belsham and the rest have foamed with the charges of murder, massacre, blood and malice! But very bloody deeds were done between partisans throughout the campaign; even some of Colonel Tarleton’s Greens were guilty of rape, murder and indiscriminate hanging. A troop of British dragoons attached to the Greens were so disgusted with these proceedings that they refused to ‘wear the Green’, and remained in their scarlet.
The inhabitants of the hilly upper parts of North and South Carolina differed very greatly from those of the swampy lower parts, both in vigour and complexion. They were a fine, strong, ruddy people, combining hospitality with savagery to a remarkable degree and greatly addicted to drink. Hardly a man but was six foot tall and broad in proportion; hardly a two-roomed cabin but had its still for the brewing of peach-brandy. The women were erect and beautiful; not drunkards, but reputedly of relaxed morals. There was a custom here in vogue of ‘swapping wives’ which they took to a remarkable pitch of wantonness: one man who thought his daughter-in-law more handsome than his wife, proposed an exchange to his son, who consented on the condition that his father gave, with the mother, two cows and two horses. The women concerned, so far from being the victims, were said to have been the instigators of this unnatural transaction.
Most of our officers had brought dogs with them, and at Hillsborough enjoyed great sport in quail-shooting and rabbit-hunting. The American rabbits disdained to burrow in the ground, so that we had no use for ferrets; after a good chase they would go to earth (if I may so express myself) by running up a hollow tree. The slave Jonah, who acted as our huntsman, showed us the ‘Virginia ferret’. He cut us a hickory pole, and split it at the top, which was to be poked up the tree and twisted in the animal’s fur, to haul him down kicking. This proved very practical. On one occasion when I assisted at such a hunt an oppossum was caught, which is a sort of rat with a long, bushy, prehensile tail. It was seen suspended by this tail to the extremity of a branch and knocked down with the hickory pole. Where it fell it lay perfectly motionless, feigning death; and the officers’ spaniels, though they barked at it and worried it so that I heard the bones crack, yet would not eat it up, from the natural horror that almost every animal, but the jackal and hyaena, feels of devouring what he has not himself slain. Lieutenant Guyon, my officer, out of humanity took up the poor creature, which lay limp in his hands, and brought it back to the house where he lodged. There he laid it upon the window-ledge in the sun, sitting still at the further end of the room and watching it attentively. After a while it furtively opened one eye, twisted its head slowly about to see whether it was observed, then suddenly sprang up and out of the window and disappeared. Jonah remarked very sagely: ‘Him like rebel Whig in Ca’lina. Pertend him good dead rebel, den up he jump, do murrer mischief to dem poor Tories.’
No sooner were we halted at this place than we began to remedy our uncouth appearance, by washing our soiled linen and brushing our muddy regimental clothing. But the several yellow and reddish streams that we had forded made mock of our most industrious efforts. Pipe-clay we had none, and though we dressed our hair as we should, and polished buttons and buckles, our appearance suggested a debtors’ prison where decayed gentlemen with more pride than luck barely subsist upon fourpence a day. Provisions were also exceedingly scarce, since the country was in any case but sparsely settled, and the American army stationed here before us had eaten up the surplus stocks of corn and beef. When we had gleaned after their reaping, the country was swept bare; and though Lord Cornwallis had promised that the draught-oxen, the only cattle that survived in the neighbourhood, should not be slaughtered except in case of necessity, that necessity arose, and even the Loyalists complained loudly of the hardships they incurred because of it. The Commissary of Supplies was obliged, as a most unpleasant duty, to go from house to house in the town with a file of men, commanding the citizens to yield up their provisions: for in time of war an army is never allowed to starve while the citizens whom it is defending still have grain in their bins.
We retired southward about thirty miles to the upper tributaries of the Cape Fear River. (This river meets the ocean at Wilmington, two hundred miles to the south-east, where we had a detachment.) Here we were obliged by General Greene with the offer of battle. His army had been augmented to five thousand men and, crossing again into North Carolina, he took position at Guildford Court House, where Lord Cornwallis hurried to attack him.
We lay at this time twelve miles southward from Guildford Court House, with our headquarters at a Quakers’ meeting-house of New Garden, in the forks of Deep River. I remember that being sent on detachment with the Comm
issary, Mr. Stedman, to command provisions from the plantations in the neighbourhood, a venerable Quaker from whom we obtained a considerable quantity of corn made some very sensible remarks.
‘How is the general spirit of the Province hereabouts?’ asked Mr. Stedman.
‘The greater part wish to be united to Britain, Friend,’ he replied.
‘Then why do they not join us?’ Mr. Stedman asked. ‘Or if they join us, why do they quit the Colours so soon?’
‘Alas, Friend, canst thou ask this? Art thou ignorant of the resentment of the revolutioners against those who wish thy cause well? And of the many times that these well-wishers have been deceived in hopes of support, or abandoned to their enemies when thy army has relinquished its posts? And of the revenge that these bloody-minded men take upon the families of those who serve King George?’
‘Pray inform me upon this point, Sir,’ said Mr. Stedman.
‘Friend, fear of injury works upon men’s hearts more powerfully than hope of reward for honest or loyal dealings. The Tories of North Carolina live in terror of the Whigs. There are some who have dwelt like hunted beasts in the wilderness for two and even three years, not daring to return to their homes, and are secretly supported by their families, or faithful slaves, with hoe-cakes and jerked meat hid now and then in the recesses of the wood for them to find. Others, promised safety by their neighbours, have been shot at from behind a tree as they worked in their corn-patch; or tied to a tree and flogged until insensible. Not far from here a suspected Loyalist was shot dead in the early morning as he lay in bed with his wife.’
Proceed, Sergeant Lamb Page 18
