by John Oller
His horsemen driven back by the patriot cavalry, Watson now sent his infantry racing with bayonets toward Marion’s dismounted militia. A British bayonet charge, too, was something Marion’s brigade had yet to experience. Marion realized his men could not withstand such an assault, so he ordered them to remount their horses and follow him in retreat back across the causeway, clearing it for Watson’s passage.
Wyboo Swamp was the opening salvo in what would become a running, two-week battle between Watson’s and Marion’s forces—the first time Marion would stay engaged with the same adversary over an extended period. Watson would become to Marion as Cornwallis had been to Greene, and as Grant would be to Lee many decades later—a numerically superior force in relentless pursuit, determined to bring the enemy to a conclusive battle. It was to be known as Marion’s Bridges Campaign and would mark his transition from a pure guerrilla warrior to an assayer of more conventional tactics.
Marion’s Bridges Campaign
Patriot and British assessments of the impact of the initial clash at Wyboo diverged widely, as they often did after battles that had mixed results. “Thus were the Tories intimidated at the outset,” wrote William Dobein James. British soldier Henry Nase recorded it differently in his diary: “We had a skirmish with Marion and his gang of robbers, but they were soon dispersed, after which we marched peaceably to Cantey’s Plantation.” (Marion had moved from Cantey’s to another location.) In reality Marion had merely checked Watson’s progress, though Watson had failed to cut off the Swamp Fox’s retreat, leaving him free to fight another day.
Before resuming their running battle, Watson returned to a running series of correspondence between the British command and Marion that was nearly as testy. It had begun a month or so prior when, in retaliation for the Postell brothers’ raids on their supplies, the British seized the plantation of their father, John Postell Sr., who was on parole there, and carried him off to prison in Georgetown. On February 22 Marion wrote to propose a prisoner exchange to Captain John Saunders, who was installed as commandant of Georgetown after the capture of his predecessor in the combined Lee and Marion mission in January. Not being able to feed and care for the prisoners John Postell had taken at Monck’s Corner at the end of January, who were being held at Snow’s Island, Marion offered to exchange all thirty-three of them for four named rebels. Among them was Postell’s father, then in his sixties and ailing. Marion told Saunders that he wanted to exchange Postell Sr. “on account of his age, and hope humanity will induce you to treat him like a gentleman.”
Even as Marion was writing, the younger John Postell had begun taking matters into his own hands. On February 21, while Marion was off to the west, summoned by Sumter, Postell led a militia force east to reclaim the family plantation about twenty miles north of Georgetown. Through his knowledge of the grounds Postell avoided the sentinels, took possession of the kitchen, and demanded that the enemy commander, Captain James DePeyster, surrender. When he refused, Postell set fire to the kitchen and threatened to burn the whole house down, at which point DePeyster and his twenty-nine British soldiers surrendered unconditionally.
In response to Marion’s letter of the 22nd, Saunders agreed to Marion’s proposed exchange but said that given the recent capture of DePeyster (a member of a wealthy Tory family from New York and by reputation one of the handsomest men in the British army), he now had to be part of the deal. Saunders then promptly withdrew that offer, stating that he would not agree to a “partial” exchange, only a general one for all prisoners the two of them respectively held, except that he still wanted to exchange DePeyster for any patriot prisoner Marion wished to name. By that time, however, Marion had already shipped DePeyster north to a Continental prison camp.
Marion then made two major miscalculations. First, although Saunders had rejected a partial exchange, Marion went ahead and had four British prisoners fetched from Snow’s Island and sent them to Georgetown to be exchanged for the four Americans named in his earlier letter. He told Saunders that he would think about a broader exchange. Marion was betting that Saunders would not refuse to make the more limited trade to which they had originally agreed once the four British prisoners were laid at his doorstep. He bet wrong.
A worse mistake was letting John Postell accompany the four British prisoners to Georgetown. During the first week of March, Postell went under a white flag of truce to negotiate a further exchange. But upon his arrival Saunders not only refused the prisoner exchange but seized Postell and took him prisoner. Saunders claimed that Postell had violated his parole by taking British protection after Charleston and then joining Marion’s brigade.
As to the parole, Postell argued that he was justified in breaking it because the British or Tories had stripped him of all his property in contravention of the terms of the parole. And Marion contended that parole violation or not, the British were bound to honor the white flag. Nonetheless, given Postell’s repeated, successful raids on British garrisons and his recent capture of the popular DePeyster, both he and Marion should have anticipated that the British would use any excuse to nab him.
A livid Marion protested to Saunders, but to no avail. Marion went over Saunders’s head to Balfour, the commander at Charleston. But Balfour, with a reputation for severe treatment of rebels, backed up his subordinate officer. Marion also wrote to Watson on March 7, enclosing his correspondence with Saunders and Balfour and broadly hinting that, contrary to his inclinations, he would be forced to respond in kind to the violation of his flag as well as to the hanging of three of his men for supposed crimes. He sent the letters to Watson by another flag of truce, this time accompanied by an armed party—which, as Marion acknowledged, normally forfeits the white flag protection—but he regarded it as necessary because he could no longer trust the British to respect his flag.
On March 9, the day after the encounter at Wyboo Swamp, Watson was camped at Cantey’s Plantation, where Marion had stayed two nights before. The British colonel sat down to pen a response to Marion, who had moved to another area plantation. Watson’s lengthy letter, written to someone he clearly regarded as an untutored bumpkin, was dripping with condescension and sarcasm. He feigned surprise that Marion should send a letter under a flag of truce with an armed escort but said he was even more surprised to find Marion complaining of violations of international law. Watson wrote that it would be as difficult to find a single example of the British acting contrary to the rules of civilized warfare as it would be to find any instance in which the patriot side had properly observed those rules. As the most recent example he cited Thomas Sumter’s men’s refusal to give quarter to several British soldiers who had laid down their arms after surrendering their wagon train. “A few days after, we took six of his people,” Watson wrote, then chillingly added, “Inquire how they were treated.” Watson refused to apologize for hanging parole breakers or for the detention of Postell, claiming that both were justified by the law of nations. (“It seems the colonel had reference to the code of barbarous nations,” William Dobein James would later quip.)
As for Marion’s threat of retaliation, Watson said that as long as the Americans behaved with the same generosity that Britons could boast was characteristic of their nation, then they would receive benevolent treatment in return. “Men like his Majesty’s troops, fighting from principle for the good of their country, with hearts full of conscious integrity, are fearless of any consequences,” he intoned. “War itself bears with it calamities sufficient. Take care then, sir, that you do not, by improper behavior to our people who may from its chance of war become your prisoners, add to its natural horrors.”
Marion made no immediate reply but ordered his nightly patrols to continue shooting at Watson’s sentinels and pickets. Tensions were thus high going into the next engagement between the two commanders, which took place on March 9 or 10 at Mount Hope Swamp Bridge near Murray’s Ferry. The bridge was east of Wyboo Swamp and on the way for Watson to either Kingstree or Georgetown. Marion arrived at t
he bridge first and tore it down, placing Hugh Horry’s men on the opposite bank to contest Watson’s passage. Again Watson’s artillery and greater manpower allowed him to scatter the rebels and clear the way for him to cross the bridge after building it back up. Again Marion had forestalled Watson’s progress and managed to scamper away with his brigade intact.
Still, all the momentum was with Watson at this point. He was moving his infantry slowly but inexorably after Marion. His firepower was proving to have the edge over Marion’s cavalry. Marion could not risk a general engagement, yet he could not keep running forever. He needed somehow to turn the tide of the campaign.
His chance to do so would come at another bridge along the way, where he would finally be able to use one of his greatest—and hitherto unrecognized—assets.
a The site is now submerged under Lake Marion.
15
Fox and Hound
Marion was not yet sure which way Watson was headed. The British were on the road to Georgetown, but they could well be going to Kingstree, where they would be within striking distance of Snow’s Island. If left unattended at Kingstree, Watson would be in a position to wreak havoc on the Williamsburg and Snow’s Island communities and their Whig inhabitants. Marion could be isolated and cut off from his support network. But maybe Watson would simply follow Marion wherever he went. On that hunch and to divert Watson from Kingstree, Marion decided to head east from Mount Hope Swamp, down the old Santee Road in the direction of Georgetown.
It was a calculated risk. But as Marion correctly guessed, Watson chased after him, passing right by the roads leading north to Kingstree to trail Marion east. Then, just as suddenly, Watson stopped his pursuit. On March 12 he halted along the Santee Road, near present-day Gourdin, turned back, and headed up toward Kingstree, less than twenty miles away. Once he crossed the Black River at Lower Bridge, five miles south of Kingstree, he would be free to overrun the Williamsburg area.
It looked as if Marion had miscalculated again. But he reacted quickly. Upon learning from scouts that Watson had turned around, he detached Major John James with seventy men, thirty of whom were McCottry’s riflemen, to destroy the bridge and take post there. Marion was counting on James, aboard the brigade’s swiftest horses, to outrace Watson’s men, who were mostly on foot and encumbered by artillery. In the meantime Marion would get there with the rest of his men as soon as he could.
This was the pivotal moment of the Bridges Campaign. As James’s son William wrote, “The pass of the Lower Bridge was now to decide the fate of Williamsburg.” The men Marion chose for the mission were from the area and anxious to defend it. Major James and his men sped toward the bridge, taking shortcuts through the woods with the benefit of their local knowledge and arriving ahead of Watson. They dismantled the planks in the middle of the bridge and set fire to the supporting cords at the eastern end. McCottry’s riflemen settled in on the east side of the Black River, nestling in the woods just beyond a low, marshy area.
Watson would be approaching the bridge from the west bank, fifty yards away, which was considerably elevated. With the bridge out of commission the best place for Watson to cross was a ford a short way below the bridge. Knowing this, the patriot sharpshooters placed themselves with a view across the bridge and of the ford. The men with muskets offered flanking protection for the sharpshooters as well as further defense of the ford. According to James, by the time the bridge work was done and the riflemen all deployed, Marion rode up with the rest of the brigade to take position in the rear. Then they waited for Watson.
Soon the Briton emerged, immediately grasping that the way across was via the shallow ford. But first he would need to clear the passage of enemy fire. He wheeled out his two artillery pieces and launched grapeshot down upon the riflemen on the opposite bank. At both Wyboo and Mount Hope Swamps cannon fire had allowed him to force crossings, but it would not work this time. Because the cannons were high on a hill, they could not be aimed low enough to strike the sunken eastern bank filled with American rifles. The grapeshot passed harmlessly over the heads of Marion’s men, striking the tall pines across the river halfway up their trunks or falling with a thud. When Watson’s artillerists tried to move the cannon lower down the bank for a more level shot McCottry’s marksmen drove them off.
McCottry’s unit was armed with the American long hunting rifles, which they personally owned. In England only the upper class hunted, but among American colonials hunting was more than a sport; it was a way of life. The long rifles had two disadvantages and one important advantage compared with the smoothbore muskets the British used.a Unlike muskets, rifles could not support a bayonet and took longer to reload—a minute or two compared with fifteen seconds for a musket. This made riflemen vulnerable to the customary British bayonet charge. However, the American rifles were far more accurate at longer ranges, owing to their spiral grooves that spun the ball as it left the muzzle. A musket was accurate up to a maximum of only about fifty yards, whereas a rifle was deadly at two hundred yards and could work at up to three or four hundred. If a sharpshooter could fire his rifle from under cover of woods, safe from the opponent’s bayonets, he could be quite effective, especially at picking off officers who easily stood out in battle. And in irregular warfare the enemy’s leaders are considered fair targets.
Determined yet to cross the river, Watson sent his men marching toward the ford. An advance unit waded into the stream, led by an officer waving a sword. He was promptly shot in the chest. As others of Watson’s men tried to cross, they too were rained upon with rifle fire and fled in disorder. Four men returned to carry off their wounded officer and were cut down as well. Watson called off the effort. After collecting his dead and wounded, he took up headquarters a mile or so south of the bridge at the plantation of John Witherspoon, whose daughter was engaged to Marion’s brigade captain Daniel Conyers. Either she or another of the Witherspoon ladies, all devoted Whigs, overheard Watson say that night that “he never saw such shooting in his life.”
The shooting wasn’t over. The next day, while camped on higher ground below the ford, Marion sent McCottry’s men back across the river to harass Watson at Witherspoon’s, where they recommenced firing upon Watson’s pickets and sentinels. Sergeant McDonald, the man who had bayoneted Ganey outside Georgetown, climbed a tree and shot British Lieutenant Torriano through the knee from a distance of three hundred yards.
At the mercy of Marion’s snipers, Watson withdrew half a mile north to Blakely’s Plantation, where he remained on the south (west) side of the Black River. Blakely’s was in an open field rather than among trees, so McCottry’s riflemen no longer had a safe perch from which to shoot.
From Blakely’s, on March 15 an annoyed Watson resumed his acerbic correspondence with Marion. Mocking the use of armed guards by which Marion had sent his last letter, Watson sent his through a “neutral person . . . a little boy of John Witherspoon’s.” He further chided Marion, saying that “the very extraordinary method you took of sending the letter I received from you makes it rather difficult to guess in what way you mean to carry on this war.” Watson then asked Marion to grant Torriano and other wounded men safe passage to Charleston, where they could receive better care, to which Marion promptly agreed. As for Watson’s snide comments, Marion responded matter-of-factly. “In answer to your letter, I wish to carry on this war as usual, with all civilized nations,” he wrote, adding, “you may be assured that I will not act in any other way, than what I find is done by the British troops.”
Seeking the last word, Watson wrote back immediately to complain of a series of recent alleged Whig atrocities. He made no apology for the British practice of burning enemy homes and property, telling Marion that it was “thought right and is customary in all countries.”
At that point Marion stopped corresponding with Watson and the other British officers. He would entertain no complaints from them as long as John Postell remained a prisoner, threatened with execution. Marion did not necessarily disag
ree with the notion that parole breakers or others found to have switched sides were subject to being hanged; indeed, although he would not execute captured enemy combatants merely because they had committed heinous acts in the past, he was willing to hang persons viewed as having acted deceitfully, such as spies, patriots who had turned traitor, or civilians or slaves who had provided secret aid and comfort to the British. He was not unusual in that respect, as officers on both sides agreed that those engaged in treacherous behavior took their lives in their hands.
But Postell was different. Even if he broke his parole, Marion thought he had been unfairly captured, and lest the British think about executing him, Marion made clear that he was willing to retaliate in kind. He had his men detain and hold Cornet Thomas Merritt of the loyalist Queen’s Rangers when he came to Marion’s Dunham’s Bluff camp near Snow’s Island under a flag of truce bearing a letter from Balfour regarding the Postell matter. Both Balfour and Saunders protested loudly, but Marion ignored them. And although his strategy did not succeed in getting Postell released, it did keep the British from executing him.
Meanwhile by March 18 Watson’s position at Blakely’s had become untenable. After pursuing Marion fruitlessly for nearly two weeks, his men were tired, sick, and hungry. Foraging the countryside was problematic, for when his men ventured out they were threatened by Marion’s snipers and spied on by hostile civilians. Watson had heard nothing from Doyle, as no British messengers could get through the surrounding ring of Whigs. Watson decided he’d had enough. He weighted his bodies and sank them in an abandoned quarry in the Black River, loaded his wounded onto wagons, and headed south. Several miles below Blakely’s he came to a boggy swamp where Marion had destroyed three bridges and felled trees across the causeway. In case he harbored any designs on Snow’s Island at that point, Watson’s way toward it was now impeded. He could either stay at the swamp and fight, or he could run. He ran. He took his men farther south, through open pine lands to the Santee Road, along which he had chased Marion ten days earlier.
