The Swamp Fox

by John Oller

  182spot for an ambush . . . The second group: FM to NG, September 3, 1781 (NGP9:289); Solomon Freer Pension, W8826; William Smith Pension, R9875; Royal Georgia Gazette (Savannah), September 13, 1781.

  182A third group . . . “to follow them . . . at all hazards”: FM to NG, September 3, 1781 (NGP9:289).

  182It was near sunset . . . shot them as they passed by: Ibid., 289–290; Jarvis, “An American’s Experience,” 728; Jarvis, King’s Loyal Horseman, 75; Solomon Freer Pension, W8826; William Smith Pension, R9875; James, 70; Rankin, 237; Aiken, 138.

  184“running the gauntlet”: FM to NG, September 3, 1781 (NGP9:290); Jarvis, King’s Loyal Horseman, 75. Marion’s 2nd South Carolina Regiment soldiers often had to run the gauntlet, a form of punishment in which the condemned runs between two parallel lines of soldiers facing each other, who slap and thrash him as he passes between them. O’Kelley, Unwaried Patience, 211, 230, 392, 627n329, 634n399, 648n563, 656n669, 666n822.

  A two-sided ambush would have been a complicated deployment requiring placement of the riflemen so as to avoid shooting into each other. In addition, archaeological work to date has located buckshot, rifle, and musket balls on only one side of the road (the east). Smith, The Search for Francis Marion, 79, 81. Marion and Jarvis therefore may have used “running the gauntlet” not as a technical military term but in the more generic sense of being made to endure some sort of painful ordeal. Still, it seems too coincidental for both Marion and Jarvis, independently, to have chosen the same classic military phrase to describe the ambush if they did not intend it in the classic sense. The likelihood is that Marion’s men formed some type of double line “gauntlet” at Parker’s Ferry, although the actual configuration remains unknown.

  I particularly thank Charles Baxley and Jack Parker for their helpful insights on Parker’s Ferry and Jack for his “one-way street” analogy.

  184“the most galling fire ever troops experienced”: Jarvis, “An American’s Experience,” 728.

  184cavalry was annihilated . . . “all of them capital horses” . . . rode over him: FM to NG, September 3, 1781 (NGP9:290).

  184“shot through . . . in the head”: Evidence on the Claim of Edward Williams, Transcripts of the Manuscript Books and Papers of the Commission of Enquiry into the Losses and Services of the American Loyalists, vol. 26, p. 310 (microfilm reel RW 3167, South Carolina Dept. of Archives and History).

  184Marion’s success . . . “villains” . . . to refresh them: FM to NG, September 3, 1781 (NGP9:290).

  184The next morning . . . Marion sent a small party: Ibid.; James, 70; Jarvis, King’s Loyal Horseman, 75.

  185All told . . . one killed: FM to NG, September 3, 1781 (NGP9:290); O’Kelley, Unwaried Patience, 544; Jarvis, “An American’s Experience,” 728; Jarvis, King’s Loyal Horseman, 75. Jarvis states that 125 British were killed in addition to many wounded, but given Marion’s estimate of 20 enemy killed and 80 wounded, it seems more likely that Jarvis’s figure represents total British casualties. Jarvis also mistakenly believed the Americans suffered no casualties.

  185“Sons of Liberty”: FM to NG, September 3, 1781 (NGP9:290).

  185“the highest honor upon your command”: NG to FM, September 5, 1781 (NGP9:298).

  185“good conduct . . . bravery”: NG to Thomas McKean, September 5, 1781 (NGP9:299).

  185“fresh spirits”: Rutledge to South Carolina Delegates, September 18, 1781, in Barnwell, “Letters of John Rutledge,” SCHGM 18, no. 4 (October 1917): 157.

  185rested his men . . . back to Peyre’s: FM to NG, September 3, 1781 (NGP9:288, 290); Bass, Swamp Fox, 215.

  CHAPTER 21: “AT EUTAW SPRINGS THE VALIANT DIED”

  186Midway Plantation . . . resolved to attack Stewart: Greene’s Orders, July 16, 1781 (NGP9:18 and n1); Lee to NG, August 8, 20, 1781 (NGP9:150–151, 214 and n4); Swager, The Valiant Died, 64, 73–74; Stewart to Cornwallis, August 15, 1781 (CP6:75); Carbone, Nathanael Greene, 202. It is possible that Greene’s camp was not at Midway but at Singleton’s Mills. Sherman, Calendar, 570n3392, 621.

  186Logically . . . about two thousand: Swager, The Valiant Died, 73–76, 80–86; Tonsetic, 1781: The Decisive Year, 148; Lumpkin, 213–216; William Johnson, Life of Greene, 2:216–220; Lee, Memoirs, 2:276–278; Bass, Swamp Fox, 215; “Journal of Kirkwood,” 21–22; McCrady, 442–443; NG to Lee, August 14, 1781 (NGP9:181); Edmund Hyrne to Edmund Gamble, August 24, 1781 (ibid., 234); NG to Thomas McKean, September 11, 1781 (ibid., 328); Lee to NG, September 1, 1781 (ibid., 278); NG to Henderson, August 24, 27, 1781 (ibid., 234, 260); NG to Lafayette, August 26, 1781 (ibid., 254); Stewart to Cornwallis, September 9, 1781 (Gibbes, 136–137).

  187Greene had excused him . . . decided to wait . . . 240: Greene’s Orders, September 2, 3, 1781 (NGP9:278, 281); Lee, Memoirs, 2:277; NG to Thomas McKean, September 11, 1781 (NGP9:328); William Johnson, Life of Greene, 2:216, 219; McCrady, 441–442.

  187letter on September 4 . . . join him promptly: Edmund Hyrne to FM, September 4, 1781 (NGP9:293); William Pierce Jr. to FM, September 6, 1781 (ibid., 303).

  188come up as soon as possible: NG to FM, September 5, 1781 (NGP9:298–299).

  188a night march . . . Laurens’s plantations: FM to NG, September 6, 1781 (NGP9:303–304); Greene’s Orders, September 15, 1781 (ibid., 346n1); Wallace, Life of Henry Laurens, 130.

  188men and horses were exhausted: FM to NG, September 6, 1781 (NGP9:303–304).

  188September 7 . . . over two thousand . . . Marion’s brigade on the front line: Greene’s Orders, September 7, 1781 (NGP9:305); NG to Thomas McKean, September 11, 1781 (NGP9:328); Conrad, NGP9:333n2; Sherman, Calendar, 612–613; William Johnson, Life of Greene, 2:219; McCrady, 442–443; “Journal of Kirkwood,” 22; Henderson to NG, August 25, 1781 (NGP9:245).

  189Alexander Stewart: Saberton, CP5:295n30; Rawdon to Cornwallis, June 7, 1781 (CP5:292); Carbone, Nathanael Greene, 202.

  189nearly caught napping . . . ready to do battle: Lee, Memoirs, 2:282; “Journal of Kirkwood,” 22–23; Stewart to Cornwallis, September 9, 1781 (Gibbes, 137); Stedman, History of the Origin, 2:377–378; Account of Otho Williams (Gibbes, 145); Stewart to Cornwallis, September 26, 1781 (CP6:168–169). Sources differ on the size of the rooting party. Kirkwood and Williams put it at 60 and 100, respectively, while a British return after the battle lists 310, of whom 149 were captured. Sherman, Calendar, 612; McCrady, 447n1; Conrad, NGP9:334n7. In his September 26 letter to Cornwallis, Stewart claimed that the rooting party, consisting of parts of the flank battalion and Buffs, had four rounds of ammunition per man and that they were captured because they stayed to fight rather than return to camp.

  189Greene deployed . . . held down by Major John Marjoribanks: Swager, The Valiant Died, 93–100, 103–108, 146, 153; NG to McKean, September 11, 1781 (NGP9:328–329); McCrady, 444–445; Lee, Memoirs, 2:281–284; Ames, Cantey Family, 45; Stewart to Cornwallis, September 9, 1781 (Gibbes, 138–139); FM to NG, September 9, 11, 1781 (NGP9:309, 341); Sherman, Calendar, 613n3650. Modern archaeological research locates Stewart’s main battle line about three hundred yards west of the western edge of the British camp, whereas most histories place it farther east—two or three hundred yards west of the brick house and adjacent springs. Scott Butler, Battlefield Survey and Archaeological Investigations at the Eutaw Springs, South Carolina Revolutionary War Battleground, 8 September 1781 (Atlanta: Brockington & Associates, November 2008), 44, 50–51, 59, 61–62.

  192no two opposing armies . . . as evenly matched: No definitive count of the forces engaged at Eutaw Springs exists. Surveying the various sources in 1997, the editors of the Greene Papers concluded that the two armies were “roughly equal in size” at about 2,000 each. Conrad, NGP9:333n2. Some sources have put Greene’s total as low as 1,900 and Stewart’s as high as 2,300. Others place Greene’s total force much higher, at nearly 2,800. Piecuch and Beakes, Lee, 200; Jim Piecuch, “The Evolving Tactician: Nathanael Greene at the Battle of Eutaw Springs,” in General Nathanael Greene and the American Revolution in the South, ed. Gregory D.
Massey and Jim Piecuch (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 2012), 226–227. The 2,800 figure assumes a Continental force of 1,775 based on returns from six weeks before the battle, when Greene was still resting in the High Hills (ibid., 226–227, 236n40). William Johnson, by contrast, cites a September 4 field return, prepared specifically for battle, showing only 1,256 Continentals. William Johnson, Life of Greene, 2:219; Greene’s Orders, September 4, 1781 (NGP9:291).

  Stewart claimed to Cornwallis that he had only 1,200 fighting men. Stewart to Cornwallis, September 26, 1781 (CP6:169). However, less than three weeks before the battle Lee estimated Stewart’s force at 1,800 fit for duty, and a week before that, Marion put the number at 2,000. Lee to NG, August 20, 1781 (NGP9:214 and n4); FM to NG, August 13, 1781 (ibid., 180). A return on the morning of September 8, adjusted for those sick or on detached duty, gives Stewart a total of 1,945 men of all ranks fit for duty. A separate return from the same day lists only 1,396. Piecuch, “The Evolving Tactician,” 226.

  If one were to credit the low-end estimates of Stewart’s force, it would imply an unprecedented casualty rate of more than 50 percent. Stewart’s wild exaggeration to Cornwallis that Greene had between 4,000 and 5,000 men further undermines the credibility of his lower figures for himself. Stewart likely had a minimum of 1,600 effectives in the Battle, even if one believes that he had more than 300 high-quality soldiers (a quarter of his claimed force) out digging for potatoes at five in the morning and that none of them made it back to the battle.

  193Marion’s seven hundred . . . celebrating with food and spirits: NG to McKean, September 11, 1781 (NGP9:328–333, 335nn8–10, 336–337n14); Stewart to Cornwallis, September 9, 1781 (Gibbes, 137–138); Lumpkin, 216–219; Swager, The Valiant Died, 109–112, 152, 159; Stedman, History of the Origin, 2:378–379; William Washington to NG, September 8, 1781 (NGP9:306); John Langley Pension (transcribed by Max Miller), S4502; Lee, Memoirs, 2:283–291; Account of Otho Williams (Gibbes, 146–156); FM to PH, September 14, 1781 (Gibbes, 160–161); Rutledge to South Carolina Delegates, September 9, 1781, SCHGM 18, no. 3 (July 1917): 139; H. G. Purdon, “An Historical Sketch of the 64th Regiment,” lib.jrshelby.com/64th_sketch.htm; William Johnson, Life of Greene, 2:221, 225–230. According to one soldier who was present, Greene ordered Marion’s men to fire twelve rounds, which they did before shifting right to launch additional volleys against the British right flank. William Vaughan Pension, W11691.

  195“utterly unmanageable”: Account of Otho Williams (Gibbes, 154). One source disputes that there could have been any significant source of food or rum available in the British camp for the Americans to get into and posits that what actually stopped the American advance was the complex of camp tents, ropes, and stakes. Piecuch, “The Evolving Tactician,” 231. But Otho Williams’s firsthand report, supported by several other officers, states that the Americans became unruly after they “fastened upon the liquors and refreshments” in the camp. Account of Otho Williams (Gibbes, 154). That does not seem like the kind of story Williams would invent, especially as he was severely censuring his own men for lack of discipline, which would reflect poorly upon him and his fellow officers. Williams’s account is supported by a pension applicant who stated that “the British were driven beyond their baggage, when our men commenced rummaging their tents, drinking rum &c &c which the enemy discovering, came back upon us, & drove us back into the woods.” James Magee Pension, S1555.

  195busy re-forming his line in a diagonal: Lumpkin, 219.

  195Marion was sent forward: James, 74; Jim Piecuch, “Francis Marion at the Battle of Eutaw Springs,” Journal of the American Revolution, June 4, 2013, allthingsliberty.com/2013/06/francis-marion-at-the-battle-of-eutaw-springs.

  195Marjoribanks assaulted . . . a filthy pond: Account of Otho Williams (Gibbes, 154–156); Lumpkin, 219–220; Stedman, History of the Origin, 2:379–380; Stewart to Cornwallis, September 9, 1781 (Gibbes, 138–139); Stewart to Cornwallis, September 26, 1781 (CP6:169); FM to PH, September 14, 1781 (Gibbes, 161); Royster, Light-Horse Harry Lee, 43–44; Piecuch and Beakes, Lee, 205–208; Conrad, NGP9:335–336n11; Sherman, Calendar, 81n324; Charleston City Gazette Commercial, January 30, 1826; James, 75.

  196“with an avidity which seemed insatiable”: James, 75.

  196“by far . . . I ever saw”: NG to Thomas Burke, September 17, 1781 (NGP9:355).

  196The casualties . . . Pickens . . . Campbell . . . Howard: Aiken, 239; O’Kelley, Unwaried Patience, 549; Stewart to Cornwallis, September 9, 1781 (Gibbes, 139); Stewart to Cornwallis, November 29, 1781 (CP6:172); Account of Otho Williams (Gibbes, 157–158); Conrad, NGP9:338nn22, 24; Carbone, Nathanael Greene, 206; Tonsetic, 1781: The Decisive Year, 155; Sherman, Calendar, 614–615; Swager, The Valiant Died, 115–119, 155; Lee, Memoirs, 2:292; William Johnson, Life of Greene, 2:233–234; “John Eager Howard: Revolutionary War Patriot,” The Federalist, February 2, 2014, thefederalist-gary.blogspot.com/2014/02/john-eager-howard-revolutionary-war.html.

  197On the British side . . . Stewart was wounded: Stewart to Cornwallis, September 9, 1781 (Gibbes, 139); Stewart to Cornwallis, November 29, 1781 (CP6:171); Swager, The Valiant Died, 119; FM to PH, September 14, 1781 (Gibbes, 160–161); NG to McKean, September 11, 1781 (NGP9:332).

  197Marjoribanks died . . . reinterred: Lumpkin, 220; William Johnson, Life of Greene, 2:236; “Glimpses at the Country of the Olden Time,” Russell’s Magazine 2, no. 1 (October 1857): 65; Dubose, “Reminiscences of St. Stephens Parish,” 64–65.

  197Marion listed . . . Hugh Horry: O’Kelley, Unwaried Patience, 551; FM to PH, September 14, 1781 (Gibbes, 161).

  197Private Jehu Kolb: Jehu Kolb Pension, W8011; Marika Ann Manuel-Kolb, “Descendants of Dielman Kolb” (nos. 27, 109), Genealogy.com, August 25, 2005, www.genealogy.com/ftm/k/o/l/Marika-A-Kolb/GENE3–0005.html; www.genealogy.com/ftm/k/o/l/Marika-A-Kolb/GENE3–0011.html.

  197Jim Capers: Jim Capers Pension (transcribed by C. Leon Harris), R1669.

  198James Delaney: Thomas McDow Pension, S9427; Piecuch, “Francis Marion at Eutaw Springs.”

  198Jenkins clan . . . James Jenkins: Jenkins, Experience, 43–44.

  198“a degree . . . class of soldiers”: NG to McKean, September 11, 1781 (NGP9:329).

  198“my Brigade behaved well”: FM to PH, September 14, 1781 (Gibbes, 161).

  198“distinguished part . . . intrepid attack”: Independent Ledger (Boston), December 24, 1781.

  198Both commanding generals claimed . . . victory: NG to George Washington, September 17, 1781 (NGP9:362); NG to Thomas Burke, September 17, 1781 (NGP9:355); Stewart to Cornwallis, September 9, 1781 (Gibbes, 136); Stewart to Cornwallis, September 26, November 29, 1781 (CP6:168, 171); Swager, The Valiant Died, 137–142; John Marshall, The Life of George Washington (Philadelphia, 1805), 4:551–552.

  198But in reality . . . Greene buried: Account of Otho Williams (Gibbes, 156–157); Swager, The Valiant Died, 118–119, 136–137; Marshall, Life of Washington, 4:552; SCAR 2, no. 12 (December 2005): 13 (ed. note); NG to McKean, September 11, 1781 (NGP9:332); Stewart to Cornwallis, November 29, 1781 (CP6:172).

  199“The more he is beaten . . . in the end”: Diary of Roderick Mackenzie, quoted in NGP9:338n25.

  199“The honor . . . last to us”: Lee, Memoirs, 2:293.

  CHAPTER 22: “WATCHFUL ANXIETY”

  200told Marion to be prepared: NG to FM, September 17, 19, 1781 (Gibbes, 166–167, 170); William Johnson, Life of Greene, 2:243–245.

  200Greene had dispatched . . . Gould . . . leave matters . . . to Stewart: FM to NG, September 9, 11, 21, 1781 (NGP9:309, 341, 382–383 and nn1–2); McCrady, 464; Sherman, Calendar, 76, 527; Stewart to Cornwallis, September 26, November 29, 1781 (CP6:169, 172); Saberton, CP5:294n29; Conrad, NGP9:337–338nn20–21.

  201Passing Greenland Swamp . . . attributed Harry’s murder: Certification of John Doyle and John McKinnon, November 27, 1782, reprinted in “Black Loyalists—Beheading of Harry,” Online Institute for Advanced Loyalist Studies, Todd Braisted, manager, February 27, 2015, www
.royalprovincial.com/military/black/blkharry.htm; Alan Gilbert, Black Patriots and Loyalists: Fighting for Emancipation in the War for Independence (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2012), 157; Parker, 68. Because the certification of Harry’s death is from November 1782, most sources assign that as the date nearest Harry’s beheading. However, the only documented time Gould was ever near Greenland Swamp (about ten miles from Eutaw Springs) was in September 1781; by November 1782 the British army was no longer in the field, and Gould had long since retired to Charleston. The likelihood is that Harry was taken prisoner and executed in September 1781 after the battle of Eutaw Springs when Marion was still in that area. The certification memorializing that earlier episode was signed by Major John Doyle, who also was near Eutaw Springs shortly after the battle. FM to NG, September 21, 1781 (NGP9:382); William Johnson, Life of Greene, 2:245–246; Gould to Clinton, September 30, 1781, in Willcox, Clinton’s Narrative, 578–579.

  Marion’s September 21 letter to Greene from Murray’s Ferry near Greenland Swamp notes that he captured “a negro” from the British force in that same area who then provided him information about enemy movements. Could this have been Harry? Rutledge’s order to hang African American spies is in his September 2, 1781 letter to Marion (Gibbes, 131). For a more detailed discussion of the incident see Steven D. Smith, “Beheading of Harry,” Military Collector & Historian 68, no. 4 (Winter 2016), in press.

  201Gould turned back . . . Greene retired: Sherman, Calendar, 611, 619, 624; Nathaniel Pendleton to Wade Hampton, September 17, 1781 (NGP9:357 and n1); FM to NG, October 9, November 2, 10, 14, 18, 25, 1781 (NGP9:439, 521, 557 and n1, 573, 589–590, 628nn2–3); Conrad, NGP9:583n3; Willcox, Clinton’s Narrative, 354, 356; Gould to Clinton, September 30, 1781, in Clinton’s Narrative, 578–579; Stewart to NG, October 27, 1781 (NGP9:493 and n2); Balfour to Germain, October 12, 1781 (CP6:222–223); Gould to NG, November 16, 1781 (NGP9:578–579 and n1); Stewart to Cornwallis, November 29, 1781 (CP6:172); William Johnson, Life of Greene, 2:258–261; Piecuch, Three Peoples, 309.