by Ron Carter
Far behind they heard the faint shouts of British regulars, then sporadic musket fire.
The dark silhouette ahead of Caleb turned and came closer to speak.
“We give ’em the slip, proper. They think we gone south, but we behind them. Now we got to find a palmetto log an’ float on down the river to the bay, then we got to go nawth, up to find Massa Marion. The ol’ Swamp Fox. He know what to do.”
Caleb reared straight up and his head thrust forward. In the dark of night he saw the head, and the hair, and for the first time understood the man was a black slave!
Notes
Caleb Dunson and the black man are fictional characters. However, in the defeat of General Lincoln and his American forces at Savannah, thousands of Americans were taken as prisoners of war and held by the British. Some escaped (Higginbotham, The War of American Independence, pp. 356–57; Leckie, George Washington’s War, pp. 504–5).
Part Two
Charleston, South Carolina
May 15, 1780
CHAPTER XVII
* * *
Three hundred fifty million years ago, two gigantic, overlapping plates deep in the bowels of the earth began to grind slowly but steadily against each other where the North American coast met the waters of the Atlantic Ocean. One drove the other upward, and the continent pitched and buckled for a thousand miles inland. With the passing of thousands of millennia, the trembling quieted. Forces beyond human comprehension had rammed the east coast westward to warp and fold the land into ten thousand hills and valleys, stretching from the frozen regions to the north, to the jungles at the equator, and from the new islands on the smashed and fragmented coastline to a great inland plain.
In time, the warps and folds became the Appalachian Mountains, and the region toward the south end of the Appalachians became the Blue Ridge Range. Then, for three hundred million years nature did her work of smoothing the jagged, rocky outcroppings, while drenching rains moved soil from high places to low places, and into rivers as they flowed to the sea.
Southeast of the Blue Ridge, three million centuries of hot, sweltering, humid seasons of heavy rains formed the Piedmont Plains, then the Sandhills with their unstable soil, then the Inner Coastal Plain, the Outer Coastal Plain, and finally the place where land met the sea. What had been unstable fifty million years ago finally settled, and the numberless hills and valleys east and south of the Blue Ridge sloped down to the ocean to become the coast of South Carolina.
Thousands of streams gradually forged a network of giant watersheds that fed into three great rivers, draining the high ground of the Blue Ridge Mountains: the Pee Dee River, the Santee, and the Savannah. Lesser rivers formed near the coast, among them the Ashepo, Combahee, Edisto, Ashley, Cooper, and others, to drain small places untouched by the greater rivers. The smaller rivers were sometimes called the “Black Rivers” because of their deep mahogany color, the result of much tannic acid leaching in from decaying leaves and trees.
The year-round rains, heavier in the summer and fall, and sweltering, stifling heat and humidity carpeted the land with trees and thick foliage. Pines, oak, bays, sweet gums, hickories, cypress, tupelo, and palmetto, took root in the hills or the swamps or the bogs and bays, according to their preference. Towering pines of a height and girth to provide masts for the biggest of the tall ships grew in abundance. Giant oaks spread their arms outward for more than one hundred feet. Beneath this great green umbrella grew flora and fauna of every kind and description, with azalea and mountain laurel spreading in wild proliferation. Spanish moss hung from the oak and maples, draped in great graceful veils that moved gently in the breeze.
Wildlife flourished. White-tailed deer roamed in great herds, along with a plethora of buffalo, panthers, rabbits, raccoons, opossums, bear, foxes, and wolves. Birds of every description graced the thick forests. Turkeys weighing fifty pounds strutted about. Passenger pigeons migrated in flocks so great that their passing darkened the sun. Flamboyant parakeets speckled the forest with dots of bright color. Quail, swan, geese, ducks, cranes, seagulls, bickered for territory and nesting rights. The streams and rivers and the marshes and bogs and swamps of the coast teemed with sturgeon, catfish, striped bass, bream, jack, trout, shad, flounder, eel, mullet, drum, and mackerel. Crabs and prawns and oysters abounded in the coastal waters. And, in the palmetto swamps and the salt grass and marshes along the coast, were alligators that reached lengths of fourteen feet and weighed up to eleven hundred pounds, patiently waiting in the murky waters for anything unwary that might pass by. In the backwaters and the forests, were the deadly and feared water moccasin snakes and the copperheads and the cottonmouth and others. Further inland were the hated rattlers, with the crosshatched diamond patterns on their backs.
From sources unknown came the first men, the aborigines, to test themselves against the climate and forests. Surviving the cool winters, and summers so oppressive, hot, and humid they were called “the sickly season,” the dark-skinned invaders eventually flourished in the new land.
Centuries passed before adventurers from Europe came in ships to the previously unknown continent, seeking new land, new wealth, a new start. They came, white men from England, Scotland, France, Spain, Ireland, Germany, Holland—some rich and political, some from the poverty of the harsh, barren hills of Europe and England, illiterate, hating the wealthy and powerful who controlled the feudal system that destroyed any hope of them escaping a life of toil without reward: an embodiment of the eternal bitter clash between the haves and the have-nots. Combined, the white man pushed the aborigines inland and learned to grow the rice that flourished in the bogs and swamps and marshes. The rich and capable established great plantations, while the poor took what land they could find in the backcountry. Scratching out a sparse living, the impoverished lived in crude log huts and first despised, then hated, those who lived in great two-storied homes and rode in graceful carriages drawn by matched, high-blooded horses.
Then, inevitably, slavers from England and Europe sailed their ships into the bays and harbors to sell their human cargo. From Africa, and then the West Indies, came the Gambia, Mandingo, Jalonka, Limba, Coromantes, Popo, Ibo, Angola, Fantee, Nago, and others, to be sold for fat profits to the rich and powerful, who used them as animals to do the killing work on their great rice and indigo plantations.
The illiterate whites who endured in their huts on the small farms in the backcountry and who ate wild sweet potatoes and opossum meat, watched and smoldered and vowed they would find a time and a way to right the wrong that life had inflicted on them, even if it required violence, poor white against rich white.
By 1750, a way of life had been established in the hot, lush, humid, green rolling hills on the southeastern coast of the North American continent—a new way of life built on two fatally flawed premises: the rich whites have license to oppress the poor whites; and one race, the whites, has the inherent right to gain wealth and power from the enforced misery of another, the blacks.
It remained only to be seen how long the laws of nature, and human nature, and the Almighty, would tolerate the breach.
* * * * *
Short, rotund, round-faced and jowled, with a small, tight mouth, British Major General Sir Henry Clinton rose from his desk, sweating in the sweltering, humid, mid-May heat of Charleston, South Carolina. He paced for a moment, then strode to the window of the mansion he had selected for his headquarters two days earlier, one day after American General Benjamin Lincoln struck his colors and surrendered his entire army, and the red-coated British victors took Charleston.
He reached with a thick hand to pull aside the curtain and look east at the broad panorama of the harbor and Moultrie Island near its mouth. For several seconds he studied the massive armada of British ships, lying at anchor under cloudless morning skies, riding the high tide swelling in from the Atlantic. He glanced north toward the Cooper River that flanked one side of the Charleston peninsula, then south toward the Ashley River that bordered the other, brie
fly studying the ships tied to the docks. Most of them were British, still under repair from a catastrophic pounding they had taken in the hurricane that had struck in the month of January. The shrieking winds had forced the British fleet, arriving from New York to take Charleston from the rebellious Americans, to remain at sea in the Atlantic, unwilling to hazard passage in the wild seas and winds through the tricky sandbars and channels to reach the harbor. For one awful month they endured on the open sea, while the fearsome powers of a West Indies hurricane threw their ships about, smashing masts and arms and spars like kindling, and ripping sails to shreds.
On February 10, 1780, nature abated, and General Clinton ordered his fleet into the harbor to disembark his army. The battle for Charleston, the greatest and grandest of the Southern cities, built on the eastern tip of the Peninsula, had begun. Within forty-eight hours, on May 12, 1780, an out-maneuvered, out-gunned, timorous, indecisive General Benjamin Lincoln found his American army surrounded by British cannon that were cutting the city to pieces, and his army with it. Unwittingly, or stupidly, he had yielded to the pressure of the local politicians to defend the city, and in so doing had broken one of General Washington’s cardinal rules of engagement. Always, always, always, leave yourself with an avenue of escape. In the city of Charleston, on the eastern tip of the peninsula, there was none for the Americans. To the east, the harbor was filled with British gunboats, their cannon blasting. North and south, in and across the Cooper and Ashley rivers, British cannon were arcing solid shot into the city at will. To the west, the neck of the peninsula was lined with British guns.
Lincoln struck his colors and surrendered his entire command of more than six thousand men—officers, regulars, and militia—with every scrap of his food stores, arms, munitions, medicines—everything. Never had the struggling Americans suffered such a staggering loss in their quest for liberty.
Clinton dropped the window curtain and was turning when a rap came at his door. He straightened and for a moment composed himself for the staff meeting he had called to review statistics on what had been gained and lost, and to inform his staff of the next phase of his plan for conquering America from his new base in the South. Clinton the planner. Clinton who was never quite sure of himself. He who kept his peers and personnel at arm’s distance for fear they would discover his weaknesses, and who argued with his equals and inferiors and criticized his superiors. He must have a clear mind on what was to happen next.
“Enter.”
A British major, sparse, hunched in the shoulders, limping slightly from a wound suffered in a battle two decades earlier, stepped into the room.
“Sir, your staff has arrived.”
Quickly Clinton took his place at the head of a long, polished maple table, surrounded by twelve upholstered chairs, six on each side, his the thirteenth, large, at table’s head.
“Excellent. Show them in.”
He stood straight, mouth puckered slightly as he watched them quietly file in to take their places, uniforms sparkling, tricorns tucked under their arms. Among them was Major General Lord Charles Cornwallis, recently returned from England where he had arranged the funeral for his beloved wife. Unable to endure the heartbreak of her loss, he had quickly asked for reassignment to America in the hope the action would divert his mind and heart from the ache that had become a great, gray cloud over his life. Across the table from General Cornwallis was Colonel Banastre Tarleton, who had gained instant and meteoric fame for the single-handed capture of General Charles Lee in December of 1775, just prior to the battle of Trenton. In the five years since, Tarleton had earned a reputation for reckless bravery and battlefield cunning, unequaled in the British ranks, and had become known to the Americans as one of the most merciless, ruthless killers in the war. One could not miss the hot-tempered Scot in a crowd, with his flaming red hair, his unique green uniform, and the great, sweeping plume he had fixed in his hat.
Clinton took charge.
“Be seated, gentlemen. Your attendance is both noted and appreciated. I extend to you my congratulations on the victory achieved three days ago. Well done. My report to Parliament will reflect my satisfaction with the performance of your various commands.”
He paused, permitting the murmured comments and confident smiles that briefly circulated around the table.
Then he continued. “There are matters we must address before we conclude the plan for the next phase of our offensive.” He turned to his aide, Major Terrance Predmore. “Do you have the statistics I requested on the results of our campaign to take Charleston?”
The man bobbed his head. “I do, sir.”
“Would you read them.”
The man stood, spent five seconds organizing three sheets of parchment, perched a small pair of bifocals on his broad nose, and read:
“Damage and losses to the Americans are as follows. Two thousand six hundred fifty American Continentals captured. Among them were one major general, six brigadier generals, nine colonels, and fourteen lieutenant colonels. Of the southern militia, three thousand and thirty-four captured. Among the sailors aboard French and American ships, one thousand captured, with their one hundred fifty-four cannon. The militia have been paroled back to their homes. The Continentals are in prison compounds.”
He laid one sheet of parchment down and continued from the next.
“Casualties were comparatively light. Eighty-nine American soldiers were killed and one hundred thirty-eight wounded. Twenty civilians were killed by accidental cannon shot.”
He referred to the third sheet.
“Our forces sustained seventy-eight dead, and one hundred eighty-nine wounded.”
Broad smiles went around the table, and the major waited for open comments to subside.
“Regarding material losses by the Americans, we have captured a total of three hundred ninety-one cannon, just over six thousand muskets, thirty-three thousand rounds of small arms ammunition, over eight thousand round shot for cannon, three hundred seventy-six barrels of gunpowder, several wagon loads of blankets, all their medical supplies, which were negligible, all their stores of clothing, and all their salt meat and fish and other food stores.”
He laid the paperwork down, tipped his head forward, and peered at Clinton over his spectacles. “May I say, sir, we captured their entire southern army together with nearly all arms and supplies. It is possible we have fatally wounded the rebellion.”
Open talk erupted amid great, grand smiles, except for Clinton. Ever reserved, distant, he waited before he responded.
“We have accomplished a great victory, but with it comes the burden of not losing the advantage gained. We must now adopt policies and an overall plan calculated to bring about the complete surrender of the rebels.”
He selected a paper, glanced at it for a moment, and all talk and movement around the table ceased.
“First I want to establish a policy that is critical to our success. A policy that I have abided since our arrival here. Conciliation. Lord Germain was very clear in his orders governing the American campaign. There are a great number of landowners who are Tories. Loyal to the crown. They own slaves who will follow their masters. We must gain their support. To do that, we must follow a course of conciliation. Do not offend.”
He paused for emphasis, then continued.
“There is a prominent animosity between the wealthy landowners and those of lesser holdings, which could become a problem. The wealthy as opposed to the underprivileged, if that makes it clear. Under any circumstance, do not provoke a conflict between those two factions. We need the support of both, and we are prepared to arm them with British weaponry when the time is right. Should the old hatreds erupt between them, it could result in fighting that would seriously affect our efforts. See to it no such divisiveness occurs. I repeat, do not let such divisiveness occur.”
The men around the table glanced sideways at each other, then settled back in their chairs, blank faces turned toward Clinton, waiting. Clinton studied them for a
moment, aware they harbored reservations about conquering a people and simultaneously invoking their goodwill. How does one conquer a people and concurrently invite their goodwill and support? Worse, how does one arm two factions that harbor a mutual smoldering hate without running the strong risk of triggering a civil war?
Clinton drew himself to full height and addressed the questions head-on.
“You are aware there is an outcry from the Tories for the blood of the rebels. I do not intend giving them such privilege. As of today, I am implementing regular hearings in which we will hear and consider the evidence against all such rebels that come before us, and we will grant pardons to the less serious offenders, and paroles for the more serious among them.”
He paused for a moment, then continued.
“Further, all Americans who join us, rich or poor, will receive equal treatment. Divisive status, rich over poor, will not be tolerated. Old hatreds will be set aside in the equality given both factions among the Americans.”
For five seconds the only sound in the room was the flies and insects buzzing at the windows. Then quiet murmuring broke out and subsided. He reached for a paper, studied it for a moment, then continued.
“We must, I repeat, must gain the goodwill and support of the people if we are to succeed. In the short time we have been here I have exercised the policy of pardons and paroles, and report to you now, hundreds of rebels, rich and poor, have been willing to swear support for the King, and to bear arms in our cause, so long as they are allowed to fight the French, or the Spanish, and not their own countrymen. But in any event, they will not fight us. Consider it, gentlemen. Conciliation may be our most powerful weapon.”
He drew and released a breath and reached for another page of notes.
“Most of you are aware of the tragic explosion among the loaded muskets the Americans were handling, which injured fifty of our soldiers. It could have been sabotage, or an accident. We will never know. The Hessians demanded free rein to take revenge on the rebels. I have entered orders that there will be no such reprisals. My order is not popular with the Hessians, but it has done much to gain goodwill with the rebels.”
