CHAPTER ish squadron. Instead of being an assistance, the French XL. auxiliaries threatened to be a burden; three thousand five 1780. hundred militia were kept under arms at Newport to assist in guarding the French ships. Thus a third time, as it seemed, almost by a sort of fatality, the attempt at French co-operation proved a failure. After much discussion, Congress had finally agreed to a new arrangement of the quarter-master's department, the business of which was greatly increased by the duty imposed upon it of transporting to the camp the specific supplies. This new arrangement did not suit the views of Greene, who esteemed the number of assistants too small, their salaries too low, and the whole scheme inefficient. He threw up his office in a somewhat emphatic letter, which gave great offense to some members of Congress. It was even proposed to deprive him of his commission—a step against which Washington earnestly remonstrated in private letters to members of that body, representing the discontent it would occasion, the probability that the officers would make common cause with Greene, and the danger of rousing the irascibility of men unpaid, living on their own funds, many of them greatly distressed for money, anxious to resign, and only kept in the service by sentiments of patriotism, and unwillingness to abandon a cause in which they had already risked and suffered so much. The ungracious and difficult office of quarter-master, thus thrown up by Greene, was underAugust. taken by Colonel Pickering. The battalions of the Delaware and Maryland lines, deJune. tached under De Kalb for service at the south, after cross ing the southern boundary of Virginia, made their way slowly through a poor country very thinly inhabited. No magazines had been laid up; the commissaries had neither money nor credit; the soldiers, scattered in small the only XL. parties, collected their own supplies by impressment— CHAPTER lean cattle from the cane-brakes, and Indian corn, grain which that region produced. Besides Porterfield's Virginia regiment at Salisbury, there were two corps of North Carolina militia in front, one under Rutherford, the other under Caswell, chiefly employed in keeping down the Tories. Governor Nash, chosen at the recent election as Caswell's successor, had been authorized by the Legislature to send eight thousand men to the relief of South Carolina; but to raise and equip them was not so easy. De Kalb's soldiers presently came to a full stop at the Deep River, an upper tributary of the Cape Fear. At this point they were overtaken by Gates, appointed by Congress to the command of the southern department. Gates pressed forward on the direct road to Camden, through a barren and generally a disaffected country. The troops were greatly weakened on the march by diseases brought on by the use of unripe peaches and green corn as substitutes for bread. Having crossed the Peedee, Gates formed a junction with Porterfield, who had marched down that river to meet him. He was also joined by Rutherford with his militia, and was presently overtaken by Armand's legion, detached for service in the southern department, and with which the remainder of Pulaski's corps was incorporated. 1780. July. The news of Gates's approach, and of efforts made in North Carolina and Virginia to recruit the southern army, raised the hopes of the South Carolina patriots. Returning from North Carolina, where he had taken refuge, Sumter headed an insurrection in the district north. and west of Camden. He made successful attacks on the British posts at Rocky Mount and Hanging Rock. Aug. 1. Emerging from the swamps of the Lower Peedee, Mari Aug. 6. CHAPTER on, with a few ragged followers, began to annoy the BritXL. ish outposts. Lord Rawdon, known afterward in En1780. gland and India as Earl of Moira and Marquis of Hastings, commanded the British advanced posts in the interior of South Carolina. Perceiving a change in the spirit of the people, he collected his forces at Camden. Having passed the Pine Barren region, Gates formed a junction with Governor Caswell. He was presently joined by General Stevens, with a brigade of Virginia militia, and now reckoned his forces at six thousand men, a fourth of whom were Continentals. Some four hundred men were detached to the right to co-operate with Sumter, who had a considerable irregular force, and who was striving to gain the enemy's rear. Cornwallis, who had hastened from Charleston for that purpose, now assumed the command of the British army. His whole effective force did not much exceed two thousand men; but he could not retreat without giving up the whole open country, besides abandoning his hospitals, in which were upward of eight hundred sick. Determined on a battle, he marched by night against Gates's camp at Rugeley's Mills. Unaware of this movement, Gates had put his forces in motion that very same night, intending to occupy another position nearer Camden. Marching thus in opposite directions, early the next morning the advanced parties of the two armies unexAug. 6. pectedly encountered each other in the woods. After some skirmishes the line was formed, and, with the dawn of day, the battle began. The British rushed with charged bayonets upon Gates's center and left, composed almost entirely of militia, who threw away their arms and fled, almost without firing a gun. Gates and Caswell were fairly borne off the field by the fugitives, whom they found it impossible to rally, XL. since the further they fled the more they dispersed. De CHAPTER Kalb's Continentals, on the right, stood their ground with firmness; but they were presently taken in flank; their 1780. commander was mortally wounded; and they too were broken and obliged to fly. Closely pursued for twentyeight miles, they were entirely dispersed. Every corps was scattered; men and officers, separated from each other, fled in small parties, or singly, through the woods. All the baggage and artillery fell into the hands of the enemy. The road for miles was strewed with the killed and wounded, overtaken and cut down by the British cavalry. The Americans lost some nine hundred killed, and as many more taken prisoners, of whom many were wounded. Arms, knapsacks, broken-down wagons, and dead horses scattered along the road, indicated the haste and terror of the flight. This total rout of the American army cost the British only three hundred and twenty-five men. Three or four days after the action, some two hundred men, with Gates and a few other officers, collected at Charlotte, in North Carolina, up the Valley of the Wateree, eighty miles or more from the field of battle. Here they heard of a new disaster. Just before the late action, re-enforced by the four hundred men from Gates's army, Sumter had intercepted and captured a convoy approaching Camden from the south, and had taken two hundred prisoners. Hearing of Gates's defeat, he retreated rapidly up the west bank of the Wateree, but was followed by the indefatigable Tarleton, who moved with such rapidity, that out of his force of three hundred and fifty horsemen, more than half broke down in the pursuit. Thinking himself entirely out of danger, Sumter had encamped at two in the afternoon. No Aug. 18, proper watch was kept, and Tarleton entered the camp entirely by surprise. The captured stores were recov XL. CHAPTER ered; the British captives were released; one hundred and fifty Americans were killed, and three hundred made 1780. prisoners. Sumter himself escaped with difficulty; his corps was completely dispersed. No organized American force was now left in either of the Carolinas. Should the British army advance, it would be impossible to make any stand at Charlotte, a little village in an open plain. Gates retired first to Salisbury, and then to Hillsborough, the seat of the North Carolina government, where he made all possible efforts toward the collection and organization of a new army. But the great number of Tories in North Carolina, many open and more secret, paralyzed, to a great degree, the energies of that state. To promote military subordination, and as a means of filling up the Continental quota, deserters from the militia were punished, under an act of Assembly, by being compelled to enlist in the regular battalions. But for these unwilling recruits there was neither clothing nor arms. The three Southern states had not a single battalion in the field, nor were the next three much better provided. The Virginia line had been most⚫ly captured at Charleston, or dispersed in subsequent engagements. The same was the case with the North Carolina regiments. The recent battle of Camden had reduced the Maryland line to a single regiment, the Delaware line to a single company. Out of the straggling soldiers, the survivors of that fatal field, and new recruits that came in from Virginia, Gates presently organized a force of about a thousand men. Great efforts were made by Maryland, where Thomas Sim Lee was now governor, to supply her deficient regiments. The militia were divided into classes, each class being required to furnish a soldier, either free or a slave. In the Maryland as well as other Continental lines, many negroes served with |