XLI. ed, very jealous of military power, and of every thing CHAPTER which tended to give a permanent character to the army. Robert H. Harrison, who had filled so long the confi- 1780. dential post of secretary to the commander-in-chief, having accepted the office of chief justice of Maryland, was succeeded by Jonathan Trumbull, son of the governor of Connecticut, and late paymaster of the northern department. The office of adjutant general, resigned by Scammell, was given to Hand. Smallwood succeeded to the command of De Kalb's division; Morgan, lately sent to the southern department, was made a brigadier. To provide means for supporting the army, the states were called upon for their respective quotas of six millions of dollars in quarterly payments, to commence the following May, and to be met partly in "specifics," and the residue in gold or silver, or paper of the new emission. Gates's laurels, acquired in the campaign against Burgoyne, had been quite blasted by the disastrous rout at Camden. Having ordered an inquiry into his conduct, Oct. 5. Congress requested Washington to name his successor. Thus called upon, he selected Greene. Lee's corps of horse and some companies of artillery were ordered to the south; Steuben was sent on the same service, and Kosciusko, as engineer, to supply the place of Du Portail, taken prisoner at the surrender of Charleston. Cornwallis, meanwhile, having completed his arrangements, had commenced his march into North Carolina. The main army, under his own command, was to advance by Charlotte, Salisbury, and Hillsborough, through the counties in which the Whigs were the strongest. Tarleton was to move up the west bank of the Catawba with the cavalry and light troops; while Furguson, with a body of Loyalist militia, which he had volunteered to em CHAPTER body and organize, was to take a still more westerly route XLI. along the eastern foot of the mountains. 1780. The British army had not been long on its march when a numerous but irregular body of insurgents from the upper country of South Carolina appeared before Augusta. Colonel Brown, who commanded there, intrenched himself on a neighboring hill; and on the approach of a British force from Ninety-six, a post intermediate between Camden and Augusta, but more northerly than either, the assailants retreated with precipitation. Word was sent to Furguson, in hopes that he might be able to intercept them. With that view, he pressed close upon the mountains, when he suddenly encountered an unexpected enemy. A strong force of mounted backwoodsmen, armed with rifles, their provisions at their backs, led by Shelby and Sevier, afterward first governors of Kentucky and Tennessee, issuing from the valleys of Clinch and Houlston, and joined by some partisan corps in the region east of the mountains, directed their march against Furguson. Informed of his danger, he retreated with precipitation, but was pursued by a thousand men with the best horses and rifles, selected from a body of twice that number. In thirty-six hours they dismounted but Oct. 9. once. Finding escape impossible, Furguson chose a strong position at King's Mountain, a few miles west of the Catawba, where he drew up his men and waited the attack. The assailants were repeatedly driven back by the bayonet, but they returned as often, pouring in a murderous fire from their rifles, by which one hundred and fifty of the Tories were killed, and a greater number wounded. So long as they had Furguson to encourage them, they stood their ground, but when he fell, eight hundred men, the survivors of the fight, threw down their arms and surrendered. Ten of the most active and ob XLI. noxious of these prisoners were selected and hung upon CHAPTER the spot an outrage which did not fail of severe and speedy retaliation. The backwoodsmen soon dispersed and 1780. returned home; but the spirits of the Southern people, depressed as they had been by a long series of disasters and defeats, were not a little raised by this their first considerable victory. Cornwallis had already reached Salisbury, a district which he found very hostile, and where he was living at free quarters. Having relied a good deal on the support of Furguson, on hearing of his defeat he commenced a retrograde movement as far as Winnsborough, in South Oct. 29. Carolina. Immediately after the battle of Camden, General Leslie had sailed from New York with three thousand men to re-enforce Cornwallis. He had entered the Chesapeake, ascended the Elizabeth River, and fortified himself at Portsmouth, a convenient station whence to cooperate against North Carolina. When Leslie heard of the defeat of Furguson and the retreat of the British army, he embarked his troops and proceeded to Charles- Dec. ton, thence to march to join Cornwallis. Marion meanwhile again issued from the swamps, and threatened to cut off the communication with Charleston; but Tarleton drove him back to his coverts. Sumter, also reappearing in the northwest, repulsed a detachment under Major Wemyss, and, having joined with some other partisan corps, threatened to attack Ninety-six. Tarleton was sent to cut him off; but Sumter, informed of his danger by a deserter, commenced a rapid retreat. As he could not escape, he chose an advantageous position at Blackstock Hill. The British van coming up, Nov. Tarleton made a precipitate attack, but was repulsed with loss. Sumter, however, was severely wounded; and, XLI. CHAPTER after conveying their commander to a place of safety, his men disbanded and dispersed. 1780. Oct. Considerable efforts, meanwhile, had been making to reorganize the southern army. To supply the place of their captured regiments, the Assembly of Virginia voted three thousand men, apportioned among the counties. A tax was laid of two per cent. on all property, to raise means for paying bounties. Besides $12,000 in the depreciated paper, worth two or three hundred in specie, promised at once to all voluntary recruits, they were to receive at the end of the war three hundred acres of land, and a “healthy, sound negro," or $200 in gold or silver. To make up the deficit of voluntary enlistments, men to serve for eighteen months were to be drafted from the militia. Supplies of clothing, provisions, and wagons were also levied on the counties. The seizure of provisions was authorized at certain stipulated prices; and to supply the empty treasury, ten millions of pounds in state bills of credit were issued, redeemable at the rate of forty for one, equivalent to $850,000. The North Carolina Legislature, at their recent session, had constituted a Board of War, and were exerting the feeble resources at their command to re-establish their Continental regiments. Drafts and recruits, and one or two entire battalions, came forward; and, as Cornwallis retired, Gates advanced, first to Salisbury, and then to Charlotte. Dec. 2. It was at Charlotte that Greene joined the army and assumed the command. He found the troops without pay, and their clothing in tatters. There was hardly a dollar in the military chest. Subsistence was obtained entirely by imprèssment. Greene entered at once on active operations. Morgan, with the Maryland regiment and Washington's dragoons of Lee's corps, was sent across the Broad River to operate on the British left and rear, XLI. while the main body encamped on the Peedee to cover CHAPTER the fertile district to the northward, and to threaten the British communication with Charleston. Not, however, by the armies alone were hostilities carried on. All the scattered settlements bristled in hostile array. Whigs and Tories pursued each other with little less than savage fury. Small parties, every where under arms, some on one side, some on the other, with very little reference to greater operations, were desperately bent on plunder and blood. The Legislature of North Carolina passed a law to put a stop to the robbery of poor people under pretense that they were Tories—a practice carried even to the plunder of their clothes and household furniture. They imposed penalties, also, on the still more outrageous practice of expeditions into South Carolina for indiscriminate robbery, the spoils being brought into North Carolina for sale. The first offense was to be punished with thirtynine lashes on the bare back, the second with death. 1780. In spite of Sullivan's expedition the year before, the frontier of New York continued to be harassed by Indians and Tories. Sir John Johnson ascended Lake Champlain October. with a force of eight hundred men, took Fort George and Fort Anne, held at that time by very small garrisons, and sent forward plundering parties as far as Saratoga. Another body of Indians and Tories, advancing from Niagara, expelled the Oneidas, the friends of the Americans, and compelled them to seek refuge and food in the neighborhood of Albany. Fort Schuyler was repeatedly threatened; the fertile district of Schoharie was ravaged, and a large quantity of wheat destroyed, sorely needed by Washington's starving army. Colonel Brown, with a party from Berkshire, marching up the Mohawk to relieve the New York frontier, |