♪ [patriotic fife and drum music] ♪ [mortar fire booming] ♪ ♪ [musket fire popping] ♪ [mortar fire booming] ♪ [mortar fire booming] ♪ [mortar fire booming] ♪ Professor Henry Lumpkin> We've talked to Brigadier General Francis Marion, the famous Swamp Fox, who kept the war alive in the swamps and forests of lower South Carolina after the fall of Charleston in May of 1780.

What of the back country?

The lands that lay between the Cherokee tribal frontier, the mountains, and the coastal plain in Georgia, the Carolinas, and Virginia was the fighting territory of other partisan leaders.

These were many, but the three greatest... were Thomas Sumter of South Carolina, whom Banastre Tarleton called the Gamecock; Elijah Clarke of Georgia; and William Richardson Davie of North Carolina.

Thomas Sumter, a wealthy planter on the Santee with a somewhat raffish past, had served already in the Snow Campaign and as colonel of the 6th South Carolina Regiment at the battle of Breach Inlet in the first attack on Charleston, down here.

He'd resigned his commission and returned to his plantation in 1777 after losing all but one of his children.

He also was apparently bored by military inactivity.

Sumter thus escaped capture when Charleston fell.

Thomas Sumter left his home on the 28th of May with his faithful black servant, Soldier Tom, just a few hours before Banastre Tarleton arrived in his pursuit of Abraham Buford's unfortunate command retreating to its fate at the Waxhaws.

Banastre Tarleton burned Sumter's home, and the planter-soldier rode north and west, his name to become a rallying point for men in both Carolinas who wished to continue the fight against the British conquerors.

Without material backing, Thomas Sumter rewarded his partisans with the plunder taken from captured British garrisons or requisitioned by force from Loyalist farms.

This was known as "Sumter's Law," a grimly amused and amusing commentary on the relentless nature of the back country fighting.

William Richardson Davie, the beau sabreur of the Southern partisans, is claimed rightfully by both North and South Carolina.

Born in Cumberland, England, of Scottish descent, he was reared from the age of five in South Carolina, carried out his civil and political life in North Carolina, and retired to Landsford on the Catawba River in South Carolina.

His fighting career was in both states.

When Charleston fell, William Davie was at his home in Salisbury, North Carolina, recuperating from a wound received at the battle of the Stono River, where he'd served as brigade major of Benjamin Lincoln's cavalry.

In the winter of 1780, William Davie was given authority to raise a troop of cavalry and two companies of mounted infantry by the General Assembly of North Carolina.

The state, however, could not afford to furnish or equip this legion.

William Davie, a successful young lawyer in private life, disposed of a considerable estate, and with his own funds raised and equipped the soldiers himself.

Noted for dash and courage, Davie, by the end of the war, had the reputation of personally killing with his saber in hand-- in hand-to-hand combat-- more enemy soldiers than any other American officer.

Elijah Clarke removed from Virginia to what is now Wilkes County, Georgia... on the frontier, just prior to the Revolution.

A successful farmer, Clarke's reputation as a most effective partisan commander has been overshadowed by Francis Marion, Thomas Sumter, and other, more colorful figures.

After the capture of Savannah by the British, Augusta fell, and Georgia, the least populous of the Southern states, by middle February of 1780, seemed totally subdued.

It was then that Elijah Clarke, a colonel in the Georgia militia, refused to accept the protection offered by the British and took the field with his partisans, determined to reconquer his native state of Georgia.

The confused, bloody, and indecisive battle of Ramsaur's Mill, fought in North Carolina on June 20, 1780, was the first serious encounter between Loyalist and Patriot forces after the fall of Charleston.

The British and their Loyalist allies continued to advance steadily from the coast, establishing strongly garrisoned outposts, patrolling the roads, and encouraging the pro-British elements in the back country.

At Williamson's plantation in South Carolina, on July 12, 1780, the gathering American partisans really struck their beginning blow against the royal forces.

This was the defeat of Captain Christian Huck, a Philadelphia lawyer, Loyalist lawyer, who had come south with Banastre Tarleton's Legion.

At dawn on July 12, 1780, Colonel William Bratton, Colonel Andrew Neel and Colonel Edward Lacey, with 260 volunteers, attacked Christian Huck's camp from three directions.

Huck was shot down in the first of the fighting.

His men, completely surprised, lost 30 or 40 killed and 50 wounded in the one-hour battle and the ruthless pursuit which followed.

The partisans, the American partisans, lost one man killed.

(sporadic musket fire) Williamson's plantation was not a large engagement.

The Provincial regulars in the uniforms of Tarleton's Legion and the New York Volunteers had been surprised and routed by a volunteer partisan force.

It was an invigorating thought, and the back country began to catch fire.

(sporadic musket fire) Williamson's plantation took place on the morning of July 12th.

The next day, Colonel John Thomas beat off a Loyalist attack on his camp at Cedar Springs near the present Spartanburg, South Carolina.

On the night of July 14th, Colonel John Jones of Georgia surprised a Loyalist force at Gowen's Old Fort near the South Pacolet River.

Finally, Edward Hampton, of the famous Hampton brothers, on the morning of July 16th, pursued and scattered a Loyalist raiding party which had hit John Jones' camp the night before.

These were not big battles, but they hurt... the pinpoint hemorrhage concept.

The British and Loyalists had lost hope... and more than 100 men in 5 days.

The American partisan losses were less than half that number.

At the end of July, Colonel Thomas Sumter, with 500 partisan fighters and no artillery, moved against a British outpost at Rocky Mount.

William Davie, at the same time, with 40 of his own dragoons and 40 mounted riflemen, carried out a coordinated operation against the British at Hanging Rock.

(rifle fire) On Sunday morning, July 30th, Thomas Sumter arrived in position and sent a flag to Lieutenant Colonel George Turnbull of the New York Volunteers, who commanded Rocky Mount, demanding the post surrender.

George Turnbull, a fighting New York Loyalist, replied that Sumter might come and take it.

And the fight began.

The British post consisted of two stout log houses and a large, clapboarded frame house, loop holed for musketry.

Tough Thomas Sumter did not know it, but the British had constructed an interior wall of heavy logs inside the frame house with clay packed in the space between the clapboards and the logs.

It was impregnable to anything but artillery, would stop musket and rifle fire, and Sumter had no field guns at all.

The post at Rocky Mount was situated on top of a hill on the west bank of the Catawba River, at the mouth of Rocky Creek.

Oh, three times the American partisans assaulted the houses, and three times were beaten back, with loss.

Eight men, including a Colonel Andrew Neel, were wounded or killed.

A large boulder was situated about a hundred yards from the American position and close enough to the smaller log house for a thrown firebrand to reach its roof.

Colonel William Hill of Sumter's partisans volunteered for the desperate attempt, and a young soldier, Jemmy Johnson of Fairfield, joined him.

The two men were encased in wooden armor-- armor made from bundles of pine lightwood bound closely with cords.

With this makeshift protection, Hill and Johnson raced the 100 yards of open ground under intense fire, British fire, to the protecting boulder.

Before they could ignite and throw the firebrands which they carried, the defenders sallied out with a bayonet and drove Hill and Johnson back to the partisan position.

They made it, with bullets hitting the wooden armor and whistling around their ears as they ran.

The two volunteers tried it again, this time protected by heavy covering fire, which should have happened in the first place.

They reached the rock, ignited their firebrands, and successfully fired the smaller log house.

The walls of the heavy, big frame house, of the nearby clapboarded house, had just begun to smoke when a heavy rainstorm came up, as it can in South Carolina, and extinguished the fires completely.

Thomas Sumter and his men, totally frustrated in their attempt to take the post, after an eight-hour battle, retreated.

On their return march to their base at Landsford on the Catawba, they met two parties of British and Loyalist soldiers coming up to relieve the outpost.

In the sharp fight which followed, Thomas Sumter lost 20 men, but he killed 60 of his opponents, captured a few prisoners, and secured some good horses and muskets, so the expedition was not entirely in vain.

William Davie, meanwhile, had carried out a successful and bloody ambush of a Loyalist patrol in sight of the post at Hanging Rock.

Learning from his scouts that the patrol from Hanging Rock, about 100 in number, had stopped to rest in a house near the fort, near the post, William Davie-- without being detected-- placed his dismounted riflemen at the end of the lane leading to the house and part of his dragoons in the woods behind the house, with orders to charge around the house and hit the patrol retreating up the lane from the rifle fire.

A second, smaller detachment of mounted dragoons was concealed in the woods in the direction where Davie correctly surmised the Loyalists would retreat when attacked from two sides.

Caught suddenly... caught suddenly between concentrated rifle fire from one end of the lane and a cavalry charge suddenly swinging around the house, the Loyalist patrol, resting in front of the homestead, bolted in the direction William Davie had anticipated.

They were caught by three attacks from three directions, the concealed dragoons charging out of the woods and sabering the fleeing Loyalists mercilessly.

No prisoners were taken... all of the Loyalist fugitives either being killed or wounded and left on the field.

William Davie escaped without the loss of a single man.

He also took 100 muskets and 60 horses, quite a haul for such a small operation.

Thomas Sumter now received intelligence that the post of Hanging Rock had been weakened further by the detachment of 300 men to reinforce the garrison at Rocky Mount after his attack on that fort.

Hanging Rock was held by about 500 men.

There were no fortified houses as there had been at Rocky Mount.

The British were encamped in the open, protected by some earthworks and two field pieces.

The entire front of the camp was covered by a deep ravine and creek.

The Prince of Wales American Regiment and some of Tarleton's Legion infantry held the right of the camp, facing the ravine.

Thomas Browne-- Thomas Browne's Rangers-- and a unit of Legion infantry were posted in the center, and Samuel Bryan's North Carolina Loyalists were on the left, separated from the rest of the camp by a tongue of woods extending from the forest behind.

Thomas Sumter, moving up to the attack, had been given overall command of the 800 North and South Carolina partisans by the assembled officers of both states and both state contingents.

His plan was to attack the fortified camp in three divisions.

His men would ride straight to the center, dismount, and separate, each division hitting one of the three sections of the British encampment.

The partisan force struck Hanging Rock early in the morning of 6 August.

Unfortunately... unfortunately for Sumter's plans, their guides, recruited from the local Patriot population, missed the path and led the entire force too far to the right.

All three partisan divisions charging together on foot therefore hit Samuel Bryan's North Carolina Loyalists camped on the British left.

These were surprised and routed and fled through the woods to the center, where Banastre Tarleton's Legionnaire had beat to quarters, formed, and met the charging partisans with steady, disciplined fire.

These, the Legionnaires, in turn were overrun by the American attack and fell back from the Prince of Wales Regiment under heavy, point-blank fire.

And desperately forming on the British right, Colonel Thomas Browne with his South Carolina Loyalist Rangers almost changed the fortunes of the day by throwing his men into the tongue of woods separating the camps and catching the American partisans with a flanking fire.

Thomas Browne, in turn, was driven off by concentrated musket and rifle fire.

The unbroken unit of Tarleton's Legion and the remnants of the Prince of Wales Regiment, the latter decimated by accurate American shooting, now managed to form a hollow square-- the old, classic formation of Europe-- bristling with bayonets and supported by the two artillery pieces.

Rather oddly and tragically, Major John Carden, the British outpost commander, seems to have lost all self-control and turned over his command to a Captain Rousselet of Tarleton's Legion.

The shattered elements of the British garrison began to rally around and reinforce the square which stood firm and fighting hard in about the center of the open area, where the British right had been stationed.

Thomas Sumter did his best to form and attack the square.

The undisciplined American partisans, distracted and confused by the early, easy victory, and...I'm sorry to say, occupied in looting the captured portions of the camp, would not obey him.

William Davie, whose dragoons were the best trained of the American force, observed a large party of the enemy also forming near the central woods.

He swung his men through the forest behind them and routed that group completely.

Many of Thomas Sumter's partisans were loaded with plunder.

Their ammunition was exhausted, and some, already... were drunk from the captured rum.

Sumter, unable to bring military coherence to this operation, mounted and retreated with his men, William Davie covering the column.

As the partisans marched from Hanging Rock, they did so to the sound of British military music and three cheers for King George where their unbeaten square still stood holding the outpost they were assigned to guard.

On their road, the partisans suddenly met two companies of Tarleton's Legion, marching over from Rocky Mount.

These William Davie promptly charged with a saber and dispersed into the surrounding woods.

Whether Hanging Rock should be called a victory for Thomas Sumter and William Davie may be open to question.

British casualties were about 200, and partisan casualties, while never officially counted, seem to have been considerably less... possibly 20 killed, 40 wounded, and 10 missing.

Thomas Sumter and Davie also captured 70 prisoners, 100 horses, and 250 stands of arms, plus considerable stores of ammunition.

On August 16, 1780, a few miles north of Camden, the new American Army of the South, commanded by Horatio Gates, the hero of Saratoga, was utterly routed and almost destroyed by Lord Charles Cornwallis.

Two days later, at midday on August 18th, Banastre Tarleton, pushing relentlessly forward with 100 dragoons of his Legion and 60 light infantry, caught Thomas Sumter... caught Thomas Sumter with 800 men, including 400 reinforcements sent to him by Horatio Gates before the Battle of Camden.

These men were resting, bathing, and sleeping at their camp on Fishing Creek some miles north of Rocky Mount.

Banastre Tarleton swept through Thomas Sumter's vedettes and hit the camp before the surprised Americans could run to arms.

Tarleton captured 310 prisoners, killed or wounded 150 more of Sumter's men, secured 800 horses plus 1,100 stands of arms, 2 field guns, and 46 loaded wagons, including 2 ammunition wagons.

He also released 150 British prisoners taken by Thomas Sumter and Colonel Thomas Taylor in raids along the British supply line.

Thomas Sumter barely escaped with his life, riding a horse bareback, sans hat, coat, and boots.

A savage and hot little action fought at Musgrove's Mill, South Carolina, on 17 August, was a clear American victory but could not mitigate the double catastrophe of Camden and Fishing Creek.

Musgrove's Mills was a neatly contrived American ambush, where the British, or Loyalists rather, were enticed to leave a strong position and were badly defeated, as I've said, by Elijah Clarke; Isaac Shelby of the wild Watauga riflemen from across the mountains in what is now Tennessee; and James Williams, an excellent partisan officer.

British and Loyalists were driven en route after a very hot, little firefight... and the Americans retreated from the scene of action with some 200 prisoners.

Fearful of being caught between Cruger, lying to the south of them, and Ferguson, lying north and west... they marched as swiftly as they could, and on their march... heard the grim news of Camden and Fishing Creek.

Elijah Clarke returned to Georgia to raise more partisans to carry on the fight in his own state.

Ferguson lay to the west, as I have said.

Shelby marched over the mountains, avoiding Ferguson, and took his riflemen back to Tennessee, later to come back at Kings Mountain.

James Williams escorted the prisoners back to the American headquarters.

On 20 September... Davie, William Davie of North Carolina, carried out a successful ambush again on some of Banastre Tarleton's troops drawn up at Wahab's Plantation just south of Charlotte, North Carolina, and just across from Cornwallis' camp.

They could hear Cornwallis' drums beating to quarters as the victorious Americans swept off with prisoners and horses captured in the raid.

This was a typical Davie operation, conducted with skill, with speed, and with absolute planning and efficiency.

These were the raids... these were the small actions now that take place during this time.

They cannot, in any sense, offset the dreadful defeat of Camden or the lesser defeat of Fishing Creek.

But they remain, as I have called them, pinpoint hemorrhages... a slow bleeding of the British forces in South Carolina, in North Carolina, and in Georgia, carried out by Marion, by Clarke, by Shelby, by Sumter, by Davie... the great partisan leaders of the Upcountry, the men who, like Marion in the Lowcountry, kept the war going in this year of defeat and disaster and despair.

And so we must talk about them during this time, for it's around their personal leadership and the men who followed them that the war continues in the Carolinas and Georgia.

On the 4th of December, 1780, Major General Nathaniel Greene of Rhode Island assumed command of American forces in the South, replacing the luckless and discredited Horatio Gates.

This meant that the various partisan commanders came under his direction, and the days of independent, uncoordinated actions-- at least, in theory-- were over.

From July until December 1780, the partisans in South Carolina alone had inflicted on the British a loss of 1,200 men killed and wounded and 1,286 taken prisoner.

The partisans had lost during the same period 497 killed and wounded and 320 taken prisoner.

In other words, the men of the Carolinas and Georgia had inflicted three times the loss on their British enemy that they had suffered themselves.

This, of course, included the brilliant raids and battles of Francis Marion in the South Carolina Lowcountry and the total destruction or capture of Patrick Ferguson's force at Kings Mountain on October the 7th, 1780.

Their operations-- the operations of the Southern partisans-- had forced Lord Cornwallis to abandon his plan to invade North Carolina in 1780 and helped to forge the first links in the chain of events which led to the surrender of Cornwallis at Yorktown, Virginia.

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