♪ [mortar fire booming] ♪ ♪ [musket fire popping] ♪ [mortar fire booming] ♪ [mortar fire booming] ♪ [mortar fire booming] Prof.

Henry Lumpkin Ph.D> With the capture of Savannah... by the British and its successful defense against the Franco-American attack... [cane tapping] in 1779... the British high command in the South now had a secure, deep-water port... and a base, a good base, for further operations for the campaign projected toward South Carolina, North Carolina, and Virginia.

This meant that Clinton and Cornwallis and Admiral Mariot Arbuthnot could move their forces, land and sea.

After all, the French alliance had failed its first test, and the British still held command of the sea along the North American coast here.

And Clinton and Cornwallis and Arbuthnot could move their forces up the coast toward the next great objective, that of the major port in South Carolina, Charleston, one of the major ports on the Atlantic Seaboard.

Now let us go to Charleston itself.

♪ We're standing on the deck of the famous carrier "Yorktown"... stationed permanently in Charleston Harbor, across the Cooper River from the famous, old city itself.

That white steeple there is the steeple of Saint Michael's Episcopal Church, where the American observer watched the British fleet come in across the harbor to place its guns on the city in 1780.

An American naval contingent under Commodore Whipple had been sent to Charleston by Congress with a small squadron.

It was discovered now, unhappily, by Whipple, by Commodore Whipple, that the American frigates could not lie anchored close to the bar or keep station under sail in the face of a rising tide and an east wind, and Commodore Whipple's squadron was pulled back to the city, and seven of the vessels sunk across the Cooper River from the Exchange to the marsh opposite, right from here to there, right where we're standing.

The ships were sunk.

Their guns and crews were added to the city defenses.

Now, Charleston, as you see, is on a peninsula, the Ashley River on one side, the Cooper River coming down on the other.

The essential tactical concept, therefore, must be to hold the bar and prevent the fleet from running the forts.

Once an enemy had occupied Charleston Neck, cutting off the peninsula and the landing points on the Cooper and Ashley Rivers; once the fleet had passed Fort Moultrie, come into the harbor, and anchored off the city, right in here; there was no escape, and Charleston was doomed to fall.

This, apparently, General Benjamin Lincoln either failed to perceive or refused to perceive.

Also, the city fathers, confident behind their all too-inadequate fortifications and probably arrogant because of the successful defense in 1776, refused to let him move.

John Rutledge, on Benjamin Lincoln's suggestion, had left the city.

The council, still operating under the direction of the appointed lieutenant governor, Christopher Gadsden, and the leaders of the city threatened to destroy the boats and inform the British if Benjamin Lincoln and his garrison tried to evacuate the city and march into the backcountry.

Each reinforcement, therefore, as it arrived in the city, just increased the British eventual "bag."

On February 30, 1780, the advanced guard of the city came within a few miles of the city.

The fortifications of Charleston were still incomplete.

All Negro slaves in the town were impressed to work in them, together with work parties from the garrison.

George Washington... George Washington, the commander in chief, in a letter to Colonel John Laurens, his former aide who'd come south to aid his own city, to help the state of South Carolina, in a letter of April 26, 1780, said, "I sincerely lament that your prospects "are not better than they are.

"The impracticability of defending the bar, I fear, "amounts to the loss of the town and the garrison."

And the siege and capture of Charleston therefore becomes a classic operation in the European style.

The American lines defending the city began on Town Creek, a branch of the Cooper, at a point just below the site of the old railroad station on Chapel Street, right over in there.

They ran close by the present site of what was Saint Luke's Episcopal church and the Second Presbyterian Church on Charlotte Street.

The lines then crossed Meeting Street where a large, enclosed hornwork of masonry, or citadel, was erected, which was to give its name to the later military college on the same general site.

The remnant still is preserved on Marion Square of this hornwork.

Then the lines ran through the present Vanderhorst Street, crossing the site of the cathedral of Saint Paul's and Saint Luke's, where it rested on the creek which ran up between Cannonsboro and the town just east of Smith Street.

There was a battery, an American battery, on Coming's Point between Bull and Beaufain Streets.

There also was a line of works along South Bay extending from the Ashley to the Cooper, including Granville's Bastion.

Across the neck, defending the peninsula itself, was a strong abatis.

Those are logs placed-- pointed logs, butt end into the earth, placed up to form a primitive, almost like barbed wire at a later date, and a wet ditch dug from marsh to marsh, picketed with pointed spikes, pointed sticks, on the near side.

The lines were made particularly strong on the right and left to rake the wet ditch with enfilade fire.

Clinton, with reinforcements, came from Savannah and New York, now had men around Charleston.

The first British parallel, when they dug the parallel trenches-- they always did in 18th-century warfare-- was opened on 31 February 1780, some 1,000 to 1,200 yards from the city defenses up the peninsula at long artillery range from the American outposts.

On 8 March, a quarter of an hour before sunset, the British fleet ran Fort Moultrie.

Remember, in 1776 they'd stopped and shot it out and been beaten back.

They just ran it... they came on by.

Saint Michael's steeple, right over there... had been blackened to obscure it as a landmark.

The British said afterwards they could see it even better!

Peter Timothy, an American militiaman on watch in the steeple, saw the British fleet pass.

He reported later that they made a most noble appearance in the disciplined, intrepid way each ship approached, received and returned the fire of the fort, and dropped anchor just before the city with their guns on the city, right there.

One frigate lost a topmast.

Fourteen seamen were killed and only 15 wounded.

There were no casualties in the fort, but a British store ship grounded near Haddrell's Point... and was burned by the crew after Captain Thomas Gadsden, sent by Colonel Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, set up two field pieces and fired on her from the land.

The town now was nearly invested, except for the crossing of the Cooper River at Haddrell's Point, or Lempriere's Point, and Hobcaw, four miles across the Cooper.

On 10 April, General Clinton summoned Charleston.

That's the technical word for it.

He demanded its surrender under a flag of truce and offered terms.

This, again, was standard European practice.

"Should the place, in a fallacious security," he wrote, "or its commander, in a wanton indifference "to the fate of its inhabitants, "delay this surrender, "the resentment of an exasperated soldiery "may intervene.

"The same mild and compassionate offer can never be renewed."

Magnificent 18th-century military language.

On the 12th, after his refusal of the first surrender summons, as already stated, Benjamin Lincoln had called in Governor Rutledge and urged him and part of the council to leave the town while they still could.

Colonel Charles Pinckney, Daniel Huger, John Lewis Gervais-- all members of the council-- should go with Rutledge.

Thomas Ferguson, David Ramsay-- the later historian-- Richard Hutson, and Benjamin Cattell should stay.

Christopher Gadsden was appointed lieutenant governor and stayed on in place of Thomas Bee, the real lieutenant governor, absent in Philadelphia at the Continental Congress.

Governor Rutledge took the conservatives.

Christopher Gadsden retained the younger and more vigorous members.

Rutledge left on 13 April 1780, [mortar fire whistling, booming] and every British battery now opened fire on the city with shells, carcasses-- that's incendiary shot-- and solid shot raining in on the city.

[mortar fire whistling, booming] General Isaac Huger, with Horry's horse, and that gallant Polish volunteer Casimir Pulaski's dragoons, with some recently arrived cavalry from Virginia under Lieutenant Colonel William Washington and a small force of militia infantry, were stationed at Moncks Corner, up the peninsula.

These troops were stationed there, commanding the passes and the forks of the river, thus maintaining communications via Haddrell's Point and Hobcaw.

On 12 April, Banastre Tarleton-- later to be known as Bloody Tarleton, the very dashing, very brutal British cavalry leader who'd horsed his dragoons with sorry marsh tackeys at Port Royal and St.

Helena, reinforced by Patrick Ferguson's riflemen, Lieutenant Colonel James Webster's 33rd and 64th infantry regiments-- intercepted a Black slave carrying a letter from Isaac Huger to Charleston.

The slave was bribed to guide the British to Huger's position, and the American cavalry were camped by the river, on the town side, while the militia were bivouacked at and by the meetinghouse which commanded Biggin's Bridge.

Tarleton, led by this slave through woodland paths, attacked, overran the guards, and completely routed the American cavalry.

Major Cochrane, following with the legion infantry, drove at the militia with fixed bayonets and routed them.

William Washington and Isaac Huger barely escaped through the swamps on foot, while Major Pierre Vernier of Pulaksi's legion, another volunteer, was mortally wounded and captured.

Many horsemen and militia also were captured.

Banastre Tarleton, as usual, claimed 400 horses were taken.

Charles Stedman, a much more reliable contemporary source, says 42 wagons, 102 wagon horses, and 83 dragoon horses were captured, plus the ammunition and supplies lost by the Americans.

A grim loss for the American forces.

An excellent British officer, Lieutenant Colonel James Webster, and Lord Cornwallis, with new reinforcements from New York, now captured Lempriere's Point-- Lempriere's Point across the Cooper-- and a battery on James Island, called by the citizens the "Watermelon Battery" for reasons unknown-- I don't know-- at about a mile ranged, opened on the city.

A shot struck Saint Michael's steeple.

[mortar fire booming] And a shot-- a round shot-- carried off the arm of a statue of William Pitt that still stands armless in City Hall Park.

[mortar fire booming] The British opened their second parallel of trenches at 800 yards.

[mortar fire whistling, booming] Mortars and howitzers now began casting shells at short range into the city.

[mortar fire whistling, booming] By the 28th of April, the British held James Island, Wappoo, Charleston Neck, Hobcaw Point, Lempriere's, and Haddrell's Point, all along the side of the Cooper.

The fleet was anchored... with its guns on the city and the roadstead before the town.

[mortar fire whistling, booming] The city was completely invested.

The last parallel, from 80 to 150 yards, depending on the terrain, from the city, was opened on the 29th of April.

Now, this was within rifle range, and the Hessian riflemen, the jaegers, with the heavy Hessian rifle-- very accurate, very clumsy-- moved in and killed any man, any American, who showed his head above the parapet on the city defenses.

[mortar fire whistling, booming] On May 7th, Fort Moultrie, out here on Sullivan's Island, capitulated without firing a shot to a landing force, a British landing force, which came in from behind the fort-- [mortar fire whistling, booming] a sad commentary on the first valiant defense by William Moultrie in 1776.

[mortar fire whistling, booming] People still could get through the British lines.

This is heavily forested country still.

It was even more heavily forested then.

Brigadier General du Portail, a French engineer sent by Congress, made his way through the British lines into the city, examined the city defenses, and pronounced the American defenses and position militarily untenable.

Benjamin Lincoln refused to let du Portail leave.

As he said, it might further injure troop and city morale, and so the gallant engineer was doomed to be captured with the rest of the army.

In the meantime, Banastre Tarleton, the British cavalryman, had surprised a Colonel White with the last remnants of the American horsemen at Lenud's Ferry on the Santee and scattered them again, recapturing prisoners picked up by Colonel White in a previous raid on the outer British lines.

The British drove a sap... through the wet ditch in front of city defenses and drained it and pushed their lines to within 25 yards of the besieged.

They now were ready for assault with a bayonet and the storming of Charleston.

The jaegers, at 80 to 100 yards, maintained their steady, aimed, killing rifle fire, and, finally, the people of Charleston, on 10 May 1780, requested Lincoln to surrender.

[mortar fire booming] On 11 May, the British crossed the wet ditch, poised for the final assault, and Lincoln, Benjamin Lincoln, General Benjamin Lincoln now agreed to surrender on British terms.

The casualties were amazingly light for the months involved.

There were 78 British killed and 189 wounded.

The Americans lost 89 killed and 138 wounded, and only 20 civilians were killed by the shellfire.

On 12 May 1780, 2,650... American Continentals marched out and piled their arms on the left of the hornwork.

Among the captured were 1 major general, 6 American brigadier generals, 9 American colonels, 14 lieutenant colonels, 15 majors, 84 captains, 84 lieutenants, 32 second lieutenants and ensigns... 1,000 sailors, including the French sailors who'd come in to help with the defense of the city.

One hundred fifty-seven guns and battery around the city defenses also were captured.

Three thousand, thirty-four militia were paroled, while the Continentals-- the American regulars-- were imprisoned, a far greater disaster for the American arms than Saratoga had been for the British.

The British placed all captured ammunition in a magazine between Archdale and West Streets... oddly, this accidentally exploded, with a loss of 100 men.

It killed the British guards and workmen.

And a British officer said to General William Moultrie, among the captured American officers, "Sir, you have made a gallant defense, but you had a great many rascals among you"-- and he mentioned their names-- "who came out every night from the city of Charleston and gave us information of what was passing in your garrison."

Now, after four years of war, with Saratoga the only great victory, American hopes seemed dim.

Savannah had fallen.

Charleston had fallen.

There were many Loyalists, many honest Loyalists, particularly in the South, and many honest American Patriots who did not wish separation from Great Britain, including Governor Rutledge of South Carolina.

These facts, too, are to discipline the war in the South.

There's a strange afterthought I should bring in here.

A year later, in 1781, Lord Charles Montagu, the former British governor of South Carolina, wrote a letter to General William Moultrie, now a military prisoner, offering him refuge in Jamaica and command of Montagu's regiment itself.

Montagu offered to serve under Moultrie if he'd only come over to the British.

He also assured Moultrie that after the war, all of his rights and all of his family properties in South Carolina would be assured.

We have his letter.

We have William Moultrie's letter.

Moultrie answered proudly... that he could not hide himself from himself if he did such a thing... that he could not live with the shame of having been guilty of such dishonor, and refused.

Shall we say, with far less reasons... Benedict Arnold behaved otherwise in the North.

Moultrie may not have been a great soldier, but he was a very great and gallant South Carolina gentleman.

♪ ♪ Savannah and Charleston-- Savannah on the Savannah River, Charleston here on its peninsula-- both now had fallen, both captured by the British.

The British held the two main ports and port areas in the South.

Loyalists began to join the British standard.

The British offered parole to militia officers and members of the militia.

This parole was taken.

Andrew Williamson, Andrew Pickens in the Upcountry, took their paroles.

The war seemed to be over in the South already.

The entire American army in the South had been captured with its commanding general.

This now becomes the era of the great partisans, the military leaders who kept the war alive in the South for over a year without hope, without logistical supplies, without uniforms, without support of any kind, desperate men striking savagely out of thicket and swamp and mountain and forest... men like Francis Marion, who had escaped the fall of Charleston by a lucky accident.

He had broken his ankle in a fall from a house and was recuperating in a plantation outside the city when Charleston was captured.

Thomas Sumter in the Upcountry, William Davie of North Carolina, William Campbell of Virginia, Elijah Clarke of Georgia, Hardin, Tom Taylor, the Hamptons... all the fighting men of the Carolinas and Virginia and Georgia who refused to surrender, who kept the war going in this terrible year of British conquest.

The British now began to extend their lines up into the upper part of the state, moving with a great deal of sophistication, moving with a great deal of care, establishing outposts.

They controlled the sea, remember, all along the coast here.

Moving outposts up to Georgetown, down to Beaufort, up the great river systems of South Carolina, moving up and forward into the state, doing their best to establish these posts where Loyalist elements in the state could rally, could rally around the British standards and British commanders and form a British army made up of Southerners, of Americans of the South, who would be used to conquer their own people.

This now is the British plan, and against them stand the partisans, the great partisans.

From here on in, the war in the South for over a year is to be the story of the partisans.

We shall talk about them in order as this program and course continues... Marion, the Swamp Fox; Thomas Sumter, the Gamecock; the men of South Carolina, of Georgia, of North Carolina, and Virginia.

The men who refused to surrender, who refused to give up, who kept the war going against all hope, against all...chance, against all odds, until new American armies could be formed and come down into the South again.

The South now becomes the battleground of freedom, the true battleground of freedom where the Revolutionary War was to be eventually won with the British surrender at Yorktown.

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