Rugeley’s Mill, North of Camden, South Carolina

August 14, 1780

CHAPTER XXII

* * *

By seven o’clock a.m. the mid-August heat and humidity were already sweating the Americans camped at Rugeley’s Mill, some eighteen miles north of Camden, near the Wateree River. It was the heart of the “sickly season” in South Carolina—the time when the sun bore straight down and the sea and swamps and rivers filled the air with stifling humidity that killed more of the southern population than any other season. Soldiers were drenched in their own sweat, and dreaded the approach of midday, when the dead air became hazy, and everything about them was wet to the touch—tents, axes, muskets, cannon, clothing, faces, beards. Gunpowder was damp and questionable.

Inside the large command tent near the north end of the camp, Major General Horatio Gates, short, paunchy, thick-lipped, aging, sat at the head of his large war council table, chair turned toward the only other man present. Colonel Francis Marion of the South Carolina militia, wiry, small, nose and chin too large, knees malformed since his youth, was seated to the right of Gates, one arm on the table, listening intently as the sonorous Gates concluded their brief conference.

“I agree with your request, Colonel. We can trap the British when we drive them from Camden if they have no route of escape. Take your . . . uh . . . command to the Santee River and destroy all boats or craft of any kind you find there for a distance of twenty or more miles to the southeast. Without means of escape on the river, the British will be in our hands. You may leave immediately.”

Gates’s mouth was smiling, but his eyes were not. He handed Marion a sealed document. “Here are your written orders.”

Marion took the document. “Anything else, sir?”

“Nothing. Good luck. You are dismissed.”

The forty-eight-year-old Marion stood, nodded, and limped out the tent flap. Behind him, Gates’s smile faded as he watched the wrinkled, odd red coat of coarse cloth and the worn uniform move into the heat of the morning sun. Never had Gates seen an officer in such a mockery of a uniform, leading men who lacked the slightest sense of military protocol and who looked and dressed more like savages than a civilized fighting command. Never mind that Marion and Thomas Sumter and Andrew Pickens and William Davie and Lee Davidson had led small bands of such men to make lightning strikes on British regiments fifty times their number, wreak havoc, and disappear in the swamps and forests like ghosts, to strike again and again. Never mind that these Carolinans had terrified the British, stopped them in their tracks, cowed them relentlessly all over the state. Horrified, red-coated officers had sent the best they had, including the inveterate and detested Banastre Tarleton, to find them and destroy them, only to learn that British regulars had no chance of following these freedom fighters through the swamps and bogs and across the rivers, infested with cottonmouth and copperhead snakes and alligators. Indeed, it was Tarleton himself who had sworn to catch Marion and set out in hot pursuit, following him and his little company for seven hours and twenty-six miles through swamps and across rivers, to finally stop his men at Ox Swamp on the Pocotaligo River. The chase in the heat and humidity had drained Tarleton’s horses and men to exhaustion, and in frustration Tarleton cried out, “We will find Sumter. But as for this cursed old fox, the devil himself could not catch him.” In the retelling of it, up and down the rivers and through the swamps, the tough, gimpy little colonel became the Swamp Fox.

Gates glanced at the clock on his conference table, then walked to the front of the tent to watch Marion disappear in the morning cleanup of the American camp. A sense of relief flickered inside that he was quit of Marion and his band of rabble for a few days. He brought his thoughts back to the business of the day. Drill would commence at eight o’clock sharp. Discipline was the hallmark of a superior army, and Gates intended his assignment to the Southern Campaign to be a stepping-stone to greater things.

In the meantime, he had a war council of select officers convening at half-past seven in which he had prepared to lay out his carefully devised master plan to strike the British supply depot at Camden. He walked back to his place at the head of the council table and picked up his notes.

Six officers came striding, boots wet to the ankles from the grass and tunics showing dark stains beneath the arms and between the shoulder blades. The tent flaps at both ends of the long tent were pulled open in the vain hope that a stir of breeze might move the stifling air inside, but there was nothing. The pickets at the flaps nodded as they recognized the officers—Smallwood, de Kalb, Caswell, Stevens, Armand, Williams—and gave them entrance.

The aging Gates waited, face pleasant, amiable, ever the politician, the conciliator. He set his notes on the table beside two scrolled maps to greet each officer as he entered, and gesture him to his chair. Seated immediately to his right was Major General Baron Jean de Kalb, born to Bavarian peasants in 1737, a professional soldier, six feet tall, powerfully built, spartan in his personal habits, energetic, a model much admired by the men he led.

De Kalb had been in command of the American forces in South Carolina until replaced by Gates through an act of Congress. It was de Kalb who had seen the tremendous blow that could be struck by taking the huge British supply depot at Camden. Loss of the guns and munitions and food and medical supplies that sustained the British regulars through central South Carolina could cripple the entire British campaign, perhaps fatally. He pored over maps and intelligence reports from his scouts and carefully crafted a plan to move his patchwork American army of Southern militia and New England Continentals through the hills of Mecklenberg and Rowan counties, where the farmers were friendly to the Americans and the barns and chicken coops and pig pens were full and available.

Upon the arrival of Gates, the darling of Congress, de Kalb relinquished command to him and stepped down to second in command. Overnight he learned that while Gates agreed with the military decision to assault Camden, Gates saw no need to march the army through friendly country, when they could save nearly four days by marching due south through country filled with Tories loyal to the Crown. Gates read the reports of de Kalb’s scouts, describing the hostility of the Tories bordering the shorter route. He listened to their emphatic statements that the Loyalists had stripped their farms of everything that might be used or eaten by the Continentals, and he listened to the heated arguments of de Kalb and Otho Williams against marching his troops through such hostile country in the devastating August heat and humidity.

He listened and he set his heels and called a council.

De Kalb took his seat as directed, wiped the sweat from the leather hatband of his tricorn with a handkerchief and set it on the table, and with the others, waited.

Gates cleared his throat. “Gentlemen, your presence is appreciated. We have many things to discuss, so with your permission I shall proceed without delay.”

He referred to his notes.

“You are aware that General Clinton has returned to New York. General Cornwallis has assumed command of the British army remaining here. He has done nothing since his arrival regarding the depot at Camden.”

He unrolled one of the scrolled maps, spread it before the officers,  and reached for a wooden pointer three feet long and moved the stick as he spoke.

“We are here, at Rugeley’s Mills, some five miles west of the Wateree River, here.”

He waited while all eyes studied the geography.

“South of us, here, is Hobkirk’s Hill, and directly below is the village of Camden, here, on the east bank of the river.

“Scouting reports confirm the British have a critical number of cannon and muskets stored there, with a large supply of gunpowder, shot, medicine, food, and blankets.”

His face took on an intensity as he continued. “The entire depot is guarded by a very small company of British regulars. Two things are obvious. Loss of that depot would be a serious blow to them, and, there are far too few men to defend it against a major attack.”

He laid the stick down.

“We have about seven thousand troops in our command.”

De Kalb turned startled eyes to Stevens. Seven thousand? Ridiculous! Less than half that many can march and fight! Most of them are North Carolina and Virginia militia who have never faced a major battle. He turned back to Gates and remained silent, listening intently, waiting his opportunity to speak. The distant sounds of the camp and the drill sergeants and the insects buzzing everywhere were forgotten as Gates went on.

“I have decided we shall strike the depot as quickly as possible, before General Cornwallis realizes his mistake. To do that, time is critically important. We can save three or four days of marching by moving directly down to the depot. My intelligence reports support this decision, since we can carry some rations and there are farmers sympathetic to our cause who will help.”

De Kalb and Stevens glanced at General Richard Caswell of the North Carolina militia, who had pleaded with Gates for such an attack, claiming it was critical to boost flagging morale and asserting that there would be sufficient food to maintain the army on a direct march. De Kalb’s reports to the contrary, Gates had listened to Caswell. Every man at the table swabbed at their sweaty faces with damp handkerchiefs as Gates continued.

He picked up the pointer. “Under my orders, Colonel Thomas Sumter of the South Carolina militia is leading his command west of us, across the Wateree River to strike a supply column coming to Camden, which is a decoy maneuver to make the British believe that is our objective. Half an hour ago Colonel Francis Marion received my orders to proceed southeast down the Santee, here, to destroy all watercraft and effectively close the river as a major escape route for the British when we strike. If we succeed as we should, we will have them trapped against the river. We can destroy most of them at will.”

He laid the pointer down. “Questions?”

De Kalb raised a hand. “This morning’s effectives report shows we have just over three thousand men who can march and fight. Is the report incorrect?”

Gates shook his head. “My report shows seven thousand.”

“Seven thousand effectives? Most of them are inexperienced militia.”

Gates kept his voice even, conclusive. “Seven thousand in the command. Certainly, the effectives, whatever the number, are sufficient to our need.”

A shudder ran through de Kalb. Knowing the strength of your own command was the first maxim of war. Not knowing it, or worse, knowing it and refusing to give it proper weight, was tantamount to suicide. The words had rolled off Gates’s tongue like one of the golden euphemisms he had used so generously to dazzle and charm Congress. In those hallowed halls such phrases rang rich and irresistible; on the battlefield, where men lived or died by the words of their commanders, they were a death knell.

De Kalb pushed on. “General Cornwallis has had his patrols out. Are we certain he has not yet guessed the plan? Taken steps to defend his depot at Camden?”

“As of this morning the depot remains vulnerable.”

“Would it be prudent to order Colonel Sumter, or Colonel Marion, to scout the roads into the depot? Ten of their men could do it and never been seen.”

“Colonels Sumter and Marion have their orders. Are there any other questions?”

For a moment talk went around the table, but no questions were posed to Gates.

“Prepare your commands to march by ten o’clock tomorrow night. I will have written orders delivered to each of you today defining the marching order. You are dismissed.”

The six officers rose, picked their tricorns from the table, and without a word walked out of the tent into the sweltering heat. De Kalb paused for a moment to peer south as though in the looking he could span the miles between himself and General Cornwallis and the British regulars, to see them and know their minds. Where was General Cornwallis? Had his scouts and his spies discovered Gates’s plan to attack Camden? And if they had, what was Cornwallis doing about it?

De Kalb broke it off and continued striding toward his horse. He had a command that must be prepared to march out in thirty-six hours, should they happen to survive the crushing heat.

To the south, General Lord Charles Cornwallis, stout, perspiring, mounted on a bay mare in the midmorning heat, gave orders, and his column of marching red-coated regulars came to a halt as they approached the great Camden depot. He sat tall in the saddle to turn his head slowly, intently studying the lay of the huge supply depot at the edge of town, with the British Union Jack on the pole, hanging dead and limp in the heat. He estimated the number of cannon, then the barrels of gunpowder, the crated muskets, and then the great stacks of boxed food, blankets, medicines, uniforms.

He located the headquarters building and turned to his aide. “I’ll take quarters in the command building. Have the troops set up camp and get inside their tents out of this sun. Then assemble the officers in the war council room immediately.”

“Yes, sir.”

Forty minutes later Cornwallis stood at the head of the table in the sweltering hot war council room, facing eight officers, their tricorns on the table, each wiping at the sweat trickling down their faces. He tapped a stack of papers with a thick index finger.

“There are two matters we are going to address. First, I have quickly reviewed the items and supplies on today’s inventory of this depot. If it were all to fall into American hands or be destroyed, our campaign in the south would be seriously crippled.”

No one moved.

“Second, I have reports from our patrols and spies that General Gates has assembled a large force north of us. The core of his command is Continentals, not southern militia. I can reach but one conclusion. He means to attack this depot.”

Instantly the room was filled with open talk, exclamations, gestures. Cornwallis allowed the stir to dwindle before he raised a hand and it stopped.

“I do not intend letting him get within cannon range of our stores. A cannon barrage for one-half a day could have most of this depot burning, perhaps destroyed. To prevent that, we are marching north to attack him.”

Again talk erupted and Cornwallis waited.

“My reports estimate his effective troops at about three thousand. With our regulars and militia, we have about two thousand. However, two-thirds of the American forces are militia—North Carolina and Virginia. Worse for them, their Continentals and militia have never been together in battle. I calculate their militia will not stand and fight. Of our two thousand, seventeen hundred are regulars. On that basis, I believe the numbers of competent soldiers favors us.”

He stopped and waited for complete silence.

“Time is against us. Have your commands erect their tents and take rest during the heat of the day. Have them provisioned and prepared to march north at by ten o’clock tomorrow night.”

Surprise showed on the faces of the officers. “Ten o’clock tomorrow night, sir?”

“Tomorrow night.”

“Yes, sir.”

* * * * *

The sounds of an army marching in the night are somehow distorted, magnified, eerie. The tramping of six thousand feet and the muffled clomping of two thousand horses’ hooves and the rumble of six-foot-tall wheels on cannon carriages and the creak of freight wagons fill the darkness with an ominous din. All creatures of the forest slink away to leave the sounds of man echoing in the forests and across the rivers and swamps, unreal, daunting. Soldiers going to battle march in subdued silence, peering into the darkness, seeing phantom enemies in the forest a thousand times as they move on. Time loses proportion; minutes become hours, hours become endless.

The American column moving south through the dank smell of the dead and decaying things in the swamps and bogs was led by Colonel Charles Armand and his cavalry. Behind them came the militia regiment of Virginia, followed by the tough Continentals commanded by General Jean de Kalb. Following was the regiment of North Carolina with the heavy guns and supply wagons.

In the ranks of General de Kalb’s Continentals, Lieutenant Billy Weems glanced at the waning moon low in the southwest, then at the stars overhead, and continued the pace on the dirt road running nearly due south from Rugeley’s Mills to Camden. From his right came the high-pitched voice of Sergeant Alvin Turlock.

“Past one o’clock. Close to two.”

Billy nodded and wiped at the sweat on his forehead and said nothing. He turned his head to glance back at his men from the Massachusetts regiment, assigned to de Kalb, then straightened and kept marching.

The sudden pop of a musket far ahead brought every head up and every eye straining to see ahead in the faint light, and there was nothing. Two seconds later the popping of four other musket shots slowed the entire column, and then the rattle of pistols and muskets came loud to stop them in their tracks.

Captain Prescott, marching ten feet ahead of Billy, turned and raised his hand to shout, “Steady! Hold your ground!”

Billy turned and surveyed his men to be certain they didn’t break. They dropped to their haunches, but held their positions, waiting, listening to the sound of musket and pistol fire escalate to a full-out battle. It held for a time, then began to dwindle. Billy narrowed his eyes to concentrate on the sounds, trying to read what was happening half a mile ahead.

Turlock exclaimed, “That’s no skirmish. Sounds like Armand’s cavalry ran into something big.”

“No cannon. It wasn’t an ambush. Muskets and pistols. That could be cavalry against cavalry with swords.”

“Could be.”

Ahead, Billy saw a few of the Virginia militia break from the road toward the forest, and he trotted forward, calling, “Back into ranks! Get back! Wait for orders. Follow your officers.”

The errant soldiers pivoted and ran back to their positions and dropped to their haunches with the others. Billy stopped and waited for a moment, then walked back to his own command shouting, “Hold your positions! Stay down! Wait for orders! Wait!”

The firing stopped as suddenly as it began. Men reached to wipe nervously at their beards, straining to see, wondering in the blackness who had fought, and who had won and who had lost. Then from ahead came the sound of a horse running at stampede gait, and an officer, dim in the moonlight, hauled his mount skidding to a stop to shout, “General de Kalb—report to General Gates!” He rammed his spurs home and continued his sprint toward the rear of the column while de Kalb broke out of the ranks and reined his mount forward. Two minutes later the officer came galloping from the rear of the column with two more officers behind, following.

The four officers reined in their heaving mounts and swung to the ground where a low lantern cast yellow light on the ground near General Gates. He waited until they were crowded around him before he faced Colonel Armand.

“Repeat what you reported to me.”

Wide-eyed, still breathing heavily, Armand poured it out. “One minute they were not there, the next they were, shooting in the dark. No plan of attack—we simply stumbled into them or they stumbled into us. Cavalry against cavalry. We shot back. Pistols, muskets, then went to our sabers.”

“Do you know who they were?”

“Tarleton!”

The officers caught their breath but did not speak.

“How do you know?”

“We heard him! We heard officers call his name. Two men were close enough to see that big feather he wears in his hat. It was Tarleton’s cavalry.”

“What came of it?”

“Nothing. Tarleton came head-on. Things got confused in the dark and a few of our men got separated and somehow got nearly to his flanks. He backed away and tried to form a battle line. A few more shots were exchanged and we both withdrew because neither of us knew how many we were fighting. I came here to report.”

“Was it just Tarleton? His command only?”

“No. Our men who got past him onto his flank reported running into infantry. His cavalry was riding advance for a column, just like us.”

“Any conclusions?”

“Yes! For whatever reason, Cornwallis was coming north to surprise us. He didn’t know we were coming south to surprise him, and we collided by purest accident.”

Gates mouth narrowed. “There you have it, gentlemen. I’ve called you together for a decision on what to do.”

In the shadowy light of the single lantern, de Kalb stared in disbelief. A war council? With a deadly enemy somewhere in the dark, and gun smoke still in the air from the first engagement? If ever there was need for a commander to take charge and issue orders, it was now. He glanced around the circle and found every man doing the same—waiting for someone else to state the obvious. Retreat. Fall back. Regroup and wait for another time, another day.

Not one man spoke, and suddenly de Kalb understood. No one wanted to be the first to suggest such a thing. Then, in the silence, Colonel Edward Stevens, brave but foolish, blurted, “We must fight! It is now too late to retreat. We can do nothing else. We must fight!”

A dead silence set in while Gates stared at Stevens, then his officers, and in a quiet voice, almost timid, apologetic, he said, “We must fight, then. Listen while I give you the battle order.”

He stepped from the tiny circle of light for a moment to draw a scrolled map from the bags on his horse, and returned to spread it on the ground. With the officers circled about, he pointed as he spoke.

“We’re here on the Charlotte Road. We’re flanked on both sides by swamps, but we can get cannon through. Behind us is open road, and fairly open country for us to maneuver. Behind the British is Saunders Creek. Nearly two hundred feet wide, with but one bridge. They have no avenue of escape or room to maneuver.”

He paused, then stood to give assignments.

“Brigadier Mordecai Gist, you will hold the right flank on the west side of the road with your Delaware and Maryland regiments. General de Kalb, you will take command there. Colonel Caswell, you will hold the center with your militia. Colonel Stevens, your Virginians will hold the left with support from Colonel Armand’s cavalry. Brigadier Smallwood, you will hold your Maryland brigade in reserve behind the front line. Move all seven cannon to the front and load them with grapeshot in the event of a British charge. My command post will be six hundred yards behind the front line.”

De Kalb gaped! The entire left of the line was to be held by untested and untrained militia! In the face of a charge by Tarleton’s cavalry, or a bayonet attack by seasoned British regulars, there was no chance the militia would survive! They would break and run, or they would die, and either way, once the British had breached the lines, the battle would be lost!

There was no time to protest. Gates pointed. “To your commands, gentlemen.”

In the first gray of dawn, the Americans in the front lines strained to see how the British were dispersed, and slowly they understood how Cornwallis had deployed his army.

The British left was led by Lord Rawdon, an experienced, excellent fighter, who had command of part of Tarleton’s infantry, Irish volunteers, and North Carolina volunteers. To Rawdon’s right were twelve hundred regular redcoats, seasoned, tough, ready, under command of Lieutenant Colonel James Webster. Behind in reserve rode Banastre Tarleton with the balance of his crack force of cavalry.

Positioned as they were, on the Charlotte Road, the flanks of both armies were confined by swamps; there would be no room for either side to circle for an attack from the rear. The battle would be fought head-on, face-to-face.

Dawn came hot and muggy with a haze in the air. Standing tall in his stirrups, Colonel Williams shaded his eyes and strained to see the British, and suddenly their red coats were there in the trees, marching in a column. Williams wheeled his horse about and kicked it to a gallop to haul it to a skidding stop twenty yards from Captain Anthony Singleton of the artillery.

He pointed. “They’re coming! Open on them at once!”

He reined his prancing mare about and drove his spurs home to race back to Gates’s command post to report. Chest heaving from his run, he exclaimed, “The enemy are deploying on the right, sir. There’s a good chance for Stevens to attack before they’re formed.”

Gates nodded. “Sir, that’s right. Let it be done.”

It was the last order ever uttered by Horatio Gates as an American general.

Williams jerked his horse about one more time and galloped back to the front lines, searching for Stevens. He saw him with his Virginia militia and galloped in, waving, shouting frantically, “Attack! Move forward! Before they form! Move forward!”

Stevens saw and heard and instantly raised his sword high. “Attack! Attack!”

From a distance Williams watched in shock. The Virginia militia faltered! A few moved forward in twos and threes, slow, sluggish, reluctant. Williams turned his head to see the British regulars spread from the column into a full battle line and surge forward. Too late! Too late! They’ve formed!

Desperately, Williams kicked his horse forward, screaming to those around him, “Follow me, follow me!” in a frantic attempt to draw fire from the Virginians to himself. Less than fifty men sprinted after him, and he shouted, “Take to the trees! Give them an Indian charge!”

They never reached the trees. A hail of shot from the British Brown Bess muskets came whistling, and the redcoats surged forward at a trot. Williams and his volunteers faltered and then started back, breaking into a full, running retreat.

From the back of his horse Cornwallis saw the faltering Virginia militia and sensed the fatal weakness in the American front line. Without hesitation he called orders to Colonel Webster.

“A bayonet charge! Now!”

Webster lowered his sword and set his spurs and shouted to his Welsh Fusiliers and West Riding Regiment, “Show them the bayonet! Follow me!”

A resounding “Hurrah!” came from the throats of a thousand British regulars as they ran forward, then stopped. Half went to one knee with the remainder behind them, standing, and they leveled their muskets and on command, blasted a volley that echoed for miles. Then, through the cloud of white gun smoke they came charging like a scarlet tidal wave, bayonets gleaming in the morning sun.

Only a handful of the terrified Virginians fired their muskets. Most of them turned in a panic-driven rout, throwing down their muskets to run the faster. Stevens rode among them, slapping them on their backs with the flat of his sword, trying to stop them, turn them, bring them to a stand to fight. “We have bayonets, too!” he shouted. “Don’t you know what they’re for?”

The bayonets he spoke of had been issued to the Virginia militia for the first time the day before. Not one among them had the faintest notion of how to use one. They dodged Stevens and ran.

To the right of Stevens and his Virginians, Caswell’s North Carolina militia watched in shocked horror as the British tore into the scattering Virginians with their bayonets and gun butts. For ten seconds the Americans stared wide-eyed at the mayhem and then their hearts failed them. As though by a silent signal, two thousand five hundred of them threw down their muskets and turned and ran pell-mell in any direction that gave passage—toward the swamps, through the trees, and on every trail or road they could find back to the north. They collided with the Maryland Brigade held in reserve behind them, scattering them, sweeping them along in their mindless, desperate retreat.

Six hundred yards behind the front lines, General Horatio Gates watched the entire American left and center fold and collapse, and then they were coming at him like a blind horde, overrunning everything before them. He stood mesmerized, unable to form a coherent order, watching dumbly as his army disintegrated and was being ripped to shreds.

At the front lines, Billy saw the American lines scatter and disappear like fall leaves in a wind. Stunned, mind reeling, he realized that of all the Americans in the battle, he and his Massachusetts volunteers were part of the only command standing its ground, under the leadership of General de Kalb. Instantly he searched for the general, picked him out of the chaos, and shouted to his men, “Follow me!”

He led them to form around de Kalb and Mordecai Gist, both still mounted, rallying their men. The faithful came, six hundred of them, to form a phalanx around the two officers as they squared with the oncoming redcoats and ordered a bayonet charge. Billy lowered his musket and plunged forward into the redcoats, bayonet thrusting, driving the startled British back, leading his men after them. Behind him, to his left, Sergeant Turlock shouted his men on.

Three times the British rallied, and three times the courageous de Kalb, outnumbered two to one, led his men to turn them, drive them back. Gun smoke cut visibility to less than forty feet in the mad chaos of the brutal, bloody, face-to-face, hand-to-hand fight. From twenty feet Billy heard the sharp scream of a stricken horse and saw de Kalb’s dapple gray stumble and go down. De Kalb hit the ground rolling and came to his feet swinging his sword. A British saber laid open a six-inch gash in his head, and he shuddered and shook off the blood and fought on.

Behind them, General Gates backed up to a wagon to avoid the blind stampede of his disemboweled army as they thundered past him. He opened his mouth to shout the order to stop, but realized it was useless in the deafening roar of terrified men and muskets. He seized the reins of the horse he had tied within reach—a tall, deep-chested bay thoroughbred, reputed to be the fastest horse in the American army—and pulled himself up into the saddle. He took one last look at the tiny knot of men gathered around de Kalb, turned the animal to the north, and drove his spurs into its flanks. The horse hit stampede pace in three jumps, and Gates never looked back.

De Kalb, bleeding profusely from his head, stood shoulder to shoulder with his men, swinging his sabre as one possessed. Thirty feet to his right, Billy and Turlock had formed their men in a semicircle to protect de Kalb’s flanks, and were using their bayonets and muskets like clubs, swinging, slashing at the oncoming redcoats. A musketball slammed into De Kalb’s hip, and he grunted and went to one knee. Another broke his shoulder. Two punched into his chest. He struggled to his feet and fought on.

Cornwallis watched the stubborn, bloody battle from his horse and turned to shout his next order.

“Highlanders, attack!”

The Scots came screeching in their kilts, swinging their feared Claymores, knowing no fear. What was left of the six hundred Americans stiffened and once more they stopped the two thousand British regulars swarming around them. The British muskets blasted, and de Kalb shuddered and went to his knees, then toppled over. Billy saw him go down and started to his side when Cornwallis came charging on his horse, through his own men, scattering them, to dismount and kneel beside de Kalb. For several moments he stared at the fallen general, aware that the unconscious warrior was perhaps the most courageous, valiant enemy he had ever faced. He removed his tricorn in respect, then turned his head to shout, “Get a litter! Bind his wounds!”

With the arrival of Cornwallis in the pandemonium of the battle and his attempt to save de Kalb, the British regulars slowed in their attack, and in those moments Billy did not hesitate. “Follow me!” he shouted, and drove north through the redcoats, with what was left of his men following. A few survivors of other companies fell in behind them as they ran for the woods. Billy held the pace until the sounds of battle were far behind, and then he stopped beside a small stream flowing south to Saunders Creek. Those with him dropped in the grass, chests heaving, sweat running, hair plastered to their foreheads. Billy remained standing, looking for officers, and there were none. He was in command.

From nowhere Turlock was beside him, flecks of blood spattered on his sweat-soaked shirt, beard dripping with sweat. “Well, sir,” he panted, “it’s time to give some orders.”

Billy looked at him for a moment. Never had he felt more strongly the surge of relief that arose at the sight and the sound of the steady little sergeant. “North?”

Turlock shrugged. “Sounds right.” He jerked a thumb to point over his shoulder. “Things is a little tight down there to the south.”

The sun had passed its zenith when General Horatio Gates pulled his sweated, lathered mount to a stop in Charlotte, sixty miles north of Camden. He grained the horse and rested through the night, arose before dawn, and continued his run to the north. He did not stop until he reached Hillsboro two days later, two hundred ten miles north of Camden. Never in the history of the Continental Army had a general run further or faster from the scene of his utter defeat.

It was weeks before Gates was to learn the cost of his cowardice. Thirty-three officers and one-third of his army dead or captured. The survivors scattered all over the south, never again to assemble under a single command. Every wagon, every cannon, all his stores, supplies, gunpowder—everything—destroyed or captured, leaving the despised Banastre Tarleton and his cavalry free to track down and kill the fugitive Americans, huddled in the woods and swamps.

Gates had been sent down by an adoring Congress to redeem the loss, by General Lincoln, of the American army at the battle of Charleston. Instead, he had succeeded in losing the second American army, smashed, devastated, gone forever. There was no organized American force surviving in the Southern Campaign; the British had the Southern states in the palm of their hand.

The third day following the rout, the heroic Major General Baron Jean de Kalb died of eleven wounds, both musketball and bayonet. To his everlasting credit, General Lord Cornwallis and his entire staff, with tricorns under their arms and heads bowed, assembled to give full military and Masonic honors at the funeral of the gallant general.

To the north, Billy led his small band of survivors deep into the forests and the swamps, away from roads and towns. He traveled in the dark hours and hid his men during the killing heat of the day. To stay alive, they roasted snake meat on spits and ate half-ripe peaches stolen from orchards and corn just coming into the full ear taken from fields.

Beneath the broiling noonday sun, sitting under a green canopy of palmetto trees with his back against a rotting log, sweat running to drip from his beard, Billy dealt once more with the burdens of command that rode him day and night.

Where are we? Which direction do we go? Where is an American camp? When will they send someone down from the north to find us? Who will they send?

For the first time a thought struck him, and he leaned back.

Will they send anyone at all? Or are we abandoned?

He pushed the thought from his mind. Abandoned or not, lost or not, he had to make his men believe he knew where he was going, and why, and he would do it. Without a map or a compass, without food or medicines, he would do it.

He closed his eyes to sweat out the day and get ready for the night march through the muck and stink, the snakes and alligators and insects, and the uncharted swamps and thick forests.

Notes

The “sickly season” in South Carolina was August through November, in which diseases incident to heat and humidity brought on more deaths among the population than any other season (Edgar, South Carolina: A History, p. 157).

The battle of Camden is set forth herein correctly, with the Americans moving south from Rugeley’s Mill, and the British coming north from near Camden, to meet by accident just north of Saunders Creek. General Gates arranged his American forces with the left of the line entirely manned by inexperienced militia who fled at the first British attack. The American front collapsed, and almost instantly the entire American army was thrown into a chaotic retreat. General de Kalb fought bravely with his men, and did in fact sustain eleven wounds of which he died three days later. British General Cornwallis paid de Kalb the highest honors. Cowardly General Horatio Gates mounted the fastest horse in the American army and fled, leaving his men far behind, thus losing his entire army with all supplies and munitions. He stopped about 210 miles to the north, in the town of Hillsboro. On the motion of John Mathews of South Carolina, and Whitmill Hill of North Carolina, Congress voted to strip Gates of command of the Southern Department. He was never given another command (Higginbotham, The War of American Independence, pp. 359–60; Mackesy, The War for America, 1775–1783, p. 343; Leckie, George Washington’s War, pp. 528–38; and see map of battle, 534; Lumpkin, From Savannah to Yorktown, pp. 57–67, with illustrations therein).

General Gates considered Colonel Francis Marion and his band of fighters to be “burlesque,” a laughable concoction of ill-trained rabble. Gates was glad to send them on assignments that got them out of his presence (Edgar, South Carolina, A History, p. 235; Rankin, Francis Marion: The Swamp Fox, p. 58).