Eutaw Springs , livre ebook

EUTAW SPRINGS
EUTAW SPRINGS
THE FINAL BATTLE OF THE
American Revolution s Southern Campaign
ROBERT M. DUNKERLY and IRENE B. BOLAND

The University of South Carolina Press
2017 University of South Carolina
Published by the University of South Carolina Press
Columbia, South Carolina 29208
www.sc.edu/uscpress
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data can be found at http://catalog.loc.gov/
ISBN 978-1-61117-758-9 (paperback)
ISBN 978-1-61117-759-6 (ebook)
Front cover illustrations: ( top ) Battle of Eutaw Springs , 1857, engraving by Irving Washington, and ( right ) Nathanael Greene Major, engraved by J. B. Longacre from a drawing by H. Bounetheau, courtesy of the New York Public Library Digital Collections; and ( left ) Eutaw Creek downstream from big spring, courtesy of the South Caroliniana Library, University of South Carolina, Columbia.
Dedicated to Al Boland, whose love of military history was the inspiration for this book
To the Memory of the Brave Americans under General Greene, in South Carolina, Who Fell in the Action of September 8, 1781
Phillip Freneau
At Eutaw Springs the valiant died,
Their limbs with dust are covered o er.
Weep on, ye Spring, your beautiful tide;
How many heroes are no more.
If in this wreck of ruin, they
Can yet be thought to claim a tear,
Smite your gentle breast and say
The friends of freedom slumber here.
Thou, who shalt trace this bloody plain,
If goodness rules thy generous breast,
Sigh for the wasted rural reign,
Sigh for the shepherds, sunk to rest!
Stranger, their humble graves adorn,
You too may fall and ask a tear,
Tis not the beauty of the morn
That proves the evening shall be clear.
Contents
List of Illustrations
Preface
Acknowledgments
Prologue
Chapter One - Commanders and Personalities
Chapter Two - The War in the Carolinas and the March to Eutaw Springs
Chapter Three - First Encounters
Chapter Four - The Battle Develops
Chapter Five - British Resurgence
Chapter Six - Aftermath
Epilogue
Appendix One - Battlefield Archaeology, Preservation, and Tour
Appendix Two - Unit Strengths and Losses, Officer Casualties, and the Return of the Army
Notes
Bibliography
Index
Illustrations
Figures
Gen. Nathanael Greene
Southern campaign map
Relief map of South Carolina
British and Colonial troop movements
Geologic map of Eutaw Springs and vicinity
Stratigraphic column from the Pregnall No. 1 Corehole
Macrofossilferas Santee Limestone
Eutaw Springs, circa 1859
Eutaw Springs circa 1938
Large spring, summer 2005
Eutaw Creek downstream from big spring
The River Road
The sweet potato field
Historic creek photograph
John Eager Howard
Washington s cavalry flag
Lt. Col. William Polk
Lt. Col. John B. Ashe
Maj. Reading Blount
Lt. Col. John Harris Cruger
Col. Otho Holland Williams
Lt. Col. William Washington
Lt. Col. Henry Lee
William Washington monument
Brick House ruins
Maj. John Marjoribanks s grave
Daughters of the American Revolution monument
Pvt. Paul Stroman s grave
Pipe banner
Maps
Battle map 1: Opening Positions
Battle map 2: The Militia Advance
Battle map 3: The State Troops Engage
Battle map 4: The Continental Troops Engage
Battle map 5: The Americans Advance
Battle map 6: American High Tide
Battle map 7: American Withdrawal
Map 8: Tour route map
Preface
Who won? On September 8, 1781, a revitalized American army under General Nathanael Greene launched a surprise attack against a makeshift British force under Colonel Alexander Stewart. After several hours of intense combat, Greene broke off the engagement and withdrew. Many controversies remain from the Revolutionary War battle at Eutaw Springs, and this section will explore each of them in greater detail. A review of the sources used will highlight the difficulties in reconstructing the actions of September 8, 1781. Ironically the most enduring point of contention is over who won the engagement.
If the battle had ended when the Maryland and Virginia Continentals made their assault, there would be no question that this was an American victory. These troops swept the field, brushing aside the exhausted English troops and scoring hundreds of prisoners. The British artillery and camp fell into their hands.
Yet here the battle stalled, as the Continentals encountered the Brick House and Maj. John Marjoribanks regrouped at the palisaded garden. Looting, exhaustion, and a breakdown in leadership on the Continentals part, and hard work by Col. Alexander Stewart, Maj. Henry Sheridan, Bvt. Maj. John Coffin, and Marjoribanks to rally their men, turned the tide. The British counterattacked and pushed the Americans back for good. At this point Gen. Nathanael Greene broke off the engagement, as he related in the letter to the Continental Congress he wrote three days after the battle:
Washington failing in his charge on the left, and the Legion baffled in an attempt upon the right, and finding our infantry galled by the fire of the Enemy, and our Ammunition mostly consumed, tho both Officers and Men continued to exhibit uncommon acts of heroism, I thought proper to retire out of the fire of the House and draw up the Troops at a little distance in the Woods, not thinking it adviseable to push our advantages farther; being persuaded the enemy could not hold the Post many Hours, and that our chance to attack them on the retreat was better than a second attempt to dislodge them, which, if we succeeded, it must be attended with considerable loss. We collected our Wounded, except such as were under the command of the fire of the House, and retired to the ground from which we marched in the morning. 1
Stewart recalled that he was too weak to pursue and that during the fighting his army was nearly routed beyond recovery. He wrote to Lord Cornwallis: I assure you the Action was bloody and obstinate, and had I not my self rallyed the left wing of the Army, carried them on and exposed myself much the consequence to my little Army I believe every one allows might have been fatal. He lamented not having Cavalry to profite of the totall rout of their Infantry when the Americans retreated. Lt. Hector Maclean of the Eighty-Fourth Regiment concurred that the British lacked enough cavalry. 2
The Americans did net several hundred prisoners and pushed the British back, yet they did not break Stewart s army or drive them from the field. Stewart s troops were too weak to pursue and barely held on. A clearer example of a draw could not be had. For months afterward both armies spent their energies on recuperating from this exhausting battle.
Numbers and Losses
Historians also still debate the numbers of prisoners each army gave up and the losses they endured. Exact troop strengths are also in doubt. The present work used the reports of the opposing commanders to produce the numbers presented. Fortunately the returns for both armies exist to aid historians. According to surviving reports, the American army s strength was 2,080 men, and the British had 1,396. When looking at the numbers, it is important to remember that the rooting party sent out by Stewart included about three hundred men, who must be subtracted from his battle strength. While some did rejoin the army, they did not do so until after the engagement.
As far as the disagreement between American and British claims, it will probably never be possible to reconcile them. No doubt Greene, Col. Henry Lee, and others hoped to put the battle in the best light, especially given the dubious outcome and high casualties they suffered. Stewart likely felt the same way with respect to his report to his superiors.
The British lost more men to capture than at any other point in the southern campaign, save for the battle at Cowpens (where more than eight hundred were taken by Gen. Daniel Morgan s army). The loss of so many fighting men at a time when the British were spread thin in defending South Carolina was a serious blow, to be followed the following month by Lord Cornwallis s surrender at Yorktown.
Looting the Camp
Perhaps the most enduring issue is the looting by the Continental troops at the battle s climax. Has it been exaggerated, or did contemporaries downplay it? Greene does not refer to it at all. Lee alludes to it, but only Col. Otho Williams s account makes much of this aspect of the affair. Out of more than one hundred accounts by battle participants examined during research for this work, only two Americans mention the looting: Williams and Lt. Col. Samuel Hammond. No British accounts refer to the enemy s plundering the camp, a significant point since it was their camp in question and the looting supposedly saved their army at the point of collapse.
The first generation of historians to write about Eutaw Springs, which includes William Johnson and David Schenck, placed the blame for Greene s army s coming up short on the looting. Lee s son, Henry Jr., insisted in his account of the battle, The Campaign of 1781 in the Carolinas (1824), that the looting of the camp was proof of American victory following the retreat of the British and the camp s capture. Johnson, apparently with Williams s account as his source, wrote in his Sketches of the Life and Correspondence of Nathanael Greene (1822) that the men, thinking the victory secure, and bent on the immediate fruition of i