The following are brief profiles on some of the battles that took place in and around Summerton, S.C., during the Revolutionary War and Civil War:
On
November 5, Gen. Francis Marion camped at Jack’s Creek, 10 miles
above Nelson’s Ferry with 500 horsemen. A spy reported that camp to
Gen. Tarleton who was camped at “Big Home”. Tarleton lit a large
fire, hoping Gen. Marion would think “Big Home” was on fire.
However, the Richardsons warned Gen. Marion, who skirted the bogs and
never checked the pace of his horse "Ball", until he had
ridden across Richbourg’s Mill Dam. A Tory prisoner escaped and
reported this to Gen. Tarleton, who chased Gen. Marion and his men
down what is now U.S. Hwy. 15, to Pocotaligo Swamp, then down the
Georgetown Road and on to Ox Swamp, a distance of 26 miles.
New
recruits from the British left Charleston on their way to Winnsboro.
Gen. Francis Marion heard through a spy of the movement of these men
up the Santee River Road. He also learned that they were to be joined
by the Highland Regiment under Major McLeroth. Approximately 700 men,
mostly from Williamsburg, were commanded by Marion who charged up the
road. When the opposing forces met just beyond Half Way Swamp, it was
agreed that each side would select 20 men to decide the battle by
dueling. At the last moment, the British decided to retreat from the
battlefield proceeding to Singleton’s Mill. After a brief skirmish,
both the Americans and the British fled when they found the Singleton
family had come down with smallpox.
Gen.
Francis Marion - 'Swamp Fox'
Francis
Marion (1732 – 1795) was a military officer who served in
the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War. He
was a persistent adversary of the British during their occupation
of South Carolina. Due to his irregular methods of warfare, he is
considered one of the fathers of modern guerrilla warfare.
Marion
showed himself to be a singularly able leader of irregular
militiamen and ruthless in his terrorising of British Loyalists.
'Marion's Men', as his militia troops were known, served without
pay, supplied their own horses, arms and often their food. Marion
rarely committed his men to frontal warfare, but repeatedly
surprised larger bodies of Loyalists and British regulars with
quick surprise attacks and equally quick withdrawal from the
battle field.
Colonel
Tarleton
was sent to capture or kill Gen. Marion in November 1780. After
unsuccessfully pursuing Marion's troops for over 26 miles through
a swamp, it was Tarleton who gave Marion his nom de guerre, the
"Swamp Fox". He is quoted as saying, "as for
this damned old fox, the Devil himself could not catch him."
Read
about the Historic
Battles of Clarendon County.
After
the British defeat at Yorktown in October 1781, the British
Parliament suspended offensive operations in America. In December
1782, the British withdrew their garrison from Charleston. The war
was brought to an official end by the signing of the Treaty
of Paris in 1783.
After the war, Gen.
Marion returned to his plantation to find it had been burnt during
the fighting. He had to borrow money to rebuild his plantation. He
also married his cousin, Mary Esther Videau, after the war. Marion
served several terms in the South Carolina State Senate. He died
on his estate in 1795, at the age of 63. |
General
Thomas Sumter tried unsuccessfully to overpower the British fort at
Wright's Bluff (aka Fort Watson). Sumter had captured 66 prisoners
and badly needed stores. He was supposed to receive some stores at a
point on the river bank, just above Wright's Bluff, but a turncoat
river pilot landed the stores within the reach of the British, who or
course seized them. After unsuccessfully attacking the British
encampment, Sumter took his men off to the High Hills of the Santee.
Before
Lake Marion was formed, there was a swamp at Wyboo with several
wooden bridges on the Santee River Road. Lord Francis Rowdon, Field
Commander of the King’s Forces in SC, decided that the time was
ripe to crush Marion. With a double pronged pincher, he ordered Col.
Watson to attack the front and Col. Doyle to cut off their retreat.
Gen. Marion was ambushed at Wyboo Swamp. A bloody battle followed
which was actually a draw. Marion retreated down the River road about
3 miles to Capt. John Cantey’s Plantation.
Fort
Watson was constructed in 1780 by British Colonel John
Watson in Clarendon County, South Carolina. It was constructed on
a site originally built by local Santee
Indians as a burial mound for one of their more renowned chiefs.
Because of its strategic location, the site was used by the British
during the Revolution to control movement on the Santee River as well
as the main road between Charleston and Camden. This was the first
post in S.C. retaken from the British. On April 15, 1781, General
Francis Marion and Lt. Col. Henry “Lighthorse Harry” Lee
encircled the fort and after 8 days of futile small arms fire, Major
Hezekiah Maham constructed a pine tower of sufficient height to
overlook the defenders’ stockade. On April 23, 1781, the Americans
mounted an attack from the tower and from the ground which lasted
only a short time. Lt. McKay surrendered the fort, its garrison and
its supplies to General Marion.
Confederate States of
America & the Civil War
Formed
in February 1861, the Confederate
States of America (CSA) was a republic composed of eleven
Southern states that seceded from the Union in order to preserve
slavery, states’ rights, and political liberty for whites. Its
conservative government, with Mississippian Jefferson Davis as
president, sought a peaceful separation, but the United States
refused to acquiesce in the secession. The war that ensued started
at Fort Sumter, South Carolina, on April 12, 1861, and lasted four
years. It cost the South nearly 500,000 men killed or wounded out
of a population of 9 million… See
History.com |
Gen.
William T. Sherman and Union forces ravaged much of South Carolina in
the months before the end of the Civil War in April 1865. As
Sherman's forces departed Columbia S.C., he ordered his troops to
begin marching towards North Carolina.
As
Sherman marched northward, Gen. Potter and 2,700 Union troops were
ordered to move inland from Georgetown to destroy rail lines and
military stores in Sumter and Clarendon counties. Potter and his
troops engaged Confederate troops and local militia in various
skirmishes between April 10-21, 1865. A large portion of the nearby
town of Manning was destroyed during "Potter's Raid".
