Smallwood having received information that a body of Tories, under Colonel Rugeley, were on the alert to intercept his wagons, ordered Morgan and Washington to march against them. They retreated, and took post at Rugeley's house, on the Camden road, which he had stockaded, together with his log-barn.
Washington, with his cavalry, pursued, and at about ten o'clock on the fourth of December,1780 appeared at Rugeley's Mill, on the south side of the creek. The Loyalists were strongly posted in the log-barn, in front, of which was a ditch and abatis. Having no artillery,
Washington could make but little impression upon the garrison, so he resorted to stratagem.
Fashioning a pine-log so as to resemble a cannon, he placed it in such a position near the bridge as, apparently, to command both the house and barn of Colonel Rugeley. He then made a formal demand for a surrender, menacing the garrison with the instant demolition of their fortress. Alarmed at the apparition of a cannon, Rugeley sent out a flag, and, with his whole force of one hundred and twelve men, immediately surrendered. Poor Rugeley never appeared in arms afterward. Cornwallis, in a letter to Tarleton,Dec. 4 said, "Rugeley will not be made a brigadier.
Soon after leaving Rugeley's, I came to a shallow stream which flows out of Gum Swamp, and known in the Revolution as Graney's Quarter Creek. It was thickly studded with ginn shrubs and caries, the latter appearing as green and fresh as in summer. It was now about noon, and while I made the accompanying sketch, Charley dined upon corn, which the generous driver of a team "hauling cotton," gave me from his store. Between this stream and Sander's Creek, within seven miles of Camden, is the place of Gates's defeat.Aug. 16, 1780 The hottest of the engagement occurred upon the hill, just before descending to Sander's Creek from the north, now, as then, covered with an open forest of pine-trees. When I passed through it, the undergrowth had just been burned, and the blackened trunks of the venerable pines, standing like the columns of a vast temple, gave the whole scene a dreary, yet grand appearance. Many of the old trees yet bear marks of the battle, the scars of the bullets being made very distinct by large protuberances. I was informed that many musket-balls have been cut out of the trees; and I saw quite a number of trunks which had been recently hewn with axes for the purpose. Some pines had been thus cut by searchers for bullets which must have been in the seed when the battle occurred. Within half a mile of Sander's Creek, on the north side, are some old fields, dotted with shrub pines, where the hottest of the battle was fought. A large concavity near the road, filled with hawthorns, was pointed out to me as the spot where many of the dead were buried.
Sander's Creek is a considerable stream, about two hundred feet wide, and quite shallow at the ford. Though flowing through a swamp like Graney's Quarter, its waters were very
* This view is from the south side of the bridge. The counterfeit cannon was plaeed in the road where the first wagon is seen. The house and barn of Rugeley were in the cleared field seen beyond the wagons,