He immediately departedJune 26 for the camp of De Kalb, taking with him, as secretary, his friend William Clajon, and reached his destination on the twenty-fifth of July. The prospect before him was far from flattering. An army without strength; a military chest without money; but little public spirit in the
Situation of Gates's Army.—Plan of Operations.—Sketch of Gates's Publie Life.
Commissary Department; a climate unfavorable to health; the spirits of the Republicans pressed down; Loyalists swarming in every direction, and a victorious enemy pressing to spread his legions over the territory he had come to defend, were obstacles in the way of success.
Yet he did not despond, and, retaining De Kalb in command of his division, prepared to march into South Carolina. His whole force consisted of the Maryland and Delaware troops, a legionary corps of sixty horse and as many foot soldiers, under Colonel Armand, and three companies of artillery. There was elsewhere a considerable force of North Carolina militia in the field, under General Caswell; and on the morning of the twenty-seventh,July 1780 Gates marched at the the head of his little army to effect a junction with those troops.
He passed the Deep River at the Buffalo Ford, and in the afternoon encamped upon Spinks's farm, on the road to Camden. There the plan of immediate operations was decided upon. De Kalb and Colonel Otho H. Williams (the deputy adjutant general) thought it expedient to march to Charlotte, establish a hospital and magazine at Salisbury, leave the women and all the heavy baggage there, and from thence proceed toward Camden, without impediment, through a well-cultivated and friendly country, by the way of the Waxhaw. These opinions had no weight with
* Horatio Gates was a native of England, and was educated to the military profession. He was an officer under Braddoek when that general was defeated, but does not seem to have acquired particular distinction. When the Continental army was organized in 1775, he was appointed adjutant general, with the rank of brigadier. He was then residing in Virginia. He accompanied Washington to Cambridge, in July, 1775; and in June, 1776, the chief command of the Northern army was conferred upon him, and he was promoted to major general. In the autumn of that year, he joined the main army in the Jerseys, with a detachment of his command, but his career was not marked by any brilliant action. In the summer of 1776, he was unjustly placed in command of the Northern army, in place of General Schuyler, who had succeeded him in the "spring of that year; and the victory over Burgoyne, at Saratoga, by the army under his command, gave him great eclat. "The glory of that achievement was not due to him, but to the previous operations of Schuyler, and the bravery and skill of Arnold and Morgan. In the winter of 1778. he was involved in attempts to wrest the supreme command from Washington. His position as President of the Board of War enabled him to throw obstacles in the way of the chief, nor were they withheld. From that period until appointed to the command of the Southern army, his military operations were of little account, and were chiefly in Rhode Island. When Congress gave him the command of the Southern forces, General Charles Lee said, "His Northern laurels will be exchanged for Southern willows." The prophecy was soon fulfilled, when the disastrous battle, near Camden, scattered his troops, and, apparently panic-stricken himself he fled toward Charlotte. He was superseded in his command by General Greene, in the autumn of that year, and his conduct was scrutinized by a committee of Congress. Upon their report, he was acquitted of blame. He was reinstated in his military command in the main army in 1782, but active service was no longer required. At the close of the war, he retired to his estate in Virginia, and in 1790 took up his permanent abode upon Manhattan Island, almost three miles from the then city of New York. His mansion, which was an elegant country residence, near Rose Hill, was standing as late as 1845, near the corner of Twenty-third Street and Second Avenue. In 1800, he was elected a member of the Legislature of New York, where he served but one term. He died at his residence, on the tenth of April, 1806, at the age of seventy-eight years.