The paper money was so rapidly diminishing, that it required seven hundred dollars to purchase a pair of shoes; and in every department, civil and military, the patriots were exceedingly weak. Lincoln's first impulse was to evacuate the city, retire to the upper country, collect a sufficient army, and then return and drive the invaders from it. The tardy plans of Clinton changed Lincoln's views. Hoping for re-enforcements, then daily expected, and also aid from the Spanish West Indies, ** he resolved to maintain a siege. His first care was to strengthen the works upon Charleston Neck, cast up the previous year when Prevost menaced the town. Rutledge ordered three hundred negroes to be brought from the neighboring plantations to work upon the fortifications, and within a few days cannons and mortars were mounted; a trench, filled with water, stretched across the Neck from the Ashley to the Cooper, and two rows of abatis protected the whole. Fort Moultrie, the redoubts at Haddrell's Point and Hobcaw, the works at South Bay, Hospital Point, and all along the city front, were strengthened and manned. *** Charles Cotesworth Pinckney **** was placed in command of the garrison at Fort Moultrie. Captain Daniel Horry was sent to Ashley Ferry to watch the approach of the enemy, and General Moultrie went southward to gather the militia, direct the movements ffi the cavalry, and annoy the enemy on his approach.
* On the voyage from New York, one vessel, carrying heavy ordnance for the siege, foundered and was lost, and nearly all the horses belonging to the artillery and cavalry perished at sea. Immediately after landing, Lieutenant-colonel Tarleton was ordered to obtain a fresh supply of horses. This service he soon performed, bv seizing all that fell in his way on the plantations upon the islands and the main, some of which were paid for, and Some were not. The Whigs were not considered entitled to any pay. Having mounted his cavalry, Tarleton joined a body of one thousand men, under General Patterson, whom Clinton had ordered from Savannah to re-enforce him.
** Spain was now at war with Great Britain, and willingly became a party in our quarrel, with the hope, like France, of crippling English power. When the approach of the British fleet was made known, Lincoln dispatched a messenger to Havana to solicit material aid from the Spanish governor. Direct assistance was refused, but the Spaniards indirectly aided the Americans. When Clinton was preparing to march upon Charleston, Don Bernardo de Galvez sailed from New Orleans to reduce Fort Charlotte, an English post at Mobile. It surrendered to the Spaniards on the fourteenth of March, 1781, and on the ninth of May, Pensacola also bowed to Spanish domination. These successes placed the two Floridas in possession of the Spaniards, except the strong fortress of St. Augustine.
*** The lines of intrenchments were on the ridge of land whereon St. Paul's Church, the Orphan House, the "Citadel" (a part of the old works), and the Presbyterian church now stand.
**** Charles Cotesworth Pinckney was born in Charleston on the twenty-fifth of February, 1746. At the age of seven years, he was taken to England with his brother, Thomas, by their father (Chief-justice Pinckney), where he was educated, and also studied law. In 1769 he returned to Charleston, after visiting the Continent. In England he took part against the Stamp Act with its opposers there, and, on reaching his native country, he eagerly espoused the cause of the patriots. He commenced the practice of law in 1770, and soon became eminent. When a regiment was formed in Charleston in 1775, of which Gadsden was colonel, Pinekney was appointed a captain, and was at Newborn for a while on recruiting service. He was active in the defense of Charleston in 1776. In 1778, he accompanied General Howe in his expedition to Florida. He assisted in the repulse of Prevost in 1779. and in the defense of Charleston in 1780. When the city fell, he became a prisoner, and suffered much from sickness and cruel treatment. He was exchanged in February, 1782, when the war was almost ended. He was soon afterward raised to the brevet rank of brigadier. On the return of peace, he resumed the practice of his profession. He was a member of the convention which formed the Constitution of the United States. Washington offered him a seat in his cabinet, which he declined, and in 1796 he accepted the appointment of minister to the French Republic. There he had a delicate duty to perform, and while in the midst of personal peril in the French capital he uttered that noble sentiment. "Millions fur defense, not one cent for tribute.'" In 1797, Mr. Pinckney was appointed the second major general in the army under Washington, and for many years he was an active politician. For about twenty-five years he lived in elegant retirement, in the enjoyment of books and the pleasures of domestic happiness. He died on the sixteenth of August, 1825, in the eightieth year of his age.
Whipple's Flotilla.—Passage of the Ashley by the British.—British Fleet in the Harbor.—Advance of Clinton
The little flotilla of Commodore Whipple, then in the harbor, was ordered to oppose the passage of the British fleet over the bar, but his vessels were small and thinly manned, and little reliance was placed upon them. The inhabitants viewed the gathering dangers with increasing alarm. Knowing the weakness of Lincoln's army, and desirous of saving it, as their only hope for the future, the citizens advised an evacuation before it should be too late. Lincoln, hourly expecting re-enforcements, was hopeful, and expressing a belief that he might maintain a siege, or leave at a future time, if necessary, he resolved to remain, at the same time taking measures for keeping open a communication with the country toward the Santee.
On the twenty-eighth of March the royal army crossed the Stono, marched to the Ashley, at Old Town (the site of ancient Charleston), and there crossed that stream toward evening. They had strengthened Fort Johnson, cast up intrenchments along the Ashley to confront those of the Americans upon the opposite shore, and galleys were in motion to enter the harbor and anchor in the Ashley. The army moved slowly down the Neck, and on Sunday morning, the first of April, broke ground within eleven hundred yards of the American works, then defended by about eighty cannons and mortars. They were annoyed all the way by a parly of light horsemen under Lieutenant-colonel John Laurens, and lost between twenty and thirty men in the skirmishes.
Admiral Arbuthnot entered the harbor on the twentieth of March with his smaller vessels and transports, drove Whipple with his little fleet from Five Fathom Hole, and while exposed to an enfilading fire from Fort Moultrie, * sailed near to James s Island and anchored under the guns of Fort Johnson, within cannon shot of the town. Pinckney hoped that Whipple would retard the British vessels, and allow him to batter them, as Moultrie did four years before; but the commodore, with prudent caution, retreated to the mouth of the Cooper River, and sunk most of his own and some merchant vessels between the town and Shute's Folly (marked boom on the opposite map), and thus formed an effectual bar to the passage of British vessels up the channel to rake the American works upon the Neck. Clinton advanced to Hamstead Hill on the fifth,April,1780 and in the face of a sharp fire, erected a battery and mounted twelve cannons upon it. He and