PARTISAN LEADERS.—South Carolina now became the seat of a bitter partisan war. The Tories there clamored for revenge. That no man should be neutral, Cornwallis ordered everyone to declare for or against the king, and sent officers with troops about the state to enroll the royalists in the militia. The whole population was thus arrayed in two hostile parties. The patriots could not offer organized opposition; but little bands of them found refuge in the woods, swamps, and mountain valleys, whence they issued to attack the British troops and the Tories. Led by Andrew Pickens, Thomas Sumter, and Francis Marion whom the British called the Swamp Fox, they won many desperate fights. [5]
CAMDEN.—Congress, however, had not abandoned the South. Two thousand men under De Kalb were marching south before the surrender of Charleston. After it, a call for troops was made on all the states south of Pennsylvania, and General Gates, then called "the Hero of Saratoga," was sent to join De Kalb and take command. The most important point in the interior of South Carolina was Camden, and against this Gates marched his troops. But he managed matters so badly that near Camden the American army was beaten, routed, and cut to pieces by the British under Cornwallis (August 16, 1780). [6]
[Illustration: WAYNE'S CAMP KETTLE. Now in possession of the Pennsylvania
Historical Society.]
THE WAR IN THE NORTH.—What meantime had happened in the North? The main armies near New York had done little fighting; but the British had made a number of sudden raids on the coast. In 1779 Norfolk and Portsmouth in Virginia, and New Haven and several other towns in Connecticut had been attacked, and ships and houses burned. In New York, Clinton captured Stony Point; but Anthony Wayne led a force of Americans against the fort, and at dead of night, by one of the most brilliant assaults in the world's military history, recaptured it (July, 1779). [7]
[Illustration: AT WEST POINT: LOOKING UP THE HUDSON.]
TREASON OF ARNOLD.—Stony Point was one of several forts built by order of Washington to defend the Hudson. The chief fort was at West Point, the command of which, in July, 1780, was given to Arnold. When the British left Philadelphia in 1778, Arnold was made military commander there, and so conducted himself that he was sentenced by court-martial to be reprimanded by Washington. This censure, added to previous unfair treatment by Congress, led him to seek revenge in the ruin of his country. To bring this about he asked for the command of West Point, and having received it, offered to surrender the fort to the British.
Clinton's agent in the matter was Major John André (an'dra), who one day in September, 1780, came up the river in the British ship Vulture, went ashore, and at night met Arnold near Stony Point. Morning came before the terms [8] of surrender were arranged, and the Vulture having been fired on dropped down the river out of range.
WEST POINT SAVED.—Thus left within the American lines, André crossed the river to the east shore, and started for New York by land, but was stopped by three Americans, [9] searched, and papers of great importance were found in his stockings. Despite an offer of his watch and money for his release, André was delivered to the nearest American officer, was later tried by court-martial, found guilty, and sentenced to be hanged as a spy.
The American officer to whom André was delivered, not suspecting Arnold, sent the news to him as well as to Washington. Arnold received the message first; knowing that Washington was at hand, he at once procured a boat, was rowed down the river to the Vulture, and escaped. From then till the end of the war he served as an officer in the British army.
The disasters at Charleston and Camden, and the narrow escape from disaster at West Point, made 1780 the most disheartening year of the war.