On the 21st of March the British fleet, commanded by Admiral Mariot Arbuthnot in person, had crossed the bar unopposed. Some time was spent in taking on board their provisions and guns. Then on the afternoon of the 7th, 8th, or 9th of April—for there is a hopeless confusion as to the exact date—in the midst of a furious thunder-shower the fleet ran by Fort Moultrie without material damage, except to the store-ship "Eolus", which was abandoned. The greater portion of the garrison of Moultrie, commanded by Colonel C. C. Pinckney, was then withdrawn,—the feeble remnant surrendering on the 6th of May, with scarcely a show of resistance.
On the 8th of April guns were mounted in battery in the first British parallel. On the 11th, Lincoln having refused to surrender, fire was opened. The second parallel was completed on the 19th, bringing the British to within four hundred and fifty yards of the opposing line.
After a picture by Col. Sargent, owned by the Mass. Hist. Society (Proc., Jan., 1807, vol. i. p. 192; Catal. Cabinet, no. 13). A copy by Herring was engraved by T. Illman. Cf. Jones's Georgia, vol. ii. (bust only); Irving's Washington, quarto ed., vol. iii.; Harper's Mag., lxiii. 341. A rude contemporary copperplate print, by Norman, appeared in the Boston ed. of An Impartial Hist. of the War (1784), vol. iii. 64.—Ed.
On the morning of the 13th Tarleton and Ferguson, by a sudden push, dispersed the force at Monk's Corner, which had guarded Lincoln's supplies. On the 18th a reinforcement of three thousand men arrived from New York, and enabled Clinton to complete the investment of the town, the command on the eastern side of the Cooper being given to Cornwallis. There was during the next few days a sortie, some desultory fighting, and an unsuccessful correspondence for a surrender. On May 8th the third parallel was completed, bringing the besiegers to within forty yards of the works, while the canal in front of the lines was partly drained and the batteries were ready to open fire. Clinton again summoned the garrison, but again Lincoln declined to surrender,—this time because Clinton refused to regard the citizens as anything but prisoners on parole. On the 11th the British reached the ditch and advanced to within twenty-five yards of the works. Resistance was no longer to be thought of, especially as the citizens themselves now petitioned to have the terms offered by Clinton accepted. The articles were accordingly drawn up and signed on the 12th, and the English took possession.
CORNWALLIS.
From Andrews' Hist. of the War, London, 1785, vol. ii. There is an engraving after an original drawing by T. Prattent in the European Mag., Aug., 1786. There are engravings of him later in life in Lee's Memoir of the War in the Southern Department (Philadelphia, 1872), vol. ii., and in the Cornwallis Correspondence. Cf. Harper's Mag., lxiii. p. 325; Irving's Washington, ii. 282; Boyle's Official Baronage, i. 459. Reynolds painted him in 1780, having already painted him in 1761. The former picture was engraved by Chas. Knight in 1780. Cf. Hamilton's Engraved Works of Reynolds, pp. 19, 169. There is a mezzotint by D. Gardiner. Cf. John C. Smith's Brit. Mez. Port., ii. 745; and in Ibid., iv. 1,444, an engraving by Ward after a picture by Buckley is noted. There is a contemporary account of Cornwallis in the Polit. Mag., ii. 450.—Ed.
On that day the Continentals to the number of perhaps fifteen hundred—there were about five hundred in the hospital at the time—marched out, with colors cased and drums beating the "Turk's March", and laid down their arms. By regarding every adult capable of bearing arms as a militiaman, Clinton reckoned his prisoners at five thousand. Lincoln has been severely censured for this defence, but if the Carolinians had rallied as expected, he might have held out until the heats of the summer and the arrival of De Ternay would have compelled Clinton's retirement.