Clinton now sent out three expeditions to the up-country, the most important of which was destined to secure the region north of the Santee and Wateree.[1017] Cornwallis, commanding this expedition, detached Tarleton against Buford, who had with him the remnants of the American cavalry and some Continentals from Virginia. Tarleton overtook him at Waxhaw Creek on the 29th of May. Of the five hundred Americans who entered the fight, one hundred and thirteen were killed, while one hundred and fifty were wounded. The slaughter was vindictive, and "Tarleton's Quarters" will never be forgotten in the upper regions of South Carolina.
Clinton and Arbuthnot, judging their conquest of the province permanent, now proclaimed as rebels all who refused the oath of allegiance, and then sailed for New York, leaving Cornwallis in command.
CORNWALLIS.
From the London Mag., June, 1781 (p. 251).—Ed.
The new commander's proclamations, following upon those of Clinton and Arbuthnot, were enough at variance with them to create discontent among those inclined toward the British side. The spirits of the patriots began to revive, especially in the back regions, where Colonels Locke and Williams and Generals Rutherford and Sumter gathered strong bands around their standards. The fights at Ramsour Mills, Rocky Mount, Hanging Rock, and Musgrove Mills, which these partisans conducted, were in the main successful, but all were lost to sight in the great disaster which soon overtook the American arms near Camden.
Early in the spring of 1780, it had been decided to send a reinforcement under De Kalb to Lincoln, at Charleston. With about fourteen hundred men of the Maryland and Delaware lines, that general left Morristown on the 16th of April, 1780, and on the 1st of June, in Petersburg, he learned of the fall of Charleston. He decided to push on with the utmost speed, in the hope that his coming might still save the interior of the State. But delay after delay occurred, and De Kalb did not reach the Deep River before the 6th of July, when he found nothing prepared for his reception; and what was still more inexcusable, the North Carolina militia, under Caswell, were holding aloof. On the 25th a new commander of the Southern armies arrived in Horatio Gates, the popular hero of Saratoga. His appointment had been made by Congress against the wishes of Washington, but in obedience to a general popular consent. De Kalb received Gates with genuine pleasure, and took his place at the head of the regulars, then forming the whole army.
Against the advice of his ablest officer, Otho H. Williams, Gates determined to join the North Carolinians in their camp near Lynch's Creek, since they would not join him, and with them he hoped to seize Camden. Two days after his arrival, on July 27th, the march began, and after the most acute suffering from hunger the regulars joined the militia. So lax was the discipline among Caswell's men, that Williams and a party of officers rode through their lines and camp without being once challenged. Approaching the general's tent, they were informed that it was an unseasonable hour for gentlemen to call. Yet Caswell was within striking distance of a disciplined army, commanded by an enterprising general, Lord Rawdon. Marching a little farther, the British were found in a strong position on the southern bank of Little Lynch's Creek.
HORATIO GATES.