In contrast, Sumter had fought with over one thousand men at the Blackstocks. Andrew Maxwell, a Maryland Tory and notorious plunderer who commanded about three hundred Provincials and Loyalist militia inside the fort.
With more thoughtful engineering and construction, this same device would be perfected by South Carolina Maj. Welbore Ellis Doyle to relieve Granby. I arrived at this place [Fort Granby] yesterday morning … Every thing hitherto favourable, and have no doubt but I shall succeed, if not interrupted by Lord Rawdon, who, I know, will strip his post as bare of men as possible to spare, to obviate which, as far as may be in your power, it is my wish that you would be pleased to move in such a direction as to attract his attention, and thereby prevent his designs … If you can, with propriety, advance Southwardly so as to cooperate, or correspond with me, it might have the best of consequences.
A force of regulars and militia also set out from Ninety-Six in pursuit of Sumter. But not the Gamecock, who optimistically believed Patriot militia from the region would be drawn to his command and still awaited reinforcement from Marion.
Instead he crossed the Congaree and traveled thirty-five miles downriver to the British outpost at Belleville. Another link in the chain guarding supply and communications from Charleston to the British interior, Belleville was located at the home of Col. William Thomson, a Patriot who had been captured at the fall of Charleston. In command of the outpost was Lt. The home had been fortified by a stockade, with plantation outbuildings comprising part of the defensive works.
Arriving at the fort on February 22, a day after leaving Granby, Sumter ordered a direct attack on the fort across an open field, where his men endured heavy fire before burning some of the outbuildings.
On the morning of February 23, Sumter received intelligence that a convoy of British supply wagons was approaching his position from the south.
He moved quickly to a rising piece of ground a short distance away known as Big Savannah, setting up his ambush just as the convoy appeared in the distance. Sumter successfully outflanked the eighty British regulars under Maj. David McIntosh, and after a skirmish that resulted in several British deaths, captured the British wagons, including not only a large supply of arms, ammunition, and clothing, but also several locked chests thought to contain British gold.
Perhaps that is why it was remembered so vividly by many of the soldiers with Sumter during this campaign in their pension applications, many of which were recorded fifty years later. Now trapped against the river, Sumter and his men searched desperately for boats hidden in the adjoining swamps so they could escape.
Finally finding two canoes, they spent the next two days crossing the Santee, three men to each canoe, their horses swimming beside them. Built the previous year by Col. Colonel Watson constructed the fort on a Santee Indian ritual mound, rising about fifty feet above the surrounding swamp, to defend the river and the trading route from Charleston to Camden. The North Carolina militia, attempting to desert en masse, were held at bayonet point.
But, notwithstanding little may be done now, yet much good might be expected to result hereafter from a personal consultation, which I hope to have the favour of by tomorrow night. In a letter to Marion dated March 15, , Watson reported to Marion that he offered an exchange, but that Sumter never completed it, presumably because he was once more being pursued by the British, this time by Maj.
Thomas Fraser and his force of South Carolina Loyalists. According to documentary history collected by the nineteenth-century historian Lyman Draper and reported in several contemporary sources, it was a fraught and terrifying escape. Lay down Tom! Unfortunately none of our Dragoons had joined Fraser, so that he could not pursue his victory.
Sumter fled across Lynches Creek and continued his retreat northward; he had his family with him, so that I think he has entirely abandoned the lower country.
During the disastrous three-week campaign, they lost approximately a quarter of their force in the series of ill-conceived battles. Not surprisingly, perhaps, the men were dejected and angry. Some believed Sumter put their lives in peril to rescue his own family.
Men like Zachary Kitchens believed Sumter had employed some sort of deception in the loss of the briefly-captured British supply wagon. Sumter had captured many slaves during the expedition, and apparently this, too, caused resentment. All of this however was ineffectual. Did he not press his attack with the same hard courage he had once displayed? Hereafter cited as NG with appropriate volume and page numbers, e. Spelling grammar, punctuation, and capitalization are presented as in the original.
Despite the different names, this campaign occurred primarily along this main Congaree-Santee river channel. Davie , ed: Blackwell P. What a wonderful subject you chose to present. I love discussions about the partisan leaders of the southern campaigns and Thomas Sumter is particularly delightful.
So full of complexity and controversy. So many historians choose to heap criticism on the Gamecock yet show an amazingly forgiving attitude toward others who show the same or similar behavior.
Anyway, that said, it was actually a month later April when Sumter tried to raise a regiment of ten month men. In spite of the plunder promise, recruiting was slow and, by the time Sumter should have been joining with Greene, he only had about men with him. And, of course the last point to make on the militia men would be to observe that, if they wanted to be regulars 10 month men they could have signed up for that at any time.
They were militia because they had the mindset of being just that, militia. Not only were his men disenchanted with Sumter but was simply overly optimistic. At those battles his primary regiments Chester, York, and Fairfield had taken a beating and many of the men were dead or disabled. In particular the Chester regiment had taken incredibly damaging losses in those battles.
They were either from Georgia or from the districts around Ninety-Six. Sumter resigned from Congress on December 15, , upon learning of his election to the U. Senate, where he served until December 16, In Washington, Sumter was a staunch Jeffersonian who remained devoted to the backcountry republican values he had known since childhood. Sumter died on June 1, , at the age of ninety-seven. He was the last surviving general of the Revolutionary War.
Sumter County and Fort Sumter were named in his honor. Bass, Robert D. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, Gregorie, Anne King. History of Sumter County. Sumter, S. Go to Top. They had one child, Thomas Sumter, Jr. Came to SC about In Indian service on frontier for several years. Colonel, SC 6th Regiment, John Rutledge, October 6, Wounded in back and chest. General Thomas Sumter served his country under four presidents.
General Thomas Sumter's service to his country during the Revolutionary War is well known and documented. His service to the fledgling Republic is perhaps not so well known.
He was a man of many and varied interests ranging from experiments with tobacco and cotton and silk worms. He also raised fine racing horses. He founded the town of Statesburg after the war and held land grants for more than , acres of land.
Service to his community, state, and country continued to December 16, when he retired from public life. He was elected a delegate from the district eastward of the Wateree to the First and Second Provincial Congresses which met in Charlestown in and There he was made a member of Council of Safety and immediately after the battle at Lexington was made a captain, and then a Lt.
Commandant of a rifle regiment. He was also present and took part in the adoption of the second American State Constitution by the terms of which SC became an independent sovereignty. In , he was elected by his people to the first General Assembly under the new Constitution, and after his "War Days" was elected to the state Senate which met in Johnsonborough, SC in Meanwhile, after having moved to Statesburg in what was then Camden District, from his former home on the Santee River, he was elected to the Assembly which met in Charleston in
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