The active attrition of rival and conflicting minds, gives, in all countries, to the population of a dense community, an intellectual superiority over those who live remote, and feel none of the constant moral strifes to which the citizen is subject. In South Carolina, Charleston had been the seat of the original `movement', had incurred the first dangers, achieved the first victories, and, in all public proceedings where action was desirable, had always led off in the van. To preserve intact, and from overthrow, the seat of ancient authority and opinion, was surely a policy neither selfish nor unwise. Perhaps, after all, the grand error was, in not making the preparations for defence adequate to the object. The resources of the State were small, and these had been diminished wofully in succoring her neighbors, and in small border strifes, which the borderers might have been taught to manage for themselves. The military force of the State, under any circumstances, could not have contended on equal terms with the ten thousand well-appointed regulars of Sir Henry Clinton.
The assistance derived from Virginia and North Carolina was little more than nominal, calculated rather to swell the triumph of the victor than to retard his successes.
If the movements of the British were slow, and deficient in military enterprise, where Sir Henry Clinton commanded in person, such could not be said of them, after the conquest of Charleston was effected.
The commander-in-chief was succeeded by Earl Cornwallis, and his career was certainly obnoxious to no such reproaches.
We shall have more serious charges to bring against him.
Of the gross abuse of power, wanton tyrannies, cruel murders, and most reckless disregard of decency and right, by which the course of the British was subsequently distinguished, we shall say no more than will suffice to show, in what dangers, through what difficulties, and under what stimulating causes, Francis Marion rose in arms, when everything appeared to be lost.
Charleston in possession of the enemy, they proceeded with wonderful activity to use all means in their power, for exhausting the resources, and breaking down the spirit of the country. Their maxim was that of habitual tyranny -- "might is right". They seemed to recognize no other standard. The articles of capitulation, the laws of nations, private treaty, the dictates of humanity and religion, were all equally set at naught. The wealth of private families, --slaves by thousands, -- were hurried into the waists of British ships, as the legitimate spoils of war. The latter found a market in the West India islands; the prisoners made by the fall of Charleston were, in defiance of the articles of capitulation, crowded into prison-ships, from whence they were only released by death, or by yielding to those arguments of their keepers which persuaded them to enlist in British regiments, to serve in other countries. Many yielded to these arguments, with the simple hope of escape from the horrors by which they were surrounded. When arts and arguments failed to overcome the inflexibility of these wretched prisoners, compulsion was resorted to, and hundreds were forced from their country, shipped to Jamaica, and there made to serve in British regiments.* Citizens of distinction, who, by their counsel or presence, opposed their influence over the prisoners, or proved themselves superior to their temptations, were torn from their homes without warning, and incarcerated in their floating dungeons.
Nothing was forborne, in the shape of pitiless and pitiful persecution, to break the spirits, subdue the strength, and mock and mortify the hopes, alike, of citizen and captive.
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* Moultrie's Memoirs, Vol. 2, `Correspondence'.
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With those who kept the field the proceedings were more summary, if not more severe. The fall of Charleston seems necessarily to have involved the safety of the country from the Savannah to the Pedee.
In a few weeks after the capture of the city, the British were in peaceable possession of the space between these limits, from the seaboard to the mountains. They had few opponents --an isolated body of continentals, a small squad of militia, for the first time drilling for future service, or a little troop of horse --and these were quickly overcome. On these occasions the British were generally led by Lieutenant-Colonel Tarleton.
This officer acquired for himself an odious distinction in his progress through the South in the campaigns which followed. He was rather an active than a skilful commander. Rapid in his movements, he gave little heed to the judicious disposition of his troops, and aiming more at impressing the fears of his enemy, than overcoming him by science, his chief successes were the result of the panic which his surprises and his butcheries inspired.
He seems never to have been successful against an equal and resolute foe.
But, as courage and activity are, perhaps, after all, and before all, the most necessary requisites for a soldier, Tarleton's services were inappreciable to the invading army. In one month after its arrival, his legion was mounted and began its career of slaughter.
While yet the city was sustaining the siege, he penetrated the country, in pursuit of those bands of militia horse, which, by direction of the American commander, still kept the open field. On the 18th of March, he surprised a company of militia at Salkehatchie Bridge, killed and wounded several and dispersed the rest. Five days after, another party at Pon-Pon shared the same fortune. He was not so successful at Rantowles on the 23d of the same month, where in a rencounter with Col. Washington, his dragoons were roughly handled, and retreated with loss. He avenged himself, however, on Washington, in less than a month after, by surprising him at Monk's Corner.
