The British had captured Savannah and were threatening Charleston. General Benjamin Lincoln was determined to keep Charleston and retake Savannah and pleaded for additional troops to help him accomplish those objectives. “We will attack the British garrison at Stono Ferry and drive them out of Carolina!” he announced to his subordinates.
2 His first move was to organize a small force and
march them through the night to confront the enemy. Thomas Camp of the Fourth
Artillery Regiment from South Carolina was among the soldiers in Lincoln’s army
that day. Although the governor of the state had been derelict in supplying
sufficient troops to defend the state, the ones present were determined to keep
it out of the hands of the British.
3 They faced a combined force of Highlanders, Hessians
and Loyalists under Colonel John Maitland; and the British had not neglected
the defenses surrounding the Ferry. While the Americans had been preparing
their assault, their enemies had been busy constructing mounds of earth in
front of their positions and surrounding them with sharpened stakes to detour
any attackers who might dare to challenge them.
4 “I don’t relish the thought of charging into those
stakes,” one of the privates confided to Colonel Owen Roberts as they
approached the British defenses that morning. “I’m sure that the General will
use our artillery to soften them up a little before that happens,” Roberts
reassured him.
5 A short distance away, Private Thomas Camp was
helping to drag a cannon into place facing the enemy lines. As soon as it was
in position, another soldier tossed a cartridge into the gun. Next, William
Gardner inserted the rammer into the barrel and pushed the cartridge down
toward its base. Then Thomas loaded a projectile into the gun, and the gunner
inserted his pick into the priming hole and ripped open the cartridge.
6 “Stand back!” he shouted to the others as he poured
a small amount of powder into the opening. He touched the fire to the hole, and
the explosion caused the gun to recoil violently.
7 “Give me a hand!” Thomas shouted as the men moved
the cannon back into position. The matross quickly plunged the worm down into
the barrel and pulled out the debris from the previous cartridge. In a matter
of seconds, he had dipped the sponge in some water and swabbed out the barrel
to make sure that any leftover sparks were smothered. That process finished,
they quickly reloaded the cannon and fired again.
8 After about an hour of that, Colonel Roberts and his
men began their advance toward what was left of the ruined stakes before the
enemy’s earthworks. The Highlanders continued to fire at the advancing troops,
but it didn’t take long for the Americans to push them back deeper into their
fortifications.
9 “Support those men!” Colonel Maitland shouted to the
Hessians and Loyalists. Gradually, the British lines regrouped and began to
push the Americans back to almost the same place where they had begun their
assault.
10 “Have the men fallback,” General Lincoln ordered.
In the intense heat and melee that followed, Hugh Jackson (the elder brother of
the Andrew Jackson that would one day befriend Thomas Harney and become
President of the United States) fell dead of exhaustion.
11 Unfortunately, he was not alone. When the fighting
stopped, almost three hundred men from both sides lay wounded or dead on the
battlefield, including Colonel Roberts. In the end, Lincoln and the Americans
returned to Charleston, and the British withdrew to Beaufort.
12 Two months of intense summer heat and stalemate
followed. “I’m so bored I could die!” Thomas declared. “We sure as hell ain’t
gettin nothin done here!” William Gardner agreed.
13 In September, however, everything changed. A French
fleet under Admiral Charles Hector D’Estaing arrived off the coast of Georgia.
14 “The admiral invites you to join him at Savannah,”
the messenger had announced to General Lincoln. “Tell the admiral that we will
be happy to meet him there!” the general replied.
15 Several of the American officers who witnessed the
exchange looked relieved that something might finally happen to break the
monotony of the past few weeks. In particular, Major Ephraim Mitchell noticed a
broad smile on General Casimir Pulaski’s face. “He’s happy that his cavalry is
going to see some action,” another officer whispered in Ephraim’s ear.
16 Nevertheless, while Lincoln and D’Estaing made
their preparations to recapture Savannah, the British commander inside of the
city was not idle. General Augustine Prevost immediately set about the task of
strengthening the city’s defenses. He put his men and their slaves to work
digging trenches, enhancing the redoubts which surrounded Savannah and
constructing a wicked maze of abatis to encircle the whole. Then he sent word
to Beaufort for Maitland and his forces to join him in defending the city.
17 Indeed, by the time that Lincoln and D’Estaing were
ready to make their move against Savannah, Prevost was ready for them. The
Americans could not penetrate the British defenses. Charge after charge was
repulsed by the enemy, and dead American soldiers littered the battlefield.
18 “General Pulaski is among the wounded,” Mitchell
informed Lincoln. “The admiral has also been wounded,” another officer
volunteered. “Cease the attack!” Lincoln ordered. “Have the men gather the
wounded and bury our dead,” he finished.
19 Thomas Camp was among the soldiers detailed to
dispose of the dead. “What a miserable job this is!” he declared as he and
another soldier tossed the corpse of one of their comrades into a pit. They
were both ready to get back to Charleston. Boredom was better than this.
20 They didn’t have to wait long. By the end of
October, they were back in Charleston; and D’Estaing would soon be on his way
back to France. As 1779 drew to a close, the only thing that the American
soldiers in Charleston had to celebrate was survival.
21 It was now apparent to General Washington that the
focus of the war would shift to the South. General Sir Henry Clinton had put to
sea and was probably headed in that direction. Lincoln needed help if he was
going to hold on to Charleston. As a consequence, the Commander-in-Chief
ordered the men from North Carolina to march to South Carolina that November.
22 Selby Harney’s unit had just taken part in the
capture of the enemy fort at Stony Point, and they were beginning to get
restless. “At least, we won’t have to suffer through another winter up here!”
he confided to one of his comrades.
23 Now these are the generations of Thomas Camp:
24 Thomas Camp was the father of Thomas, Benjamin,
Stephen and twenty-two other children.
25 Thomas married Nancy Tarpley, the daughter of James
Tarpley of Williamsburg. They had a son named Burwell.
26 Benjamin Camp was the forefather of Arizona Senator
John McCain.
27 Burwell Camp married Elizabeth Moore, and they had
children together.
No comments:
Post a Comment