WEBVTT NOTE 18. Battling Tories in the South 1 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:05.800 Volume 4, Chapter 18, Battling Tories in the South 2 00:00:05.800 --> 00:00:11.640 North Carolina confronted concentrations of Tories among Highland Scots in the Wilmington-Fayetteville 3 00:00:11.640 --> 00:00:18.680 area, who owed their land to the Crown's largesse and who included a number of retired British 4 00:00:18.680 --> 00:00:24.760 Army officers. There were also strong but not dominant clusters of Tories in the back 5 00:00:24.760 --> 00:00:54.760 Perhaps fully half of the North Carolina population was Tory or at least lukewarm to the rebel cause. Furthermore, fear of Negro uprisings aiding the British led the North Carolina Provincial Congress in the spring of 1776 to urge all slave owners on the south side of the Cape Fear River to remove far into the interior all slaves capable of bearing arms for the British. 6 00:00:54.760 --> 00:01:02.760 In Wilmington, Negroes began to escape in droves into the woods, and whites enforced a nine o'clock curfew on them. 7 00:01:02.760 --> 00:01:14.760 In January 1776, Josiah Martin, the royal governor of North Carolina who had fled to a British warship, decided to mobilize the Tories of the province. 8 00:01:14.760 --> 00:01:22.360 Over-optimistically expecting 9,000 Tories to rise in arms, Martin urged the Highlanders 9 00:01:22.360 --> 00:01:29.200 and all other Tories to rally in arms for the King and marched to the sea to join him 10 00:01:29.200 --> 00:01:33.400 and expected reinforcements from Great Britain. 11 00:01:33.400 --> 00:01:42.160 Soon 1,600 Tories gathered under the veteran British General Donald MacDonald at Cross Creek, 12 00:01:42.160 --> 00:01:43.680 now Fayetteville. 13 00:01:43.680 --> 00:01:48.640 The Tory response was weakened, however, by the failure of Governor Martin to sail his 14 00:01:48.640 --> 00:01:55.740 ship past enemy fire to arrive at the Cross Creek rendezvous. Reaching Moore's Creek Bridge 15 00:01:55.740 --> 00:02:03.900 near Wilmington on February 27, the Tories encountered a smaller force of 1,000 militiamen 16 00:02:03.900 --> 00:02:12.000 under Colonels Richard Caswell and John Lillington. The Americans held strongly entrenched positions, 17 00:02:12.000 --> 00:02:16.800 But in the absence of the ailing MacDonald, the new commander, the young and reckless 18 00:02:16.800 --> 00:02:24.640 Colonel Donald MacLeod, was able to override the advice of older officers. Once again, 19 00:02:24.640 --> 00:02:31.520 as in Virginia, the Tories hurled themselves heedlessly, but in orthodox fashion, against 20 00:02:31.520 --> 00:02:38.520 entrenched rebel positions and were crushed even more effectively than at Great Bridge. 21 00:02:38.520 --> 00:02:44.020 The Tories suffered 30 casualties, whereas the revolutionaries enjoyed the incredible 22 00:02:44.020 --> 00:02:50.680 casualty rate of none killed and only two slightly wounded. The surviving Tories fled 23 00:02:50.680 --> 00:02:57.680 inland, pursued by relentless bands of American rebels who captured no fewer than 850 of the 24 00:02:57.680 --> 00:03:04.680 enemy. Among the killed were Colonel MacLeod and among the captured General MacDonald and 25 00:03:04.680 --> 00:03:10.940 The political leader of the Highland Scots, Major Alan MacDonald, armed to Toryism in 26 00:03:10.940 --> 00:03:16.960 North Carolina, had suffered a crippling blow. After commiserating with their families and 27 00:03:16.960 --> 00:03:22.960 pledging them its protection, the North Carolina Provincial Congress decided to disperse the 28 00:03:22.960 --> 00:03:29.960 hundreds of captured Tories to all the provinces, so as to guard against their pernicious influence. 29 00:03:29.960 --> 00:03:35.620 The rank-and-file prisoners were shipped to Maryland and Virginia, the leaders to remote 30 00:03:35.620 --> 00:03:41.440 Philadelphia. The people of North Carolina were solemnly warned that the treatment meted 31 00:03:41.440 --> 00:03:47.040 out to the prisoners would largely depend on the good behavior of the remaining Tories 32 00:03:47.040 --> 00:03:49.240 of the province. 33 00:03:49.240 --> 00:03:54.780 The year before, during the summer and fall of 1775, the English government had worked 34 00:03:54.780 --> 00:04:17.780 British troops were to embark from Ireland to be led by General Clinton, who would join 35 00:04:17.780 --> 00:04:19.780 the expedition at Boston. 36 00:04:19.780 --> 00:04:36.780 However, bureaucratic bumbling and adverse weather delayed the expedition until April 1776, by which time Dunmore had been routed off the continent, and Martin's premature Tory uprising crushed. 37 00:04:36.780 --> 00:04:45.780 When Clinton arrived near the Cape Fear River in mid-April, he was forced to abandon his projected invasion of the South. 38 00:04:45.780 --> 00:04:52.020 Contrary disaffection was even stronger in South Carolina than in its northern neighbor, 39 00:04:52.020 --> 00:04:59.540 for there both British support and neutralism abounded among low-country merchants and planters 40 00:04:59.540 --> 00:05:03.100 as well as the back-country frontiersmen. 41 00:05:03.100 --> 00:05:09.380 The revolutionist low-country planters were in constant fear of pro-British insurrections 42 00:05:09.380 --> 00:05:15.140 by the numerous Negro slaves, and a Negro named Jerry was executed in the summer of 43 00:05:15.140 --> 00:05:23.140 of 1775 for saying he would help pilot British warships into Charleston. Furthermore, John 44 00:05:23.140 --> 00:05:29.900 Stuart, the British Indian agent in the South, was plotting to raise the powerful Cherokee 45 00:05:29.900 --> 00:05:35.900 tribe in attack against the frontier settlements. This buildup was originally part of General 46 00:05:35.900 --> 00:05:41.980 Gage's plan for concerted Indian attack on the entire American frontier, but the arrest 47 00:05:41.980 --> 00:05:49.340 of Connolly in Virginia and McKee in Pittsburgh in October 1775 and the disarming of Johnson 48 00:05:49.340 --> 00:05:55.740 in New York in January 1776 wrecked that plan. 49 00:05:55.740 --> 00:06:01.580 Even so, Stuart and the Cherokees were still all too dangerous. 50 00:06:01.580 --> 00:06:07.700 Despite the great potential of Tory strength in South Carolina, lack of intelligent organization 51 00:06:07.700 --> 00:06:10.040 crippled its impact. 52 00:06:10.040 --> 00:06:15.640 In particular, the royal governor, Lord Campbell, instead of going to the back country to rouse 53 00:06:15.640 --> 00:06:22.280 his supporters, chose to conduct operations from British warships in Charleston harbor. 54 00:06:22.280 --> 00:06:28.240 Seizing the opportunity presented by Campbell's caution, the rebels of Charleston sent their 55 00:06:28.240 --> 00:06:34.520 leader, William Henry Drayton, and the Reverend William Tennant, Charleston's leading Presbyterian 56 00:06:34.520 --> 00:06:41.920 and Minister to the Backcountry in August 1775 to organize the rebel forces there. 57 00:06:41.920 --> 00:06:52.160 By September, two large contending backcountry forces had gathered at 96, 1,000 rebel militiamen 58 00:06:52.160 --> 00:06:59.240 under Drayton confronting a larger Tory force under Colonel Thomas Fletchell. Remarkably, 59 00:06:59.240 --> 00:07:05.540 Grayton and Tennant managed to sweet-talk Fletchel into signing a Treaty of Neutrality 60 00:07:05.540 --> 00:07:12.780 and to disband. The treaty pledged the neutrality of Fletchel and his men and even partially 61 00:07:12.780 --> 00:07:19.280 acknowledged the authority of the South Carolina Provincial Congress. Soon, however, the Tories 62 00:07:19.280 --> 00:07:27.740 rose again, led this time by Robert Cunningham. Over 1,800 of them gathered at 96, wherein 63 00:07:27.740 --> 00:07:34.340 In mid-November they unsuccessfully attacked a fort manned by one-third of their number. 64 00:07:34.340 --> 00:07:39.460 In the meanwhile, the South Carolina Council of Safety, the arm of the Provincial Congress 65 00:07:39.460 --> 00:07:46.220 entrusted with executive powers, decided to crush the Tories posthaste and sent Colonel 66 00:07:46.220 --> 00:07:52.740 Richard Richardson to do the job. Richardson sped westward, collecting revolutionary militia 67 00:07:52.740 --> 00:07:59.700 from both North and South Carolina as he went. By late November he had amassed over 4,000 68 00:07:59.700 --> 00:08:07.020 men. Richardson's force crushed all-Tory resistance before it, and hundreds of Tories were disarmed 69 00:08:07.020 --> 00:08:12.940 and compelled to pledge peaceful behavior in the future. An amnesty the following March 70 00:08:12.940 --> 00:08:19.460 completed the rout of the South Carolina loyalist. South Carolina, any more than its sister province 71 00:08:19.460 --> 00:08:26.380 to the North could not now lend Tory assistance to an invasion by General Clinton. 72 00:08:26.380 --> 00:08:32.900 In Georgia, which had been the colony least enthusiastic for the opposition to Great Britain, 73 00:08:32.900 --> 00:08:38.540 armed Tory resistance was at first avoided by the very mildness of the Whig response 74 00:08:38.540 --> 00:08:39.940 to the revolution. 75 00:08:39.940 --> 00:08:45.620 Indeed, only the rebel enclave of St. John's sent a delegate to the Second Continental 76 00:08:45.620 --> 00:08:46.940 Congress. 77 00:08:46.940 --> 00:08:52.820 The opening of hostilities at Lexington and Concord, however, coupled with the angry boycott 78 00:08:52.820 --> 00:09:00.740 of Georgia by the other colonies, could only push Georgian opinion into a more active course. 79 00:09:00.740 --> 00:09:06.540 The development also advanced the fortunes of the Liberty Boys, who, on hearing the news, 80 00:09:06.540 --> 00:09:09.940 broke into the public powder magazine. 81 00:09:09.940 --> 00:09:15.180 Realizing that Governor James Wright's power could only be nullified and eliminated by 82 00:09:15.180 --> 00:09:23.980 The Liberty Boys organized an effective Savannah Mob headed by young Joseph Habersham, son 83 00:09:23.980 --> 00:09:26.980 of the president of the Georgia Council. 84 00:09:26.980 --> 00:09:31.940 This spearhead of the Liberty militants in the province consisted of a cross section 85 00:09:31.940 --> 00:09:38.620 of the town's activists, aristocrats, laborers and town rowdies alike. 86 00:09:38.620 --> 00:09:44.980 The blows of the mob soon wrecked the authority and morale of the royal government. 87 00:09:44.980 --> 00:09:51.260 And Governor Wright soon saw that his cause was lost. This was no longer his snug Tory 88 00:09:51.260 --> 00:10:00.040 Georgia. This campaign was capped in early July 1775 by Haversham and others openly and 89 00:10:00.040 --> 00:10:06.860 boldly carrying off the government's store of munitions. On June 13, several hundred 90 00:10:06.860 --> 00:10:12.860 Liberty boys assembled at Savannah, put up a Liberty tree, established a Savannah committee 91 00:10:12.860 --> 00:10:19.100 to enforce the Continental Association, which Georgia had never joined, and called a Provincial 92 00:10:19.100 --> 00:10:26.260 Congress for the following month. This Congress, meeting on July 4, ratified the program and 93 00:10:26.260 --> 00:10:32.540 circulated a defense association around Savannah. The Congress became the de facto legislature 94 00:10:32.540 --> 00:10:38.100 of the colony and a council of safety its chosen executive. The joining of the other 95 00:10:38.100 --> 00:10:48.100 and other American colonies in revolt was particularly symbolized by Georgia's finally choosing a full slate of delegates to the Continental Congress. 96 00:10:49.100 --> 00:10:54.100 Soon the Provincial Congress took over rule of the militia and the courts in Georgia. 97 00:10:55.100 --> 00:11:02.100 Thus, the Georgia rebels were fully occupied during 1775 with catching up to the other American colonies. 98 00:11:02.100 --> 00:11:14.100 In mid-January, British warships appeared at the mouth of the Savannah River to aid Governor Wright, who had been shorn of all authority by the rebel Provincial Congress. 99 00:11:14.100 --> 00:11:23.100 The Council of Safety promptly decided to seize Wright and other officials to prevent them from rallying the Georgia Tories. 100 00:11:23.100 --> 00:11:30.100 He was arrested by Habersham, but a few weeks later he escaped to flee to a British warship. 101 00:11:30.100 --> 00:11:40.100 and British Warship. Georgia-Tourism, like its counterparts in the other southern provinces, had been outmaneuvered and effectively suppressed.