July 30, 1780: American Victory. One week prior to the main Battle of Hanging Rock, a rebel reconnaissance mission surprised and butchered a loyalist force within view of a large British garrison.
In July, 1780, militiamen of North and South Carolina flocked to the patriot banner of rebel leader Colonel Thomas Sumter after the July 12, 1780 devastating defeat of one of ‘Bloody Ben’ Tarleton’s despised officers. Captain Christian Huck was killed leading a detached raiding party of partisan dragoons and regulars that was terrorizing the western S. Carolina backcountry of Acquisition County (modern York). Sumter’s ranks grew to nearly 800 men, but he knew it would be short term. Passions would cool and these farmers would return home if he did not attack the enemy, and soon. So by late July, he set his sights on the fortification the British threw up in early June at Rocky Mount; just south of modern-day Great Falls, S. Carolina on the west bank of the Catawba River. It was defended by 150 British Partisans, veteran regulars of De Lancy’s New York Volunteers. Fearing reinforcements from another British outpost only twenty miles east of Rocky Mount, Hanging Rock, garrisoned by 500 men, Sumter decided he needed a diversion to keep them occupied.
Prior to the war, Major William Richardson Davie of North Carolina was a highly respected and leading citizen. He had proven himself to be a competent commander and was chosen to lead the diversion. His detachment left Sumter’s camp at Land’s Ford on the Catawba on July 30th to scout the British position at Hanging Rock. With him were 40 dragoons and 40 mounted infantry. Meanwhile Sumter, with 600 men, departed that day to begin the siege of Rocky Mount. It would be a dismal affair for the rebels under Sumter. Without cannon, they could only snipe over open ground at the defenders firing from well-fortified blockhouses. After a couple of ill-advised assaults with needless casualties, a forlorn hope tried to torch the buildings. The flames were quickly drenched by a sudden thunderstorm. Frustrated, Sumter gave up the attempt and returned to camp at Land’s Ford on the Catawba. As for Major Davie, he had far better luck in achieving his goal.
Hanging Rock was only some seventeen miles from Sumter’s camp on the Catawba. It was named for a massive bolder partly buried in a rise that formed an overhang of elevation above Hanging Rock Creek and the nearby Camden-Charlotte Road. Beneath its roof was a spacious opening that could shelter up to fifty men. Around this landmark, the newly appointed commander of the garrison and Prince of Wales Loyal Volunteers leader, Major John Carden, had established his camp in the form of a crescent. There were no fortifications of a typical outpost for the well-trained British provincial troops to fight behind; however, the position was strong. The mixed forces were arranged along high ground Revolutionary War soldier and author William Dobein James described as lofty hills surrounded by scattered wooded areas. Defended by makeshift earthworks, it offered open farmland with clear fields of fire. Lastly, the entire front of the camp was covered by an excellent natural defensive ditch; a deep ravine of steep sides leading down to Hanging Rock Creek.
Major Davie and his eighty dragoons and mounted infantry arrived at Hanging Rock at 1:00 PM the same day they had left Sumter’s camp. He immediately sent out riders to reconnoiter the area and scout the enemy’s defenses, seeking a point of attack. Realizing he had too few men to attack the enemy’s hillside defenses, he did receive encouraging news. He was told that three companies of mounted infantry, numbering around seventy riders, had just ridden in and halted at a farmer’s house at the base of the hill before the main British troops. These men were part of Colonel Morgan Bryans’ North Carolina Tory militia.
Davie formed a bold plan to envelop the Tory militiamen while in full view of the garrison. Those loyalists who joined British Partisan units were trained, equipped, and dressed in uniforms similar to British regulars and mounted dragoons; such as Tarleton’s green coated Legion and De Lancy’s New York Volunteer redcoat regulars. However, militiamen, both patriot and Tory, wore the same clothing to battle as if at home tilling the fields. In this, Davie took advantage to deceive his foe. A lane ran from the woods, past the house, and carried on to the British encampment. Captain David Flenniken of Mecklenburg County, North Carolina, would lead forty mounted riflemen past camp sentries, hoping to trick them into thinking the new arrivals were Tory militia. They would stop at a point on the lane just shy and above the house. Meanwhile, twenty dragoons would approach the lane from below the house. The remaining dragoons rode slowing out into a field. Davie knew that the key to success hindered on quickness and surprise, overwhelming the enemy before the garrison could intervene.
Major Richardson Davie clearly described the terror and slaughter as his men attacked the unsuspecting Tories: “This disposition was made with such promptitude that the attention or suspicion of the enemy was never excited. The rifle company under Capt. Flenniken passed the camp sentries without being challenged, dismounted in the lane and gave the enemy a well-directed fire. The astonished Loyalists fled instantly the other way, and were immediately charged by the dragoons in full gallop and driven back in great confusion; on meeting again the fire of the infantry they all rushed impetuously against the angle of the fence where in a moment they were surrounded by the dragoons who had entered the field and literally cut to pieces; as this was done under the eye of the whole British camp no prisoners could safely be taken, which may apologize for the slaughter that took place on this occasion. They took sixty valuable horse with their furniture and one hundred muskets and rifles; the whole camp beat to arms but the business was done and the Detachment out of their reach before they recovered from their consternation.”
As Davie wrote, the Loyalists to a man were cut down. The rebels suffered no casualties as their quickly business finished, they raced to safety. Davie’s small band must have remained in the region, keeping the British garrison under surveillance. They did not rejoin Sumter at his camp at Land’s Ford until six days later on the 5th of August. Upon Davie’s information, Sumter gave up another attempt on Rocky Mount and decided that the garrison at Hanging Rock was a better target. In this, the Battle of Hanging Rock, August 6, 1776, Sumter was successful; however, he came up short of a complete victory.
Home featured image by Ken Bohrer at American Revolution Photos.
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RESOURCE
Buchanan, John. The Road to Guilford Courthouse. 1997: John Wiley & Sons Inc., New York, NY.
Crawford, Alan Pell. This Fierce People, The Untold Story of America’s Revolution in the South. 2024: Alfred A. Knopf, New York, NY.
Dawson, Henry B. Battles of the United States by Sea and Land…in Two Volumes. 1858: Johnson, Fry, and Company, New York, NY.
Draper, Lyman C. King’s Mountain and Its Heroes: History of the Battle of King’s Mountain, October 7th, 1780, and the Events Which Led to It. 1881: P. G. Thompson, New York, NY.
“Hanging Rock.” The American Revolution in South Carolina.
James, William Dobein. A Sketch of the Life of Brigadier General Francis Marion. 1821: Gould & Riley, 2009: Echo Library & Project Gutenberg.
Pugh, Robert C. “The Revolutionary Militia in the Southern Campaign, 1780-1781.” The William and Mary Quarterly. Vol. 14, No. 2 (April, 1957), pp 154-175.
Robinson, Blackwell P. The Revolutionary War Sketches of William R. Davie. 1976: North Carolina Department of Cultural Resources, Division of Archives and History, Raleigh, North Carolina.
Ward, Christopher. The War of the Revolution. 1952: MacMillan, New York, NY. 2021: Reissue by Skyhorse Publishing, New York, NY.