The Battle of Lenud’s Ferry, South Carolina, May 6, 1780, also known as Lanneau’s Ferry, was a sounding patriot loss and further blow to American cavalry in the south. It was a continuation of the sudden and vicious attacks on patriot dragoons and militia by Banastre Tarleton’s Loyalist Legion of Dragoons and Mounted Infantry. At the Battle of Monck’s Corner, earlier on April 14th, Tarleton’s troopers tore into General Isaac Huger’s Continental Dragoons. He annihilated the patriots, many barely escaping on foot into the swamps, leaving the flamboyant British dragoon their horses and supplies. And at the Battle of Waxhaws (also termed the Waxhaws Massacre), May 29th, twenty-three days later, Tarleton’s Legion would cut down and kill over 150 American cavalrymen, most after they had surrendered. This attack was at Lenud’s Ferry was so decisive, that two entire regiments of American cavalry were left in ruins and would ride north out of South Carolina to Halifax, North Carolina; one all the way to Virginia where its leader would remain.
Prior to Battle
Some of General Isaac Huger’s Continental troops who had escaped Tarleton’s attack at Moncks Corner, April 14, 1780, made their way north and reformed under Colonel Anthony Walton White’s 1st Regiment of Light Dragoons who were heading south. Colonel White had arrived in the Georgetown and Charles Town Districts of South Carolina, north of Charleston, on April 23rd. White had been active in the north with the Continental Army, participating in most of the major battles including the Battle of Monmouth, June 28, 1778. On February 16, 1780, he was given command of all Continental Cavalry in the south and ordered to Charlestown (present Charleston), South Carolina, by General Washington to reinforce the southern army. The leader of the American forces had good intelligence that a large British force under the personal command of General Henry Clinton, Commander of British Forces in America, had landed along the coast of South Carolina and Georgia.
Lt. Colonel William Washington, second cousin once removed of General George Washington, had campaigned with Washington’s army from early on in the war, having been wounded at the Battle of Harlem Heights, September 15, 1776. On November 19, 1779, he and his 3rd Regiment of Light Dragoons were sent south to Charlestown to reinforce the southern army under Major General Benjamin Lincoln. Washington and his men were at the outpost at Monck’s Corner on April 14th when Tarleton’s Legion attacked in the dead of night, routing the Americans who many barely escaped on foot. He too headed north and reformed the remnants of his 3rd Regiment of Continental Light Dragoons with Colonel White.
Colonel White, aware that the southern army was hemmed in on Charlestown Peninsula and under siege, continued heading south. On the 5th of May, White crossed south over the Santee at Dupui’s [sp?] Ferry. According to Tarleton’s memoirs, the next morning, White’s men suddenly surrounded a British detachment of an officer and seventeen dragoons at Ball’s Plantation. “They had been foraging and made prisoners without resistance. White directed his march towards Lenew’s [sp. Lenud’s] Ferry, with an intention to recross the river, under the protection of 200 continental infantry, ordered by Colonel Buford to meet the cavalry at that place.”
Accordingly, White’s and Washington’s cavalry were to meet up with Colonel Abraham Buford’s Virginia Continentals, part of the Virginia Line sent to reinforce General Lincoln at Charlestown.
When the Continental Dragoons arrived at the river the afternoon of May 6th, Buford was not there; having been delayed at Georgetown. White and Washington decided to rest their men and the prisoners. Rather than cross the river, White chose to remain along the southern banks and wait for Buford to arrive from the north. Lt. Colonel Washington recommended that they cross the river. This to safeguard against attack from the south. British regulars and mainly cavalry had been seen patrolling the region from the Santee River to just outside Charlestown where General Charles Cornwallis had his headquarters. White decided it was an unnecessary precaution and remained along the southern banks of the Santee.
Battle of Lenud’s Ferry
Major General Charles Cornwallis had instructed Lt. Colonel Banastre and his green coated Legion of Loyalists Dragoons and Mounted Light Infantry to patrol north and west of Charlestown. They were to seek out and attack any reinforcements attempting to join the Southern American Army hemmed in at Charlestown. So too, they were to destroy any patriot forces and residences while foraging for the British Army. To that accord, on May 6th, he and 150 dragoons were patrolling in the Monck’s Corner region, seeking intelligence on American cavalry.
While on the road, Tarleton had met a loyalist who had witnessed the capture of the British dragoons at Ball’s Plantation. He gave an account of the size of the patriot force and path they took towards Lenud’s Ferry. Tarleton decided to pursue and attack at once.
The British dragoons arrived at the ferry at three that afternoon. Finding the Americans with their backs to the river, Tarleton instantly formed his troops. The British Legion commander describes what occurred next. Tarleton “ordered to charge the enemy’s grand guard [pickets] and pursue them into the main body. The corps [Americans] being totally surprised, resistance and slaughter soon to follow. Five officers and thirty-six men were killed and wounded, seven officers and sixty dragoons were taken prisoners.”
“And the whole party of the light infantry were rescued, as the boat was pushing off to convey them to the opposite shore. All the horses, arms, and accoutrements of the Americans were captured. Colonels White, Washington, and Jamieson, with some other officers and men, availed themselves of their swimming to make their escape, while many who wished to follow their example perished in the river [the river had been flooded and was running swiftly]. The British dragoons lost two men and four horses in the action; but returning to Lord Cornwallis’ camp the same evening, upwards of twenty horses expired with fatigue.”
Aftermath
The American cavalry in the south was now in complete disarray. Both Lt. Col. Anthony Walton White and Lt. Col. William Washington limped north to Halifax, North Carolina to begin rebuilding their regiments. After Lenud’s Ferry and on May 29th at Waxhaws, there were little if any Continental Army Dragoons present in the south. Major General Gage took over command of the Southern Army after its near total ruin at Charleston. He marched what was left of tattered and worn out troops into South Carolina to contest Lt. General Lord Charles Cornwallis’ regulars. He did so relying on partisan patriot cavalry for intelligence and support; with limited results helping to lead to the devastating American loss at the Battle of Camden, August 16, 1780.
From Halifax, the commander of Southern cavalry, Lt. Col. Anthony Walton White went on to Virginia where he basically took himself out of the war. He remained there until after Lord Cornwallis surrendered at Yorktown on October 19, 1781. He would join Major General Nathanael Greene in the Carolinas in 1782. By then, the war was basically over, but for minor skirmishes between foraging parties and partisan clashes.
Lt. Col. William Washington rebuilt and trained his new recruits in time to rejoin Major General Nathanael Greene in December of 1780 in North Carolina. He accompanied Brigadier General Daniel Morgan and fought with him at the battle of Cowpens on January 17, 1781. There, after three drubbings and having been run out of South Carolina by the green coated loyalists, Washington got his revenge. He and General Morgan totally destroyed Tarleton’s force of cavalry and regular troops, giving them a ‘good drubbing’; Washington literally chased after Tarleton and drove the dashing British dragoon with his ‘tail between his legs’ from the field of honor.
As for Colonel Anthony Walton White, he always seemed to have political friends in the right place at the right time. Washington would later admit he never thought much of White’s abilities. Years after the Revolution, when war with the French seemed certain with the build up to the Quasi War, Congress was insistent on a Brigadier General commission for White. Washington was emphatic they not do so commenting on the cavalryman’s attributes, or more specific, lack of: “Of all the characters in the Revolutionary Army, I believe one more obnoxious to the Officers who composed it could not have been hit upon for a Gen. Officer than White – especially among those to the Southward where he was best known, & celebrated for nothing but frivolity… empty shew &… for being a notorious L[ia]r.”
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RESOURCE
Buchanan, John. The Road to Guilford Courthouse: The American Revolution in the Carolinas. 1999: Wiley Publishing, New York, NY.
Commanger, Henry Steele & Morris, Richard B. The Spirit of Seventy-Six. The Story of the American Revolution as Told by Participants. 1958: Bobbs-Merrill, Indianapolis, IN.
“Lenud’s Ferry.” The American Revolution in South Carolina.
Tarleton, Lt. Colonel Banastre Tarleton. A History of the Campaigns of 1780 and 1781 in the Southern Provinces of North America. 1787: T. Cadell, In the Strand, London, UK. 1968 Reprint from an original copy in the New York Public Library: Arno Press, Inc., New York, NY.
Wilson, David K (2005). The Southern Strategy: Britain’s Conquest of South Carolina and Georgia, 1775–1780. Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press.