Battle of Wahab’s Plantation

Swamp Fox attacks. Artwork by Dan Nance.
Artwork by Dan Lance

The Battle of Wahab’s Plantation (September 21, 1780) pitted a fast moving, aggressive rebel leader, Colonel William Richardson, against the British Legion’s Cavalry. Outnumbered three to one, the newly promoted militia leader was undaunted by the odds, ordering the early morning surprise attack that took the partisan cavalrymen by surprise. Swift and brutal, the tables were turned on Lt. Col. Banastre Tarleton’s horsemen whose vicious assaults were often sudden and without notice. It was a bold strike made even more incredible by the fact that the Legion were camped right next to British General Lord Charles Cornwallis’ main army. Even more so were the results; the British suffered around a hundred casualties while only one American was wounded. The surviving cavalrymen were driven off with the loss of ninety-six prized horses to the rebels who quickly retreated before the British could enact a pursuit. It was an embarrassing black eye for British pride and one of a continuing string of events that would plague His Lordship throughout his continued attempt to placate the south.

Prior to Battle

British General Charles Cornwallis
British Lt. General Lord Charles Cornwallis

By September, 1780, British General Charles Cornwallis was riding high.. He had established outposts throughout South Carolina. More importantly, he had recently destroyed the revitalized American southern army at the Battle of Camden (August 16, 1780). Within two days of Camden at the Battle of Fishing Creek on August 18th, the pesky rebel militia leader, recently promoted South Carolina General Thomas Sumter, and his command was attacked and scattered with multiple rebel casualties. British Major Patrick Ferguson had assembled a large force of Tory militia and was moving to mollify patriot militia along the British west flank and Carolina mountains. And on the eastern flank and South Carolina’s low country, only a new upstart was beginning to pose an annoying distraction; former Continental officer Francis Marion, who had yet to claim his title as ‘Swamp Fox.’  With so much going in the able general’s favor, he decided the time was ripe to invade North Carolina.

But in every campaign, not all is as rosy as it seems and Cornwallis was experiencing setbacks. On September 8, 1780, he marched his army from Camden to the Waxhaws, where he encamped on the North Carolina border; from there he would stage his invasion. The region was once a wealth of successful farms, but after several months of warfare and infighting between bands of Tory and Patriot forces, there was little if any available food and forage for a hungry army. He planned not to remain long; however, the season was ripe for yellow fever and many soldiers within his command were bedridden. This forced the impatient general to bind his time, waiting for his army to get better. He remained at the Waxhaws for fifteen days when on September 23rd, Cornwallis finally crossed his army over the border into North Carolina. Two days previously, Cornwallis had another reason to curse the timing of the southern fever’s pestilence.

Major George Hanger 4th Lord Coleraine. Artwork by Thomas Beach.
Major George Hanger 4th Lord Coleraine. Artwork by Thomas Beach.

Among the sick was his pet mastiff, Lt. Colonel Banastre Tarleton, who had led his Legion of partisan cavalry and infantry time and again in previous victories. At times near death with yellow fever, Tarleton’s Legion was temporarily placed under the command of his grossly incompetent second, Major George Hanger, Lord Colerain. The overstuffed, rakish Hanger was a renowned marksman and gunsmith who proved time and again that his finest hours were spent on the target range. As for commanding men in the field, he was pure rubbish. Soon after the pompous and vindictive Lord was given the Legion’s command, he unleashed his ‘marauding dogs’ to spread “havoc and destruction” on the Whig rabble.

Colonel William Richardson Davie. Militia commander of North Carolina.
Colonel William Richardson Davie. Militia commander of North Carolina State Cavalry.

While Cornwallis convalesced his army and waited for word on Major Wemyss’ return from his scorch and burn terrorist campaign against annoying Francis Marion’s militia and communities in the low country, Hanger’s frequent raids against local patriots gained the wrath of one of the more competent militia commanders of the war. Recently promoted Colonel William Richardson Davie, leader of North Carolina’s state cavalry, was determined to attack the despised Legion horsemen who “spread havoc and destruction.” Davie’s command consisted of eighty mounted partisans and seventy riflemen under Major George Davidson. Able rebel scouts kept tabs on Hanger’s Legion and on September 20th, Davie decided he would launch a surprise night attack to “to check if not entirely disperse these lawless Marauders.”

Battle

Swamp Fox springs the ambush.
North Carolina Militia Cavalry. Artwork by Dan Lance.

Davie wrote a succinct account of his experiences after the war in his Revolutionary War Sketches. He described his movements on the night of September 20th in which his men rode to attack the Legion cavalry’s camp writing, “after taking a considerable circuit to avoid the Patroles of the enemy about 2 o’clock in the morning…turned Lord Cornwallis right flank and approached a plantation where the Tories were said to be encamped.” When Davie arrived at the plantation, his prey was gone. With sunrise approaching, Davie’s men rousted local “terrified or disaffected people” to learn that the loathed partisan horsemen had shifted their camp besides Cornwallis’ main army. He wrote that the Legion had “retired within the flanks of the British Army to the plantation of…Capt. Wahab, which was overlooked by the camp of the 71st regiment [Frazer’s renowned Scottish Highlanders], and that they might amount to three or four hundred mounted infantry.” Undeterred, Davie was determined to attack, even if he had to do so right under the nose of the entire British army.

Among Davie’s men was Captain James Wahab, whose plantation the Legion horseman had chosen for their camp. With Wahab’s aid, Davie’s 150 men were able to approach the property without being observed. By the time Davie’s command arrived at Wahab’s home, the sun was just rising. Fortunately for the rebels, Hanger had called in his sentries as he readied his men for an early foray against suspected rebel sympathizers. Over sixty men were already mounted near the house. Davie immediately set his plans in motion. Davie would divide his men into three units, a tactic he had successfully used at Hanging Rock (July 30, 1780). As a diversion for General Thomas Sumter’s main assault at the nearby Rocky Mount outpost, he boldly attacked a Tory camp just outside a large loyalist outpost. He ordered no quarter and his men inflicted multiple dead and wounded before rapidly drawing off with no rebel casualties.   

Colonel Bratton's militia advance west to the Williamson Home and fire from the rail fence.

Once more, Davie would rely on a sudden and aggressive surprise attack from three different directions. Davie presented a precise account of what next took place writing that the house “stood about the middle of a Lane, covered on the same side by a corn field cultivated to the very door. A company of infantry were detached thro’ the corn [portion of Major George Davidson’s riflemen] with orders to take possession of the Houses and immediately fire on the enemy. The Cavalry were sent around the corn field with directions to gain the other end of the lane & charge the foe as soon as the fire commenced at the Houses.”

Davie commanded the third unit, forty riflemen, to the other end of the lane so to engulf his enemy. He wrote that the “Houses were briskly attacked, and the Cavalry charged at the same moment. The enemy being completely surprised had no tie to form and crowded in great disorder to the other end of the lane when a well reserved fire from the riflemen drove them back upon the cavalry and Infantry who were now drawn up at the Houses, & by whom they were instantly attacked; thus pushed vigorously on all sides they fluctuated some moments under the impressions of terror and dismay and then bore down the fences and fled in full speed.”

Tarleton's British Legion Dragoon
Banastre Tarleton’s Legendary Legion Cavalry, under the command of his incompetent second, Major George Hanger, proved disastrous. The outnumbered and aggressive patriot militia commander, Colonel William Davie, cut them to pieces, sending two thirds of the command running for their lives and leaving ninety-six prized horses and 120 arms to fall into the hands of the rebels. Photo by Ken Bohrer at American Revolution Photos.

Among the British horsemen running for their lives was the imperious Major Hanger who joined those tearing through fences to escape into the fields or to the arms of the approaching British Highlanders. The Legion had camped close to the British army. When shots were first fired, Fraser’s Highlanders beat to arms and assembled to charge the attacking rebels. With only minutes to spare, Davie could not pursue the escaping Legion nor afford to linger. British horses and weapons were quickly collected. When all his men were mounted, weapons gathered, and captured horses secured, Davie issued an orderly retreat. He wrote that the Scots were advancing “briskly to attack the detachment, but as they entered one end of the lane the Americans were marching out of the other in good order.”

Davie offered a pensive anecdote in his account of the attack. He described Captain Wahab and his family suddenly caught in the middle of the war, writing that his captain “had been exiled for some time from his family…they gathered around him in tears of joy and distraction, the enemy advanced, and he could only embrace them, and in a few minutes afterwards turning his eyes back towards his all, as the detachment moved off, he had the mortification to see their only hope of subsistence wrapt in flames. This barbarous practice was uniformly enacted by the British officers in the Southern States. However casual the encounter might be, when it happened at a plantation their remaining in possession of the ground was always marked by committing the Houses to flames.”

Casualties

Dead and wounded.

Originally planning a night time attack, Davie had ordered that no quarter be given and no prisoners taken. He later reported that the British had lost fifteen to twenty dead and forty wounded. Contemporary accounts place the number of dead much higher at sixty with over a hundred total casualties. Against this, Davie had only one wounded by friendly fire when the man was mistakenly taken for the enemy. Davie admitted the brutality of accepting no quarter and killing all within reach, against a foe who time again had issued similar orders in their vicious attacks; Battle of Waxhaws also called Buford’s Massacre (May 29, 1780) and Fishing Creek (August 18, 1780), to name but a couple. Davie explained that the lack of granting quarter proved a necessity and that the original orders “…in hurry of the morning were not revoked. This circumstance, the vicinity of the British quarters, and the danger of pursuit satisfactorily account for no prisoners being taken.”

Aftermath

In the few moments he had to collect what bounty he could, Davie’s loot was notable; ninety-six horses with saddlebags plump with booty, an assortment of camp supplies, and of considerable importance for rebel militia who often joined without personal weapons – 120 stand of arms.

The fact that a small band of rebel militia would have the audacity to attack one of Cornwallis’ finest regiment within a stone’s throw of his main camp was embarrassing. That this band of ‘rabble’ would cut to pieces and send the Legion running for their lives, inflicting a large number of casualties, men that could not be replaced,’ while sustaining only one wounded, was down-right appalling. Cornwallis was sourly vexed by the incident, but it seems not enough to remove Hanger as commander of the Legion. It was a decision that would, colloquially speaking, ‘bite His Lordship in the Arse.’

Within a week of Wahab’s Plantation, Colonel Davie would have another go at Major Hanger’s Legion. Cornwallis broke camp at Waxhaws and crossed into North Carolina on September 23rd. At the Battle of Charlotte (September 26, 1780), a spotlight shined on the overstuffed Lord of Coleraine’s incompetence leading men into battle for all to see.. Before the entire British army, Davie’s men would stand firm before repeated charges by Hanger’s cavalry. Each time the able rebel commander’s devastating fire would shatter the overconfident horsemen, sending them fleeing back to the protection of British infantry. Cornwallis, in disgust, rode forward and reprimanded his famed horsemen, calling out “Legion, remember you have everything to lose, but nothing to gain.”  Davie would manage to halt the British advance into North Carolina at Charlotte while effecting an orderly retreat.

The fact that a handful of rebel militia stood defiant before Cornwallis’ entire army while fending off repeated attacks by regular soldiers was not lost on the British. Cornwallis’ experienced firsthand just what sort of fight lay ahead and what Davie later stated, giving “his Lordship some earnest of what he might expect in No Carolina.”  Cornwallis, not expecting such fierce resistance from a horde of rebel militia, would wait at Charlotte fifteen days before news reached him of the defeat of his large Tory force along his western flank; King’s Mountain (October 7, 1780) with the death of Major Patrick Ferguson. The very next day, Cornwallis abandoned plans to invade North Carolina, returning to South Carolina where he would wait out the winter before another attempt to advance north.

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RESOURCE

Buchanan, John. The Road to Guilford Courthouse: The American Revolution in the Carolinas.  1997: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., New York, NY.

Hanger, George.  The Life, Adventures, and Opinions of Colonel George Hanger, Written by Himself. Vol 2. 1801: London.

Rankin, Hugh F.  North Carolina in the American Revolution. 1971: University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill. NC.

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.

Walter, Edgar.  Partisans and Redcoats: The Southern Conflict That Turned the Tide of the American Revolution. 2001: Harper Collins, New York, NY.