The nine-day Siege of Fort Watson by American Continentals under Colonel Henry ‘Light-Horse Harry’ Lee and militia under Colonel Francis ‘Swamp Fox’ Marion, April 14 – 23, 1781, ended in the destruction of the first of many British forts and stockades that formed the chain of communication and supply depots across the deep south. It is unique to history as the first use of what became known as the Maham Tower; named for Major Hezekiah Maham of ‘Swamp Fox’ Marion’s command. The medieval type tower used the groove-bored accuracy of rifle to expedite the siege of fortifications without time consuming sapping to position cannon.
Prelude
After the Battle of Guilford Court House, March 15, 1781, British General Cornwallis faced a dilemma. He won the battle against the American Southern Army commanded by Major General Nathanael Greene, but wrecked his army in doing so. After the pitched battle, he was far from achieving his goal of destroying the rebel army that withdrew in strength. The field of battle that remained in British hands was strewn with the dead and dying, veteran troops that could not be replaced. Since the previous Battle of Cowpens, January 15, 1781, in which he lost most of his light infantry, his soldiers were worn down and famished after eight weeks chasing Greene all over North Carolina. With little food and supplies left, Cornwallis had no choice but to limp his exhausted army 215 miles south to Wilmington and the coast, where he could resupply and rest his command. There he would decide his next step.
As Cornwallis marched away from Greene’s force, he left the back door open for the American general to march back down to South Carolina. Cornwallis had left behind a substantial force of outposts scattered throughout South Carolina and Georgia. These interior forces were under the command of Lord Francis Rawdon. A capable officer, Rawdon had fought the rebels since the first shots fired at Lexington, April 19, 1775.. In five years of war, he had led troops in near every major battle from Bunker Hill to Monmouth to Guilford Courthouse. Greene’s goal was to allow Cornwallis to think he was being pursued to the coast, while turning to attack Rawdon’s garrisons. And he would start with Camden, where Lord Rawdon was holed up with 900 regulars and loyalist troops.
Though Greene’s army was rested and well-fed, he too faced a dilemma. The Continental veterans under his command were the same who had marched south with General De Kalb during the summer of 1780. After three major battles, the first being Camden where nearly half were lost, they were reduced in numbers, down from six regiments to one. As for militia, their short-term enlistments had ended and most had gone home to their farms. Though the 1st North Carolina Continental Regiment had been revived, the regiment had surrendered at Charleston the previous year, these were raw troops and were only just beginning to show up in camp. The result, Greene had in his command barely 1,400 troops. Besides Rawdon’s 900 at Camden, that number was more than doubled when spread out over the many outposts. Greene needed to deduce the odds.
Greene Detaches Colonels Lee and Swamp Fox Marion to attack Outposts and Forts
Greene’s goal was to bottle up Rawdon at Camden by remaining a threat to His Lordship’s base. In the meantime, he would begin to whittle down the outposts by capturing and destroying one at a time. Greene still had at his command veteran partisan troops under Andrew Pickens, Francis ‘Swamp Fox’ Marion, and the ‘Gamecock’ Thomas Sumter (though Sumter answered only to himself and rarely coordinated his attacks with Continental generals).
On April 7, 1781, Greene left Ramsay’s Mills to begin a 140-mile march to Camden to confront Rawdon. The day before, April 6th, he had detached Colonel ‘Light-Horse Harry’ Lee’s Legion, along with one company of continentals from the 5th Maryland Regiment under Captain Edward Oldham, around 340 men in all, to advance southeast towards Wilmington and Cornwallis’ army. Lee was to trick Cornwallis into believing he was the vanguard of Greene’s army. Lee eventually turned west to Drowning Creek, then onto the Little Pee Dee. Once near the Black River, Lee located Francis Marion and according to Lee’s memoirs, delivered Greene’s letter inviting the militiaman to join Lee. However, in the dispatch that Greene wrote to Marion, he states that “This will be handed to you by Captain Conyers.” (Most likely Captain James Conyers who served in the South Carolina 1st Regiment of State Dragoons.)
NOTE: Several historians and internet articles have mistakenly stated that the continental company that accompanied Lee were of the 1st North Carolina Continental Regiment. The 1st NC was captured during the siege of Charleston. By the spring of 1781, the regiment had been reformed, but units of it would not arrive until later in the year. Also, there were two Captain Oldhams from North Carolina in the Southern Army, Captain John Rice Oldham and Captain George Oldham; however, they were militiamen from Caswell County, not continental soldiers. Greene, in his letter to Lee, specifically states a company of continentals to be led by Captain Oldham.
Marion informed Lee that in the past month, he had been following and harassing a large British force under Lt. Colonel Watson. The colonel was ordered by Rawdon in early March to find and capture Marion and was given 500 men to do so, including the 64th Foot. Marion had followed Watson to the South Carolina coast at Georgetown where he expected Watson to rest his men before either continuing his search for Marion, or returning to Camden. Marion and Lee decided that Fort Watson would be the first outpost to be attacked.
Fort Watson
Fort Watson was built by a British officer with the strangest name and to whom General Cornwallis gave the title, ‘The Plague.’ Lt. Colonel John Watson Tadwell Watson was a pompous dandy who from early on in his military career, knew which hands to grease to advance his military career. The darling of Commander-in-Chief General Henry Clinton, many officers of lower ranks despised Watson, including Cornwallis, who considered the weaselly man a Clinton spy. Bored by garrison duty in New York City, and calculating a little action would help his career, he convinced General Clinton to give him a battalion of Provincial Light Infantry, made up from New Jersey and the city’s De Lancy’s loyalists.
Totaling 244 men, including another 102 from the 17th Foot, Watson departed New York City on October 17, 1780 with General Alexander Leslie’s reinforcements promised Cornwallis. They arrived Charleston, South Carolina on December 14th. Cornwallis was dismayed upon learning Watson had tagged along. Cornwallis wanted nothing to do with the man and posted him and his unit as an independent force assigned to communications and supplies under Lord Rawdon. Though Watson whined to one and all, he remained at his posting.
In late December, 1780 and on the 25th, he was ten miles northwest of Nelson’s Ferry, on the Santee River, about fifty-five miles south of Camden, South Carolina. There he decided to establish a base of operations. He chose the top of an old Santee Indian burial mound about twenty-two feet high called Wright’s Bluff. He ordered a stockade built atop the mound that overlooked the river and the Camden Road. It was 75 feet long and fifty feet wide with walls seven feet high; about thirty feet from bottom of the mound to the parapet. Surrounding the mound was a ditch and three rows of abatis, pointed spears facing outward. A three pounder (grasshopper) cannon was added and of course, he christened the stockade Fort Watson after himself.
In early March, Watson was ordered to join British units in pursuit of Swamp Fox Marion. He was reinforced with the 64th Foot, bringing his numbers to 500 men and headed out immediately. Behind he left Lieutenant James McKay in charge of a garrison of eighty regulars and forty militia. The stage was set for Lee and Marion to make their appearance.
The Siege and Tower
When Lee and Marion arrived at Nelson’s Ferry on April 15, 1781, they knew Watson could have been informed of Greene approaching Camden and might be marching to reinforce Rawdon at Camden. There was a good chance he would return to the fort on his way northwest. But they figured they had time to take the fort before the hapless lieutenant colonel showed up. The first thing they did was cut off their water supply to nearby Scott’s Lake; however, accounts vary as if the garrison had previously built a well or a ditch had been constructed that channeled water from the river. Either way, this had no effect. Because of the large killing field of cleared trees, the triple abatis, and the height of mound and stockade, the rebels decided the fort was too hazardous for a frontal attack. Without cannon or trenching tools, nor the time for a protracted siege, it seemed they would have to give up. It was then that one of Marion’s men stepped forward with a solution.
Major Hezekiah Maham suggested they construct a tower; a siege tower similar in medieval design which would rise higher than the stockade; over thirty feet. Upon its precipice, a platform would support a platoon of rifle marksmen who could fire down into the fort. After six days of indecision, Lee and Marion heartedly accepted the plan and work started immediately. Men were sent to nearby plantations to confiscate axes, cutting tools, shovels, picks, etc. Log crips of green pine timbers were cut, notched, and bound together into rectangular shapes to be stacked. The front of the tower would be reinforced with shields of spliced timber.
All this was done out of view of the fort’s garrison. On the night of April 22nd, during the cover of darkness, the individual rectangular log sections were brought up to within rifle shot of the fort. Dirt was shoveled into each section stacked until the tower rose to forty feet. The platform was hefted and bound in place. The party of riflemen then ascended to their stations and waited for first light. Lee later wrote: “A party of riflemen, being ready, took post in the Maham tower the moment it was completed; and a detachment of musketry, under cover of the riflemen, moved to make a lodgment in the enemy’s ditch, supported by the Legion infantry with fixed bayonets.”
While the riflemen poured accurate shot into the fort, keeping the garrison from mounting the parapets, the forlorn hope of militiamen raced and chopped through the abatis. They were immediately followed by Continental troops with fixed bayonets. Once the rebels were through the defenses, Lieutenant McKay knew he had no other choice but to surrender the garrison. The fort was taken on April 23rd and subsequently destroyed, with the capture of five officers, seventy-three regulars, and thirty-six loyalists.
Aftermath
Greene continued to maneuver to the north and east of Camden to cut off any chance of British reinforcements from the coast; particularly Lt. Colonel Watson’s 500 man detachment. Two days after Fort Watson was captured, General Rawdon received critical information from a deserter, including Greene’s lack of cannon, and sallied out from Camden to attack. The Battle of Hobkirk’s Hill was yet again another contest in which Greene left the field to the British; however, the victory proved too dear for the British and Lord Rawdon soon after abandoned Camden for the fortification at Ninety-six.
Lee and Marion hit it off and would continue to work closely together in skirmishes and major battles. Later, the two joined forces to capture and burn Fort Motte (May 8 – 12), another critical supply chain between Charleston and Camden and Ninety-Six.
Though the suggestion to build another Maham Tower during the siege of Fort Motte was suggested, it was not practical in that case. But Major Mahan’s idea was put to future use at the Siege of Ninety-Six and Augusta, Georgia.
Cornwallis remained at Wilmington, North Carolina until deciding his best chance to maintain the south was to march his army north into Virginia and link up with General Phillips who had invaded the region earlier in the year along with turncoat General Benedict Arnold. As they say, the rest is history as Cornwallis became trapped at Yorktown and later surrendered his command.
As for Lt. Colonel Watson, he decided campaigning in the south was too dangerous to one’s health and in July of 1781, headed back to New York City to dine with General Clinton in a more appropriate and luxurious setting. Seems the courageous Watson’s timing was just right. Two months after he abandoned his command, the Provincial Light Infantry was decimated at the Battle Eutaw Springs, September 8, 1781; nearly fifty percent of its command, including many officers lay casualties in the field. Three months later, at Charleston, what was left of the unit was disbanded. Of course, the pompous lieutenant colonel continued to benefit from his bootlicker skills, rising in the ranks until retiring as a Lt. General and the darling of Parliament and the Royal court.
Today, the current site of Fort Watson remains the Santee Hill Burial Mount and in 1969, it was placed on the National Registry of Historic Places. All signs of the fort are gone.
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RESOURCE
Boyd, Thomas. Light-Horse Harry Lee. 1931: Scribner & Sons, New York, NY.
Dornfest, Walter T. “John Watson Tadwell Watson and the Provincial Light Infantry, 1780 – 1781.” Journal of the Society for Army Historical Research. Vol. 75, No. 304 (Winter 1997),pp. 220-229.
Greene, George W. The Life of Nathanael Green, Vol 3. 1871: Hurd and Houghton Riverside Press, New York, NY.
Lee, Henry. Memoirs of the War in the Southern Department of the United States. Vol. II. 1812: Bradford and Inskeep, New York, NY.
Ward, Christopher. The War of the Revolution. 1952: MacMillan, New York, NY. 2021: Reissue by Skyhorse Publishing, New York, NY.