My Lord Hook was shot from his horse
–James Collins sixteen-year-old rebel militiaman
July 12, 1780, Huck’s Defeat, or the Battle of Williamson’s Plantation, was a vengeful sudden strike by patriot backcountry militiamen against a strong, well-trained foe. Though small in scale by comparison, it was considered a gamechanger for patriot militia. It was the first time a band of rebel militiamen swooped down and surprised British partisan regulars, including a detachment of Legion dragoons, and devastated them. Over seventy percent of the British force was killed or wounded with only around twenty escaping capture. The action convinced many hesitant patriots to join rising militia bands under leaders like Thomas Sumter and Andrew Pickens. But as for the patriot militia who attacked that day, to a man they would probably tell you they were driven; fueled by savage hatred for one man, the British leader, Captain Christian Huck.
Captain Christian Huck of Tarleton’s Legion
If Lt. Colonel Banastre Tarleton was British Commanding General Lord Charles Cornwallis’ prized mastiff, then Captain Christian Huck (also spelt Houk, Huyck, Hook, among others) of Tarleton’s Legion was the flamboyant dragoon’s prized pit bull. Nouns run into each other to describe the man; ruffian, bully-boy, thug, brute, hooligan, and for many Scotch-Irish settlers of the Carolina backcountry, a monster. In the Mel Gibson 2000 movie The Patriot, Huck would have given chosen model Banastre Tarleton a run for his money in the bad guy department. But war and hatred does things to people and for Huck, it began when he lost everything he had to the rebellion.
A German immigrant, some scholars believe Huck’s parents may had been among a large contingency of Palatines Germans who arrived Philadelphia in 1733; however, later on Huck’s muster roll, he stated he was born in Germany in 1748. Huck practiced law and delved in real estate in Philadelphia. Purchasing land and a sizable comfortable home on 2nd Street, he became quite successful among the social elite. Loyal to the crown, he was one of many others in the city who rejoiced the British takeover in the fall of 1777. He also witnessed in despair when the British decided to abandon Philadelphia the following summer of 1778. A month before the ‘redbacks’ pulled out of the city, Huck, and other prominent Tory citizens of Philadelphia, were pronounced guilty of High Treason by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court. They were to be banned from the state and all their property was to be seized and sold at auction. Enraged by the injustice of forfeiting all he had accomplished, Huck sought a means to channel his anger. And the Scotch-Irish Presbyterians of Philadelphia and later same settlers in the Carolinas became his target.
Emigrants from the border regions and lowlands of Scotland and northern England, the Scotch-Irish port of call in the new world was mainly Philadelphia. Most settled in the city and surrounding region. They were vocal revolutionaries and would be among the extreme element who dealt harshly with those retaining loyalty to a king. By the mid 1700’s and up to the revolution, thousands had packed their bags and joined others in a migration south along the Great Wagon Road to the Carolinas. Many settled in the backcountry of western South Carolina along the Piedmont. This is an important element that will come into play leading up to the battle.
Huck had no choice but to leave the city penniless. He abandoned Philadelphia just prior to the British evacuation on June 18, 1778, and made his way to New York City. Perhaps Huck sought the military to strike back at his accusers. He no sooner arrived New York when on June 7, 1778, he enlisted in fellow German Andreas Emmerick’s Chasseurs; similar to French Light Infantry, it was composed of both European soldiers and Colonial Partisan troops. He would be involved in the Hudson Highland Campaign against rebel forts under General Clinton and later the forage wars around New York City. Around mid-1779, when the regiment was disbanded and men dispersed among other units, a large number were soon wearing the green jackets of Banastre Tarleton’s Legion. This highly trained partisan troop included dragoons, mounted infantry, and light foot. Huck, intelligent, aggressive, was commissioned a captain of dragoons, though never having cavalry experience. In December, 1779, Tarleton’s Legion accompanied Commander-in-Chief General Henry Clinton’s invasion force of Charleston, South Carolina, landing in February of 1780.
Before the two-month siege of the American Army bottled up in Charleston ended in surrender on May 12, 1780, Lt. Colonel Tarleton’s quick moving corps was turned loose on the countryside to seek patriot forces that included militia and detached Continental troops. Tarleton’s explosive tactic of attack first and plan later proved highly effective. Bloody encounters quickly racked up victories from Monck’s Corner (April 14th) Lenud’s Ferry (May 8th), to the worst and bloodiest of them all, Waxhaws (May 29, 1780). Where most of the 3rd Virginia Continental troops under Colonel Abraham Buford were hacked to death or died soon after from horrendous wounds, most while trying to surrender. ‘Bloody Ben’ Tarleton became the spiteful term for the green coated commander and his trained Legion of hounds. And Captain Christian Huck’s bloody sword was always in the thick of the butchery. Colonel Richard Winn of Fairfield County, South Carolina, referring to Waxhaws, stated in his memoirs that “Huck was one of those that cut Buford to pieces.”
Huck Led a Strong Detachment of Legion and Loyalist Regulars
When Commanding General Henry Clinton returned to New York, he left Lt. General Lord Charles Cornwallis in charge of the British army at Charleston. His Lordship was tasked with subduing the rest of South Carolina before marching north to do the same with North Carolina. Meanwhile, Virginia would be invaded and the two forces would meet to complete the submission of the south. But first, South Carolina and its massive interior had to be placated. Lord Francis Rawdon was given the command of a series of outposts that by the summer of 1780 had been establish across the backcountry, forming a chain of communication and supplies to and from Charleston. From these strongholds, detachments of British troops, partisan forces, and ‘friends’ (local loyalist militia) would venture out to chase down revolutionaries and force the population to give their oath to the English crown.
Key Forts within the British chain included Camden, 130 miles northwest of Charleston, and Ninety-Six, another 50 miles further west. These two fortifications also served as troop concentration points and major supply depots for outlining garrisons. One of importance, established the first of June, was Rocky Mount on the Catawba River, just south of present-day Great Falls, SC, about 35 miles northwest of Camden. This area of South Carolina, heavily populated by Scotch-Irish from Pennsylvania, had quickly developed into a civil war between rebel and Tory factions, often pitting neighbor against neighbor. The British garrison tasked to control this cauldron of violence was made up of partisan loyalists commanded by Lt. Colonel George Turnbull.
Trumbull was determined to confront residents to demand their loyalty to England and destroy all pockets of armed resistance to the crown. Most particularly any smaller bands gathering to feed into larger groups commanded by rebel leaders such as Thomas Sumter and Andrew Pickens. In mid-June, Tarleton was in Charleston; however, elements of his Legion were among the western garrisons. Trumbull turned to one of Tarleton’s captains, Christian Huck. He would be given full discretion in obtaining oaths of loyalty, hunting down rebel leaders, and the destruction of rebel strongholds.
“—a poor choice for such a mission…He [Huck] made no attempt to hide his contempt for the rebels and back-country settlers in general, and his outrages against Whigs, their families, and their property proved to be one of the best recruiting tools the partisans had.”
–Colonel William Hill from his Memoirs
In a situation where the British hoped to gain settler’s loyalties, perhaps a diplomat may have had more success than using an iron fist to forge a path of devastation and hatred. For Huck, to be given a command of trained regulars, then turned loose among the Scotch-Irish, those who had taken all he once had, the adage ‘fox in the hen house’ would be appropriate. The former lawyer was determined to wreak terror to exact the vengeance he so rightfully deserved. And in that, he was successful.
Huck’s First Raid Kills a Youth, Loots and Torches a Church, Homes, and Businesses
Lt. Colonel Turnbull wrote to General Cornwallis on June 16, 1780, the day he dispatched Huck. “I have taken the liberty to order Captain Huck to destroy the Iron Works. They are the property of Mr. Hill, a great Rebel.” The works Turnbull spoke of were about 35 miles northwest of Rocky Mount on Allison Creek. William Hill, owner of the iron works along with Isaac Hayne, was a native of Northern Ireland. He had settled in what was called the New Acquisition District in South Carolina (present day York County) in 1762, fifteen miles south of the North Carolina border. He discovered iron ore on his property and soon mined and developed a profitable ironworks. He manufactured kitchen utensils and various farm tools for the entire region within a fifty-mile radius. What caught Turnbull’s attention was the report that he also forged swivel guns, cannon, and ammunition.
Huck was in charge of his company of Legion dragoons, a detachment of mounted infantry – De Lancey’s New York Provincial Volunteers [these men were trained as British regulars and wore red uniforms], and a large contingency of mounted militia. As to the number of men, sources of this first excursion into the back country running are sketchy giving anywhere from 150 up to 500 troops. Besides the ironworks, Huck was also bent on capturing the firebrand Presbyterian preacher John Simpson. Turnbull had been told that the clergyman was captain of a local patriot militia company.
While in route to the Fishing Creek Meetinghouse where Simpson preached, Hunk halted at the farmhouse of Jenny Strong, widow with two sons who had joined the local militia. While Huck’s men patrolled the road, Turnbull reported that they saw “two men wearing rebel uniforms” running through a wheat field. They opened fire and killed one. It turned out to be Jenny Strong’s seventeen-year-old son William. Word later spread that William Strong was walking along the road reading his bible when he was shot. This embellishment of the event only further vilified the British; however, it was later taken up by early historians as fact.
Soon after, Huck carried on to the meetinghouse. Discovering Simpson was not there, they burned it down. [Unlike Mel Gibson’s The Patriot, he did not stuff it with village folk before it was torched]. Huck was only just starting. He pushed on to Simpson’s home where he only found Simpson’s pregnant wife and four small children. After threatening her and declaring her husband would hang and the preacher’s scalp brought to her, he ordered the home looted of all valuables. Once done, the home was burned as well as an outbuilding serving as Simpson’s library.
From the Simpson’s, Huck headed further north to the iron works. William Hill had joined Sumter’s force leaving sixteen white men to run the works in his absence along with nearly 100 black slaves. Unlike settler’s homes and churches, the works were a legitimate target for destruction. It was a well-known gathering place for rebel militia and had produced war materials for patriot militia. At the site were two furnaces, four gristmills, and two sawmills. Turnbull had ordered Huck to destroy the works and he immediately set about doing so. William Hill’s memoirs recorded that “from there a certain captain Hook with a company of Horse and about 500 Tories came to the Iron works, destroyed all the property they could not carry away. Burned the forge furnace, grist and saw mills together with all other buildings even to the negro huts, & bore away about 90 negroes…” Afterwards, Huck turned about and headed back to Rocky Mount to report.
Huck’s Second Raid Terrorizes Back-Country Settlers
In early July, Trumbull learned that militia leader Thomas Sumter was allowing some of his men, particularly officers, leave to return home to harvest their hay and grain. This was an opportunity for a rapid mobile force to attack rebel leaders individually at their homes or in small groups. Turnbull gave Huck his marching orders to “push the rebels as far as you may deem convenient.” Huck left Rocky Mount on July 10th with around 120 men; 35 British Legion Dragoons, 20 mounted ‘redcoat’ infantry of De Lancey’s New York Volunteers, and sixty or so Tory militiamen. This time Huck had his sights on two prominent rebel militia leaders in the fishing creek region. Twenty-five-year-old John McClure had once given his parole, but after Waxhaw, broke his oath and had raised a small force of twenty neighbors. So too, Huck was eager to capture Colonel William Bratton, commander of a regiment of partisans under Thomas Sumter. Both men had joined their forces and had led their rebel militias in what has been called the Battle of Mobley’s Meetinghouse, (sources give either late Mary or early June 1780), in which a large band of Tories were attacked and routed. Between Bratton and McClure, they commanded 250 militiamen and had since joined forces with Sumter.
Under the care of loyalist guides, Huck lost no time in seeking his prey. The morning of July 11th, riders tore down the drive of John McClure’ home and burst in the house. Captain McClure, unmarried, lived with his mother Mary Gaston McClure and two other brothers, Hugh and James; father James McClure had died in 1770. There were three sisters, Martha, Margaret, and Mary, but sources only give that Mary was home at the time. John and Hugh were with Sumter, but younger brother James was home. He and Mary’s son-in-law were caught in the act of melting pewter plates to mold bullets.
It is not clear if Mrs. McClure informed the raiders of her son John’s whereabouts when questioned. The house was looted of all valuables and James and Edward were tied up under threats to be hanged in the morning. The McClure ancestry source that when Mary protested, Huck struck her with the flat of his sword or that one of Huck’s Legion struck her. While other sources do not mention this incident having happened. Once the British had left, the McClure family maintained that Mrs. McClure told her daughter Mary to ride and alert her brother John. She rode thirty-five miles and found Captain McClure at Sumter’s camp.
From the McClure’s, Huck rode to William and Mary Adair’s residence, Scotch-Irish who had moved from Philadelphia. The Legion captain was looking for their three sons – James, John, and William, but they were with Sumter. The house was pillaged and valuables taken before Huck, having yet to capture any of the men on his list, carried onto Colonel William Bratton’s farm.
Again, the zealous captain’s luck remained nil for so too, militia leader Bratton was with Sumter. What happened next has been sourced through seven-year-old William Bratton Jr. who recorded events years later. Martha Robinson Bratton met Huck on her porch. Besides the presence of her children, there were three elderly men who had arrived to help gather in the wheat. Mrs. Bratton was ordered to prepare a meal, then questioned as to her husband’s location. She informed the British partisans that her husband was not at home with wording to the effect that even if she knew, she would not tell them. Accordingly, this enraged one of the loyalists, a “red-headed ruffian,” who grabbed a sickle from a peg on the wall and held it to her neck stating that he would “cut her head off and split it.” What we do know is that when Martha Bratton was threatened, one of the Tories, later identified as John Adamson of Camden, stopped him. Some secondary sources have embellished this chivalrous act, including that Adamson threw the offender to the floor and beat him with the flat of his sword before offering the family his protection. Huck left the Bratton farm towing James McClure and Edward with the addition of the three elderly men; all were to be hanged at first light the next day.
Huck rode only a quarter mile north of the Bratton farm and camped at the plantation of James Williamson. The prisoners were tied up in a corn crib to await execution in the morning. Huck made himself at home in the Williamson’s house. His troops camped in tents between rail fences that lined the road and before the main house. Either through over confidence, arrogance, or just plain carelessness, no patrols were sent out, no pickets posted, and no sentries placed on the road; only near and in front of the house where Huck bedded down. Once Huck left the Bratton farm, Martha, like Mrs. McClure, sought to alert the rebels. She sent one of the family slaves, Watt, to ride to her husband. Watt was reported to have found the colonel West of the Catawba. With vindictive rebels alerted to the assault upon their homes and families, and Huck’s fatal error leaving himself wide open to a surprise attack, similar to American General Isaac Hunger earlier that year at the battle of Monck’s Corner (April 14, 1780), the stage was set and the curtain would be drawn at dawn.
Battle
Once having received word, Captain John McClure and Colonel William Bratton ordered their men saddled. Soon after, 150 were galloping through the night for home. There was no concern of having to pick their way over a blackened countryside; the moon was three quarters full and was accompanied by a bright aurora borealis. Other militia units joined them under Captain Edward Lacey Jr. and Colonel William Hill (owner of the iron works Huck destroyed during his first raid) and their numbers swelled to 250. William Bratton led his militia of York County and Captain McClure headed up his men and the Chester County militia under Lacey. By the time the Whigs covered the thirty-five miles to the Williamson plantation, it was a few hours before dawn.
Once there, scouts were sent forward and returned with news that there were no patrols or posted pickets. Also, the few sentries on duty had fallen asleep. A council of war was called and a plan of attack set. The assault would be on foot. Colonel Bratton would form his men at his home and carefully advance from the west, along the road towards the Williamson home to creep up on their sleeping enemy. McClure and Lacey would proceed on horse and attack from the east, opposite Bratton’s command. As soon as McClure’s men neared the Williamson home, they would tether their mounts and approach silently on foot. Once all units attained their posts, they were to wait until the first shots were fired, “raise the war whoop,” and attack. Author Alan Crawford in his This Fierce People, wrote that a third party approached from the side of the home, through a peach orchard behind some outbuildings, supported by militiaman James Collins; however, this faction may have been part of McClure’s detachment.
McClure’s men approached far slower than Bratton’s. Theirs’ was a circuitous path around the Williamson home. It took them through woods, wetland, brambles, and gnarly thickets, all slowing their advance. They were only just nearing their post when the first shots were fired. At seventy yards from the British camp, from behind the rail fence, Bratton’s militia volleyed a sheet of lead, peppering tents and picking off loyalist militia and regulars as they rolled out of their bedding. Some ran for stacked weapons while others took off for the woods. It was a total surprise.
Several of the red-coated New York Volunteers, along with some Legionnaires ,tried to resist. But the fire proved intense and deadly accurate. Maurice Moore, a physician who fought that day, wrote the fence Bratton’s men fought from was a “kind of breastwork.” It offered “some little protection against the enemy’s muskertyr and afforded a good rest for their rifles, which they took unerring aim.” Exposed along the road and in front of the house, Tory bodies dropped in droves.
Huck had burst from the Williamson’s home without his green jacket. He mounted and attempted to rally his men. The firing increased and now came from the front, rear, and side once McClure and Lacey had came up and got into the fray. War whoops were heard above the din as both Bratton’s and McClure’s men pressed their advantage. At that point, Huck must have known that any hope of defense was lost.
Soon after, two bullets found Captain Christian Huck and he was killed. There are two eyewitness versions to the swearing captain’s demise. Lieutenant Anthony Allaire recorded in his diary that Huck realized any further effort at resistance was futile and the hated captain, deciding that discretion was the better part of valor, tried to escape. He was shot from his horse by pursuing militia while galloping from the fight; a bullet in his neck.
James Collins of Captain John Moffett’s Chester County Militia offered another version of the hated captain’s death as recorded in his autobiography. He stated that he approached through a peach orchard behind a log building with Moffett’s band when the British “troops were soon mounted and paraded. This, I confess, was a very imposing sight, at least to me, for I had never seen a troop of British horse before, and thought they differed vastly from us – poor hunting shirt fellows. The leader drew his sword, mounted his horse, and began to storm and rave, and advanced on us; but we kept close to the peach orchard. When they had got pretty near to the peach trees, their leader called out, ‘disperse you damned rebels, or we will put every man of you to the sword.’ Our rifle balls began to whistle among them, and in a few minutes my Lord Hook was shot off his horse and fella t full length; his sword flew out of his hand as he fell and lay at some distance.”
With the death of Huck, the fight was pretty much over. The rebels charged and those Tories who could, took for the woods and swamps. The ground was littered with red and green coated dead and wounded along with local loyalist militia. Tory stragglers were pursued with many shot or captured. Besides Huck, the British had an estimated 35 killed and twenty-nine wounded with many captives. Lt. Colonel Banastre Tarleton would write of the incident after the war, recording that only 12 Legion and 12 militiamen escaped. This left the red-coated regulars of De Lancey’s New York Volunteers either stilled upon the field of battle, or prisoners of the victors. For the rebels, they suffered only one killed and one wounded.
John McClure saw to it that his younger brother James, along with Edward Martin and the other three prisoners who were to be hanged that morning had been freed from the corn crib. The wounded were helped into the first floor of the Williamson’s house where neighboring women gathered to offer their aid.
A postscript that has been listed in several accounts of the battle, often elaborated with a colorful exchange by its participants, involved the loyalist John Adamson. He had come to the aid of Mrs. Bratton when the ‘red-headed man’ threatened her with a sickle. Adamson was among the wounded and the story goes that Mr. Bratton thought Adamson was the ruffian who terrorized his wife and in turn, threatened to kill him. Mrs. Bratton came forward and identified Adamson as the one who saved her. The Camden militiaman was taken to the Bratton home where Martha personally saw to his recovery. After the war, Adamson would live peacefully beside his rebel neighbors.
Aftermath
A group of backcountry militia had attacked and annihilated a force of British regulars and highly trained Partisan dragoons and mounted infantry of Bloody Ben’s hated Legion. The effect on the rebel population was as expected; ecstatic. The victory was enough for some who had been on the fence, unsure as to whom they should support, to flock to the standard raised by South Carolina’s Brigadier General Thomas Sumter. For those still loyal to the crown, this action dimmed prospects for a large Tory militia gathering to aid the British in placating the state, mainly the backcountry. So too, Presbyterian Whig ministers could proclaim that God was on the side of the rebels by smiting the blasphemous Hauck and his British counterparts.
British commander of the southern army, General Lord Charles Cornwallis, knew the psychological effect of Huck’s loss. He also knew that the rosy picture of South Carolina’s capitulation he had painted his superiors in London had been premature. In a letter he wrote to Nisbet Balfour, commander at Ninety-Six he admitted “The unlucky affair that happened to the detachment under Captain Huck of the Legion has given me great uneasiness.”
A month later, Cornwallis would decimate the American Southern Army at the Battle of Camden, August 16, 1780, and within two days, see the destruction of General Sumter’s large militia force at the Battle of Fishing Creek on the 18th. A new exuberance would replace any doubt as to finally placating South Carolina. But it would not last long. The dye was cast. Within months, Sumter’s force would almost double what was lost at Fishing Creek. The American Southern Army would receive competent leaders. And though Cornwallis would go on claiming each battlefield, it was the war of the southern mind he was losing. As such, the death of Christopher Huck quite possibly laid the path for British defeat clear from a South Carolina plantation to Yorktown.
As to who fired the shot that killed Huck, most of the men in the battle gave the credit to John Carroll of Chester County. Carroll reportedly loaded two balls in his rifle before firing at Huck. Several other men present that day also claimed to have fired the killing rounds, including John Carroll’s brother Thomas, Capt. Charles Miles, and James Stephenson. Huck, along with his dead troops were buried on the Williamson’s grounds. According to early historian Lyman C. Draper, years later Huck was dug up; recorded in Draper’s manuscripts of an interview with Dr. James Rufus Bratton, a grandson of Colonel William Bratton. Dr. Rufus Bratton revealed that Colonel Bratton’s son-in-law Dr. James Simpson (also the son of Reverand John Simpson whose home and church was destroyed by Huck) had the skeleton taken from the ground and put on display in his office, with the two rifle ball holes visible in the skull.
A final note on Captain John McClure. The youthful commander would suffer a similar fate as Colonel Thomas Knowlton, commander of Continental rangers who, as a competent rising star within the American of Washington’s army in New York, was prematurely killed leading his men at the Battle of Harlem Heights (September 16, 1776). McClure would rise to the rank of Major and soon to be colonel, leading his men at the Battle of Hanging Rock, August 6, 1780. Though wounded early in the fight, he carried on and was in front charging the enemy when wounded thrice more, this time mortally. One of proven leadership he would, like that of Knowlton, be sorely missed.
CHECK OUT THIS EXCELLENT VIDEO ON HUCK’S DEFEAT CARE OF HISTORIC BRATTONVILLE and CULTURAL MUSEUM, SOUTH CAROLINA.
IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO READ MORE ON THE WAR IN THE SOUTH, CHECK OUT THESE GREAT BOOKS ON AMAZON
OF SIMILAR INTEREST ON REVOLUTIONARY WAR JOURNAL
RESOURCE
Buchanan, John. The Road to Guilford Courthouse. 1997: John Wiley & Sons Inc., New York, NY.
Collins, James Potter. Autobiography of a Revolutionary Soldier, revised and prepared by John M. Roberst. 1859: Feliciana Democrat, Clinton, LA.
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.
Hill, William edited by A. S. Salley Jr. Colonel William Hill’s Memoirs of the Revolution. 1921: The Historical Commission of South Carolina, Columbia, S. Carolina.
McCardy, Edward. History of South Carolina in the Revolution. 1780 – 1783. 1902: Macmillan & Co., New York, NY.
Scoggins, Michael. “Christian Huck Biography.” New Acquisition Militia.
Southern, Edward – editor. Voices of the American Revolution in the Carolinas. 2009: John F. Blair Publisher, Winston-Salem, North Carolina.
Walter, Edgar. Partisans and Redcoats: The Southern Conflict That Turned the Tide of the American Revolution. 2001: Harper Collins, New York, NY.
Ward, Christopher. The War of the Revolution. 1952: MacMillan, New York, NY. 2021: Reissue by Skyhorse Publishing, New York, NY.