The Second Siege of Augusta, Georgia, May 22 – June 5, 1781, was an American victory. It pitted the same two main antagonists who were present during the First Siege of Augusta, September 14 – 18, 1780; Georgia rebel militia leader Colonel Elijah Clarke, and Georgia loyalist militia leader Colonel Thomas ‘Burnfoot’ Brown. The difference in an American defeat at the first siege to a decisive victory in the second siege was the rebel advantage in numbers, and there would be no last minute relief by a strong British force. Augusta was one of a string of British outposts throughout the south that fell once British General Lord Charles Cornwallis’ army abandoned the south to join English forces in Virginia. Though a courage defense of Fort Cornwallis by the competent loyalist commander Brown kept a rebel victory in the balance, the use of a Maham Tower eventually left no other option for the loyalists but to surrender. And as such, would face the prospect of a ‘Georgia Parole,’ vengeful retribute which left little hope for quarter.
Nemesis Rebel Colonel Elijah Clarke and Loyalist Colonel Thomas ‘Burnfoot’ Brown
Though the two differed in many ways, one similarity proved decisive in the southern conflict that morphed into a civil war among neighbors; both were passionate in their cause and among the most competent leaders and determined fighters of the war. Courageous and cool-headed in battle, the two men had withstood multiple severe wounds; each time returning to lead their men in seven long years of relentless fighting. From Florida to the Carolinas, major battles to countless vicious skirmishes, both in victory and defeat, they never gave up in their pursuit of their cause.
Colonel Elijah Clarke was born and raised in the backcountry wilderness; his parents were Scotch-Irish immigrants who followed the Great Wagon Road from Pennsylvania to the Carolinas. As such Clarke had little if any formal education and settled to raise his family in both western South Carolina and in Georgia’s wilderness; the ceded lands northwest of Augusta. Colonel Thomas Brown was born and raised as an aristocrat to a titled family in Yorkshire, England, given the finest education. In 1774, at the age of 24, his father purchased over 5,000 acres in Georgia’s ceded lands northwest of Augusta, and shipped over 150 indentured slaves so his son could become a lord of his own manor. Both followed their roots; Clarke as a Scotch-Irish Whig favoring rebellion, and Brown, a man of the crown through and through. And as such, both men proved their worth in leading men to battle early on.
While Clarke joined the military by choice and rose in the ranks of his militia from Captain to Lt. Colonel, to leading his own regiment, Brown was driven to take up arms for his King. After only one year in America, the wealthy ‘king’s man,’ was targeted for tar and feathering. In Brown’s case, the mob of Augusta’s Sons of Liberty subjected him to extreme torture of a fractured skull, repeatedly scalped, before burned; so badly he lost two toes and was crippled for years to come while suffering extreme headaches for life. It was this torture that hardened Brown’s heart and torched a fiery vengeance for which the rebellious Americans would pay dearly throughout the war.
Prequel to the First Siege of Augusta
With the outbreak of war, Colonel Clarke led his Georgia ceded lands militia, later the Wilkes County Militia. After Georgia, in 1780, became the only rebellious colony returned to British rule, Clarke commanded his militia from South Carolina then termed Georgia refugees. In December of 1775, Brown was forced to leave Georgia under threat of arrest. He went to St. Augustine and recruited first his East Florida Rangers, that in 1780 became the King’s Carolina Rangers – later still shortened to the King’s Rangers.
In three American invasions of East Florida, Brown’s rangers were at the forefront of each American defeat in which Clarke led the Georgia and Carolina militia. The 1776 rebel invasion of militia and Continental troops was turned away by lack of planning and a series of sharp skirmishes. The same occurred in the second American invasion that culminated with the Battle of Thomas Creek, May 17, 1777. A year later, American forces tried once more; resulting in the same failure at the Battle of Alligator Bridge, June 30, 1778. When the British took Savannah in December of 1779, Clarke’s Rangers marched with British regulars into the Georgia backcountry to take Augusta, only to be driven back after the loyalist defeat at the Battle of Kettle Creek. Brown would help throw back an American/Franco force’s attempt to take the town in the Siege of Savannah. Over the next year, Brown and Clarke would lead their militias in countless raids and skirmishes.
The British army landed in force in late February, 1780 opened a Siege of Charleston. On May 12th, the American Southern Continental Army surrendered to General Henry Clinton at Charleston; opening the southern backcountry to British rule. Over the years, the aristocrat turned guerrilla fighter Brown had gained the alliance of the Creek and Cherokee nations, supplying them with weapons and supplies and campaigning with them. As such he was commissioned Superintendent of Indian Affairs. With his King’s Rangers, local Augusta loyalist militia, and Native American allies, Brown was given the British post of Augusta. He constructed Fort Grierson, named for local militia leader Lt. Colonel Thomas Grierson, one quarter mile from the ruined Fort Augusta and stocked a strong supply of Native American weapons and ‘presents’ just outside of town at the McKay Plantation.
British Commanding General Lord Charles Cornwallis spent the rest of 1780 trying to rid the South Carolina backcountry of rebel resistance while setting up his planned invasion of North Carolina. The Battle of Camden, August 16, 1780, saw the defeat of the revitalized Southern Army under General Thomas Gates. Two days later, at the Battle of Fishing Creek, August 18th, General Sumter’s large militia force was attacked by Lt. Colonel Banestre Tarleton and defeated. Both actions seemed to guarantee British victory over the southern backcountry. But the rebellion, carried on by southern militias was far from over. Smaller attacks by large bands of hard fighting rebel militia led by competent officers was taking its toll on British supplies and regular troops. In this Colonel Clarke, now leading his labeled Georgia Refugees after Georgia fell to colonial rule again, saw his chance in taking Augusta.
First Siege of Augusta
Colonel Clarke hoped to raise a thousand militiamen to attack Augusta in September, 1780. He knew it was garrisoned by his old enemy, Colonel Thomas Brown along with around 450 Rangers, militia, Native Americans, and a company of regulars who were recovering from wounds received during the Battle of Musgrove Mill, August 18, 1780. By early September, he and Captain James McCall of South Carolina could only muster 350 men. This did not deter Clarke who was determined to regain Augusta and capture the large storage of British supplies of Native weapons and ‘presents’. Clarke moved so swiftly that the attack on September 14th was a complete surprise to Brown and his force.
Clarke divided his force into three divisions. While one attacked the Creek camp three miles west of town, drawing Brown’s main force to his allies’ aid, the other two detachments entered Augusta from the south; overwhelming the small guard that was left. Brown was forced to barricade himself at the MaKay plantation and Trading Post. For four days Clarke’s men relentlessly fired upon Brown’s defenses while cutting off all water supply. With the first shots fired, Brown was able to send word to the British post at Fort Ninety-Six, fifty miles to the north. On September 18th, Lt. Colonel Harris Cruger arrived with 500 regulars, breaking the siege and chasing Clarke’s force into South Carolina. Brown was wounded in the hips and while recuperating, adhered to General Cornwallis’ order that any rebel caught who had broken his pledge of parole was to be hanged. Brown hanged 13 wounded rebels within days of the siege. For that, during the following year’s second siege of Augusta, American militiamen would seek violent retribution; offering no quarter to loyalist captives.
Cornwallis Invades North Carolina and Pyrrhic Victory Forces His Tattered Army to Give up the South
The Fall of 1780 saw repeated setbacks for Cornwallis’ plans to invade North Carolina due to rebel militia resistance. When Cornwallis finally crossed into North Carolina, he was delayed at the Battle of Charlotte, September 26, 1780, by a small but determined band of militia. The Battle of King’s Mountain, October 7, 1780, saw the destruction of the large western loyalist army and Cornwallis’ entire left flank. Along with the growing militia forces in the Carolinas, Cornwallis returned to South Carolina to mop up rebel resistance and hopefully renew his plans for North Carolina in the spring. When the Southern Continental Army gained a new, competent leader in General Nathanael Greene at Charlotte, South Carolina on December 3, 1780, things quickly soured for the British. The Battle of Cowpens, January 17, 1781, changed everything. Cornwallis saw his entire force of light infantry under Lt. Colonel Banastre Tarleton destroyed by Continental Brigadier Daniel Morgan. Within three months, Cornwallis had lost his eyes, ears, and rapid striking force; over a third of his army – men who could not be replaced.
Enflamed and more determined than ever to secure the south, Cornwallis took drastic actions. His Lordship would catch the Southern Continental Army under Greene and eradicate it once and for all; no matter the consequences. He destroyed all his extra wagons and supplies, stripping his army to its bare bones, and took off after Greene’s army in what has been called the Race to the Dan. The next two months after Cowpens resulted in grueling marches by Cornwallis on the heels of Greene’s ever illusive troops. On March 15, 1781, Greene stopped running and offered battle at Guilford Courthouse, North Carolina near the Virginia border. Though a British victory, Cornwallis’ loss in irreplaceable troops was huge. So too, ill-supplied and worn down from exhausting hours on dusty roads and forging countless rivers, his army had been broken. He had no other option but to march to the coast where he could rest his army and be resupplied. There, he decided to carry on north into Virginia to join British forces that had invaded the state.
Cornwallis left Colonel Lord Francis Rawdon at Camden in overall command of the numerous British outposts scattered over the Carolinas and at Augusta. With Cornwallis out of the picture, Greene left His Lordship’s fate to the Northern American Army under George Washington. By early April, 1781, Greene turned his attention to capturing the main British outposts Camden and Fort Ninety-Six, both in South Carolina. Once they were taken, he could turn his attention to the coastal cities of Savannah and Charleston.
Colonel Clarke had been seriously wounded at the Battle of Long Canes, Dec 12, 1780, his fourth of the war. Command of the Georgia refugees went to Major John Cunningham who led his men at Cowpens while the fierce Georgia fighter spent the winter months recovering, resuming command in March of 1781. Clarke knew the time was right to have another go at Augusta. And this time he had the help of one of the south’s most prolific rebel fighters; his companion in the February 14, 1779 Kettle Creek Battle victory, Brigadier Andrew Pickens of South Carolina. Pickens would not only bring man power, but the determined knowhow to get the job done. Southern Continental Army commander General Greene ordered Lt. Colonel Henry ‘Lighthorse Harry’ Lee to tag along to be sure it would not turn into a vengeful bloodbath between opposing militias. Lee brought his three companies of infantry under Captains Patrick Carnes, Michael Rudulph, and George Handy. Numbering 100 troops, they were among the best clothed and equipped units in the Continental Army. By the time the siege formally began, a total of 1,600 veteran Continental and hardened militia faced 600 British Tories and Native American allies.
Second Siege of Augusta, May 22 – June 4, 1781
After Clarke’s failed first attempt to take Augusta, Loyalist Colonel Thomas ‘Burnfoot’ Brown rebuilt Fort Augusta on the grounds of St. Paul’s Church and renamed it Fort Cornwallis. It was an impressive fort of extensive defensive works and high walls garrisoning over 500 men. Eighty additional men were stationed at Fort Grierson, a redoubt a quarter mile west of the fort, under local Augusta militia leader Lt. Colonel Thomas Grierson. Rebel resistance in South Carolina grew and became bolder once Cornwallis marched his army into North Carolina. From late January, 1781 there were numerous skirmishes between Brown’s loyalists and Native American allies. This only increased as spring approached and by April, large number of rebel forces were campaigning just outside Augusta. But so too in April, an epidemic of small pox struck the American camp. Clarke and Colonel James McCall of South Carolina (Clarke’s second in command during the First Siege of Augusta) were bedridden. Clarke would recover and resume command of his Georgia Refugees on May 15th, in time to participate in the siege. However, McCall would be forced from his bed in the ceded lands of Georgia by raiding loyalists and died that same day.
While plans were in motion to take Augusta, Greene had marched in late April to take Camden. He faced accomplished veteran Col. Lord Rawdon who had scaled Bunker Hill in June of 1775 and had been in nearly every major conflict since. Rawdon would not wait for Greene and sallied from Camden to attack the Continentals at the Battle of Hobkirk’s Hill, April 25, 1781; considered a draw with both armies pulling back. Not to be deterred, Greene marched his men west to Ninety-Six, commanded by the ever-resilient Col. Harris Cruger. In early May, Greene prepared for a siege of Ninety-Six and sent Henry ‘Lighthorse Harry’ Lee to assist in the attack on Augusta; Clarke’s and Andrew Pickens’ forces having already begun operations for a siege of Fort Cornwallis. Though strong in arms, the rebel command had only one six-pound cannon at their disposal. It would prove inefficient to damage the strong defenses Colonel Brown had built; not until the Americans decided to try a proven method that penetrated fortifications.
While rebel forces gathered and prepared to siege Augusta, Brown was not inactive. On May 19th, he sallied out of the fort and scattered the nearby militia. On May 22nd, the main attack began with an assault on Ft. Grierson. Major Samuel Hammond of South Carolina led the attack in which every second man was equipped with an ax. The Carolinians swarmed across the shallow gully and began to cut away the stockade. Heavily outnumbered and realizing resistance was futile, Lt. Colonel Grierson and his eighty men garrison escaped over the side of the fort nearest the river. They ran along the riverbank toward Fort Cornwallis with the attackers in hot pursuit. Accounts vary from all being slaughtered while trying to surrender, to many safely “crowding through [Fort Cornwallis] the gate.” Brown had been vilified after the first siege for hanging thirteen rebel prisoners for breaking parole (as per Cornwallis’ orders) and allowing his men and Native allies to butcher a number of wounded captives. As such, Georgian militiamen were not keen to offer quarter to captives. As to all of Grierson’s men being killed while attempting to escape; this is incorrect and is discussed further under the Casualties section.
With the siege settling in and single American six-pounder cannon having little effect against Fort Cornwallis’ reinforced walls, the rebels decided to build a Maham Tower; first used successfully the previous month in the fall of Fort Watson, April 14 – 23, 1781. Brown witnessed the construction of the thirty-foot tower, built with notched logs, and filled with sand and dirt. Knowing its destructive potential, he staged several evening raids to destroy it. The first was on the night of the 28th. A loyalist detachment sallied from the fort and attacked the tower’s workers. Captain George Handy of Lee’s corps met his enemy in the rebel ditch and in a bayonet charge, forced the loyalists to retreat to the fort. Another attempt was made the succeeding night in the same quarter, and for a considerable time the struggle for the possession of the ditches was about equal. Captain Michael Rudulph of Lee’s corps reenforced the guard and cleared the trenches with bayonets, forcing the enemy back with some loss.
On June 1st, the tower was completed and Lee’s six-pounder was hauled to its summit. That night Brown once more sallied from the fort. This third and final assault was the largest and most desperate. At ten o’clock that evening, one third of the fort’s garrison attacked Clarke’s and Captain Rudulph’s troops while Brown led most of the remaining garrison against General Pickens men. Once more, at the end of bayonets, Capt. Rudulph’s Continentals cleared the rebel trenches of loyalists. The fight led by Brown was most severe and ended when Captain Handy pressed an attack with bayonet and forced Brown to call off the attack. Brown’s force was void of British regular troops. As such his rangers, loyalist militia, and native allies used rifle and muskets without bayonets, placing them at a distinct disadvantage to the veteran Continental troops. Over the next few days, shells constantly rained down on the fort until one by one, cannon and buildings were taken out, leaving most of the fort in ruins.
As he had done the previous year when barricaded at the McKay Trading Post, Brown refused to give up. He staged further sallies, torched buildings, and sent one of his sergeants disguised as a deserter to set fire to the tower. He even tunneled under one of the buildings near the fort and set off explosive charges; in hopes to blow up rebel forces staging an assault. All these efforts failed. When Lee, Pickens, and Clarke began assembling their men for a final assault on June 4th against a fort left in ruins by the persistent bombardment, Lee offered a last chance for surrender. Having seen the fate of many of Lt. Grierson’s men after the redoubt fell, this time Brown accepted. He did so with the request that the surrender be delayed until the 5th, since the 4th was King George’s birthday. He also requested that he and his men would be guaranteed safe protection from vengeful militiamen. Lee agreed and would oversee extraordinary precautions to prevent the murder of prisoners. On June 5th, at 8 AM, Brown surrendered Augusta and was paroled. For his personal safety, Lee ordered that Clarke was put under Continental military guard during his escort to Savannah. But once Brown was escorted out of Augusta, Georgia militiamen broke into the jail and killed Grierson and wounded Williams.
Casualties
According to author Hugh McCall, the British loss during the siege was fifty-two killed, and three hundred and thirty-four, including the wounded, taken as prisoners of war. The American loss was sixteen killed, and thirty-five wounded, seven mortally. Many secondary accounts state that the redoubt’s eighty defenders were cut down to a man, all killed during their attempted escape, including Grierson. This is incorrect. Author McCall reported that thirty of those loyalists who died during the siege were among Fort Grierson’s garrison and that forty-five were wounded and captured, leaving only a handful who arrived safely at Fort Cornwallis. He also indicated that Grierson was murdered while in captivity, but did not elaborate when. McCall’s secondhand account that a small number safely made it to Fort Cornwallis is contradicted by primary source, Martin Weatherford who was also at the first siege of Augusta. Weatherford, later wrote that Grierson and his second, Major Henry Williams, along with many other militiamen from the redoubt, safely crowded through the gate of Fort Cornwallis. It was after Brown surrendered the fort and had been escorted out of Augusta that Grierson was murdered and Williams wounded by Georgia militiamen while the two were under captive guard.
Aftermath
General Greene succeeded in defeating the British in the south without a single victory or capture of a major British outpost. After he gave up on Camden after the Battle of Hobkirk’s Hill, he sieged Fort Ninety-Six, South Carolina, a hundred miles to the west. The siege lasted from May 22 – June 18th, ending when word of a large British force was marching from Charleston to reinforce the besieged fortification. In both cases, Greene, in effect, won the day for after Greene left the Camden region, Lord Rawdon had burned the fort in May and left for Charleston. And three days after the siege was lifted, Cruger was ordered to abandon Ft. Ninety-Sixand destroy it. By the end of 1781, British outposts throughout the south had either been captured or abandoned leaving just Savannah and the Charleston region still in British hands.
Lt. Colonel Thomas Brown would remain in Savannah and be exchanged in October of 1781. He continued to lead his King’s Rangers in several skirmishes with American troops under newly arrived General “Mad” Anthony Wayne. So too, until Savannah and Charleston were abandoned, the industrious former aristocrat pursued his duties as Superintendent of Indian Affairs, supplying and organizing Cherokee and Creek raids against settlers and American forces. In compensation for confiscated land in Georgia and services to the crown, Brown received land first in East Florida. After the colony was turned over to Spain as part of the 1783 Treaty of Paris, Brown was given large land holdings in the Bahamas, then later St. Vincent Island. He died on August 3, 1825 at age 75; head of a profitable sugar plantation and owner of over 600 black slaves.
For Colonel Clarke, the Second Siege of Augusta was his last action of the war. He was elected to the Georgia Legislature in 1781 and assumed his role as a political leader until 1790. He would; however, take up the sword again, leading the Georgia State Militia as General in defeating the Creeks at Jack’s Creek, present day Walton County, Georgia, on September 21, 1787. During his time in the Georgia legislature and afterwards, Clarke accumulated vast tracts of land through various land speculating schemes. So too, he was involved in several anti-government conspiracies; the most prominent being a fraudulent affair sponsored by Citizen Genet, the French minister to the United States, to drive the Spanish out of Florida. Clarke was commissioned a Major General in the French army, but after President Washington demanded Genet’s removal, the affair fizzled out. He would come to odds with Georgia’s governor in the 1794 Trans-Oconee Republic”, used by later historians to described the short-lived independent state established by Clarke. A year later he invaded Spanish Florida and would, before the year ended, invest heavily in the notorious Yazoo Land Fraud. All these ventures reaped little in financial rewards and only discredited Clarke’s reputation. Clarke died at his plantation in Wilkes County on December 15, 1799, just one day after George Washington died at Mt. Vernon, December 14th.
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RESOURCE
Cashin, Edward J. The King’s Ranger – Thomas Brown and the American Revolution on the Southern Frontier. 1989: University of Georgia Press, Athens, GA.
Coleman, Kenneth. The American Revolution in Georgia, 1763-1789. 1958 reissue 2021: University of Georgia Press, Athens, GA.
Crawford, Alan Pell. This Fierce People, The Untold Story of America’s Revolution in the South. 2024: Alfred A. Knopf, New York, NY.
Davis, Robert Scott Jr., “Elijah Clarke (1742- 1799)” New Georgia Encyclopedia.
Hall, Leslie. Land & Allegiance in Revolutionary Georgia. 2001: University of Georgia Press, Athens, GA.
Hibbert, Christopher. Redcoats and Rebels; The American Revolution Through British Eyes. 1990: W. W. Norton and Company, New York, NY.
Johnson, Daniel McDonald. Savannah, Augusta & Brier Creek: The conquest of Georgia in the American Revolution. 2020: Independently Published by Author.
Jones, Charles Colcock. The History of Georgia. 1883: Houghton Mifflin & Co., Boston, MA.
Lynch, Wayne. “Paddy Carr: ‘a honey of a patriot.’ March 16, 2016. All Things Liberty.
Lynch, Wayne. “James McCall.” SC 250 South Carolina Revolution Era Biographies.
McCall, Hugh. The History of Georgia Containing Brief Sketches of the Most Remarkable Events up to the Present. Vol. 2. 1816: Seymour and Williams, Savannah, GA.
McCall, Mac. “The Fight for Augusta.” January 2020 Augusta Magazine.