The Siege of Fort Ninety-Six, May 22 – June 19, 1781, was part of American Southern Continental Army Commander Major General Nathaniel Greene’s continuous pressure to regain the Carolinas from the British. In the purest sense, it was not a win for the Americans. Greene lifted the siege as British Lord Rawdon approached with a large relief force. But General Greene did not need to win battles to win the war. In fact, he was never victorious in a single battle as a commanding general. But his skillful use of a Fabian strategy forced his enemy into situations in which ultimately, Greene walked away claiming victory.
By 1781, Greene was no longer the inexperienced, cocksure general whose advise to Washington in November, 1776, resulted in the loss of Fort Washington and over 2,000 precious troops and all their supplies. But after many grueling campaigns, the quaker from Rhode Island grew into a crafty commander who knew how to string out his enemy, choose his moment to strike, and pull back to strike again. In effect, Greene used his entire army as a Swamp Fox Marion would stage a guerilla raid; jab to weaken and dishearten the enemy, then a thrust towards the heart, yet never risk the entire annihilation of his force.
After Lord Rawdon arrived at Fort Ninety-Six to relieve the garrison, he faced a situation similar to what his commander Lt. General Lord Cornwallis had realized after the Battle of Guilford Courthouse, March 15, 1781. Rawdon had not the men or supplies to pursue his opponent nor hold the region. With Greene’s force intact and continually growing with new militia recruits, Rawdon had no choice but to withdraw backcountry outposts of South Carolina towards the coast; especially after the Second Siege of Augusta resulted in an American victory two weeks previously on June 5, 1781.
Background
Major General Nathaniel Greene assumed the reins of the Southern Continental Army on December 3, 1780, after three previous major generals had left a shambles of the army. Major General Robert Howe[1] had lost Savannah to British Lt. Colonel Archibald Campbell[2] on December 29, 1778. His replacement, Major General Benedict Lincoln[3] chased the British back to the coast, but then cornered himself on Charleston whereas on May 12, 1780, Supreme British Commander General Henry Clinton captured his entire army; the largest in the war. What was left, with the addition of backcountry militia and Continental reinforcements from Delaware and Maryland, was totally destroyed by Major General Horatio Gate’s incompetence at the Battle of Camden, August 16, 1780. The army’s remains gathered along the North Carolina border with Virginia, licking its wounds while leaving the Carolinas and Georgia in British hands; except for backcountry patriot militias under men like Colonels Thomas Sumter and Francis Marion to carry on the fight harassing and attacking British outposts.
After Gate’s fiasco, Washington was done caving into Congress’ darling choices of leaders and finally got his way; sending Greene, his second in command, to take over the army to get the job done. Greene marched the army south to the North and South Carolina border where British General Cornwallis’ army was wintering. Realizing he could not victual his army, Greene split it in two, sending Brigadier General Daniel Morgan into western South Carolina. Cornwallis saw an opportunity and sent his favorite mastiff Lt. Col. Banastre Tarleton with some of his best troops to crush Morgan. At the Battle of Cowpens, January 17, 1781, it was Tarleton who was annihilated. Greene then led Cornwallis on an exhausting chase throughout North Carolina in what has been called the Race to the Dan, late January to February 14, 1781; ending when Greene crossed into Virginia. Cornwallis had stripped his army of much of his supplies and all baggage to try and catch the willy New Englander. When Greene reappeared in North Carolina, reinforced and resupplied, the was ready to confront Cornwallis head on. Once more, at the Battle of Guilford Courthouse, March 15, 1781, Greene was defeated, but was able to retreat with most of his army intact. However, Cornwallis gained a Pyrrhic victory which nearly destroyed most of his force. The British general had no choice but to march to the coast to resupply and plan his next move.
This freed Greene in early April to turn south with his 1,400 man force to attack South Carolina outposts. Cornwallis dispatched Lord Francis Rawdon[4] to confront the Americans while on April 24th, he turned his army north, into Virginia to join up with British forces there. Rawdon was left to oversee several outposts spread in an arch across South Carolina but that were now more of a liability than an asset. They all had to be garrisoned which spread out the remaining British forces, around 900 men, but none of them were mutually supporting. The shrewd Greene recognized this fatal flaw and immediately began to reconquer the Carolinas one piece at a time.[5]
Outline of Events Prior to Siege
- Greene departed Ramsour’s Mill, April 7, 1781, to begin a 140 mile march to the fortifications at Camden, the main British backcountry stronghold.
- Fort Watson was captured by Lt. Col. Henry Lee and Colonel Francis Marion (Swamp Fox) on April 23, 1781. Cavalryman Lee had kept close to Cornwallis’ army, in a ruse that he was the vanguard of Greene’ army that had already left for Camden. Lee and Marion teamed up and decided to target Fort Watson as the first outpost to attack. British Lt. Col. John Watson commanded 500 men in the region and left Lt. James McKay in charge of the fort with 80 regulars. This was the first use of the Maham Tower that fired down into the fort. When Lee’s men charged with bayonet, McKay surrendered the fort.
- Battle of Hobkirk’s Hill, outside Camden, S. Carolina, April 25, 1781. Greene maneuvered his army now numbering 1,560 men 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. He had hoped to catch Rawdon in a surprise attack. Two days after Fort Watson was captured, General Rawdon received critical information from a deserter that included Greene lacked cannon. The confident Rawdon turned the tables on Greene and sallied his 900 hardened regulars and provincials out from Camden and attacked while the Continentals were eating breakfast. The battle was yet again another contest in which Greene left the field to the British; however, the Pyrrhic victory proved too dear for Rawdon in loss of men and supplies. Soon after the battle Rawdon abandoned Camden on May 9th. So too the important post at Georgetown on May 29th, retiring both garrisons closer to Charleston.
- Second Siege of Augusta, May 22 – June 5, 1781. After Rawdon abandoned Camden, Greene dispatched Lt. Col. ‘Lighthorse Harry’ Lee to join militia leader Colonel Andrew Pickens and Georgia Refugee militia leader Colonel Elijah Clarke to assault Fort Cornwallis at Augusta, Georgia, commanded by Loyalist leader Colonel Thomas ‘Burnfoot’ Brown. Brown was despised by backcountry patriots for having executed several dozen rebel prisoners after the failed 1st Siege of Augusta, September 14 – 18 1780. Though Brown was rescued by British troops from Ninety-six during the first siege, there would be no rescue force sent to his aid during the 2nd siege, for Greene had already surrounded Ninety-six. The Maham Tower with hoisted 6 pound cannon was once more used to good effect. Brown was saved from revenge killing after he was quickly patrolled by Lee and sent to the coast; not so some of Brown’s fellow officers.
- Greene is set on Ninety-Six. In the span of little more than a month, Greene’s command had captured four forts and forced the abandonment of two more. He was aided by backcountry militia who did quick work of minor outposts. Moreover, the southern Continental Army, given up as a lost entity prior to Greene’s arrival just six months before, had captured almost 1,000 prisoners and reduced the British foothold in the south to the port cities of Savannah, GA, Charleston, SC, and Wilmington, NC, and the fort at Ninety Six, 167 miles to the west of Charleston and last stronghold in the southern interior. It was to this fort that Greene next turned his attention.[6]
Siege of Ninety-Six Begins
When Greene moved against Ninety-Six on May 22nd, he had a little over 1,000 men. He retained what remained of the original Continentals who marched south with General DeKalb in 1780 that were decimated at the Battle of Camden: 1st and 2nd Maryland and a company of Delaware troops under Captain Robert Kirkwood, led by proven commander Col. Otho Holland Williams. He had been joined by the 1st and 2nd Virginia under Brigadier General Isaac Huger and the North Carolina Militia. Prior to arriving at Ninety-Six, Greene had sent Col. Lee’s Legion and militia leader General Andrew Pickens and his South Carolina militia to assault Augusta, Georgia, about 60 miles south. Militia General Thomas Sumter had run his own war since the British invaded the south, rarely participating with Continental troops. This was no exception as Sumter continued to refuse aiding Greene.
Unlike the Battle of Hobkirk Hill, Greene had artillery, four six-pound cannon at his disposal Soon after arriving, he abandoned a request for surrender and set his engineer, Col. Thaddeus Kosciuszko,[7] to work digging parallel siege trenches so to bring his guns close enough to fire upon the fort at point blank range. So too, a thirty foot Maham Tower was later constructed to allow sharpshooters to pour shot over the British fort walls, picking off defenders and artillerymen. But Greene had a tough nut to crack in the defenses at Ninety-Six.[8] Since December, 1780, the British had been busy and with local loyalists and slaves from nearby plantations, built a firm, eight-star fort on the hill above and west of the village/outport[9] including a small redoubt. British commanding general Charles Cornwallis had ordered Lt. Colonel John Harris Cruger in July of 1780 that the fortification at Ninety-Six be strengthened. Cruger did so and remained in charge of the fort, using it as a base from which numerous raids and skirmishes were conducted against local patriot militias.
British engineer Lt. Henry Haldane’s eight-point earthen star fort benefitted over tradition square forts as it allowed musket and cannon fire in all directions. A fourteen foot high palisade was surrounded by a deep ditch and abatis (sharpened branches facing out). The star fort allowed defenders to enfilade attackers on two of the stockade walls. A smaller redoubt was built to cover three walls of the star fort, including a covered runway from the town jail and down a ravine, protecting the spring water supply. A communication ditch connected the two fortifications. Several blockhouses had been built within the walls. A long mound of earth that served as a second line of defense, called a traverse, was built during the siege in the fort’s center (the ruins are still visible to this day). A gun battery of three cannon was positioned on portable gun platforms. These were small three pounders, called grasshoppers, that fired shot and more importantly, grape (multiple pieces of lead and metal) against frontal assaults.
The fort was garrisoned since July 10, 1780 with 550 seasoned and highly experienced Provincial Loyalists; colonial Tories trained and equipped as regular troops. Two Provincial units had seen action in the northern theatre before shipping to the south in December 1778: 1st Battalion De Lancey’s Brigade from New York and New Jersey, and the 2nd Battalion of New Jersey Volunteers.
Filling out the garrison was the South Carolina Loyalist Militia from the Ninety Six District. All were under the direct command of forty-three year old Lt. Colonel John Hareris Cruger.[10] Like the fort, he too would prove a hard nut to crack.
Siege Intensifies, Rawdon Launches Rescue, and Desperate American Attack
Cruger would prove throughout to be one step ahead of Greene as countered every move the New Englander made. As soon as the Americans began digging parallels, he frequently sallied out to harass and attack the diggers, at times driving the workers away and capturing their digging tools. One such sally of thirty men of DeLancey’s Battalion was led by Lieutenant John Roney, resulting in killing workers and capturing several slaves; Roney later died of wounds received. After nearly two weeks, the 2nd parallel was completed; having dug from 1,200 yards out to 180 yards from the fort. On June 3rd, Col. Otho Williams was sent with a surrender proposal which was rejected. The 3rd parallel was begun that would eventually span within 30 yards of the fort.
From the thirty foot Maham Tower rifled sharp shooters proved effective. They had a clear line of fire over the walls and into the fort and picked off a number of men, including artillerymen manning the cannon. But Cruger put an end to it by ordering sandbags filled to raise the height of the parapet four additional feet. Thus, protected from riflemen, he turned the tide on the rebels for his sharp shooters were able to fire upon the tower through slats between the bags. When heated shot and fire arrows were poured into the fort to set it ablaze, Cruger’s work crews removed roofs from buildings nullifying this.
While the siege raged on, Lord Rawdon in Charleston, South Carolina had sent couriers to Ninety-Six ordering the fort evacuated. Expecting to hear word of Cruger’s retreat towards Charleston, Rawdon received word that his earlier couriers had been captured by the rebels[11] and that Cruger was still in command of the fort. Rawdon immediately organized a rescue force of 2,000 troops and on June 7th, set out for the 167 mile trek to Ninety-six. The next day, June 8th, Greene was glad to see the arrival of Pickens and Lee’s forces. Having successfully captured Augusta on June 6th, they rode the 58 miles north to arrive at Ninety-Six. With his force augmented, Greene continued to push the trenching forward with hopes of demolishing the fort’s walls and forcing a surrender. But on June 11th, he got word of Rawdon’s approach. The next day, a loyalist rider got past Greene’s line and raced into the fort to alert Cruger of Rawdon’s approach. This news instilled a determination among the garrison to hold out for their relief.
Knowing he could not wait for the garrison to surrender, Greene, against his better judgement, attempted a desperate move to take the fort before Rawdon’s arrival. The plan called for a pincer movement that attacked both the small redoubt in the rear, led by Maj. Michael Rudolph of Lee’s Legion, and a frontal assault on the star fort by a forborne hope of fifty volunteers, led by Lt. Col. Richard Campbell. On the night of June 18th, a cannon shot signaled the attack (some sources state the rebels attacked at noon). The forlorn hope raced from the 3rd parallel into a withering fire from the fort carrying axes to cut through the abatis[12] and fraise.[13] Some hauled long poles and grappling hooks to tear down the sandbags piled on the palisade, so to allow sharpshooters in the tower to pick off defenders. At first all went well for the Americans.
Because the British defense focused on the frontal attack, the small redoubt was quickly taken. The forlorn hope had successfully hacked away at the abatis and were chopping away at the fraise and pulling down sandbags when Cruger sprung his trap. Knowing the intent of the forlorn hope at the start of the assault, he had prepared a counterattack.[14] Just as the rebels were clawing their way up the palisade through the sharpened sticks, sixty provincial regulars attacked both rebel flanks. Bayonets thrusted through quivering bodies and muskets clubbed in skulls during the loyalists’ fierce and brutal attack. With bodies lying all around and the rebel leaders killed, the remaining forlorn hope were forced to retreat back to their trenches. The reported action lasted forty-five minutes. Of the original 50 volunteers, thirty lay where they fell. Only 20 Americans returned alive; of those many were wounded. Without the fort’s wall breached, Greene refused to launch a full scale attack and called off the assault.
Siege Ends and Casualties
The next day, June 19th, it was reported that Rawdon was only 30 miles away. Greene ended the siege. The Americans’ lost fifty-eight killed and sixty-nine wounded with one captured.[15] British losses were twenty-seven killed and fifty-eight wounded and none captive.[16] Greene marched his men twenty miles northward across the Broad River where he learned that Rawdon had relieved the garrison on June 21st. Rawdon took care of wounded and on the 23rd, took off after Greene. He caught up with Greene’s rear guard (Lee’s Legion and Captain Robert Kirkwood’s Delawares), but his men were worn out. Rawdon had force marched from Charleston in 100 degree heat, covering over 200 miles. His men were sickly and exhausted, some perishing from heat exhaustion. He gave up the chase and turned back to Ninety-Six.
Aftermath
The victory was a hollow one for Rawdon and Cruger who recognized that Ninety Six was simply too far from Charleston to be easily supported. On July 3, the fort and town were burned to the ground and abandoned by the British, with Rawdon deciding to relocate the garrison to Orangeburg and then to Charleston. All troops were then drawn into a defensive perimeter around Charleston. Greene followed and took up a position in a string of hills northwest of Charleston called the High Hills of Santee, named after the nearby Santee River.[17] For Rawdon, after six years campaigning from Boston to South Carolina and with the grueling march to Ninety-Six, the war was over. The combination of fatigue and recurring malaria had destroyed Rawdon’s health. On July 20, 1781, he gave up his command and set sail for England. Colonel Alexander Stewart was left in command of the defenses at Charleston.
Greene remained to the west of Charleston while his army steadily gained strength in both supplies and additional militia reinforcements. By late summer he decided it was time to make his move. But Stewart, a competent and aggressive officer, decided to sally from Charleston to meet Greene head on. The Battle of Eutaw Springs, September 8, 1781, proved to be the bloodiest of the war based on percentage of casualties of those involved. It was also the last major battle of the south. As before, British forces claimed the victory. But once more a Pyrrhic victory left Stewart with nothing left but to return to his defenses around Charleston and hope for a diplomatic end to the war.
Once again Greene was criticized for not winning a conclusive battle. But as it said, there is method in the madness. Greene had learned from his mentor Washington the power of a Fabian strategy.[18] No matter what, one must keep the army intact; wear your enemy down in prolonged defensive actions, strike on your terms, but pull back, keeping your command whole. This worked for Greene during the Race to the Dan, Guilford Courthouse, Hobkirk Hill, Ninety-Six, and lastly Eutaw Springs. After the Battle of Hobkirk Hill, Greene wrote to the French envoy, the Chevalier de La Luzerne, “We fight, get beat, rise and fight again.” After Hobkirk Hill, Greene wrote to his friend Jeremiah Wadsworth on July 18, 1781: “There are few Generals who have run oftener, or more lustily, than I have done. But I have taken care not to run too far; and commonly have run as fast forward as backward.” General Washington smoothed his general’s feathers by writing, “The difficulties you daily encounter and surmount with your small force add to your reputation.”
After Eutaw Springs, Greene remained outside Charleston. No major military action occurred in 1782, and the British evacuated Savannah and Charleston before the end of that year. Congress officially declared the end of the war in April 1783, and Greene resigned his commission in late 1783. Greene returned to Rhode Island after the war but facing debt, returned to the south to run the Mulberry Grove Planation outside Savannah, that he had been awarded for his war efforts. On June 12, 1786, Greene fell ill from sun stroke at his plantation and died.
As for Rawdon, while enroute home to England, his ship was taken by privateers and His Lordship spent a spell in the gracious care of French admiral De Grasse’s fleet. He was allowed to return to England and wait for his exchange. Rawdon would go on to have an illustrious career in politics. Cruger continued to lead his Provincial regulars at Charleston. He was commended for his conduct and gallantry at Eutaw Springs, 8 September 1781. Afterwards, he would be given the command of six battalions of provincial troops as part of the British defense of Charleston. After Charleston was evacuated, he no longer had a home in New York, his estate, as for many loyalists, was confiscated and sold off. He passed on sailing to Canada and New Brunswick where many of DeLancey’s men were given land grants, and relocated in London where he died in 1807 age sixty-nine.
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References
Buchanan, John. The Road to Guilford Courthouse: The American Revolution in the Carolinas. New York: Wiley, 1997.
Carbone, Gerald M. Nathanael Greene: A Biography of the American Revolution. 2010: Griffin Publishing, New York, NY.
Gordon, John W. South Carolina and the American Revolution: A Battlefield History. 2003: University of South Carolina Press, Columbia, South Carolina.
Hand, Tom. “Nathanael Greene Retakes the Carolinas.” American Corner
Hand, Tom. “The Siege of Ninety-Six.” American Corner
McCrady, Edward. The History of South Carolina in the Revolution 1780 – 1783. 1902: Macmillan & Co., New York, NY.
Russell, David Lee. The American Revolution in the Southern Colonies. 2000: McFarland and Company, Inc., Jefferson, North Carolina.
“The Siege of Ninety-Six.” The American Revolution in South Carolina.
“The Star Fort.” National Park Service.
Weigley, Russell F. The Partisan War: The South Carolina Campaign of 1780-1782. 1975: University of South Carolina Press, Columbia, SC.
Wilson, David K. The Southern Strategy: Britain’s Conquest of South Carolina and Georgia, 1775–1780. 2005: University of South Carolina Press, Columbia, SC.
Endnotes
[1] Major General Robert Howe was a North Carolina politician turned military commander. His tenure at the head of the Continental Southern Army was thwart with money and supply problems, plus his constant fight with colonial and later state politicians who sought to take command of the army.
[2] Lt. Colonel Archibald Campbell had recently been exchanged for Ethan Allen (captured at Montreal). The leader of Highlanders arrived off the coast of Savannah with a small invasion force and overwhelmed the American army recently depleted and worn out from a failed invasion of East Florida.
[3] Though General Lincoln surrendered over 5,000 troops, including valuable arms and supplies, when exchanged he remained in good graces with Washington and Congress. After the Battle of Yorktown, Oct. 19, 1781, Lincoln accept Cornwallis’ sword of surrender.
[4] Francis Rawdon, 1st Marquess of Hastings, a competent soldier, he was 26 at the time. He had been in American since 1775, having fought bravely at the Battle of Bunker Hill, June 17, 1775, and served throughout the war.
[5] Hand.
[6] Ibid.
[7] Thaddeus Kosciuszko from Poland had joined the American cause in 1776. Termed the Revolutionary Engineer, he had designed and built forts and defensive positions throughout the colonies from Saratoga, to New York City, to the forts along the Delaware River, and since 1780, had joined the Southern Continental Army.
[8] Ninety-Six was an active trading post before the war. One main theory explaining it’s name assumes the trading post was constructed ninety-six miles from the principal Cherokee village Keowee, ninety-six miles to the west.
[9] In 1781, the outpost-village of Ninety-Six had thirteen buildings and jail and courthouse. The road leading from the town to the fort was lined with an embankment.
[10] Lt. Colonel John Harris Cruger was from a wealthy merchant New York family educated at Kings College to which he became governor. His father-in-law, General Oliver De Lancy, organized the De Lancey Brigade in which Crugar was given command. His brigade had campaigned tirelessly with General Cornwallis before appointed to Ninety-Six in July, 1780.
[11] Colonel Andrew Pickens had all roads leading to Augusta and Ninety-Six covered by militia patrols to halt any communication with British forces in Charleston and Savannah.
[12] Abatis are sharpened felled trees forming a ring outside the ditch and fort walls.
[13] Fraise are pointed sticks layered on the fort walls just below the palisade.
[14] Some sources Cruger quickly organized the attack on the forlorn hope’s flanks after he had seen the rebels tearing down the sandbags so riflemen in the tower could fire down upon his men.
[15] Some sources give the total American loss at 185 men killed and wounded, about twenty percent of Greene’s force.
[16] Some sources give the British loss of killed and wounded at 100.
[17] Hand.
[18] In the Second Punic War between Rome and Carthagena, 280-203 BC, Roman leader Quintus Fabius Maximus Verrucosus held Hannibal’s army at bay in Italy while Rome leader Scipio defeated Carthaginian armies in Spain. This led to the eventual defeat of Hanibal at the Battle of Zama, 202 BC. Fabius’s tactics involved avoiding direct, large-scale battles to prevent Hannibal from utilizing his superior tactical skills. Instead, Fabius harassed Hannibal’s army through hit-and-run attacks, severed supply lines, and used scorched-earth tactics to starve the Carthaginian forces while staying in high terrain.