56. Gates Meets the Enemy

Into this more hopeful situation for the Americans now stepped a new Continental troop from Maryland and Delaware that Washington had sent southward under the German General de Kalb. Marching south on April 16 to the aid of Charleston from Morristown, New Jersey, de Kalb had reached North Carolina with 1,400 men when he learned that Charleston had been taken. Furthermore, difficulties mounted as North Carolina failed to cooperate in supplying de Kalb’s force, which became increasingly short of food; even foraging and plundering of the inhabitants gained few supplies. With the capture of General Lincoln, Congress decided to call back, as commander of the Southern Department, Gen. Horatio Gates, the hero of Saratoga, to save the South. This was done, of course, over the strenuous objections of George Washington, who still did not trust Gates because of his part in the Conway Cabal.

Gates took command of the unhappy Continental force at Deep River in North Carolina on July 25, to the sardonic warning of his friend, Charles Lee: “Take care, lest your northern laurels turn to southern willows.” The brief but most unhappy conduct of Gates’ campaign has been subjected to a literally savage denigration by historians, even those who are always eager to put the best face on campaigns by all other American generals. The reason for this singular treatment seems clear: the great rift between Gates and Washington. Washington’s actions are almost always painted in roseate colors, and devotion to his legend requires equal devotion to tearing down Gates’ reputation.*

Gates soon found that the southern theater was very different from the north. For one thing, food was difficult to obtain, and distances were large between towns and farms. Secondly, Gates, familiar with the heroic deeds of the northern militia, did not realize that the longer distances, the wider area, and the lower population density of the southern theater meant that the southern militia were no longer fighting for their own homes and neighborhoods, thus giving up one of the major advantages of a people’s militia war. But his most important error was to forget the main principle of the guerrillalike war that he had waged so successfully in the north: never to fight in open confrontation with a more heavily armed enemy well trained in conventional field tactics.

Gates’ first decision, made almost upon his arrival, was to strike directly south into South Carolina to attack the British base at Camden. He has been very severely criticized for not taking de Kalb’s advice to pursue a circuitous route westward to Camden through a country of prosperous farms, abundant food, and a populace loyal to the American cause. Instead, the shorter route Gates adopted led through desolate swamps peopled heavily by Tories. While Gates overestimated the health and morale of his troops, his decision was by no means absurd; his goal was to strike at Camden quickly before Cornwallis could reinforce it. Furthermore, his route allowed him to join with a force of North Carolina militia led by Gen. Richard Caswell, who had stubbornly refused to move to join de Kalb. By striking quickly at Camden, Gates believed he could set back any Cornwallis invasion of North Carolina. It was Gates’ ill luck that Cornwallis would reach Camden just in time.

On his march, Gates was reinforced by 800 Virginia militia and Caswell’s 1,200 North Carolina militia, thus raising his force to a formidable 3,000 men. But it was a force increasingly hungry, ill, exhausted, and discouraged. By August 13, Gates had encamped a few miles north of Camden; but unknown to him, Cornwallis had already arrived with his reinforcements. On August 15, Gates, with 3,000 men fit for duty out of a total of about 4,100, decided on a quick night strike at Camden. He was driven to this step by his growing lack of food; but the idea was not unsound in light of the fact that he did not know of Cornwallis’ arrival. Furthermore, ill luck dogged Gates, for, in one of history’s amazing coincidences, Cornwallis had also decided on that very night for a surprise attack on Gates.

The two armies blundered into each other at night at Saunders’ Creek, north of Camden. Facing Gates’ 3,000 men were Cornwallis and Rawdon with 2,200 men. But two-thirds of their force were highly trained regulars, while only one-third of the Americans were regulars and two-thirds militia—and regulars were far superior in massed confrontation on an open field. Cornwallis decided to wait until daylight to give battle; an error because it could have permitted Gates to slip away in the night. But here Gates decided to stay and fight on the open field, an error of his own which later allowed his traducers full sway. It should be emphasized that Gates called a council of war before making the decision and not one of his top officers called for a retreat or objected to giving battle.

A swift bayonet charge by the British regulars panicked the North Carolina and Virginia militiamen holding down the American left wing. Militia were never able to cope with the open-field bayonet fighting at which the British excelled, a fact Gates had overlooked when he formed the left wing out of militia alone. The militiamen simply broke and ran, most of them without firing a shot, and Gates, unable to rally them, was forced to flee to the rear to avoid capture. The American right wing, the Maryland and Delaware Continentals, more than held their own against the Tory troops, but once surrounded, they were smashed by Tarleton’s ferocious cavalry charge. Tarleton then pursued the fleeing Americans for twenty miles northward, capturing great quantities of ammunition on the way. It was a devastating and crushing defeat: de Kalb was killed and the Americans lost 650 precious Continentals, while almost the entire force of the North Carolina and Virginia militia scattered and fled to their homes. In exchange, Cornwallis lost only 320 men.

Gates has been severely criticized and attacked for cowardice for speeding north from Camden 200 miles to Hillsboro in three days, stopping only for sleep. But no amount of cowardice would have required that great a distance of flight. Clearly, he sped to Hillsboro to begin forming a new army as quickly as possible, hoping to tap the resources of Virginia as well as North Carolina. He began with 700 men, the shattered remnants of the force routed at Camden. To this were soon added other military remnants, bringing the total force up to 2,000. He was joined in mid-September by Dan Morgan, who had also been neglected and in semi-retirement, and Gates managed to persuade Congress at long last to make Morgan a general.

At first, it seemed that Cornwallis’s way north would be blocked by the South Carolina guerrilla troops. On August 15, two days after the victory at Saunders’ Creek, Colonel Sumter and 700 men captured a British wagon train and took 100 British and Tory prisoners. But on August 18 at Fishing Creek, Tarleton, with only 160 men, was able to cut off Sumter’s force from its arms and smash it completely, killing 150 and capturing over 300 with a loss of only a few men. Two days later, Col. Francis Marion, with only 16 men, fell upon some British and Tory troops and freed 160 American prisoners; but Sumter’s blundering rout at Fishing Creek had left North Carolina open to the enemy.

* For an almost hysterical attack on Gates by an otherwise judicious and highly competent military historian, see Ward, The War of the Revolution, 11:717–30. More sober evaluations of Gates’ southern campaign may be found in Billias, “Horatio Gates,” pp. 99–104; Alden, The American Revolution, pp. 233–35; and Bernhard Knollenberg, Washington and the Revolution: A Reappraisal (New York: Macmillan, 1940), a pioneering work in Gates revisionism.