Col. White soon after took command of the southern cavalry, and obtained some trifling successes, but suffered himself to be surprised at Lenud's ferry on the Santee. These events all took place prior to the surrender of the city. The activity of Tarleton, with the general remissness, and want of ordinary military precautions on the part of the militia which opposed itself to him, made his progress easy, and thus enabled him to cut off every party that was embodied in the field. He was now to succeed in a much more important and much more bloody enterprise.
A Continental force from Virginia of four hundred men, under Col. Beaufort,*had been dispatched to the relief of Charleston. Beaufort had reached Camden before he was apprised of the surrender of that city. This event properly determined him to retreat. Earl Cornwallis, meanwhile, had taken the field with a force of twenty-five hundred men, and was then in rapid progress for the Santee. Hearing of the advance of Beaufort, he dispatched Tarleton in quest of him, with a select body of infantry and cavalry, in all, seven hundred men. Beaufort was overtaken near the Waxhaw settlements, and summoned to surrender. This person does not seem to have been designed by nature for military operations.
He halted at the summons, hesitated awhile, sent his wagons ahead, consulted with his officers, and did little or nothing farther, either for flight or conflict. While thus halting and hesitating he was attacked by the impetuous Tarleton, offered a feeble resistance, unmarked by conduct or spirit, suffered the enemy to gain his rear, and finally grounded his arms. He either did this too soon or too late.
His flag was disregarded in the flush of battle, the bearer of it cut down by the hand of Tarleton, and the British infantry, with fixed bayonets, rushed upon the inactive Americans. Some of Beaufort's men, seeing that their application for quarter was disregarded, resolved to die like men, and resumed their arms. Their renewed fire provoked the massacre of the unresisting. A terrible butchery followed.
The British gave no quarter. From that day, "Tarleton's Quarters", implying the merciless cutting down of the suppliant, grew into a proverbial phrase, which, in the hour of victory, seemed to embitter the hostility with which the American strove to avenge his slaughtered comrades.
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* Generally given as Buford in other documents. Simms also states "the Warsaw settlements" in the original text, but Waxhaw is correct.
According to local tradition, the mother of Andrew Jackson, the future president, was one of those who aided the survivors.
Jackson himself later served, at the age of 13, in Davie's cavalry, as a messenger, and was the only member of his family to survive the war.
-- A. L., 1996.
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The defeat of Beaufort, with the only regular force remaining in the State, following so close upon the fall of Charleston, paralyzed the hopes of the patriots. The country seemed everywhere subdued.
An unnatural and painful apathy dispirited opposition.
The presence of a British force, sufficient to overawe the neighborhood, at conspicuous points, and the awakened activity of the Tories in all quarters, no longer restrained by the presence in arms of their more patriotic countrymen, seemed to settle the question of supremacy.
There was not only no head against the enemy, but the State, on a sudden, appeared to have been deprived of all her distinguished men.
Moultrie and others who might have led, were prisoners of war.
Governor Rutledge, a noble spirit and famous orator --the Patrick Henry of Carolina, -- had withdrawn to the North State, to stimulate the energies of the people in that quarter and gain recruits.
His example was followed by Sumter, Horry and others, --by all, in fact, who, escaping captivity, were in condition to fly.
The progress of Cornwallis and Tarleton left mere distinction, unsupported by men, with few places of security. Marion, meanwhile, incapable of present flight, was compelled to take refuge in the swamp and forest. He was too conspicuous a person, had made too great a figure in previous campaigns, and his military talents were too well known and too highly esteemed, not to render him an object of some anxiety as well to friends as foes. Still suffering from the hurts received in Charleston, with bloody and malignant enemies all around him, his safety depended on his secrecy and obscurity alone.
Fortunately he had "won golden opinions from all sorts of people."He had friends among all classes, who did not permit themselves to sleep while he was in danger. Their activity supplied the loss of his own.
They watched while he slept. They assisted his feebleness.
