Retreat of the British from Eutaw -- Pursuit of them by Marion and Lee --Close of the Year.
That the results of victory lay with the Americans, was shown by the events of the ensuing day. Leaving his dead unburied, seventy of his wounded to the enemy, breaking up a thousand stand of arms, and destroying his stores, General Stewart commenced a precipitate retreat towards Fairlawn. The British power in Carolina was completely prostrated by this battle. Five hundred prisoners fell into the hands of the Americans, and it was Greene's purpose to have renewed the fight on the next day;but the flight of Stewart anticipated and baffled his intentions.
He commenced pursuit, and detached Marion and Lee, by a circuitous route, to gain the enemy's front, and interpose themselves between him and the post at Fairlawn, from which Major M`Arthur had been summoned, with five hundred men, to cover the retreat. But this plan was unsuccessful.
So precipitate was the march of Stewart, and so happily concerted the movements of the two British officers, that they effected a junction before Marion and Lee could reach Ferguson's Swamp, their place of destination. The cavalry of the enemy's rear-guard fell into the hands of the Americans, but Stewart was beyond pursuit.
In this flight, amongst others, the British lost the brave Major Marjoribanks, who died of a fever, and was buried on the road. While they admitted a loss, in killed, wounded, and missing, of half the number brought into the field, that of the Americans was nearly equally severe, and fell with particular severity upon the officers. Sixty-one of these were killed or wounded; twenty-one died upon the field.
The returns exhibit a loss of one hundred and fourteen rank and file killed, three hundred wounded, and forty missing -- an aggregate exceeding a fourth of all who marched into battle. Many of Marion's men were killed, though not so many as he lost in the affair of Quinby. Among his officers, Capt. John Simons, of Pedee, was slain, and Col. Hugh Horry wounded.
Greene retired to the high hills of Santee, while Marion proceeded to encamp at Payne's plantation, on Santee river swamp. This was one of his favorite places of retreat. Here, in the depths of a cane-brake, within a quarter of a mile from the Santee, he made himself a clearing, "much," says Judge James, "to his liking," and, with the canes, thatched the rude huts of his men. The high land was skirted by lakes, which rendered the approach difficult; and here, as in perfect security, he found forage for his horses, and provisions in abundance for his men.
Such a place of encampment, at such a season, would hardly commend itself now to the citizen of Carolina. The modes and objects of culture, and probably the climate, have undergone a change. The time was autumn, the most sickly period of our year; and, to sleep in such a region now, even for a single night, would be considered certain death to the white man.
It does not seem, at that period, that much apprehension of malaria was felt.*--
* Judge James refers to this place as Peyre's, not Payne's, plantation, and notes "It appears now there was very little sickness at that day."In a footnote, he goes on to say: "Very soon after the revolutionary war, this scene was entirely changed. Planters, in clearing their land, had rolled logs and other rubbish from their fields, into the lakes and creeks leading from the river, and many threw trees into it to get them quickly out of the way. . . .
The waters below being obstructed, they flooded the low grounds. . . ."This would explain the early absence, and later presence, of malaria, as the mosquitoes necessary for transmitting it would thrive in the still waters created by the planters. -- A. L., 1996.
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But Marion did not linger long in any one situation. Hearing that the British were about to send their wounded from Fairlawn to Charleston, his restless enterprise prompted him to aim at the capture of the detachment.
Moving rapidly by night, he threw himself below the former place, on the opposite bank of the river, and would certainly have intercepted them, but for a slave of one of the plantations, who, hastening to the British camp, reported his proximity. The arrival of a superior force compelled him to steal away with a caution like that which marked his approach.
The command of the British army, in consequence of a wound received by General Stewart at Eutaw, had devolved on Major Doyle.
This army, recruited by the force of M`Arthur, was still, after all its losses, fully two thousand men. That of Greene, reduced by wounds and sickness, could not muster one thousand fit for duty.
His cavalry had been greatly thinned by the late battle, and it was not until the cavalry of Sumter's brigade could be brought together, with Marion's mounted infantry, and the horse of Horry and Mayham, that the superiority of the American general could be restored.
Doyle had taken post at Fludd's plantation, three miles above Nelson's Ferry, on the Santee, with the main body of the British; M`Arthur held the post at Fairlawn, with a detachment of three hundred.
Doyle, with some instinctive notion that his time was short, busied himself in a career of plunder which threatened to strip the plantations south of the Santee and Congaree, and westward to the Edisto, not only of every negro which they contained, but of all other kinds of property.
Over this region, the feebleness of the American forces, and their present deficiency in cavalry, gave him almost entire control.
The opposite banks were guarded by Marion and Hampton, who afforded protection to everything that could be moved across, and presented themselves at every point to the enemy, whenever he attempted the passage of the river. Marion was at this time an invalid, but, however much he might need, he asked for no repose or exemption from service when the enemy was in the field. His force was also reduced by sickness.
Col. Mayham alone had no less than one hundred men unfit for duty.
