Patriots lose the Battle of Brier Creek

On this day in history, March 3, 1779, patriots lose the Battle of Brier Creek. British Lieutenant Colonel Archibald Campbell had captured Augusta, Georgia in January, 1778. Gathering American troops across the Savannah River made Campbell nervous, however, and he abandoned Augusta after only three weeks to return to the coast. Archibald was hoping Tory leader John Boyd would join him, but on the march, he learned Boyd was killed and his army of Loyalists routed at the Battle of Kettle Creek.

North Carolina General John Ashe followed Archibald to the bridge over Brier Creek at its confluence with the Savannah River. Archibald had destroyed the bridge and continued south to Ebenezer where he turned his 900 troops over to Lieutenant Colonel Mark Prevost and went on to Savannah.

General Ashe, meanwhile, was camped out in the fork between Brier Creek and the Savannah. Military experts have criticized him for this because it was too easy to be trapped in the fork with no way of escape. Ashe left on February 28 to meet with other generals in South Carolina for orders, leaving command to his subordinates.

Lt. Col. Prevost then devised an attack plan. He would leave a force south of the creek to act as a diversion and march the main body of his troops up the east side of the river during the night. They would cross at Paris' Mill Bridge upriver from the patriots, surprise them and trap them in the fork. Prevost's plan worked like a charm. It has been called one of the smartest movements of the entire Revolution.

On March 2, he arrived at Paris' Mill Bridge to find it destroyed. He knocked down Francis Paris' home and mill and used the wood to rebuild the bridge. Some of his cavalry skirmished with a small contingent of Ashe's men on the opposite side of the river, but they did not get back to camp in time to warn them.

General Ashe returned to camp on March 2 as well, not knowing Prevost and 1,500 men were crossing the river a few miles upstream. Ashe had been instructed to wait for the arrival of Generals Lincoln, Williamson and Rutherford. The plan was to destroy the British and drive them back to the coast in an effort to bring the southern occupation to a quick end.

Instead, on March 3, a rider came into Ashe's camp frantically warning that the British were approaching. The Americans scrambled to get ready, but the British arrived minutes later and quickly overtook the American defenses. Withering cannon and gunfire decimated the Americans. Many green militia members fled into the swamps.

In the end, the Battle of Brier Creek was a disaster. At least 150 Americans were killed and over 200 captured, many drowning in the swamps trying to escape. The British suffered only 5 dead and 11 wounded. The battle destroyed American hopes to quickly end the war in the south. General Ashe was formally charged with cowardice, but exonerated in a court martial. General William Moultrie later wrote that the defeat at the Battle of Brier Creek unnecessarily extended the war by an entire year.

http://www.revolutionary-war-and-beyond.com  

Jack Manning

Secretary General

National Society Sons of the American Revolution

www.sar.org

“To preserve liberty, it is essential that the whole body of people always possess arms, and be taught alike, especially when young, how to use them…”

Richard Henry Lee, Additional Letters from The Federal Farmer, 53 (1788)

The Battle of the Rice Boats begins

On this day in history, March 2, 1776, the Battle of the Rice Boats begins. After the Battles of Lexington and Concord, the British army retreated to Boston and was held captive there by the Continental Army for almost an entire year. Troops in the city could only get in or out or get supplies by sea. In December of 1775, a fleet was sent to Georgia to buy rice and provisions for the isolated troops.

When the ships began arriving in Georgia in January, the local patriots were alarmed, thinking they had come to capture Savannah. They immediately arrested the Royal Governor, James Wright and put him under house arrest. Wright, however, escaped on the evening of February 11 and made his way to the HMS Scarborough on the coast where he took up residence.

For the next month, he attempted to negotiate with the Provincial Committee of Safety and was able to buy some supplies for the immediate needs of the fleet. The larger mission, however, of buying much needed supplies for the troops in Boston was at a standstill. Local merchants had agreed to a continent-wide ban on trade with the British in protest against British policies and actions. The agreement not to trade with the British would end on March 1, however, and that's when the British made their move.

They had already talked with the owners of some of the rice stored on boats at Savannah who agreed to sell their rice on March 1 when the non-trade agreement ended. On that day, several ships of the fleet sailed up the Savannah River from the coast. The local militia, who had taken up positions around the town, assumed they were attempting to take Savannah and fired on one of the ships, beginning the Battle of the Rice Boats.

During the night of March 2, soldiers snuck onto several of the rice boats, but word did not get out until the next morning when some of the rice boat hands got away and warned Colonel Lachlan McIntosh of the Georgia militia. McIntosh sent a negotiating party, but they were arrested. He sent a second party that was fired on and at this point he began raining cannon and gun fire down on the ships from the nearby Yamacraw Bluff in a gunfight that lasted four hours. For this reason, the battle is also called the Battle of Yamacraw Bluff.

The Committee of Safety met during the gun battle and decided the rice boats had to be destroyed to prevent the British from getting the supplies. They lighted the supply ship Inverness on fire, loaded it with explosives and set it on course to crash with the other occupied boats. As it approached the other boats, their British occupiers jumped overboard to escape. Three other rice boats were caught on fire and burned into the night. Two ships escaped upriver, but their crews were caught. Twelve rice boats, however, escaped downriver, were captured by the fleet on the coast and their provisions confiscated.

On March 30, having accomplished their mission, the fleet set sail from Georgia with Governor Wright aboard, ending British rule in Georgia for the time being. The city would be retaken again, however, in 1778. The fleet, which was intended to supply the troops in Boston, was diverted when it was learned the British had abandoned the town. They first went to Newport, Rhode Island where the local militia fired on them when they tried to land and eventually ended up joining the British in Nova Scotia.

http://www.revolutionary-war-and-beyond.com  

Jack Manning

Secretary General

National Society Sons of the American Revolution

www.sar.org

“When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall, one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle.”
Edmund Burke, Thoughts on the Cause of the Present Discontentment

Pennsylvania begins a gradual abolition of slavery

On this day in history, March 1, 1780, Pennsylvania begins a gradual abolition of slavery, becoming the first state to make official efforts to abolish slavery. The act, called An Act for the Gradual Abolition of Slavery, did not eliminate slavery all at once. Instead, it gradually reduced slavery through natural death, banning future imports of slaves and freeing newborn children of slaves.

The citizens of Vermont had included anti-slavery language in their Constitution of 1777, but Vermont was not a state. For example, there were no signers of the Declaration of Independence or representatives to the Continental Congress from Vermont. Vermont had always been part of New York. Instead, Vermont remained an independent republic until 1791 when it became the 14th state. Pennsylvania, on the other hand, was the first of the original thirteen colonies to make efforts to abolish slavery.

People today may have a hard time understanding why slavery would be reduced gradually. If it was evil and should be abolished, then why not just abolish it completely? We have to remember that only some people wanted to abolish slavery. Others, however, were invested somehow or other in the institution of slavery and didn't want it to go away. In a democratic society, voting representatives of the people must make compromises in order to govern. If you have a governing body of 100 members and 51 of them want to keep slavery and 49 want to abolish it, the majority wins.

Anti-slavery legislators saw a crack in slavery's armor, however. Measures that fell short of complete abolition, such as giving freedom to newborn children of slaves, banning future imports of foreign slaves, or allowing slaves to purchase their freedom, were more palatable to more people. They could get the votes for some of these intermediary measures. Passing these measures would chip away at the institution and eventually it would fail altogether. So, while some people interpret passing measures that only granted partial freedoms to slaves as "shameful" or "cowardly," in actuality, they were doing all they could to abolish the institution in bite-sized pieces at a time.

The Pennsylvania law did just this. It prohibited anyone from importing slaves into the state. It created a "slave registry" in order to verify compliance. All slave owners had to register their slaves every year. Any blacks not registered were automatically considered free. Any slaves not properly registered by their owners were given their freedom.

In addition, the act gave freedom to newborn children of slaves, not complete freedom, however. Instead, newborn children of slaves were given the status of indentured servants, meaning they had to work for their owner until the age of 28, at which time they were granted complete freedom. They also had to be equipped with certain things from their owner at the time of their emancipation, such as tools for whatever trade they worked in. People born into slavery before 1780, however, remained slaves.

An amendment was made to the act in 1788 to close some loopholes, but generally, the act accomplished its intended effect. By 1800, the number of slaves in Pennsylvania had dropped to only 1,706. By 1840, there were only 64 elderly black slaves left in the state and these were all set free by an act of the legislature in 1847.

http://www.revolutionary-war-and-beyond.com  

Jack Manning

Secretary General

National Society Sons of the American Revolution

www.sar.org

"Where there is no law, there is no liberty; and nothing deserves the name of law but that which is certain and universal in its operation upon all the members of the community." 

Benjamin Rush (1788)