When reenacting or acting as a historical interpreter, its good to have a few historical dates and stories to share. This series will publish a few.
August 16, 1787 – BATTLE OF CAMDEN: Despite the proliferation of dysentery among his men, General Horatio Gates engaged General Charles Cornwallis’s army at Camden, SC. The American Army was numerically superior but illness and the British use of bayonets resulted in nearly 2,000 Americans killed or taken prisoner and heavy losses of artillery. Gates was subsequently removed from command and replaced by Nathanael Greene.
British subjugation of rebel American colonies in the south depended on control of outposts and supply depots. The largest was at Camden, South Carolina, about 115 miles (185 km) inland from the coast. In August 1780, an American force under Major General Horatio Gates marched to capture it.
When Lieutenant General Charles Cornwallis learned of Gates’s approach, he assembled 2,200 regulars and Loyalists and marched north from Camden to confront the Americans. Gates was a poor field commander whose victory at Saratoga, which earned him the southern command, was due to more talented subordinate leaders. His southern army of about 3,700 was mostly local militia with a small core of 900 veteran Continentals from Maryland and Delaware. Unaware of the other’s presence, the armies marched toward one another.
On 15 August Gates fed his men a meal of molasses and cornmeal that gave many of them diarrhea. Despite this, he ordered a night march toward Camden. Before dawn the next morning his advance party encountered British scouts, and both armies halted until daylight. Both commanders placed their most reliable troops on their right, so the British regulars under Lieutenant Colonel James Webster faced the weaker American militia. As at Saratoga, Gates placed himself to the rear. As Webster’s line of regulars advanced, the militia line crumbled with hardly a shot fired. Webster then wheeled left and attacked the flank of the two Continental regiments that had been pressing the Loyalists hard. Outnumbered and trapped, the Continentals were overwhelmed. Few escaped except Gates, who fled on horseback.
Though only 324 British were killed or wounded, the Americans suffered more than 2,000 casualties and lost large amounts of military supplies. It was the worst American defeat in the field and left the British in temporary control of the southern colonies. While enhancing the reputation of Cornwallis, the battle ruined the career of Gates, who was replaced. The victory opened the way to a subsequent British invasion of North Carolina. The British stopped a second American attack on Camden under General Nathanael Greene on April 25, 1781, at Hobkirk’s Hill, but, worn down by colonial guerrilla harassment, they burned and evacuated the town the following month.
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Michael Carver -- Historical Interpreter/Reenactor 