the necessity of engaging Colonels Caswell and Lillington, who, with about a thousand minute-men and militia, were entrenched directly in his front, at Moore’s Creek bridge. The royalists, who were compelled to cross the bridge in the face of the entrenchments occupied by the provincials, attacked with great spirit: but Colonel M’Clean, who commanded them in consequence of the indisposition of M’Donald, with several of their bravest officers, having fallen in the first onset, they fled in great disorder, leaving behind them their General and several of their leaders, who fell into the hands of the provincials.
General Clinton remained with governor Martin until the arrival of Sir Peter Parker with several ships of war. Fortunately for the province, the unsuccessful insurrection of M’Donald, had previously broken the strength and spirits of the loyalists, and deprived them of their most active chiefs. The operations which had been meditated against that colony were deferred, and Clinton determined to make an attempt on the capital of South Carolina.
Early in April, a letter from the Secretary of State to the Governor of Maryland, disclosing the designs of government against the southern colonies, had been intercepted in the Chesapeake, and communicated to Mr. Rutledge the President of South Carolina.11 Thus apprized of the danger, preparations were made to meet it.
In the beginning of June, the fleet came to anchor off the harbor of Charleston. The bar12 was crossed on the 20th, and it was determined to silence a fort on Sullivan’s Island.
During the interval between passing the bar and attacking the fort, reinforcements were received from Virginia and North Carolina, which augmented the American army commanded by General Lee,13 to five thousand men, one half of whom were regulars.
The signal for the attack was given to the fleet by Sir Peter Parker, at half-past ten in the morning of the 28th of June, and a furious cannonade was commenced on the American works, which was continued without intermission until it was terminated by night. Its effect was not such as had been anticipated. The fort was constructed of earth and of palmetto, a soft wood, which, on being struck, does not splinter, but closes on the ball. The fire from the fort did vast execution. The Bristol and the Experiment were nearly wrecks. The first lost one hundred and eleven men, and the last seventy-nine. Several officers of distinction were killed or wounded. The Acteon frigate ran aground and was burnt. The loss of the Americans in killed and wounded was only thirty-five men.
The British did not renew the action. In a few days the troops who had been landed on Long Island14 previous to the attack on the fort were re-embarked, and, on the 25th of July, the fleet sailed for New York.
Great and well-merited praise was bestowed on Colonel Moultrie who commanded the fort, and on the garrison. The thanks of the United Colonies were voted by Congress to General Lee, Colonels Moultrie and Thompson, and the officers and men under their command.
Even before the evacuation of Boston, it had been foreseen that New York must become the seat of war. The fortifications which had been commenced for the defence of its capital, and those to be erected in the passes through the highlands up the Hudson, were, after the arrival of the commander-in-chief, objects of his unremitting attention.
The difficulty which had been experienced in expelling the British from Boston, had determined Congress to make great exertions for the preservation of New York. The execution of this determination was difficult and dangerous. It required an army capable of meeting the enemy in the open field, and of acting offensively both on York15 and Long Islands. Congress had not raised such an army. The letters of the commander-in-chief, urging measures which might bring the whole strength of the colonies into operation, had not been disregarded, but many circumstances combined to prevent such a military establishment as the exigency required.
Hopes had been long cherished that the differences between the mother country and her colonies might be adjusted; and when, at length, a conviction that the appeal must be made to arms was forced on Congress, that body, unaccustomed to the arduous duties of conducting a war of vast extent, could not estimate rightly the value of the means employed, nor calculate the effect which certain causes must produce. Opinions of the most pernicious tendency prevailed, from which they receded slowly, and from which they could be forced only by melancholy experience.
The most fatal among these was the theory that an army could be created every campaign for the purposes of that campaign. They relied too confidently on being able, on any emergency, to call out a force equal to the occasion; and on the competency of such a force to the purposes of war.
Under these impressions, the determination to form a permanent army was too long delayed; and the measures required by the object were deferred until their execution had become extremely difficult.
It was not until June 1776, that the representations of the commander-in-chief could obtain a resolution directing soldiers to be enlisted for three years, and offering a bounty of ten dollars for each recruit. The time when this resolution would certainly have accomplished its purpose had passed away. The regiments voted by Congress were incomplete; and that bounty which, if offered in time, would have effected its object, came too late to fill them.
The American army was not only inferior to its adversary in numbers, but was deficient in arms, ammunition, tents, and clothes. Yet both the government and commander-in-chief were determined to defend New York. Congress passed a resolution to reinforce the army with thirteen thousand eight hundred militia; and to form a flying camp16 on the Jersey shore, to consist of ten thousand militia, to be furnished by Pennsylvania, Delaware, and Maryland. They were to serve till the first of December, and the commander-in-chief was also authorized to require such additional temporary aids as circumstances might make necessary.
Great and embarrassing as were the difficulties already noticed, they were augmented by the disaffection of the city of New York, and of the adjacent islands. Governor Tryon, who had taken refuge on board some ships lying in the harbor, had been permitted to continue an open intercourse with the inhabitants. This intercourse was broken off upon the arrival of the commander-in-chief: yet a plot was formed through the agency of the Mayor, to rise in favor of the British on their landing, and to seize and deliver up General Washington himself. It extended to the American army, and even to the General’s guards. It was fortunately discovered in time to be defeated, and some of the persons concerned were executed. About the same time, the plan of an insurrection was discovered in the neighborhood of Albany; and there, too, executions were deemed necessary.
Although the original and single object of the war on the part of the colonies was a redress of grievances, the progress of public opinion towards independence, though slow, was certain; and measures were necessarily adopted which tended to that object. Among the first of these was the establishment of temporary governments in place of that revolutionary system which followed the suspension of the pre-existent institutions. Still, the most anxious desire to re-establish the union between the two countries on its ancient principles was openly and generally declared. However sincere these declarations might have been in the commencement, the operation of hostilities was infallible.17 To profess allegiance and attachment to a monarch with whom they were at open war, was an absurdity too great to be of long continuance. The prejudices in favor of a connexion with England and of the English constitution, gradually but rapidly yielded to republican principles, and to a desire of independence. New strength was every day added to the opinions that a cordial reconciliation had become impossible; that reciprocal jealousy, suspicion, and hate, would take the place of that affection which could alone render such a connexion beneficial; that even the commercial dependence of America on Great Britain was greatly injurious to the former; and that the government of a distant nation or sovereign, unacquainted with and unmindful of their interests, would, even if replaced in their former situation, be an evil too great to be voluntarily borne. But, victory alone could restore them to that situation; and victory would give independence. The hazard was the same; and since the risk of everything was inevitable,
