Chapter XXVIII (1)

HERE are but few remains of Revolutionary localities about Savannah. The city has spread out over all the British works; and where their batteries, redoubts, ramparts, and ditches were constructed, public squares are laid out and adorned with trees, or houses and stores cover the earth. Not so with the works constructed by the French engineers during the siege in the autumn of 1779. Although the regular forms are effaced, yet the mounds and ditches may be traced many rods near the margin of the swamp southeast of the city. These I visited early on the morning of my arrival in Savannah, after an instructive interview with the Honorable J. C. Nicoll, to whom I am indebted for a knowledge of the several historical localities in and near the city. Their present appearance and description are delineated on page 737. After sketching General M'Intosh's house, printed on the preceding page, I procured a saddle-horse and rode out to "Jasper's Spring," a place famous as the scene of a bold exploit, which has been the theme of history and song.*

It is near the Augusta road, two and a half miles westward of the city. The day was very warm. The gardens were garnished with flowers; the orange-trees were blooming; blossoms covered the peach-trees, and insects were sporting in the sunbeams.

Jasper's Spring is just within the edge of a forest of oaks and gums, and is remarkable only on account of its historical associations. It is in the midst of a marshy spot partially covered with underwood, on the northern side of the road, and its area is marked by the circumference of a sunken barrel. Being the only fountain of pure water in the vicinity, it is resorted to daily by travelers upon the road. One

* We have already met Sergeant William Jasper while securing the Carolina flags upon the parapet of the Spring Hill redoubt at Savannah (see page 738), and there sealing his patriotism with his life's blood. Jasper was one of the bravest of the brave. After his exploits at Fort Moultrie, which we shall consider hereafter, his commander, General Moultrie, gave him a sort of roving commission, certain that he would always be usefully employed. Jasper belonged to the second South Carolina regiment, and was privileged to select from his corps such men as he pleased to accompany him in his enterprises. Bravery and humanity were his chief characteristics, and while he was active in the cause of his country, he never injured an enemy unnecessarily. While out upon one of his excursions, when the British had a camp at Ebenezer, all the sympathies of his heart were aroused by the distress of a Mrs. Jones, whose husband, an American by birth, was confined in irons for deserting the royal cause after taking a protection. She felt certain that he would be hanged, for, with others, he was to be taken to Savannah for that purpose the next morning. Jasper and his only companion (Sergeant Newton) resolved to rescue Jones and his fellow-prisoners. Concealing themselves in the thick bushes near the spring (at which they doubted not the guard of eight men would halt), they awaited their approach. As expected, the guard halted to drink. Only two of them remained with the prisoners, while the others, leaning their muskets against a tree, went to the spring. Jasper and his companion then leaped from their concealment, seized two of the guns, shot the two sentinels, and took possession of the remainder of the muskets. The guards, unarmed, were powerless, and surrendered. The irons were knocked off the wrists of the prisoners, muskets were placed in their hands, and the custodians of Jones and his fellow-patriots were taken to the American camp at Purysburg the next morning, themselves prisoners of war. Jones was restored to his wife, child, and country, and for that noble deed posterity blesses the name of Sergeant Jasper. That name is indelibly written on the page of history, and the people of Savannah have perpetuated it by bestowing it upon one of the beautiful squares of their city.

[[[Departure from Savannah.--Night Voyage.--Arrival at Charleston.--Early Settlement.]]]

{743}of them, a wagoner, came, knelt, and quaffed when I opened my port-folio, and, as he arose from the spring I sketched him, as seen in the preceding picture. He knew nothing of the event which makes it famous.

After lingering for half an hour in the cool shade at the spring, I returned to Savannah. A slight haziness began to overspread the sky, which deepened toward evening, and descended in gentle rain when I left the city at eight o'clock in a steam-packet for Charleston. We passed the lights at Fort Pulaski at half past eight, and an hour later glided by the beacons of Tybee and breasted the rising waves of the Atlantic. Like Yellow Plush, I soon discovered the "use of basins," and at an early hour turned into my berth to prevent a turning out of my supper. During the night we passed through Port Royal entrance, touched at Beaufort, stuck in the mud in the channel between Ladies' and St. Helena Islands, and at daylight emerged again into the Atlantic through St. Helena's Sound. The breeze was hourly stiffening, and every "landlubber" on board preferred the berth to breakfast, until we approached Charleston bar, when the wind died away, the sun gleamed through the breaking clouds, and upon the bosom of long, heaving swells, we were wafted into Charleston harbor.

We landed at one o'clock, dined at two, and at three I called upon the Reverend Samuel Smythe, D.D., with a letter of introduction, with whom I passed the remainder of the afternoon in visiting places of interest upon the banks of the Cooper River, above the city. To the kind courtesy of Dr. Smythe I am indebted for much of the interest, pleasure, and profit of my visit at Charleston and vicinity.

Here, upon the spot where the first permanent English settlement in South Carolina was accomplished, let us glance at the record of history.

In the Introduction to this work (page xxxii.), I have referred to the first attempt at permanent settlement on South Carolina soil, and the result. As it was only an _attempt_, proved unsuccessful, and does not illustrate the growth of popular liberty, except so far as the _principles_, of the Huguenots (those first emigrants) had influence in the political opinions of the people in after years, we will not stop to consider the details, but pass on to the period of permanent settlements.

For a hundred years after the first attempt at colonization in South Carolina was made, no settlements were undertaken, and no white man walked in her forests, except a few Spaniards, who penetrated the wilderness from St. Augustine in search of a fancied region of gold. At length the English, who had formed settlements on the Cape Fear and vicinity, turned their attention to more southerly regions.

In January, 1670, two ships, with materials fora permanent settlement, sailed from England, under the command of Sir William Sayle, who had previously visited and explored the South Carolina coast. He entered Port Royal, planted his colony upon Beaufort, and soon afterward died there.

The jurisdiction of Sir John Yeamans, of the Northern colony, was then extended over this settlement, and in 1671 he was chosen their governor. The people were easily induced, "for the convenience of pasturage and tillage," to remove to the south bank of the Ashley River, further north, and there they laid the foundation of old Charlestown ** (at present called Old Town, or the Landing); and there was planted the first fruitful seed a gift of the commonwealth of South Carolina. The colony, in honor of Sir George Carteret, one of the proprietors, was called the Carteret County Colony. ** Nine years afterward, the settlers abandoned this spot, and upon Oyster Point, nearer the sea, at the confluence of the

* There were about fifty families who went from the Fort Royal settlement to the Ashley River, and about the same number from the Northern colony accompanied Governor Yeamans thither.

** Governor Yeamans caused a number of African slaves to be brought from Barbadoes, and in the year 1672 the slave system in South Carolina was commenced

[[[Founding of Charleston.--Increase of Settlers.--Their Character.--Difficulties with the Indians.]]]

{744}Ashley and Cooper Rivers * (so called in compliment to Ashley Cooper, the Earl of Shaftesbury), a place more eligible for commercial pursuits, they founded the present city of Charleston,[[1680]] and in the course of the year built thirty houses. *** The city retained its original name of Charles _Town_ until after the Revolution, when it was called Charleston. The general early history of South Carolina we have already considered in its connection with the North State; we have, therefore, only a few particular points to notice in its progress prior to the separation in 1729.

The beauty of the climate and the freedom which then prevailed made South Carolina a chosen refuge for the oppressed and the discontented of all lands. Several Dutch families of New York went to South Carolina when that city passed into the hands of the English, and settled on the southwest side of the Ashley, near the English colony, from whence they spread over the state, and were joined by many from "fader-land." In 1679, Charles the Second sent quite a number of French Protestant refugees (Huguenots) thither; and when, in 1685, the Edict of Nantes (see page 386, volume i.) was revoked, large numbers of the Huguenots crossed the Atlantic, and sought refuge in South Carolina from the fires of persecution about to be relighted in France. Ten years later,[[1696]] a colony of Congregationalists, from Dorchester, in Massachusetts, ascended the Ashley almost to its head, and founded the town of Dorchester, in the present parish of St. George, Dorchester. This was a village of considerable note during the Revolution, but it is now deserted, and little remains of the past but the primitive church and the graves around it.

Under various leaders, men of every creed and of various countries went to South Carolina; "and the Santee, the Congaree, the Wateree, and the Edisto now listened to the strange voices of several nations, who in the Old World had scarcely known each other, except as foes. There, for a while, they mingled harmoniously with the natives. The French Huguenot and the German Palatine smoked their pipes in amity with the Westo and the Serattee; and the tastes and habits of the Seine and the Rhine became familiar to the wandering eyes of the fearless warriors along the Congaree. It was not long before a French violinist had opened a school for dancing among the Indians on the Santee River." ***

For some time the colonists were obliged to depend, in part, upon the bounty of the proprietors for subsistence, and the calls of this dependence being generally answered, idle and improvident habits were begotten, highly inimical to the prosperity of a new state. The proprietors perceived the bad tendency of such indulgence, and in a letter to the colonists declared that they would "no longer continue to feed and clothe them, without expectation or demand of any return." This resolve, so unkind to the apprehension of the Carolinians, was of great benefit to the colonists. Ultimately the people, compelled to work or starve--to be provident or to be beggars--turned to their own resources, and their development began. Independence of action begat independence of thought and feeling, and in this first broken fallow, turned up to the vivifying influence of the sun and shower of free civil, political and religious life, the seed of Republican liberty, which subsequently bore such generous fruit in the Carolinas, was planted and took firm root..

In addition to the diseases incident to the climate, and the privations always attendant upon first settlement, the Carolinians were soon called upon to resist powerful foes--the Indian tribes upon whose hunting-grounds they were settling. These difficulties have been noticed in a preceding chapter. The red men were hardly quieted before internal troubles menaced the colony with a more terrible blow. Food had become scarce, discontents were

* The Indian name for the Ashley was Ke-a-wah; for the Cooper, E-li-uan. The city has a tine sheltered harbor, with the sea six miles distant.

** The city of Charleston was laid out in 1680 by John Culpepper, who had been surveyor general of the Northern colony of the Carolinas, but was then a fugitive, on account of his participation in an insurrectionary movement there. The streets were laid out nearly at right angles, and the town site was completely inclosed with a line of fortifications. A plan of these fortifications, and of the city at that time, is published in Johnson's Traditions and Reminiscences of the Revolution, page 3.

*** Simm's History of South Carolina, page 64.

[[[An Insurrection.--Legislative Assembly.--French and English.--Church Liturgy adopted]]]

{745}heard on every side, and an insurrectionary movement occurred. The rebellion was promptly suppressed, and some supplies just then arriving from England with some new settlers, the people were quieted and became loyal. This difficulty had just passed by, when the Spaniards menaced the English, and ships of war with land troops appeared. Before their arrival, vessels which had been sent to Virginia and Barbadoes for provisions and munitions of war reached the harbor of Charleston. Governor Yeamans at once acted on the offensive, and drove the Spaniards back to St. Augustine.

Yeamans left the colony in 1674, and was succeeded by Joseph West, a man of republican tendencies. He called the freemen of the colony together in convention at Charleston to make laws for their government. This was the first legislative assembly convened in South Carolina. It might have been an auspicious event, had not the jarring interests of classes and creeds, there represented, produced discord and confusion. Cavaliers and Puritans, Churchmen and Dissenters, each strenuous for the prevalence of their respective opinions, presented, in this first attempt at representative legislation, powerful arguments in favor of absolutism. Anarchy prevailed, and in the midst of the dissensions in Charleston, the Stono Indians swept along the frontiers of the settlements, and plundered a great quantity of grain and numerous cattle. The inhabitants armed themselves, defeated the Stonos in several skirmishes, took many of them prisoners, and sent them to the West Indies to be sold as slaves. After other obstinate conflicts, the Stonos were subdued and almost exterminated. They have never had a tribal existence since, and it is believed that they have no living representative upon the earth.

A Legislative Assembly met in Charleston in 1682, and enacted laws for the civil and military operations of the colony. The spirit of freedom had begun to work in the hearts of the people, and when the collection of rents, the great cause of discontent in the Northern colony, was pressed, they rebelled. The public records were seized, and the Assembly, assuming the functions of government, imprisoned the secretary of the province. The governor (Colleton) declared martial law. The exasperated people clamored for his impeachment. The Assembly complied, and he was banished from the province. Turbulence and misrule continued until the scheme of government of Locke and Shaftesbury was abandoned; a better day then dawned. John Archdale, the good Quaker, came, and his policy was like oil poured upon troubled waters. Only one great difficulty remained--the troubles arising from the antipathy of the English to the French. The general excellence of character possessed by the latter soon disarmed prejudices; their political disabilities were removed; they were no longer excluded from participation in governmental affairs, and the last fountain of disquietude was dried up. During the whole of Archdale's administration, and that of Blake, his successor, peace and prosperity prevailed.

James Moore succeeded Blake in 1700. He sent an expedition against the Spaniards at St. Augustine, in 1702, which proved unsuccessful. A subsequent expedition against the Apalachian Indians, undertaken by Moore, has been considered in a previous chapter.

Nathaniel Johnson, a pliant servant of Lord Granville, one of the proprietors, succeeded Moore in 1703, and, pursuant to a plan long cherished by that nobleman and his friends, he proceeded to the establishment of the Church of England in Carolina. This was the first budding of religious intolerance there. The Dissenters were excluded from the Colonial Legislature, and suffered other disabilities. They laid their grievances before the English Parliament. There they received encouragement, and the law of disfranchisement was soon repealed by the Colonial Assembly, but the Liturgy of the Church of England remained the established form of religion in the province until the Revolution.

England was now at war with France and Spain. Her enemies coalesced, and joined in an expedition against South Carolina in 1706. A squadron of five ships came from Havana and appeared before Charleston. The governor called upon the people to repel the invaders, and they cheerfully responded. The invading troops were compelled to fly to their ships, and these, in turn, being attacked by some vessels which had been speedily armed in the harbor, retreated in haste across the bar, and departed. This was the first

[[[Revolution.--Royal Government established.--Separation of the Colonies.--Extension of Settlements.]]]

{746}_naval victory_ of the South Carolinians. Of eight hundred of the enemy, almost three hundred were killed or taken prisoners.

In 1710 a speck of civil war appeared in Charleston, when two claimants to the office of acting governor, on the death of Tynte, the successor of Johnson, disputed for the honor. A compromise was effected, by referring the case to the proprietors for a decision. They wisely discarded both candidates, and appointed Charles Craven, brother of one of the proprietors, governor of the province. Under his administration the colony prospered, settlements extended, and the power of a dangerous Indian confederacy against the Carolinas was effectually broken. *

Craven was succeeded by Robert Johnson, a son of the former governor,[[1717]] and during his administration a revolution occurred in South Carolina which changed the government from a proprietary to a royal one. The remote causes of this change may be found in the desire of the people for a simple and inexpensive government responsible only to the crown, and not to be subjected to the caprices, avarice, and inefficiency of a Board of Control composed of private individuals, intent only upon personal gain. The immediate and ostensible cause was the refusal of the proprietors to pay any portion of the debt incurred by the Indian war so promptly suppressed by Governor Craven; and the severity with which they enforced the collection of rents. The people looked to the crown for relief, aid, and protection. A scheme for a revolution was secretly planned, and on the twenty-eighth of November, 1719, Governor Johnson was deposed. The people proceeded to elect James Moore governor. The militia, on whom Johnson looked for aid, were against him, and finding himself entirely unsupported, he withdrew to his plantation. Moore was proclaimed governor of the province in the king's name, and royal authority was established. During the administration of Francis Nicholson, the successor of Moore, and that of Arthur Middleton, acting governor, little of political importance occurred in relation to the colony, except the legal disputes in England concerning the rights of the proprietors. These were finally settled in 1729, by a royal purchase of both colonies (see page 562) from the proprietors, and during that year North and South Carolina became separate royal provinces.

The colony was now very prosperous, and from the period of the separation until the Revolution, nothing occurred to impede its general progress but the troubles with the Indians, detailed in preceding chapters, and difficulties with the Spaniards. Soon all alarm on account of the latter subsided, for Oglethorpe had established a barrier on the Southern border, by laying the foundation of the commonwealth of Georgia, and preparing means for keeping the Spaniards south of the St. John's. When this barrier was made secure, the treaties with the Indians were accomplished, the war with France ended, and universal peace reigned in the Carolinas. Emigration flowed thither in a broad and rapid stream. Immigrants came from all parts of Europe. Up the Pedee, Santee, Edisto, and Savannah Rivers, settlements spread rapidly, and soon the ax and the plow were plying with mighty energy upon the banks of the Wateree, the Broad, and the Saluda Rivers, and their tributaries. *** At one time six hundred German settlers came in a body; and from the North of Ireland such numbers of the Protestant inhabitants (Scotch-Irish chiefly) departed for Carolina that the depopulation of whole districts was menaced. Immigrants came, too, from the other colonies. Within a single year,[[1764]] more than a thousand families with their effects--their cattle, hogs, and horses--crossed the Alleghanies from the Eastern settlements, and pitched their tents in the bosom of Carolina. Far removed from the po-

* See page 562.

** Previous to this period, some important settlements were made. Between the years 1730 and 1740, an Irish settlement was planted near the Santee, to whieh was given the name of Williamsburg township. At the same time, some Swiss emigrants, under John Pury, settled upon the northeast side of the Savannah, and founded the village of Purysburg. From 1748 to 1755, great numbers of Palatines (Germans) were introduced, and settled Orangeburgh and other places upon the Congaree and Wateree. After the battle of Culloden in 1745, many Scotch Highlanders came over. Some of them settled in South Carolina, but a larger portion located at Cross Creek (Fayetteville), in North Carolina. The greatest influx of settlement was after the treaty of Paris, in 1763.

[[[Discontents.--Disputes with the Governor.--Effects of the Stamp Act.--Boldness of the People.]]]

{747}litical power they had been taught to reverence they soon became alienated. They felt neither the favors nor the oppressions of government, and in the free wilderness their minds and hearts became schooled in that sturdy independence which developed bold and energetic action when the Revolution broke out.

While the people of New England were murmuring because of Writs of Assistance and other grievances, the Carolinians were not indifferent listeners, especially those upon the seaboard; and before the Stamp Act lighted the flame of general indignation in America, leading men in South Carolina were freely discussing the rights and privileges of each colony, and saw in day-dreams a mighty empire stretching along the Atlantic coast from the Penobscot to the St. John's. Already their representatives had quarreled with the governor (William Boone), because he had presumed to touch, with official hands, one of their dearest privileges (the elective franchise), and refused to hold intercourse with him. In these disputes, Christopher Gadsden, Thomas Lynch, Henry Laurens, Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, the Rutledges, and other stanch patriots in the stormy strife ten years later, were engaged. A spirit of resistance was then aroused, which brought South Carolina early into the arena of conflict when the war began.

When intelligence of the Stamp Act came over the sea, the Assembly of South Carolina did not wait to consult the opinions of those of other colonies, but immediately passed a series of condemnatory resolves. When, soon afterward, the proposition for a Colonial Congress came from Massachusetts, a member of the Assembly ridiculed it, * others thought the scheme chimerical, yet a majority of them were in favor of it, and delegates were appointed to represent South Carolina in the Congress which was held at New York.[[Oct. 7, 1765]] The iniquitous character of the Stamp Aet was freely discussed by the Carolinians, and as the day approached[[Nov. 1]] when it was to go into operation, the people became more and more determined to resist it. When the stamps arrived in Charleston, no man was found willing to act as distributor, and Governor William Bull (who had succeeded Boone) ordered them to be placed in Fort Johnson, a strong fortress on James's Island, then garrisoned by a very small force. When the place of deposit became known, one hundred and fifty armed men, who had secretly organized, went down to the fort at midnight, in open boats, to destroy the stamps. They surprised and captured the garrison, loaded the cannons, hoisted a flag, and at sunrise proclaimed open defiance of the power of the governor. The captain of the armed ship which brought the stamps opened a parley with the insurgents, and agreed to take away the obnoxious articles, and "not land them elsewhere in America." ** This was agreed to, and the men returned to the city. So universal was the opposition to the Act, that no attempt was made to arrest the men concerned in this overt act of treason.

* "If you agree to the proposition of composing a Congress from the different British colonies," said the member, "what sort of a dish will you make. New England will throw in fish and onions; the Middle States flax-seed and flour; Maryland and Virginia will add tobacco; North Carolina pitch, tar, and turpentine; South Carolina rice and indigo; and Georgia will sprinkle the whole composition with saw-dust. Such an absurd jumble will you make if you attempt to form a union among such discordant materials as the thirteen British provinces." A shrewd country member replied, "I would not choose the gentleman who made the objection for my cook, but, nevertheless, I would venture to assert that if the colonies proceed judiciously in the appointment of deputies to a Continental Congress, they would prepare a dish fit to be presented to any crowned head in Europe."--Ramsay.

** In a letter from Charleston, published in Weyman's New York Gazette, it is stated that on the morning of the nineteenth of October a gallows was discovered in the middle of Broad Street, where Chinch Street intersects (then the central part of the town), on which were suspended an effigy representing a stamp distributor, and another to impersonate the devil. Near by was suspended a boot (Lord Bute), with a head upon it, covered by a blue Scotch bonnet. To these effigies labels were affixed. Upon one was the warning, "Whoever shall dare to pull down these effigies had better been born with a mill-stone about his neck, and cast into the sea." At evening they were taken down, and paraded through the street by about two thousand persons, until they came to the house of George Saxby, in Tradd Street, an appointed stamp distributor, where they made a great noise, and injured his windows and other portions of his house, to "the value of five pounds sterling." No other riotous feelings were manifested. Nine day's afterward, Saxby and Caleb Lloyd made oath at Fort Johnson that they would have nothing more to do with the stamps.

[[[Liberty Tree.--Charleston Sons of Liberty.--Pitt's Statue.--Christopher Gadsden]]]

{748}Under a wide-spreading live oak, a little north of the residence of Christopher Gadsden--the Samuel Adams of South Carolina--the patriots used to assemble during the summer and autumn of 1765, and also the following summer, when the Stamp Act was repealed. There they discussed the political questions of the day. From this circumstance the green oak was called, like the great elm in Boston, _Liberty Tree_. * There Gadsden assembled some of his political friends after the repeal of the Stamp Act in 1766, and, while bonfires were blazing, cannons were pealing for joy, and the Legislature of South Carolina was voting a statue in honor of Pitt, ** he warned them not to be deceived by this mere show of justice. *** His keen perception comprehended the Declaratory Act in all its deformity, and while others were loud in their praises of the king and Parliament, he ceased not to proclaim the whole proceeding a deceptive and wicked scheme to lull the Americans into a dangerous inactivity. And more; it is claimed, and generally believed in South Carolina, that under Liberty Tree Christopher Gadsden first spoke of American Independence. How early is not known, but supposed to be as early as 1764. ****

The people of Charleston cheerfully signed non-importation agreements in 1769 and

* This tree stood within the square now bounded by Charlotte, Washington, Boundary, and Alexander Streets. This continued to be the favorite meeting-place until the Revolution was in full progress. Beneath that tree the Declaration of Independence was first read to the assembled people of Charleston. Its history and associations were hateful to the officers of the crown, and when Sir Henry Clinton took possession of the eity in 1780, he ordered it to be cut down, and a fire lighted over the stump by piling its branches around it. Many cane heads were made from the remains of the stump in after years. A part of it was sawed into thin boards and made into a neat ballot-box, and presented to the "'76 Association." This box was destroyed by fire, at the rooms of the association, during the great conflagration in 1838.

** This statue was of marble, and stood at the intersection of Broad and Meeting Streets. During the siege of Charleston, in April, 1780, a British cannon-ball from James's Island passed up Meeting Street, struck this statue, and broke off its left arm. Several years after the war, the statue, being considered an obstruction, was rudely pulled down by some workmen employed for the purpose, when the head was broken off, and it was otherwise mutilated. Good taste would have restored the arm, and kept the statue in its place until this day.

*** The following are the names of the Sons of Liberty of Charleston, who met with Gadsden, under Liberty Tree, in 1766, and with linked hands pledged themselves to resist when the hour for resistance should arrive. They are published by Johnson from the original record of George Flagg, one of the party: General Christopher Gadsden, William Johnson, Joseph Verre, John Fullerton, James Brown, Nathaniel Libby, George Flagg, Thomas Coleman, John Hall, William Field, Robert Jones, John Lawton, Uzziah Rogers, John Calvert, Henry Bookless, J. Barlow, Tunis Tebout, Peter Munclear, William Trusler, Robert Howard, Alexander Alexander, Edward Weyman, Thomas Searl, William Laughton, Daniel Cannon, and Benjamin Hawes. The last survivor, George Flagg, died in 1824.

**** Christopher Gadsden was born in Charleston in 1724. He was educated in England, where he became accomplished in the learned languages. He returned to Ameriea at the age of sixteen, and entered the counting-house of a merchant in Philadelphia, where he remained until he was twenty-one years of age. He then went to England, and on his return engaged in mercantile pursuits in Charleston. He was successful, and was soon able to purchase all of the properly known as Ansonborough, which his father lost in play with Lord Anson. His house was upon the lot now (1848) owned by Mrs. Isaac Ball, and the kitchen is yet standing on the lot at the northeast corner of East Bay and Vernon Streets. Mr. Gadsden was one of the earliest opponents of Great Britain in South Carolina, and, as the Revolution advanced, was one of its firmest supporters. He was a delegate in the first Continental Congress in 1774, and his name is attached to the American Association agreed to by that body. In 1775, he was elected senior colonel and commandant of three South Carolina regiments, and was subsequently made a brigadier. He was in the engagement at the siege of Charleston in 1776. He was one of the framers of the Constitution of South Carolina, adopted in 1778. He resigned his commission in 1779, and when Charleston was taken by Clinton, in 1780, he was lieutenant governor; as sueh, he signed the capitulation. Three months afterward, he was taken, with others, and cast into the loathsome prison at St. Augustine (an act in open violation of the terms of capitulation), because he would not submit to indignity at the hands of Governor Tonyn. There he suffered for eleven months, until exchanged in June, 1781, when he sailed to Philadelphia with other prisoners. He returned to Charleston, and was a member of the Assembly convened at Jacksonburg in the winter of 1782. He opposed the confiscation of the property of the Loyalists, and thereby won their esteem. He was elected governor of the state in 1782, but declined the honor, and went into the retirement of private life. He died on the twenty-eighth of August, 1805, at the age of eighty-one years.

[[[Tea repudiated.--Sympathy for Bostonians.--Provincial Convention and Congress.--Seizure of Dispatches.]]]

{749}1770, and faithfully adhered thereto; and when the Continental Congress of 1774 adopted the _American Association_, its recommendations were very generally complied with in South Carolina. When tea was sent to America, under the provisions of a new act of 1773 (see page 495, volume i.), the South Carolinians were as firm in their opposition to the landing of the cargoes _for sale_, as were the people of Boston. It was stored in the warehouses, and there rotted, for not a pound was allowed to be sold.

The closing of the port of Boston, by act of Parliament, on the first of January, 1774, aroused the indignation and sympathy of the South Carolinians, and substantial aid was freely sent to the suffering inhabitants of that city. When the proposition for a General Congress went forth, the affirmative voice of South Carolina was among the first heard in response. In an assembly of the people, held in Charleston, on the sixth, seventh, and eighth of July, 1774, it was declared that the Boston Port Bill was "most cruel and oppressive," and plainly showed that "if the inhabitants of that town are intimidated into a mean submission of said acts, that the like are designed for all the colonies; when not even the shadow of liberty to his person, or of security to his property, will be left to any of his majesty's subjects residing on the American continent." The same convention approved of the proposition for a General Congress, chose delegates to represent them in Federal Council, * and closed their proceedings by the appointment of a committee of ninety-nine, "to act as a general committee, to correspond with the committees of other colonies, and to do all matters and things necessary to carry the resolutions of the convention into execution." Henry Laurens was appointed chairman of this large committee, and it was agreed that twenty-one should constitute a business quorum. **

In defiance of the remonstrances and menaces of Lieutenant-governor Bull, a Provincial Congress of delegates, chosen by the people, met at Charleston on the eleventh of January, 1775. Charles Cotesworth Pinckney was chosen president. That Assembly approved of the proceedings of the General Congress, and appointed a committee of inspection and observation to see that its recommendations were complied with. *** Now began those coercive measures of the Whigs which were often wrong and oppressive, but frequently necessary and salutary. The non-importation measures were rigorously enforced, and royal power was boldly defied. The people of Charleston formed themselves into volunteer companies to practice the use of fire-arms, and the boys, catching the spirit of the hour, banded together, and with mimic weapons imitated the discipline of their seniors.

On the nineteenth of April, 1775, the day when the first blow was struck for liberty at Lexington, the packet ship _Swallow_ arrived at Charleston, bringing dispatches for the governors of the Southern colonies. Among others was a dispatch for the acting governor of South Carolina, William Bull. His disputes with the Committee of Safety and the Provincial Congress had risen to a high pitch of acrimony, and the public mind was greatly excited. Yet all hoped for reconciliation, and few could believe that civil war would actually ensue. The arrival of the _Swallow_ extinguished these hopes, for a secret committee who had been appointed to seize the next mail that should arrive from England, performed their duty well. **** On opening the dispatches to the governor, it was found that the British

* Henry Middleton, John Rutledge, Christopher Gadsden, Thomas Lynch, and Edward Rutledge, were appointed delegates.

** Ramsay's History of South Carolina, i., 18; Moultrie's Memoirs, i., 10. The place of meeting was at a large tavern on the northeast corner of Broad and Church Streets, commonly called, at that day, "The Corner."

*** The following gentlemen composed the Charleston committee: Christopher Gadsden, Isaac Huger, William Gibbes, William Parker, Aaron Locock, Roger Smith, Maurice Simons, John Poang, Thomas Legarc, Sen., Edward Simons, Edward Blake, Samuel Prioleau, Jr., Hugh Swinton, John Champneys, William Host, John Brewton, Alexander Chisholme, Alexander Chovin, William Livingston, and John Baddeley.

**** This committee consisted of William Henry Drayton, John Neufville, and Thomas Corbett. After the mail was carried to the post-office, and before it could be opened, this committee went thither, and demanded it from Stevens, the postmaster, in the name of the Provincial Congress. Stevens allowed them to take it, under protest. It was then carried to the State House and opened. The packages for the governors were retained and opened; the private letters, with seals unbroken, were returned to the post-office.

[[[Intentions of the Ministry.--Condition of the People.--Seizure of Arms and Powder.--Civil Government organized.]]]

{750}ministry had resolved to coerce the colonies into submission. The royal governors were ordered to seize the arms and ammunition belonging to the several provinces, raise provincial troops, if possible, and prepare to receive an army of British regulars to aid them. Gage and Dunmore, we have seen, acted upon these instructions, but the patriots of Lexington, Concord, and Williamsburg thwarted them; and the Charleston Committee of Correspondence, giving those of North Carolina and Georgia timely warning, enabled them to assume an attitude of defense before it was too late. A messenger, with these dispatches, was sent to the Continental Congress, and this was the first intelligence which that body had of the real intentions of the British ministry.

A few days after the discovery of this scheme, intelligence of the battle at Lexington arrived. Suspicion now yielded to demonstration; there was no longer any uncertainty; the mother was arming against her children; war was inevitable. While patriotism, gushing in full fountain from the hearts of the people, made them proclaim boldly, We are ready! sober reason saw the disparity in the strength of the oppressor and the oppressed. England was then among the first powers of the earth; the colonies were weak in material defenses. The savage tribes on their whole western frontier might be brought, like thirsty blood-hounds, upon them; they possessed not a single ship of war; they had very little money; at the South, the slaves, by offers of freedom, might become enemies in their midst; a large number of wealthy, influential, and conscientious men were loyal to the king; the governors, being commanders-in-chief, had control of the provincial military forces, and, if their thoughts had for a moment turned to the Continental powers of Europe for aid, they were pressed back by the reflection that republican principles were at variance with the dominant sentiments of the Old World. And yet they did not hesitate. Pleading the justice of their cause, they leaned for support upon the strong arm of the God of Battles.

Having resolved on rebellion, the people of Charleston were not afraid to commit acts of legal treason. They justly considered that "all statutes of allegiance were repealed on the plains of Lexington, and the laws of self-preservation left to operate in full force." * They accordingly concerted a plan, like their brethren in Savannah (see page 726), to secure the arms and ammunition in the city, and on the night of the twentieth of April they seized upon all the munitions of war they could find. This was the first overt act of resistance, and at that hour began the Revolution, in earnest, in South Carolina.

A second session of the Provincial Congress commenced on the first of June. An association, drawn up by Henry Laurens, was adopted; ** a permanent Committee of Safety was appointed; an issue of six hundred thousand dollars in paper money was ordered, and two regiments of infantry, of five hundred men each, and a battalion of cavalry or rangers, was directed to be raised. Some gentlemen were sent to the West Indies in a fast-sailing vessel to procure powder, and were fortunate enough to return with about ten thousand pounds.

After arranging military affairs, the attention of the Assembly was next turned to the organization of civil government. A Council of Safety was appointed to act during the recess of the Provincial Congress, to whom all the powers of that body were delegated. *** They had the entire control of the army; were clothed with power to contract debts for the public service, and to issue coin and bills of credit. With this organization, civil government, upon a republican basis, was begun.

During the session of the Congress, Lord William Campbell, **** who had been appointed

* Ramsay, i., 30.

** The core of this document consisted in the declaration of those who signed it, that they were "ready to sacrifice life and fortune to secure the freedom and safety of South Carolina: holding all persons inimical to the liberties of the colonies who shall refuse to subscribe to the association."

*** This council consisted of Henry Laurens, Charles Pinckney, Rawlins Lowndes, Thomas Ferguson, Miles Brewlon, Arthur Middleton, Thomas Heyward, Jr., Thomas Bee, John Huger, James Parsons, William Henry Drayton, Benjamin Elliott, and William Williams

**** Lord Campbell was the third brother of the Duke of Argyle. He had married Sarah Izard, the sister of Ralph Izard, who belonged to the richest family in the province. The residence of Lord Campbell was on Meeting Street, now (1851) owned and occupied by Judge D. E. Huger. Soon finding his residence in Charleston unsafe, he escaped to a British vessel in the harbor, leaving his family behind. Lady Campbell was treated with great respect, but finally she too went on board the vessel, and was landed at Jamaica. The next year (1776), Campbell was on board the Bristol in the attack upon Charleston, and, while fighting on the quarter-deck, he was wounded. He died from the effects of his wounds, two years afterward.

[[[Seizure of Powder at St. Augustine.--Expulsion of Lord Campbell and the Garrison.--City Defenses.]]]

{751}governor, arrived at Charleston,[[July, 1775]] and was very courteously received. He professed great love for the people of the province, and assured them that he would use his best endeavors to promote the welfare of the inhabitants.

Taught by experience to suspect the promises of royalty or its representatives, the people took measures to test his sincerity. The hollowness of his professions was proven, and turning their backs upon him, the patriots proceeded in their preparations for armed resistance. A vessel was fitted out by the Committee of Safety to attempt the capture of an English sloop laden with powder, then lying at St. Augustine. The expedition was successful, and fifteen thousand pounds of powder were brought safely into Charleston, though chased by cruisers sent out by Campbell. Part of this powder, which was sent to the Continental Congress for the use of the grand army, was used by Arnold and his men in the siege of Quebec at the close of 1775.

Early in September,[[1775]] Colonel Moultriel proceeded to take possession of the fort on Sullivan's Island, in Charleston harbor.

The small garrison made no resistance, but fled to the British sloops of war _Tamar_ and _Cherokee,_ then lying in Rebellion Roads, in front of Fort Sullivan. Lord Campbell, perceiving the storm of popular indignation against him daily increasing, particularly when it became known that he was endeavoring to incite the Indians on the frontier to lift the hatchet for the king, and was tampering with the Tories in the interior, also fled to these vessels for shelter, and thus "abdicated" royal power.[[Sept. 14]]

The Provincial Council now increased the defenses of the city, and organized a company of artillery. They also took measures for fortifying the harbor. Lieutenant-colonel Motte, accompanied by Captains Charles Cotes worth Pinckney, Bernard Elliot, and Francis Marion, took possession of Fort Johnson,-on James Island, and on the same evening, Captain Heyward, with thirty-five of the Charleston artillery, went down and mounted three guns in the place of those spiked by the garrison when they fled.

Three days afterward, the first Republican flag displayed at the South was floating over the main bastion of the fortress. **

* William Moultrie was a native of South Carolina. He was born in 1730. We find him first in public-service as an officer, in the expedition against the Cherokees in 1760. He was also in subsequent expeditions against that unhappy people. When the Revolution broke out, he was among the earliest in South Carolina to take the field on the Republican side. His defense of the fort on Sullivan's Island in 1776. gave him great eclat, and he was promoted to brigadier. He gained a battle over the British near Beaufort in 1779, and in May, 1780, was second in command when Charleston was besieged. He went to Philadelphia while a prisoner of war, and did not return to South Carolina until 1782. He was several times chosen governor of the state, and retired from public life only when the infirmities of age demanded repose. He published his Memoirs of the Revolution, relating to the war in the South, in two volumes, in 1802, printed by David Longworth, of New York. Governor Moultrie died at Charleston on the twenty-seventh of September, 1805, at the age of seventy-five years.

** Moultrie, in his Memoirs, says, "As there was no national flag at the time, I was desired by the Council of Safety to have one made, upon which, as the state troops were clothed in blue, and the fort was garrisoned by the first and second regiments, who wore a silver crescent on the front of their caps, I had a large blue flag made, with a crescent in the dexter corner, to be in uniform with the troops. This was the first American flag displayed in the South."--Vol. i., p. 90.

[[[Fortifications around Charleston.--Fort Moultrie.--Organization of Civil Government.--John Rutledge.]]]

{752}Colonel Moultrie soon afterward mounted some heavy cannons upon Haddrell's Point, and the troops in and around Charleston were ordered[[Sept. 16, 1775]] to hold themselves in readiness, for it was expected that the _Tamar_ and _Cherokee_ would, pursuant to Lord Campbell's menaces, open a fire upon the town or the forts. A magazine was built at Dorchester, and ten thousand pounds of powder were sent thither. A small fort was also erected upon the Cheraw Hills, on the Great Pedee, to give confidence to the Whigs in that region where Campbell's emissaries had been. In December, Moultrie, with a considerable force, took possession of Sullivan's Island and commenced the erection of a fascine battery.

This advantage, and a few long shots from Haddrell's Point (where a battery had been erected), caused the _Tamar_ and _Cherokee_ to leave the harbor. Lord Campbell, despairing of maintaining his power, sailed to Jamaica. It was during these events upon the sea-board in the course of the autumn of 1775 that the organization of the Tories in Ninety-Six and other portions of the upper country, already noticed, occurred.

Colonel Gadsden assumed command of all the troops in Charleston early in 1776, and the Council of Safety commissioned him a brigadier. Colonel Moultrie was ordered[[March, 1776]] to build a strong fort upon Sullivan's Island, large enough to accommodate one thousand men, and to take the command there. * This measure was considered necessary, for certain intelligence had arrived that a fleet and army were preparing to assail Charleston, and a fort at the point designated would be a key to the harbor, with the aid of Fort Johnson. The civil government was revised; a temporary Constitution was formed ** (the first in the colonies); and the Legislature was called the _General Assembly of South Carolina_. It possessed all powers of supreme local government. John Rutledge *** was chosen president, with the actual powers of governor; and other executive officers, with a privy and a legislative council, were elected by the new Assembly. ****

* This fort was constructed of palmetto logs, in sections, and filled in with sand. The merlons were sixteen feet thick, and sufficiently high to cover the men from the fire that might be directed upon them from the tops of the British vessels. It was first called Fort Sullivan, being upon the island of that name, but was named Fort Moultrie, after its gallant defense by its commander, in June, 1776. When I visited its site (a portion of which is covered by the modern strong works of Fort Moultrie) in 1849, some of the palmetto logs were visible, imbedded in the sand. The annexed engraving shows the plan of the fort when attacked in June, 1776, before it was completed. The drawing of the fort in the text is from a large plan by an English engineer, who was attached to the British fleet.

** This Constitution was to remain in force until October of the same year.

*** John Rutledge was the son of Doctor John Rutledge, who came to America, from Ireland, in 1735. He studied law at the Temple in London, and returned to Charleston in 1761. He espoused the republican cause at an early period of the dispute, and was a member of the first Continental Congress m 1774. When the temporary Constitution of South Carolina was adopted in the spring of 1776, he was appointed president and commander-in-chicf of the colony. When the new and permanent Constitution was established two years later, he refused his assent, because he thought it too democratic. His prejudices yielded, however, and in 1779 he was chosen governor under it, with the temporary power of a dictator. He took the field at the head of the militia, and with great skill and energy managed the affairs of the state until the fall of Charleston in May, 1780. After the war, he was made judge of the Court of Chancery, and in 1789 a judge of the Supreme Court of the United States. He was appointed chief justice of South Carolina in 1791, and in 1796 was elevated to the seat of chief justice of the United States. He died in July, 1800.

**** Henry Laurens was elected vice-president, William Henry Drayton, chief justice; * Alexander Moultrie, attorney general; John Huger, secretary; Hugh Rutledge, judge of the admiralty; and James Parsons, William H. Drayton, John Edwards, Charles Pinckney, Thomas Ferguson, and Rawlins Lowndes, members of the Privy Council.

* In April, about a month after his appointment, Chief-justice Drayton delivered an able charge to the Grand Jury on the subject of independence. Its effects were powerful, salutary, and extensive. In South Carolina its arguments convinced the dubious, and its boldness, both of reason and expression, strengthened the feeble and upheld the wavering. It was published in all of the Whig papers of the Northern colonies; was commented upon by the London press, and received the warmest expressions of approbation from the friends of the colonists every where.

[[[Defenses of Charleston Harbor.--Arrival of Generals Armstrong and Lee.--Arrival of the British.]]]

{753}After passing a few necessary laws, the Assembly adjourned,[[April 11, 1776]]the Council of Safety and General Committee were dissolved, and a constitutional government began.

The president and privy council were vested with executive power to administer the government during the recess of the Legislature.

Under the efficient direction of President Rutledge, Charleston and vicinity were well prepared for defense in the spring of 1776.

About one hundred pieces of cannon were mounted at various points around the harbor, and a strong battery was erected at Georgetown. Brigadier-general John Armstrong, of Pennsylvania, arrived in April, and took the general command; and early in June,[[June 4]] Major-general Charles Lee reached Charleston. He had been sent by General Washington, after the expulsion of the British from Boston, to watch the movements of General Sir Henry Clinton, and to command the troops for the defense of the Southern sea-board. Lee's known experience, skill, and bravery gave the people great confidence, and the alarm which had prevailed since the appearance of a British squadron off Dewees Island, five days before, soon subsided. Lee was indefatigable in his preparations for the defense of Charleston, and was generally satisfied with all the arrangements of the local authorities. The garrison at Fort Sullivan worked day and night to complete it, and when the British fleet appeared, about thirty heavy pieces of cannon were mounted upon it. *

The British fleet bearing a land force, and both designed to act against the Southern colonies in the campaign of 1776, was commanded by Admiral Sir Peter Parker (portrayed on the next page). Its approach was providentially discovered in time ** to allow the Carolinians to prepare for defense, and for Washington to dispatch Lee and Armstrong, officers of experience, to aid them. Parker reached the Cape Fear early in May, where he was joined by Sir Henry Clinton, from New York, who assumed the chief command of all the land troops. On the fourth of June, the day when General Lee arrived, the fleet appeared off Charleston bar, and several hundred land troops took possession of Long Island, which lies eastward of Sullivan's Island, and is separated from it only by a narrow creek.