De Kalb, who commanded the army of relief, which Congress strained every nerve to reinforce on its march, was an officer of excellent abilities and considerable experience; but the fact of his being a foreigner was against him, as he was unacquainted with the country, and a stranger to the language and disposition of the people. On the 13th of June, therefore, General Gates was appointed to take command of the Southern Department, and was vested with very ample powers. The striking success of Gates over General Burgoyne at Saratoga had conferred upon the former officer a very high reputation-a reputation, perhaps, in excess of his deserts, though his deserts were not mean. He had succeeded to the unbounded confidence which, in the earlier days of the war, was bestowed on another Englishman, now in disgrace and retirement-General Charles Lee; for it is remarkable that for some years the Americans placed more reliance on two natives of the country against which they were in rebellion, than on their own much greater man, Washington, not to speak of Greene and Arnold. Gates reached the camp at Buffalo Ford, Deep River, on the 25th of July, when he requested Baron de Kalb to retain the command of his division, as formerly in the grand army. It is not improbable that the German was glad to escape the responsibility of the chief command; for his practised military eye must have seen how poor, with a few exceptions, were the materials with which he would have had to deal. A large part of the army consisted of undisciplined troops, and these were to encounter some of the best soldiers in the world, well commanded, and confident with recent victory. The supply of food was of the worst, if indeed it can be said that there was any supply at all; and the march was through a dreary and perplexing country, in the hottest season of the year. The American forces counted about two thousand men a very insufficient number, considering all that lay before them; but reinforcements of militia from North Carolina and Virginia were expected, and it was resolved to brave the issue.

Without loss of time, Gates got his army in motion by the 27th of July; and, considering it

advisable to close with the enemy as soon as possible, took the direct road to Camden, though it lay through a region of great sterility. Sandhills, swamps, and pine-barrens succeeded one another with wearisome sameness; the midsummer sun was fierce and tyrannous; the air drooped heavily with malarious vapours; the march was toilsome and depressing beyond description; and the men were exposed to imminent danger of starving. At one time, there were signs of a mutiny on this account. The subsistence of the troops was in fact an affair of chance. The men occasionally found lean cattle wandering about the woods, and these they killed and consumed; but this precarious supply often failed them altogether, and their case became little short of desperate. Unripe corn, gathered from the fields, supplied the place of bread; and, when that was wanting, the wild peaches of the country were gladly eaten as a resource against positive famine. Disease ensued, as it is sure to do under such circumstances; the army was threatened with destruction before it had seen the enemy. Gates at length struggled through the dismal tracts which had folded him and his men in their deathlike embraces; and, being reinforced by the expected militia towards the middle of August, he considered his army in a sufficiently favourable state for encountering the Royal forces.

By this time, Lord Cornwallis had joined the main body of his troops at Camden, situated on the river Wateree, a branch of the Santee. The Americans began to move on the evening of August 15th, and the advanced guards of the armies urexpectedly met in the woods about two o'clock on the morning of the 16th. If mere numbers always prevailed, the issue of the day would have been entirely favourable to Gates; for he had now four thousand men to only two thousand of the English. As regards health, the forces were about on a par; for both were suffering from th^ maladies of a depressing and almost tropical climate. But the British troops were of much superior quality to the Americans; were better armed and better fed; and had a thorough knowledge of their business as soldiers, which could not be said of many of their opponents. The regulars under Gates formed a rather small minority; the rest were raw militia. In this respect, Cornwallis was in the superior position; but his paucity of numbers was embarrassing, and Camden was not well adapted for sustaining an attack. The English General, however, saw that he must either strike a successful blow, or retreat to Charleston. To have adopted the latter alternative would have been a dangerous confession of weakness, and in the then

disaffected state of the province would have been followed at once by a general rising. He therefore advanced towards the American camp, and the commencement of the battle resulted, as we have said, from an accidental collision in the woods. Several other skirmishes occurred during the night, serving to show the opposing commanders the position of each other's forces, but in themselves attended by no decisive results.

Cornwallis perceived that the Americans were flanked on both sides by morasses, and that consequently they would not be able to avail themselves of their superior numbers to spread their ranks, and enclose his small army. He formed his men in two divisions, of which the right was commanded by Lieutenant-Colonel Webster, while the left was under Lord Rawdon. The American army was in three divisions, with artillery between them. The respective commanders were Generals Gist and Caswell, and Baron de Kalb; Gates holding himself in readiness to appear wherever his presence might be required. With the earliest light of morning, the English began the attack, rushing forward with a cheer which struck dismay into the opposing ranks of the militia. The latter had already been much shaken by the obscure encounter of the previous night, which had caused the advanced guards to fall back with precipitation, and had spread a feeling of vague alarm through the whole line. It should in fairness be recollected that the Americans were reduced in strength and spirits by the low dietary to which they had for some weeks been accustomed; by fatiguing marches and impaired health. The Virginian militia on the left of the American line could not abide the shock of onslaught. After a desultory and feeble discharge of musketry, they threw down their arms, and fled. The centre, composed of the militia of North Carolina, caught the rapid infection of dismay, and dashed confusedly to the rear. They were pursued by Tarleton's cavalry, and cut down. without even the show of resistance. Gates, with some of the militia officers, attempted to rally them; but they refused to listen to the word of command, and continued their headlong flight. It was afterwards said by some that Gates abandoned the ground sooner than he ought, and before all hope of victory was lost; but it seems more probable that he was borne off the field by the rush of his scared militia, and that he found it impossible to do more than endeavour to cover the retreat of the regular troops by steadying a sufficient number of the others to answer that purpose. The attempt, however, was unavailing. It was the regulars who covered the flight of the militia.

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The former, in truth, fought with the utmost gallantry. Under the command of Baron de Kalb, they disputed every inch of ground, even after the centre and left wing had entirely disappeared. These devoted men, the regular or Continental troops, formed the right of the American line, and were assailed by the British left, under Lord Rawdon. The contest was long and bloody. After awhile, Colonel Webster got to the rear of the Americans, and the two armies became intermingled in a murderous and almost indiscriminate struggle. Not until Lord Cornwallis brought his whole force to bear on them did the heroic

Continentals give way. At the last moment, de Kalb made a desperate charge at the head of a body of troops who still refused to yield. Struck with eleven mortal wounds, the gallant German fell to the ground, and his aide-de-camp, Colonel du Buysson, vainly announced his rank and nation to the English troops. Du Buysson himself received several wounds, and was taken prisoner, together with the Baron. The latter died on the following day, after dictating a letter in which he gave warm expression to his admiration of the troops he had commanded, for their valorous and prolonged resistance to superior force. Their behaviour was indeed splendid, but it did not suffice to save the army. The regiments were first mobbed, and then scattered in small knots of fugitives, or in single units, through the woods and marshes to the north of Camden. Officers and men were separated; the roads were strewn with arms, accoutrements, baggage, fragments of waggons, the dead bodies of men and horses, and the miserable wounded; and cries of terror and of agony mingled in the sultry air. It is not the least disgraceful part of this flight that much of the property of the officers was plundered by their own militia. The baggagewaggons of General Gates and Baron de Kalb, however, were saved, as were the papers and private The pursuit by

letters of both those commanders.

the English cavalry was hot for more than twenty miles; and at a distance of forty miles, whole teams of horses were cut out of the waggons, that they might be mounted by officers or men. Gates arrived at Charlotte late that night, and on the following day proceeded to Hillsborough, to devise some plan of defence in conjunction with the Legislature of North Carolina.

Shortly after this signal discomfiture of the American main army, Colonel Sumpter received a serious check at Catawba Ford. A few days before, he had been reinforced by Gates, and ordered to intercept a convoy of clothes, ammunition, and other stores, for the garrison of Camden, which

with his stores and prisoners, along the south bank of the Wateree. Tarleton was sent in pursuit, and, coming up with the Americans on the 18th of August, when they thought themselves beyond danger, and were reposing in the heat of the day, inflicted upon them a crushing defeat. The prisoners and stores were recovered; nearly four hundred of the guerillas were killed or wounded; and Sumpter was glad to escape without his coat.

men who, after serving with the English, joined the insurgents, were to suffer death. Several of the prisoners taken in the battle of Camden were hanged, in consequence of their having formerly professed allegiance to the King, and received Royal protections which were found in their pockets. Certain persons who had been living on parole at Charleston, and who were discovered to be in secret correspondence with the rebels, were trans

ported to St. Augustine, in Florida; and orders were issued for sequestering the estates of leading malcontents. It cannot be denied that the provocation which the English authorities had received was very great; that the acts of the South Carolinians were often in the highest degree treacherous and dishonourable. Yet, in the punishment of even such offences, some moderation should be observed, on grounds both of humanity and policy. The conduct of Lord Rawdon, however, was still more reprehensible than that of his superior in command. The measures taken by Earl Cornwallis may perhaps be defended by the stern rules of martial law; those threatened by Lord Rawdon, a few weeks earlier, passed all bounds of civilised procedure. Several men belonging to the volunteer regiment raised in Ireland having deserted to the enemy, the young nobleman determined to strike terror into others who might be similarly disposed. On the 1st of July, he wrote a letter to Major Rugely, from his head-quarters at Camden, in which he said: "I will give the inhabitants ten guineas for the head of any deserter belonging to the volunteers of Ireland; and five guineas only if they bring him. in alive. They shall likewise be rewarded, though not to that amount, for such deserters as they may secure belonging to any other regiment. I am confident that you will encourage the country people to be more active in this respect." In the same letter it was also set forth that any of the country people neglecting to secure a soldier straggling without a written pass, or in any way giving him aid or comfort, should be punished by whipping, imprisonment, or transportation to the West Indies, according as the degree of criminality might require. This communication afterwards found its way into the hands of the Americans, and a letter from Lord Cornwallis, referring to his own measures of repression, likewise became known to the enemy. The facts being referred to Sir Henry Clinton, he called upon both officers for explanations.

Cornwallis replied that he had ordered punishment only on those who had formerly submitted to the British Government, had taken the oaths and received protection in June and July, and had gone back into rebellion in August. He denied that there was any cruelty or wrong in such orders, and protested that he could see in them nothing but strict justice and propriety. Lord Rawdon argued that there was every possible provocation, and even necessity, for the measures adopted by him; that he had the fullest proofs that the people who daily came into his camp, under the mask of friendship,

held correspondence with the rebel militia; that they used every artifice to influence the minds of the soldiers, and induce them to desert; that the encouragement and means of escape which they gave the men, succeeded to an alarming degree; that while commanding in the back country he was betrayed on every side by the inhabitants; that several small detachments were attacked by persons who had the hour before been with them as friends in the camp; that the militia in the army not only enticed the soldiers away, but actually furnished them with horses to make their escape; that it was absolutely necessary to put a stop to such a system of conduct; that the safety of the army required it; and that it was justified not more by the circumstances of the case than by the nature of the offence. The letter complained of was written in compliance with duty, and although with firmness, yet not with a wanton abuse of power. All must see, he added, that the threat to send delinquents to the West Indies was impracticable; that it was designed to act only on the fears and prejudices of the vulgar, and not to be literally executed. It had its effect on the Irish, as was intended.* Clinton seems to have approved of the conduct of Earl Cornwallis, and to have evaded any provise expression of opinion with regard to Lord Rawdun.

While the campaign was being thus actively carried on in the South, very little was accomplished in the North. The extreme severity of the winter at New York, the scarcity of provisions, and the general difficulties of the situation, induced a great deal of discontent, and the anxieties of Washington were never more serious than now. The soldiers ate every kind of horse-food but hay; of clothes there was a terrible deficiency; and the miseries of the time produced numerous desertions. Congress did almost nothing to relieve the wants of the army, and the number of men at the disposal of the American Commander-in-Chief, though nou.inally thirty-five thousand, was in reality much less. When reinforcements had been sent to South Caro lina, the total force in the State of New York and the adjacent parts was considerably under ten thousa.d Washington requested that a cominittee of Congress might attend the army, with power to act in the name of that body for definite objects. The request was granted, and a committee was appointed, which remained in camp between two and three months. Yet the chief evils were not amended, anl little occurred to break the dreary monotony of winter weather, idleness, and insufficient food. An attack on the British post in Staten Island, the Sparks's Writings of Washington, Appendix to Vol VIL, pp. 554-5.