Ninety-Six, South Carolina

22 May – 19 June 1781

After the fall of Charlestown Ninety-six was returned to
British control. The British surrounded the town of Ninety-six with a
stockade and they rebuilt Fort Williamson. Beyond the town was another
redoubt known as the Star Fort. It was two hundred feet in diameter and
had ten salients or star points. A ditch and an abatis surrounded the
Star Fort, which would become the principal British position during the
second siege. Lieutenant Colonel Cruger knew that his fort was the key
to the British defenses, and prepared as well as he could. The village
of Ninety-Six had tall walls built upon an elevated site that had a
clearing one mile in diameter. Ninety-Six’s Star Fort is located in the
Ninety Six National Historic Site, on SC 248, two miles south of the town
of Ninety-Six, in Greenwood County.
Cornwallis dispatched Lieutenant Henry Haldane of the engineers to assess
the fort and improve its defenses. He also sent two iron 6-pounders
without escort, but they were captured and destroyed by Patriot militia.
Cornwallis then sent a single brass 3-pounder under guard, along with a
wagonload of entrenching tools.
Haldane constructed an additional fortification west of the town, a
hornwork built upon Fort Williamson known as Holmes’s Fort. A covered
runway extended from the jailhouse and down a slope into a ravine, where
a small stream flowed. This would be the fort’s water supply. At the
end of the covered runway was Holme’s Fort.
An earth bank, in which an abatis had been constructed, reinforced the
exterior of the stockade walls. The abatis would slow down an assaulting
force so that cannon and small arms fire could eliminate them. Within
the fort several blockhouses had been built. A portable gun platform had
been constructed on which the British placed their three brass
3-pounders.
After Lord Rawdon abandoned Camden he had sent several letters to Cruger
ordering him to abandon Ninety-Six and join Brown in Savannah. Pickens’
men intercepted these messages and told Greene, who moved his force to
lay siege to Ninety-Six.
On the approach to the fort Greene encountered eight Patriots who had
been paroled from the Ninety Six jail and were returning home. One of
these men was Major Joseph McJunkin. After he had been wounded in March
1781, he returned home to recover from his wound. While he was there he
also contracted small pox. He was captured on May 9th while he was
recovering and carried to Wofford’s Iron Works. There he was sentenced
to be hanged, but then was moved to the Ninety-Six jail. McJunkin joined
up with Greene’s army to lend assistance.
Greene had his men throw up earthworks for his 3-gun battery before the
sun came up on May 22nd. They were 130 yards from the Star Fort.
Thaddeus Kosciuszko laid out the siege lines in the standard European
pattern. Throughout the day the Patriot artillery battery fired rounds
into the fort. Greene had not even bothered to ask for terms of
surrender. Not doing so was considered an insult according to the
customs of the day when engaging an enemy in a fortified position.
By midday Colonel Cruger “stung with indignity” moved his portable
artillery platform on the wall of the redoubt, and that night the battery
opened fire on a working party. The Loyalist battery was only a ruse and
was being used as a covering fire for a detachment of thirty Loyalists
from DeLancey’s Brigade, led by Lieutenant John Roney.
The Loyalists sallied out of the fort and killed several of the working
party. They filled up the trench, captured some slaves and loaded them
up with Kosciuszko’s entrenching tools. They returned to the fort with
only one casualty, Lieutenant Roney, who died of a wound he received
leading the attack.
After that night attack Kosciuszko began a new parallel farther back,
1200 yards from the fort. Digging was slow and hard due to the rocky
soil and the inexperience of the men digging for long periods of time in
the heat. Further construction was impeded by the Loyalists maintaining
constant artillery fire on the work parties, and repeated nighttime
sorties upon the trenches. Greene wrote to the Marquis de Lafayette that
the “fortifications are so strong and the garrison so large and so well
furnished that our success is very doubtful.”
On June 3rd the second parallel was complete and the Patriot’s were
within 180 yards of the Star Fort. Greene sent in Otho Williams with a
surrender proposal, but Cruger refused the offer. Greene then resorted
to the method used at Fort Motte, and launched fire arrows out of
muskets. Cruger ordered all the roofs removed from the buildings,
leaving the inhabitants exposed to the elements each night. While the
defenders suffered the elements, the digging continued.
Draper wrote that an Irishman from York County, Jim Carroll, would wait
for the British to show themselves. “The British would appear and
sometimes “Halloo for King George” and Carroll said “I’ll try you as I
try a beef at home” and he lay down on his belly, with a rail before him
to rest on and fired his long shot rifle and brought down a fine white
plumed officer.”
The Patriots attempted a mine underneath the walls of the fort, but the
mouth of the mine was discovered. There was an intense fight for it. One
of the casualties was Kosciuszko, with a bayonet wound. General
Pickens’s brother, Captain Joseph Pickens, was killed. This mine, dug
into the red clay, still exists and was filled with sand in the 1970s to
preserve it for future excavation. The trenches, the Star Fort and the
rest of Ninety-Six has never been fully explored due to the lack of
funds.
Greene erected a forty-foot Maham tower on June 6th. This forced the
British to put up sandbags with loopholes between the sandbags to return
fire. Greene reported, “Not a Man could shew his Head but he was
immediately shot down.”
Trenches were dug to protect the Loyalist refugees from rifle fire.
Since Cruger was unable to use the cannon in the daytime, he moved them
into position under the cover of darkness and bombarded the tower and the
trenches. The Loyalists attempted to destroy the Maham tower with heated
cannon balls, but since the logs were green the tower would not ignite.
On June 8th Lee joined the siege. When Pickens arrived he marched the
prisoners of the Augusta garrisons in full view of the defenders of
Ninety-Six. This infuriated the defenders who thought that Greene had
done this to taunt them. Lee suggested to Greene to concentrate his
efforts around Fort Holmes, which guarded the Ninety-six water supply.
Greene approved the plan and Lee began a second parallel to keep the
spring under fire.
Thomas Young was a South Carolina militiaman who rode to the siege with
Colonel Brandon and Major Jolly. They did not have a unit to command and
arrived with just the three of them. He wrote of the constant sniping in
his memoirs, “The Americans had constructed a sort of moving battery, but
as the cannon of the fort were brought to bear upon it, they were forced
to abandon the use of it. It had not been used for some time, when an
idea struck old Squire Kennedy, (who was an excellent marksman) that he
could pick off a man now and then as they went to the spring. He and I
took our rifles and went into the woods to practice at 200 years. We were
arrested and taken before an officer, to whom we gave our excuse and
design. He laughed, and told us to practice no more, but to try our luck
from the battery if we wanted to, so we took our position, and as a
fellow came down to the spring. Kennedy fired and he fell; several ran
out and gathered round him, and among them I noticed a man raise his
head, and look round as if he wondered where that shot could have come
from. I touched my trigger and he fell, and we made off, for fear it
might be our time to fall next.”
Cruger sent out another raiding party, which fell in with one of Greene’s
work party. Many of the workers were put to the bayonet. An attempt to
dig a well inside the fort proved futile.
To try to quench their thirst the British sent naked slaves out at night
with a single pail to get water for the garrison. In the constant
nighttime sniping there were also accidents. One of Lee’s men, Sergeant
Mitchell, was shot and killed by accident by a group of Patriot militia
that had never been in combat.
On a dark and cloudy day Lee decided to make a second attempt to burn the
garrison. Sergeant Whaling and ten men of Lee’s Legion were supposed to
carry bundles of incendiary materials and set the garrison on fire.
Sergeant Whaling knew that this was a suicide mission, but he did not
sway from the task. He dressed himself neatly, told his friends goodbye,
and slipped into the enemy’s ditch. Before Sergeant Whaling and his
forlorn hope could ignite the stockade a sentry sounded the alarm. The
Loyalists attacked with a vengeance and only four of Lee’s men made it
back to their own lines. Only one of them made it back not wounded.
Sergeant Whaling was killed in the attack. He only had two days till his
enlistment expired.
The inhabitants of Ninety Six suffered the same conditions as the
garrison soldiers. All contact with the outside world was cut off except
for an occasional messenger who infiltrated through the siege lines. On
June 11th Greene learned that a relief column of 2,000 men under the
command of Lord Rawdon was on the way from Charlestown. A lot of
Rawdon’s men were fresh recruits from Ireland and were not used to the
heat of the South. Greene immediately sent word to Marion and Sumter to
gather their militia, get in front of Rawdon, and do everything possible
to delay his march. He ordered Washington and Pickens to support Marion
in this mission. Sumter’s partisans did strike at Rawdon’s column, but
he wasn’t able to hit with a large force. Unfortunately Marion did not
find the British column in time.
On June 12th a courier casually approached the Patriot’s lines. He
talked to Greene’s men and gave the appearance of a curious countryman.
As he neared the front lines he suddenly charged his horse across the
no-man’s land and rode through a hail of bullets into the fort. The
courier told Cruger of the coming of Lord Rawdon’s relief column. When
Greene learned that Rawdon was thirty miles away he decided to take the
Star Fort and Fort Holmes by storm. Draper wrote that Robert Starke’s
daughter delivered the message. Starke was the adjutant of LeRoy Hammond
and his daughter was in love with a British officer named Willison. She
learned of the approach of Rawdon’s relief force and rode to the fort.
When she neared the fort she held up a letter and raced to the gate. She
knew that no one would shoot a girl, so she was able to ride in safely.
She later married the British officer.
On June 17th a heavy artillery barrage was aimed at Fort Holmes to soften
it up for the coming assault. The fire was so heavy that the Loyalists
withdrew from Fort Holmes, abandoning their only water supply. This was
too little and too late.
Greene’s plan was to attack Ninety-Six at two points simultaneously. One
assault force was commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Richard Campbell and
made up of a detachment of Virginia and Maryland Continentals. The other
force was made up of Lee’s Legion Infantry and the North Carolina and
Delaware Continentals led by Major Michael Rudolph. These assault forces
were known as “forlorn hopes.” Rudolph’s objective was Fort Holmes and
the jail. Campbell’s objective was the Star Redoubt.
At noon on June 18th Greene opened up with an intense artillery barrage.
Rudolph led his troops across the moat, and after an hour of fighting was
able to force his way into Fort Holmes. Rudolph held the fort, waiting
for the development of Campbell’s attack on the Star Fort.
Campbell’s men, led by Lieutenants Duval and Selden, raced into the ditch
around the Star Fort. They were armed with long poles with hooks at the
end. The men tried to pull down the sandbags on the top of the parapet
and expose the defenders to fire from the Maham tower. The Loyalists
could not fire down upon the attackers without exposing themselves to the
riflemen in the tower. Axe men cut down the abatis, and fascines were
thrown into the ditch to fill it in. As Lieutenant Selden was pulling
down sandbags from the parapet a musket ball hit his wrist, shattering
the bone all the way to the shoulder.
When Colonel Cruger saw the sandbags falling into the ditch, he took
action. Two elements of DeLancey’s loyalists, under Captains Thomas
French and Peter Campbell, sallied out and came in with bayonets upon the
flanks of the hookmen. Major Green, in command of the Star Fort, ordered
his men to use boarding spears after they discharged their muskets.
There was a brief, bloody encounter in the ditch around the Star Fort,
but Campbell’s men were driven back to the trenches with heavy losses.
Both Lieutenants Duval and Selden had been wounded. Selden lost his
right arm due to amputation after the battle. The attack had been a
failure.
A cease-fire was requested by Greene to exchange prisoners and bury the
dead, but Cruger refused. Cruger knew that whoever won would be allowed
to bury the dead. On June 19th Greene lifted the siege and withdrew. He
stopped his army about twenty miles away, and learned from a prisoner
that Rawdon marched into Ninety-Six at two in the afternoon on the 21st.

Greene anticipated a pursuit and had sent on the sick, wounded and
supplies with Pickens. Pickens loaded up his family and took the baggage
train to Fishdam Ford, then turned around and led the train back to Long
Canes to show the people that Greene’s army was not retreating.
Many of Rawdon’s relief force were troops that had recently arrived
from Ireland. When the officers of the 19th Regiment had first arrived
in Charlestown they marched with silk umbrellas over their heads to shade
them from the sun. They were not prepared for the heat of summer in
South Carolina. As they marched away from Charlestown they were “in
exceeding bad order, many of them fainting a little distance from the
town.” Rawdon had to stop at Orangeburgh to rest his men, after “killing
great numbers of them” due to the heat.
Rawdon had not initially thought about chasing after Greene, but when he
learned that the baggage train was within twenty miles he changed his
mind. Rawdon replaced his sick and wounded and fatigued troops with
fresh ones from the garrison at Ninety Six. He ordered the troops to
leave all gear that was not needed, including the knapsacks and blankets
of the troops, and he marched out of the town on June 23rd.
After a forty mile march Rawdon had caught up to Greene’s rear guard,
consisting of Lee’s Legion and Kirkwood’s Delawares, but the British were
no longer able to fight. Rawdon’s soldiers had marched from Charlestown
for seventeen days in 100 degree heat, wearing their heavy woolen
uniforms. More than fifty had died of heat exhaustion. To make matter
worse Greene had dismantled all the mills along his march so that there
would be no provisions for the British.
Moultrie wrote in his memoirs, “This was a dreadful prospect for these
newly raised troops arrived from Europe, immediately from on board ship,
who had not yet recovered the use of their legs, heavy armed and thick
clad, to be forced to undertake a march of two hundred miles at this
inclement season of the year: it is not to be doubted that numbers of
them must have been left behind at the end of every day’s mach. They had
been amused with the idea, that on their arrival in Carolina, they would
have nothing to do but sit themselves down quietly, on some of the
forfeited estates of the rebels.”
Rawdon returned to Ninety-Six and realized that he could not hold the
town. He marched out on June 29th with 800 men and 60 horses. He was
expecting to meet up with Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Stewart.
Unfortunately Stewart had received mistaken orders and had turned back
and marched to Dorchester.
Greene ordered Lee, Kirkwood and a hundred militia under Major Alexander
Ross to continue to harass Rawdon’s retreat. Cruger remained behind to
protect the Loyalists who were gathering their things, in preparation for
the retreat from the area. On July 8th Cruger destroyed the fort, and
escorted to Charlestown any that wished to remain under British
protection.

Patrick O'Kelley http://www.2nc.org/
Author of "Nothing but Blood and Slaughter" The Revolutionary War in the
Carolinas
Volume One 1771-1779 http://www.booklocker.com/books/1469.html
Volume Two 1780
http://www.booklocker.com/books/1707.html
Volume Three 1781
http://www.booklocker.com/books/1965.html
Volume Four 1782
http://www.booklocker.com/books/2167.html

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