The Campaign of 1781 in the Carolinas; with remarks historical and critical on Johnson's Life of Greene. To which is added, an Appendix of original documents

Appendix

OF ORIGINAL DOCUMENTS, BELATING TO THE HISTORY OF THE REVOLUTION. By H. LEE. PHILADELPHIA: PUBLISHED BY E. LITTELL. Wiliiam Bhown, Printer. 1824. Eastern District of Pennsylvania, to wit: BE IT REMEMBERED, Thai on the thirteenth day of February, in the forty-eighth year of the Independence of the United States of America, A. D. 1824, Henry Lee, of the said District, hath deposited in this office the title of a book, the right whereof he claims as author, in the words following, to wit : " The Campaign of 1781 in the Carolinas ; with Remarks Historical and " Critical on Johnson's Life of Greene. To which is added an Appen- " dix of original Documents, relating to the history of the Revolution. "—By H. Lee." In conformity to the act of the Congress of the United States, intitled, " An act for the encouragement of learning, by securing the copies of maps, charts, and books, to the authors and proprietors of such copies, during the times therein mentioned;" — and also to the act, entitled, "An act supplementary to an act, entitled, ' An act for the encouragement of learn ing, bv securing the copies of maps, charts, and books, to the authors and proprietors of such copies during the times therein mentioned,' and ex tending the benefits thereof to the arts of designing, engraving, and etch ing historical and other prints."

D. CALDWELL, Clerk of the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. CAMPAIGN, &c. CHAP. I. THERE is no point of modern history, upon which the eyes of posterity will be turned with more fre quency and interest, than upon the American Revo lution. Its effect in giving success to a noble cause, and birth to an independent nation, however impor tant, bears no proportion in grandeur or utility, to its consequences in substituting to fortuitous, rational constitutions, and in vindicating the adequacy of man to self-government. Considerations arising from the natural relation be tween events and actors, independently of its inherent attractions, appear likely to render the principal sub ject of the following pages acceptable to the Ameri can public, and to forbid any expense of ingenuity to recommend it.

From the lowest rudeness, to the highest refinement of society, no state is conceivable, in which the effort of a son to defend the memory of his father, would not be commended; and it is apprehended no apology or propitiation can be required for the remarks intended a '81 IN THE CAROLINAS. to expose and to frustrate the attempts of William Johnson of South Carolina, in his Sketches of the Life and Correspondence of General Greene, to defame the late General Henry Lee. Elevated sentiments involve high moral duties, and the gratitude of nations is seen in justice to the fame of their benefactors. Restraining the application of this remark, General Greene had a right to expect from the nation, for whose existence he toiled, and whose liberty he fought, an historian worthy of re cording his exploits, and giving immortality to his vir tues.

A critical examination of the " Slietches,'"1 with a view of ascertaining in what degree, Judge Johnson, himself, clothed with public dignity, has fulfilled this national duty, is to be considered as both pertinent and proper. In conducting it, little method is to be required, as little can be attained, its course not being regulated by choice, but governed by oxtrinsic deviation, and modified by a complicated plan. The reader will not be surprised, therefore, and it is hoped not dissa tisfied, to find that we criticise Mr. Johnson, before the commencement of the campaign of eighty-one. In a preface, rather curious than instructive, his motives and materials are described, and a strange disproportion discovered between them. He pro fesses to construct his work of 4000 original mate rials, while the specified object of his labours is '81 IN THE CAROLINAS. 3 his own amusement, and that under the facetious phrase, new to the readers of Horace at least, of " carpe horam."

It is then observed that General Greene, General Wayne, and Governor Read, all in tended to live on the banks of the Savannah, aud the latter to write a history of the revolution, when a sentence occurs, which though utterly unintelligible, will at once show, that our author's English is as original as his Latin. " Of all these, Mr. Read could have furnished the most perfect narrative, and of all mili tary events, the illustrious trio that would then have graced the banks of the Savannah river, could not have been surpassed." Among such important matters, as the trip of Mr. Johnson to Rhode-Island, the zeal of Mr. Vaughan, and the doggedness of Mr. De Silver, who would not, to the amazement of our au thor, be soothed even by the promise of a respectable number of the " Sketches:" it. is intimated that Mr. Johuson, within the last three or four years, actually " met with" the late General Otho Williams; a piece of good fortune, which we venture to affirm, had not fallen to the lot of any other living wight for twenty years; seeing that the gallant general departed this life, nearly a quarter of a century before the itinerant judge encountered him in Baltimore.

This superna tural interview is followed by a metaphysical miracle; when Mr. Johnson talks of " engraving on our recol lection by the association of memory;" and by a physical phenomenon hardly less surprising, when he de- '81 IN THE CAROLINAS. 4 scribes himself as at one and the same time " en trenched behind" and " encircled by," the same objects. A position at once picturesque and impossible. Here, however, we must leave him, and proceed to the body of his work. After presenting us with a portrait of Greene, calculated for the time when he was placed at the head of the southern armies, Mr. Johnson, miscalling his " sketches" " memoirs," gives an account of his pa rentage and birth. The ancients, unable to discover the source of the Nile, disguised and embellished their ignorance by feigning, that nature had shaded with magnificent mystery, the fountains of that sacred stream, " Arcanum natura caput non prodidit ulli, Nee licuit populis parvum te Nile, videre."

But no mystery is left about the birth of Greene. The "man midwife" is kindly immortalized, "who held up the little Greene in his hands, and observing his vigorous limbs and sonorous pipes, predicted that he would one day become a mighty man in Israel." The occurrences attending his birth, are not more remarkable than those that quickly succeeded it. Upon the death of his mother his father begins to " deliver himself," (p. 6.) and though a rigid Quaker, gives his son a Spartan education, founded exclusively on the study of the Holy Bible, a book which appears to have escaped the attention of that archquaker,. '81 IN THE CAROLINAS. 5 Lycurgus. In spelling and reading, it seems " little Greene" was instructed by an " erratic teacher," (p. 9.) the same probably who enlightened his biographer, but "enjoyed all the eminence of contented ignorance," until " a lad of the name of Giles" (whose "protosire" was probably the saint of that name) re vealed to him the important information, "that there are other things to be learned in the world, besides reading and writing!"

This too, his father endeavour ed to impress upon his attention, by keeping him em ployed at the plough, the forge, or the mill — beside the hopper of which " our hero" is described, (p. 10.) " seated with his book in his hand; nor were his eyes always withdrawn from it, until long after the ebbing grain had vanished from between the millstones." In this " assiduous discharge" of his duties, we are told (p 11.) " working and reading went on without jost ling against each other." From a Mr. Maxwell he learned a little Latin; and here Mr Johnson, in the abundance of his own classical and metaphysical knowledge asserte, " this was a study which brought into exercise' nothing but memory!" This position, coming from a judge of the Supreme Court of the United States, would be apt to startle Dugald Stewart and the Edinburgh Reviewers.

These writers have ventured to affirm that the study of the dead languages exercises the judgment in a remarkable degree, and by the habit which it enforces of rapid and repeated induction, and of drawing firm and quick conclusions '81 IN THE CAROLINAS. from varying and evanescent premises, is favourable to the acquisition of sagacity and taste. And Poly bius, in his chapter on the signals invented by Cleox enus, has left a lucid and very interesting description of the diversified exertion of the mind, even in the familiar operation of reading a language already acquired; which indicates a theory on the subject of philological studies, at variance, it must be confessed, with Mr. Johnson's. The exact sciences, we are told, Greene studied in " the school of Euclid," where he acquired " those clear conceptions which it will be seen distinguished his pen."

As the reader will per haps be disappointed in the expectation here excited, it may be well to suggest to him, that this affirmation is probably hazarded in conformity with the practice of the " father of biography," and is intended to be classed among the " omens, tales, and superstitions," which we are told (p. 7.) he was in the habit of " in troducing." In his seventeenth year, Greene became acquainted with Lindley Murray, since celebrated as an English grammarian; an advantage which, it is obvious, his biographer has never enjoyed. If he had we should doubtless not have been told of " transport ing anchors in shaloupes,'"' of " the confidence of an abashed boy," of " grinding off the calosily of his hands on the grindstone;" that in the reign of James the First, the rights of the colonies were " very weakly established;" that sturdy republicans " swarmed to" the United States — a century before the nation exist- '81 IN THE CAROLINAS. 7 ed; that as soon as "* Greene became convinced of the justice of our cause, he resolved to take part in the opposition," or that " aiming and disciplining was the order of^ the day."

So passed the days of ''our hero," as Mr. Johnson, aftH' the manner of the historians of Tom Jones and Peregrine Pickle, calls " lit tle Greene," until he reached his twentieth year, about which time we are informed, with the most laudable sincerity, he would risk his neck to pass the evenings in " carnal indulgence" with " the village lasses," and " scandal says Nathaniel Greene could be gay among the gayest." His father, it seems, with the \igi lance " of an Argus that could not always sleep," (p. 14.) detected these gallantries, and true to his system of education, had immediate recourse to the rod; but " little Greene," even at the tender age of twenty, was as wily as a Carthaginian; for (p. 14.) "by the timely and military interposition of a reds guard, promptly thrust up his clothes, (he wore, of course, the Spartan habit,) he protected his back from severe castigation inflicted by an angry father."

This "discipline," in time, prevailed; but how long it was con tinued after twenty, Mr. Johnson does not say. His feeding, it seems, was " altogether spontaneous," and is curiously considered an imitation of the "frugal habits of Lacedemon." Such is an abridgment of Judge Johnson's account of the early youth of General Greene, and such the manner in which he has defaced the simplicity of his '81 IN THE CAROLINAS. 8 education. Its substance is, that he was bred to the illustrious labours of the forge, and while his body was invi gorated by hardy toils, a generous thirst for knowledge incised him to the improvement of his mind. His diligence brought its reward, and his attainments, though neither elegant nor scientific, were not inconsiderable; and like his biographer, (p. 15.) " he actually acquired a very tolerable stock of legal knowledge."

When he had reached his twenty-third year, arose the troubles and dissensions produced by the stamp act. Into the consequent discussions he warmly entered, when " the career for which heaven had destined him was point ed out to him" (p. 17.) by seeing a militia muster! In these times, and in this part of the country, a mus ter is a concourse of the most squalid, vicious, and ig norant of the community, and is a spectacle at once tame and loathsome. But the muster to which we are told Greene " galloped away with the rest," although it appears the men were not armed, was not only " ar^ assemblage of men," but a "grand parade," "in all the pomp and circumstance of glorious war." So we may judge of Othello's occupation. " The command of money" Mr. Johnson affirms to be " the command of books;" a splendid generalization which is likely to bring into discredit the once famous one of Bacon, "knowledge is power."

On this occasion, it appears to have supplied Greene with Marshall Turenne's works, and Sharp's Military Guide; and (p. 18.) " un der these two preceptors he entered himself a disci- '81 IN THE CAROLINAS. 9 pie of " (a third)" " Mars," — quite a complicated ma triculation. Our author, whose chronology is equal to his grammar, now informs us (p. 19.) that, in the year 1770, Greene was elected to the slate legislature, at a time when Rhode-Island was called a plantation, and was a British province. Nevertheless, that about this period he was in the habit of early rising, is clear ly established by this veiy surprising anecdote, (pp. 19-20.) " A guest of his, when about to retire to bed, apologized over night to his host, for the necessity he would be under of leaving the house before the family would be up in the morning.

But what was his sur prise at finding, in the morning, the table neatly set, his breakfast ready, and (mirabile dictu) Greene at the fireside poring over a book before day-break." This last circumstance is peculiarly valuable, as it evolves the cogent inference that the early traveller was an Irishman. In his thirty-fourth year, Greene married Miss Catharine Littlefield, a blooming young lady, sprightly, intelligent, and engaging. And (p. 21.) " it was in the Kentish guards, and in the year 1774, that he first assumed the panoply of the soldier;" when fire-arms being scarce, and as " every individual pro vided for himself," " our hero took off the panoply of the soldier," and set out in the garb of a Quaker, to purchase a firelock. Upon his arrival in Boston, after the imposing ceremony of " being introduced into the streets," this expert Spartan, contrived to buy from a deserter, a musket and accoutrements, and to conceal B '81 IN THE CAROLINAS. 10 them in a returning waggon.

After acquiring, in this delicate adventure, " a stock of military knowledge/' he returned homeward, when " fortune threw in his way another boon," viz. a British deserter; probably the same one who had sold him the musket. Hostilities having commenced al Lexington, in '75, Greene displayed a decided sympathy with the whigs. As the wrongs and resentment of the colonies were aggravated, his mettle and bearing became more important and patriotic, and he was soon appointed to the command of the Rhode Island " army of observation;" and, at the head of this corps, in June, '75, he appeared in the camp before Boston. Our author now recurs to his own intentions and opportunities, and cheers the reader on his way by promises of characteristic delineations, of brevity in his sketches of a thousand pages, and with assurances, that the private and public life of Greene are to be fully, and for the first time unfolded.

But here a truly lamentable accident seems to depress him grievously, and with the most engaging ingenuousness he confesses it. (P. 28.) " The most discouraging circumstance attending his inquiries on the subject now before his readers, has been the utter impossibility of eliciting from any one who was intimate with Greene, the acknowledgment that he had a fault." Deeply as we feel for the sincere distress of Mr. Johnson, we must yet request him to explain a subject which is suggested by the following remark. " The cabinets of all '81 IN THE CAROLINAS. 11 his most intimate friends have been open to us, and to us alone. It is here alone that the private man is to be traced out." We have the best authority for affirming, that about five years ago, Mr. Edmund I. Lee of Alexandria, made application in behalf of Judge Johnson, to one of the representatives of the late General Lee, for the inspection of his military papers, and for the use of such as might have refer ence to the life of Greene.

That in reply Mr. Lee was assured, there were a number of letters from General Greene among those papers, which were illustrative and characteristic, although there was no sketch of his life. That the originals would not be given up, but that Judge Johnson was welcome to copies. Nothing further was heard on the subject — and it is natural to inquire for what cause Judge Johnson, who appears to have traversed the conti nent, and even to have disinterred the heroic dead, in search of materials, should have forborne to avail himself of the opportunity thus offered, of inspecting General Greene's correspondence with an officer, who is acknowledged to have exhibited wt brilliant military talents," and a " cordial and devoted attachment to his general." Was this incurious neglect, fair in regard to the memory of this friend, whose reputation in the double aspect of soldier and writer Mr. Johnson was about to scrutinize, and not to exalt? — was it pious and honourable to the illustrious memory of Greene?

Does it bespeak adesire to discover and relate the '81 IN THE CAROLINAS. truth, and to furnish candid and incorrupt materials to the future historian? These questions we trust Mr. Johnson may find leisure to answer. He acknowledges more than one hiatus, in his copies of General Greene's letters to Lee. For aught he knew, many a discriminating sentiment — many a pregnant fact — many an important opinion — many a sound sugges tion — many a brave mistake, might be contained in these letters. Difficulties, which he confesses yet embarrass the history of the period, might have been removed by them, and stronger and more distinct lights returned upon the character of Greene. An ho nest apprehension he expresses (p. 28.) that his work will be censured for venality; and since it may be con sidered as venal to sacrifice the duties of biography to the pleasure of malice, as to love of gold — as culpa ble to suppress important truths, as to utter false hoods — we confess his apprehension appears to us as just as it is lively.

Yet it is possible to conjecture, that his singular inattention to the papers of Lee, arose from the melancholy disappointment he experienced in not discovering a fault in the character of Greene. Life, in its purest and brightest phases, is but a compound of virtue and vice — and to bring his sketches to something like reality, by exhi biting an adequate supply of the latter ingredient, it may have been necessary to infuse a double portion of demerit into the character of Lee — so that the pale insipidity of Greene's perfection might be coloured '81 IN THE CAROLINAS. 13 by the deep reflection of his friend's faults. For this purpose, it is obvious that a knowledge of pertinent facts might have been inconvenient, and therefore it may be Mr. Johnson deemed it prudent to restrain his inquiries in this perilous direction.

In the camp before Boston, Greene,now a Brigadier, appears to be employed in disciplining his contingent, or as our author says, his 'command,' and in writing long and tedious letters to his friends, with excerpts from which, and a lifeless compliment to his hero, he ekes out his second chapter. In '76 Greene is made a Major General, is prevent ed by sickness from being in the engagement on Long Island, and commands a 'command' near Fort Lee. H*re the author suspends the course of his narrative, for the purpose of introducing more of Greene's correspondence, from a fragment of which it appears, he had not yet forgotten his " Spartan education." This is a paragraph of a letter addressed, as Mr. Johnson says, to " a gentleman interested in several privateers;" and prefixed to it, is a laudatory sentence, the more valuable as coming from a judge of the ma ritime courts of the country.

This letter encourages what is pleasantly termed a "ruse de guerre;" the practice namely of lying, effrontery, and treason — as the surest means of succeeding in this abominable spe cies of warfare; and displays, on the part of Greene, a violent desire to engage in a calling, which promotes public war by private rapacity, and can only be palU- '81 IN THE CAROLINAS. 14 ated upon the dangerous principle of justifying the means by the end. We give the letter of the General and the remark of the Judge, (p. 59.) " There is in this letter a paragraph which is rather foreign from the subject we are upon; but it merits to be copied into these pages, as it exhibits a mind fertile in resources, whatever it be applied to, and suggests a ruse de guerre, which has actually in later times been resorted to within the knowledge of the writer.

The letter is addressed to a gentleman who was interested in several privateers, and who had suffered by repeated recaptures." " This fall," says the writer, " will be the last of the harvest. After this season all the navigation of Great Britain will go armed sufficiently to manage the small cruisers of America. If your privateers should take any vessels bound to America or Great Britain, let the prize-master assume the cha racter and personate the original captain, if he should have the misfortune to fall in with an enemy's vessel, let him answer ' bound to and come from the port mentioned in the ship's papers.' If the captain or prize-master does this with sufficient effrontery, no thing but personal knowledge can detect him. It would be a good method to engage the crews of the prizes by giving them an opportunity to enter on board the privateer, and to share in all the prizes made after they entered on board.

This may enable the captain of the privateer to continue his cruize and make a number of prizes, when he would otherwise '81 IN THE CAROLINAS. 15 be obliged to return home for want of men. And as to the fidelity and attachment of the sailors, you may depend upon it they will be as faithful after becoming interested as the generality of our own seamen. This fall is the golden harvest. I think the fishing ships at the eastward may be objects of attention this fall. In the spring the East India ships may be intercepted on the coast of Africa. Were I at liberty, I think I could make a fortune for my family. But it is necessary for some to be in the field to secure the property of others in their stores." Although it is to be regretted that Greene should ever have written this letter, yet the sentiments it contains are in a great degree extenuated by the rudeness of his education, the exigencies of the war, the nature of the injuries which produced it, and of the interests depending on its event.

But, if General Greene is to be excused, can his biographer be pardoned? Is he to prostitute the majesty of history, in this enlightened age and Christian country, by the plausive recitation of such reprehensible suggestions. The conduct of men is apt to be bad enough, however amiable their sentiments may be, and these it is the duty of the historian to correct and refine, by clear distinctions between right and wrong, and by the firm and even application of moral justice, to the conduct and opinions of the personages who tower above the level of the world. By the sacrifice of this duty to the silly pleasure of fashioning a *81 IN THE CAROLINAS. warrior, who was nursed by the forge and the anvil, into a " faultless monster" after his own heart, our author gives grievous evidence of the taste as well as the honesty of his book.

To every sensible reader, the sentiments contained in the letter we have been con sidering, will appear a blemish in the character of Greene, more distinct from the lustre of his subse quent reputation, and from its contrast with his great virtues. But in Mr. Johnson's portrait, deformity and beauty are confounded, and a speck with which fond nature marked one feature of the original, is mixed with the martial colours, and spread over the heroic countenance. Having mentioned the surrender of Fort Wash ington, (p. 60.) he revives, for the sake of refut ing it, a censure which was cast upon the conduct of Greene on that occasion, and gives a prolix and tortuous account of the preliminary operations of the hostile armies, in which he informs us, (p. 61.) with a glow of patriotic resentment, that the saucy vessels of the enemy not only passed our forts on the Hud son, but " passed them with an air of ridicule!"

" In the course of his justification of General Greene's conduct, it is insinuated, (p. 64.) that Mr. Marshall has made unsounded assertions in regard to it. Apart from the claims of decorum, the statements of an author so fair, so temperate, and judicious, ought not to be lightly questioned, or invidiously distorted. And when examined, they will be found to '81 IN THE CAROLINAS. 17 contain neither a charge against General Greene, nor assertions in support of one, nor any thing in the slightest degree repugnant to candour, or contrary to truth. Marshall's words are these: " From too great a confidence in the strength of the post at Fort Wash ington, aud a hope that by still further increasing the obstructions in the North River, the original object for which that place had been fortified might be obtained; from an unwillingness too, further to discou rage the army, by an evacuation of its posts, General Greene had not withdrawn the garrison, under the discretionary orders he had received on that subject; but still indulged a hope that the post might be maintained; or if its situation should become desperate, that means might be found to transport the troops across the river lo the Jersey shore, which was de fended by Fort Lee."

After quoting them, Mr. John son declares with a refinement of courtesy and economy of language for which he is remarkable, "never were the views and motives of a military commander more entirely misunderstood. We know not upon what authority Mr. Marshall attributes too great con fidence in the strength of Fort Washington." If Mr. Johnson had copied the extract from General Washington's letter to Greene of the 8th of November, which is given by Marshall, and that from the reply to it, which is given by Gordon, he would have been fully satisfied as to Mr. Marshall's authority — and as he has excluded them from his pages, we shall here o '81 IN THE CAROLINAS. 18 transcribe them. " On being informed of this, another letter was addressed to General Greene, in which it was stated, that this fact was so plain a proof of the ineffi cacy of all the obstructions thrown in the river, as to justify a change in the dispositions which had been made.

If," proceeded the letter, " we cannot prevent vessels from passing up, and the enemy are possessed of the surrounding country, what valuable purpose can it answer, to attempt to hold a post from which the expected benefit cannot be derived? I am, therefore, inclined to think it will not be prudent to hazard the men and stores at Mount Washington; but as you are on the spot, I leave it to you to give such orders respecting the evacuation of the place, as you may think most advisable; and so far revoke the orders given Colonel Magaw to defend it to the last." Here not only does Washington express his opinion in favour of evacuating the post; but assigns reasons for it, and not only commits the expediency of maintaining or aban doning it to General Greene, but removes an obstruc tion from his pursuit of that branch of the alternative which he himself declares he thought it prudent to adopt.

To this letter General Greene replies on the 9th — " Upon the whole, I cannot help thinking the garrison at Fort Washington is of advantage; and I cannot conceive it to be in any great danger. — I was over there the last evening, and the enemy seem to be disposing matters to besiege the place; but Colonel Magaw thinks it will take till December expires be- '81 IN THE CAROLINAS. ]9 lore they can carry it. — If the enemy do not find it an object of importance they will not trouble themselves about it; if they do it is a full proof they feel an in jury from our possessing it. Our giving it up will open a free communication with the country as far as Kingsbridge — that must be a great advantage to them and injury to us."* From this correspondence it is clear that General Washington considered the advantage of maintaining the post was outweighed by the danger to be apprehended from defending it, and that General Greene was expressly of the contrary opinion — thought it was not then in any great danger — and even if besieged, could be held until the end of December, or evacuated .safely any time before.