Hundreds of partisans began plundering the British camp, found the liquor supplies, and started getting roaring drunk.

From The Road to Guilford Courthouse by John Buchanan. Page 133.

A textbook example of the challenges inherent in fighting a Revolution with militia.

On the 5th of August Davie’s little band rejoined Sumter at his camp at Land’s Ford. They were determined to drive the British from their posts at Rocky Mount and Hanging Rock and believed that if one fell the other would be evacuated. They numbered in all about 800 riders: 500 from just across the line in the Rebel stronghold of Mecklenburg County, North Carolina, and 300 South Carolinians. A council of war was held by the officers and they decided to attack Hanging Rock because it was an open camp, with no fortifications beyond simple earthworks. Davie recalled that “in those times [it] was absolutely necessary” for the officers to explain to their men what was intended and obtain their approval, and in this case the militia “entered into the project with great spirit and cheerfulness.” A night march brought them by midnight to within two miles of the British camp. Riding in Davie’s command was a thirteen-year-old boy who grew up to become an American folk hero and seventh President of the United States. Andrew Jackson, Waxhaws born and bred, had joined his older relatives in serving the cause. William Richardson Davie by all accounts became Jackson’s ideal as officer and gentleman. He gave the boy a pistol and made him “a mounted orderly or messenger, for which I was well fitted, being a good rider and knowing all the roads.”

Hanging Rock was held by 500 Tory regulars and militia under Major John Carden. Although they were outnumbered by the Americans and had no fortifications to fight behind, their position was strong. The site today is completely overgrown by thick woods and underbrush, but it bears examination because of what it tells us about Sumter the tactician. In 1780 there was much open farmland, room for cavalry to maneuver, and clear fields of fire. Protecting the British front was a deep ravine with very steep sides and a creek running through it.

The Tory force was composed for the most part of well-trained provincial units. There were 160 infantry from Tarleton’s British Legion; a detachment from the Prince of Wales Loyal American Volunteers, another northern Tory unit; the North Carolina Loyalist Volunteers; part of Colonel Thomas “Burnt-foot” Brown’s Rangers—Brown was not present; and the rest of Colonel Morgan Bryan’s North Carolina Tory militia, already roughly handled by Davie. They suffered from a weakness chronic to British arms. They did not know Sumter’s whereabouts or intentions, whereas he knew not only where they were but how their units were deployed.

Sumter was aware that the Prince of Wales detachment was on the right; the British Legion infantry and North Carolina Loyalist Volunteers under Lieutenant Colonel John Hamilton in the center, joined presumably by Brown’s Rangers; and Morgan Bryan’s North Carolina militia “some distance on the left, and separated from the centre-camp by a skirt of wood,” William Richardson Davie wrote. He also stated that “the position of the regular troops could not be approached without an entire exposure of the assailants, and a Creek with a deep ravine covered the whole front of the Tory camp.” Sumter proposed to divide his force into three columns, march to the center, dismount, and attack. Davie argued that the horses should be left where they were and the approach made on foot. He feared the “confusion always consequent on dismounting under a fire and the certainty of losing the effect of a sudden and vigorous attack.” Davie was overruled. The columns were divided: Major Davie commanded the right with his men, Major Richard Winn’s band, and detached companies of South Carolinians; Colonel William Hill led the left with South Carolina units; and Colonel Irwin commanded the center column with his Mecklenburg County militia. Sumter commanded the whole. The operation highlights Thomas Sumter’s strengths and weaknesses. As a historian of South Carolina observed, he had the power to animate men, and he knew that with militia a spirit of enterprise must be constantly in the air. On this occasion his intelligence was accurate, and the rapid night march, always a risky maneuver, a success. His tactics, however, reveal an utter lack of imagination. He proposed to lead all his troops to the center, dismount in view of the British, and launch a frontal assault across a creek and ravine against an enemy who had the advantage of a clear field of fire. He might well have received a bloody repulse had not the fortunes of war intervened.

The columns set out, led by local Rebel guides. But all three turned off the road to the left to avoid British pickets and a patrol. They meant to “return to it under the cover of a defile near the camp, but the guides through ignorance or timidity led them so far to the left that the right and center divisions fell together with the left upon the Tory encampment.” Whether by error or, as Davie remarked, fear on the part of the guides, it was fortuitous. The Tories were completely surprised, as all three columns attacked Morgan Bryan’s North Carolinians simultaneously from two sides. The British flank had not just been turned, as military historians are fond of saying, it was rolled up and sent flying “toward the center, “routed with great slaughter.” The Rebels chased them and soon ran up against the Legion Infantry and some of Hamilton’s North Carolina volunteers, who delivered fire from behind a fence.

But the Rebels were in full cry, as recounted by Davie: “Their impetuosity was not checked a moment by this unexpected discharge.” Sumter’s men broke the Legion and the volunteers who joined the wild flight of Bryan’s men, “yielding their camp without another struggle to the Militia.” In this fighting the Prince of Wales detachment was destroyed as a fighting unit, losing all its officers and but a handful of men. Fortunes were almost reversed when the Rangers from Brown’s regiment “passed by a bold and skilful manuevre into the wood between the centre and Tory encampment, drew up unperceived, and poured a Heavy fire on the militia forming from the disorder of the pursuit.” Sumter’s men were not to be denied. With a coolness under fire usually attributed only to regulars, and with tactics that twentieth-century infantry could not improve upon, “these brave men took instinctively to the trees and bush heaps and returned the fire with deadly effect. In a few minutes there “was not a British officer standing, one half of the regiment had fallen, and the others on being offered quarters threw down their arms.” The remaining British prepared for a last stand. They “drew up in the center of the cleared grounds in the form of a Hollow Square” and fixed bayonets. The Rebels were on the verge of a crushing victory and the destruction of a British strongpoint.

Then the men who had attacked with elan and displayed intrepid behavior under fire fell apart. The lure of loot overwhelmed them. Hundreds of partisans began plundering the British camp, found the liquor supplies, and started getting roaring drunk. Sumter and his officers implored them in vain to return to their duty.