GA, USA
Colonel Elijah Clarke
1742–1799 · Georgia Militia Commander · Patriot Partisan Leader
1742–1799
Georgia Militia Commander · Patriot Partisan Leader
Elijah Clarke was a Georgia frontier settler of North Carolina origin who had almost no formal education but possessed the qualities that made effective partisan leaders in the southern backcountry: physical endurance, intimate knowledge of the terrain, the ability to inspire loyalty in men who would follow a proven fighter but not an appointed commander, and a willingness to persist through repeated setbacks that broke less determined men. He moved to Wilkes County, Georgia, in the early 1770s and established himself as a small farmer and militia figure in the Georgia upcountry before the Revolution gave him a larger stage.
Clarke's Revolutionary War career was defined by persistence against long odds. When the British captured Savannah in December 1778 and Augusta in January 1779 and began pacifying Georgia systematically, Clarke became the central figure in the remnant Patriot resistance. He mounted a major assault on Augusta in September 1780 with a mixed force of Georgia and South Carolina militia, came close to capturing the town, but was repulsed when a relief column arrived and was forced to retreat under pursuit through the Carolina upcountry with his wounded, including his own injured men and their families. The retreat became celebrated in Georgia tradition as evidence of his determination. He resumed operations in the Georgia interior as soon as his force was reconstituted, maintaining Patriot resistance through the darkest months of the British occupation when many of his neighbors had accepted British protection or simply fled.
The successful siege of Augusta in June 1781 was the vindication of Clarke's years of resistance. Working with Andrew Pickens and Henry Lee, Clarke commanded the Georgia militia component of the besieging force and saw Fort Cornwallis surrender on June 5, completing the liberation of the Georgia interior that he had worked toward through two years of defeat and recovery. After the war Clarke remained a contentious figure in Georgia politics, involved in several frontier schemes that brought him into conflict with state authorities, and briefly led an unauthorized expedition into Spanish Florida. He died in 1799, remembered in Georgia as the man whose refusal to concede the interior had kept Patriot resistance alive during the years when official military support was largely absent.
In Augusta
- Sep 1780First Battle of Augusta — Clarke's Failed Assault(Georgia Militia Commander)
On September 14, 1780, Colonel Elijah Clarke led approximately 600 Georgia and South Carolina militia in a surprise assault on the British garrison at Augusta. The attack initially succeeded in driving Brown's forces from the town into a fortified stone building, where Brown held out for eleven days under siege. When British and Loyalist relief forces arrived from Ninety Six, Clarke was forced to abandon the siege and retreat — and his retreat became a desperate march through Cherokee territory into North Carolina, carrying his wounded and their families. The failed assault demonstrated both the depth of Patriot motivation in the Georgia backcountry and the limitations of militia forces operating without Continental support. Clarke had come close. The knowledge that the garrison was vulnerable made the 1781 operation possible.
- Sep 1780Brown's Reprisals After the Failed Assault(Georgia Militia Commander)
After Clarke's militia withdrew, Thomas Brown hanged thirteen of the wounded Patriots who had been left behind when Clarke retreated. Some accounts hold that Brown had them hanged from the staircase of the building where they had been held prisoner. The killings deepened the cycle of reprisal that characterized the Augusta backcountry — Patriot militiamen who might have accepted British parole instead continued fighting, because the message from Brown's conduct was clear: capture meant death. Brown's actions were consistent with British policy in the southern backcountry that treated Patriot militia as rebels rather than prisoners of war, but the consequences were strategically counterproductive. The reprisals made it impossible for moderate Georgians to accept British authority, and they fed the partisan resistance that eventually made Augusta indefensible.
- May 1781Fort Grierson Captured by Patriots(Georgia Militia Commander)
The Augusta siege began on May 22, 1781, when Pickens, Lee, and Clarke invested the town. Fort Grierson, a smaller Loyalist fortification, was the first British position to fall. Colonel James Grierson surrendered the fort to the Patriot besiegers but was killed shortly afterward — shot by a Georgia militiaman while being escorted to the rear. The killing reflected the personal hatred that had accumulated through two years of backcountry warfare and Brown's reprisals. With Fort Grierson taken, the Patriot forces turned their full attention to Fort Cornwallis, where Brown and his King's Rangers remained entrenched on the high ground. The final phase of the Augusta siege had begun.