Eutaw Springs

The Blood-Soaked Springs: Eutaw Springs and the Last Great Battle of the Southern Campaign

On the morning of September 8, 1781, in the sweltering backcountry of South Carolina, roughly four thousand men collided in what would become one of the fiercest and most tactically complex engagements of the entire American Revolution. The Battle of Eutaw Springs was the last major open-field battle of the Revolutionary War and perhaps its most savage. The close-quarter fighting that occurred there ranks among the bloodiest and most intensely contested military encounters in young America's quest for independence. Fought along the west bank of the Santee River approximately sixty miles northwest of Charleston, it did not produce a clean victory for either side — both sides claimed a victory . Yet its consequences were enormous. It effectively ended British control of the South Carolina interior, confined the King's forces to the Charleston perimeter, and set in motion the strategic isolation that would contribute to the final collapse of British military ambitions in America. With nearly half of his army killed, wounded, or missing, Stewart was forced to retreat to Charleston, where he would remain for the duration of the war.

Unable to regain numbers or momentum, Stewart's forces could not join British General Charles Cornwallis at the Battle of Yorktown the following month. His lack of reinforcements contributed to British surrender. Yet it has been eclipsed in historical memory by the climactic military event of the conflict — the siege at Yorktown, Virginia, and subsequent surrender of a British army that overshadowed the struggle in South Carolina. For a place that most Americans today could not locate on a map, Eutaw Springs occupies a surprisingly pivotal position in the story of how the Revolution was won.

To understand the battle, one must first understand the extraordinary campaign that preceded it. Major General Nathanael Greene, the Rhode Island-born Quaker who had been appointed commander of the Continental Army's Southern Department in December 1780, had spent the better part of a year waging one of the most audacious strategic campaigns in American military history. He had inherited a shattered army and a theater of war that seemed all but lost. The British controlled Charleston, Camden, Ninety-Six, and a network of fortified outposts across the Carolina backcountry. Greene's genius lay not in winning battles — indeed, he lost nearly every major engagement he fought — but in so relentlessly maneuvering, striking, and withdrawing that the British were compelled to abandon one post after another. By the late summer of 1781, the Crown's grip on South Carolina had contracted drastically. On 16 July, Greene moved his army, exhausted by many days of marching and combat, to a campsite on the High Hills of Santee, allowing his main force to rest while awaiting reinforcements.

Francis Marion and Thomas Sumter continued to harass the British in a "war of posts." Greene spent over a month recuperating, and broke camp on August 23 , marching to intercept the last significant British field force remaining in the interior: approximately two thousand troops under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Stewart of the 3rd Regiment of Foot, encamped at Eutaw Springs.

Stewart was a competent and experienced officer. On August 13, Colonel Stewart had led a force of 2,000–2,300 men from Orangeburg to Thompson's Plantation, south of the Congaree River. He then fell back to Eutaw Springs on August 27, about 2 miles east of present-day Eutawville, then in Charleston District (but both now in Orangeburg County).

Stewart established his camp in a wooded area along the banks of Eutaw Creek near the plantation of Loyalist Patrick Roche. Roche's plantation consisted of a two-story brick house with outbuildings and walled gardens. That sturdy brick house — a structure that would prove as consequential as any regiment on the field that day — made the site attractive for encampment, as did the natural springs that provided fresh water. His troops included his British regulars — the 3rd Foot, 63rd Foot, 64th Foot, and John Marjoribanks' 300-man flank battalion, the last-named unit made up of the converged flank companies of the 3rd, 19th, and 30th Foot. The regulars were supported by two American loyalist contingents: John Harris Cruger's regular battalion of DeLancey's Brigade and John Coffin's South Carolina Tories, which consisted of about 150 regular infantry and 50 militia cavalry.

Stewart's artillery consisted of two 6-pound, one 4-pound, and one 3-pound cannons plus a swivel gun.

Marjoribanks, the Scottish officer who commanded the formidable flank battalion, was born in Eccles, a southeastern Scottish village.

At 49 years old at the time of the battle , he was a veteran whose role in the coming fight would prove decisive and whose death shortly afterward would mark one of the war's quieter tragedies. Stewart was aware that Greene was in the field but appears to have been caught somewhat off guard by the speed and direction of the American approach. In order to make up for a shortage of bread in his supplies, Stewart had been sending out foraging parties each morning to dig up yams, unarmed except for a small guard detail. A foraging party sent out that morning was captured by Greene's advance elements, depriving Stewart of both provisions and early intelligence about the enemy's proximity.

Greene had assembled a force of roughly 2,200 men — a characteristically polyglot American army that blended Continental regulars and militia into something greater than the sum of its parts. At Eutaw Springs some 2,200 Americans — Continental regulars from Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, and Delaware; state troops from South Carolina; and militia from North and South Carolina, supported by two cavalry units and four cannon — marched under Greene's command. At 4:00 am on 8 September 1781, Greene's army began marching from Burdell's Plantation in the direction of Eutaw Springs, which was 7 miles distant.

In the van were Lieutenant Colonel Henry Lee's Legion plus 73 infantry and 72 cavalry of South Carolina State troops under Lieutenant Colonel John Henderson and Captain Wade Hampton, respectively. Next in the marching column came 40 cavalry and 200 infantry under Brigadier General Francis Marion, followed by 150 North Carolina militia under Colonel Francis Marquis de Malmedy and 307 South Carolina militia led by Brigadier General Andrew Pickens.

Continental Army troops formed the center and rear of Greene's column. These were led by three green North Carolina battalions under Brigadier General Jethro Sumner. Major John Armstrong led a mounted contingent while Lieutenant Colonel John Baptista Ashe and Major Reading Blount directed the foot soldiers.

Lieutenant Colonel Richard Campbell's two Virginia battalions under Major Smith