Savage's Old Fields, Siege of
1775 CE
The Siege of Savage's Old Fields (also known as the First Siege of Ninety Six, November 19–21, 1775) is an encounter between Patriot and Loyalist forces in the back country town of Ninety Six, South Carolina, early in the American Revolutionary War.
It is the first major conflict in South Carolina in the war, having been preceded by bloodless seizures of several military fortifications in the province.
Patriot forces under the command of Major Andrew Williamson had been dispatched to the area to recover a shipment of gunpowder and ammunition intended for the Cherokees that had been seized by Loyalists.
Williamson's force, numbering over five hundred, had established a stockaded fort near Ninety Six, where it is surrounded by some nineteen hundred Loyalists.
Because the war is in its early days and the partisan war in the southern back country has not become as brutal as it will be later in the war, the siege is conducted desultorily, and is effectively a stalemate.
After two days the Loyalists withdraw, having lost four killed and twenty wounded to one Patriot killed and twelve wounded.
The Patriots also withdraw toward the coast, but a major Patriot expedition not long after results in the arrest or flight of most of the Loyalist leadership.
Subject
Related Events
Showing 5 events out of 5 total
Matters had also escalated after the seizure by Loyalists in October of a shipment of gunpowder and ammunition sent by the Council of Safety and intended for the Cherokee.
The council had responded by organizing a large-scale expedition to recover the munitions.
On November 8 it had voted to send Colonel Richard Richardson, the commander of the Camden militia, to recover the shipment and arrest Loyalist leaders.
He arrives at Ninety Six early on November 19 with five hundred and sixty men.
Finding the small town to be not very defensible, he establishes a camp on John Savage's plantation, provided a field of fire for the force's three swivel guns.
He begins fortifying the camp, ordering the construction of an improvised stockade.
Loyalist recruiting has been more successful: Williamson has learned that Captain Patrick Cuningham and Major Joseph Robinson ware leading a large Loyalist force (estimated to number about nineteen hundred) marching out to face the Loyalists.
The leaders of the two factions are in the midst of negotiating an end to the standoff when two Patriot militiamen are seized by Loyalists outside the stockade.
This sets off a gunfight that lasts for about two hours.
The Loyalists attempt to set fires, creating a smokescreen they can use to approach the stockade.
This attempt is frustrated by the wet ground.
The Loyalists next construct a large wooden shield behind which they seek to bring incendiaries closer to the fort, but they only succeed in "[setting] Fire to their own Engine themselves", according to one account, and it is not proof against the Patriot's guns.
On the afternoon of November 21 the Patriots hold a war council, in which they decide to sortie that night.
They are preparing for this action at sunset when a Loyalist approaches with a parley flag.
Nothing is decided in the discussion beyond an agreement to meet the next morning.
Both sides are to return prisoners taken since November 2 and not interfere with each other's communications with their respective political leaders.
The Patriot leaders are also required to surrender their swivel guns, although they will be returned three days later.
The truce also includes reinforcements for both sides, terms that the Council of Safety claims do not apply to Colonel Richardson's force.
The reasons why the Loyalists had chosen to negotiate the truce are unknown.
Governor Campbell describes the Loyalists as lacking in effective leadership, and historian Martin Cann speculates that it may have been caused by Colonel Richardson's preparations or approach.
Richardson had mobilized twenty-five hundred men, which will grow by the end of November to more than four thousand.
This force will scour the back country, arresting or driving away most of the Loyalist leadership.
The campaign will effectively end on December 22, when fifteen inches (thirty-eight centimeters) of snow will fall on the area.
Richardson's men, unprepared for the snow, will make a difficult trek back to the lowlands.
Some of the Loyalist leaders who escape Richardson's expedition, including most notably Thomas Brown, will flee to West Florida where they will join regular and irregular forces serving with the British.
These events will result n the end of large-scale Loyalist activity in the southern Appalachians, although what is in many ways a civil war will become progressively more brutal in the following years.
Ninety Six will become a British outpost after the 1780 Siege of Charleston, and will be besieged in 1781 by forces under the command of Nathanael Greene.
Although Greene will be forced to lift that siege by the approach of a relief force, the British will abandon Ninety Six not long afterward.