Camden Then and Now



Camden Then and Now

Discussion

The Battle of Camden, a disaster resulting from a deadly combination of incompetent leadership and cowardice, was one of the worst defeats ever suffered by an American army in the field. The American commander was Maj. Gen. Horatio Gates, the "hero" of Saratoga, who had been appointed after the surrender of Charleston in May 1780 to head the Southern Department. Gates assumed command of a force under Bavarian volunteer general Johann de Kalb in North Carolina in late July and ordered a march south toward the British.

The core of Gates's army was formed by de Kalb's twelve hundred or so superb regulars of the Maryland and Delaware Continentalregiments. These were among the most experienced and best American soldiers of the war, although fatigued and ill supplied at this juncture. Gates also had a small artillery force, a tiny remnant of the mounted Pulaski Legion, and about two thousand inexperienced militia from North Carolina and Virginia. On the eve of the battle, the American forces may have numbered close to four thousand; however, Gates believed his army totaled at least seven thousand, and he could not be convinced otherwise by his staff. By mid-August the exhausted, sick, and nearly starved Americans were just north of Camden, South Carolina (McManus, 2005).

The British army they approached was commanded by Lt. Gen. Lord Cornwallis, who had been put in charge of the Carolinas by the commander in chief, Sir Henry Clinton, after the capture of Charleston. Cornwallis believed he was badly outnumbered by the Americans. He had slightly more than two thousand troops, nearly all of them veteran regulars or members of such experienced Loyalist units as Lt. Col.Banastre Tarleton's infamous British Legion. Cornwallis knew that Gates was approaching and had moved north along the road from Camden to meet him.

The first shots were fired about 2:30 A.M. on August 16, when the advance American guard encountered the leading units of the British army at a place where the road opened onto a wide, sandy space broken up by pines and bounded on both sides by swampland. After stumbling into this unplanned contact, both sides ceased firing and waiting for morning.

The commanders' respective dispositions of the opposing forces were among the crucial factors in the battle. On the British right, commanded by Lt. Col. James Webster, Cornwallis placed the Royal Welch Fusiliers, the Volunteers of Ireland (Irish deserters ...