Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 16.djvu/16

 10 Southern Historical Society Papers.

Sumter attacked Rocky Mount with his characteristic impetuosity, but the British officer was found on his guard, and his position was one of great strength. Three times did Sumter attempt to carry this stronghold, but without success. He drew off, however, undisturbed, having lost few of his followers.

Undaunted, Sumter was soon again in the saddle. Quitting his retreat on the Catawba, with Davie, J. Erwin Hill, and Lacy he darted on the British line of communication, and on the 6th of August fell on the post at Hanging Rock. Then ensued a bloody battle the contest grew fierce and the issue doubtful. The infantry of Tarle- ton's Legion and Bryan's North Carolina Loyalists were forced back, but Brown's regiment held their ground until nearly all the officers and a great proportion of its soldiers had fallen. The British, then falling back, formed a hollow square in the centre of their position. Sumter advanced to strike their last point of resistance, but the ranks of the militia had become disordered and the men scattered from success and the plunder of the British camp, so that only two hundred infantry and a few dragoons could be brought into array. Sumter could not, by all his exertions, bring his troops to close action. The spoils of the camp and the free use of spirits lost Sumter the fruits of his brilliant victory.

Most of our wounded were taken immediately home from the field of battle. To those who remained on the field, Esther Gaston was again the ministering angel.* Captain McLure was killed; Colonel Hill, Major Winn, and Lieutenant Crawford, and young Joseph Gas- ton, but sixteen years of age, were wounded.

Parton, in his Life of Jackson, tells us that the Jackson boys Andrew, then thirteen years of age, and his brother Robert, a little older rode with Davie on this expedition. The future hero of New Orleans had seen the effects of war when assisting his mother to attend the wounded at Waxhaw church in May. Here, at Hanging Rock, in August, he first saw battle itself.

Then followed the disastrous battle of Camden, but it is not within my purpose this morning to follow the details of that unfortunate affair. These belong rather to general history. None of the people of whom I am speaking were there; nor, indeed, can I find that in the battle proper there were any South Carolinians. General Isaac Huger was present, but commanded, I believe, a Virginia brigade, and Major Thomas Pinckney, an aid-de-camp to General Gates, was


 * Howe's History of the Presbyterian Church, p. 537.