Page:The Hessians and the other German auxiliaries of Great Britain in the revolutionary war.djvu/291



Sir Henry Clinton sailed away from Charleston in June, 1780, two Hessian regiments were included in the garrison which he left behind him, and one more such regiment was brought from Savannah soon afterwards. I do not find any record of an active part taken by these regiments in the campaigns which Lord Cornwallis conducted in South and North Carolina. On the 16th of August, 1780, the American army under General Gates was routed at Camden, and on the 18th Tarleton surprised a party under Sumter. Six weeks later the tables were partially turned by the brilliant engagement at King's Mountain, where about fourteen hundred backwoodsmen surrounded and stormed a hill held by an equal number of British regulars and Provincials, killing and wounding two fifths of them, and taking the remainder prisoners.

In the month of October, 1780, General Leslie, with several English regiments, the Hessian Regiment von Bose, and a detachment of one hundred chasseurs left New York for the Southern States. They landed at Portsmouth, in Virginia, but shortly afterwards abandoned this post and proceeded to Charleston, where they arrived in the latter part of the year.

Having this reinforcement within reach, Lord Cornwallis started from Wynesborough, west of Camden,