Brier Creek

On March 3, 1779, forces clashed near where Brier Creek meets the Savannah River in eastern Georgia in what became known as the Battle of Brier Creek. A mostly militia army, drawn largely from North Carolina and Georgia and bolstered by a contingent of Continental Army soldiers, suffered defeat at the hands of British troops, with heavy losses among their ranks. The resulting rout took a toll on Patriot spirits.

Background

After France joined the American Revolutionary War in 1778, British commanders turned their gaze toward the southern colonies, a theater largely neglected during the conflict's opening years. Their southern campaign commenced with a pincer movement: forces departed both New York City and Saint Augustine

Prelude

Critics both at the time and in later historical accounts have found fault with the location Ashe chose for his encampment. Positioned against a creek and surrounded by marshy terrain, the site offered little natural cover on its exposed side. Bryan, serving as Ashe's adjutant, spotted these weaknesses himself. When Ashe departed on February 28 for a council of war at Purrysburg, Bryan took the initiative to relocate the encampment roughly one mile northward, closer to the Savannah River near a modest rise in the land. By March 2, Ashe had rejoined his troops at this new position.

Meanwhile, Colonel Prevost committed to carrying out a scheme that Campbell had drawn up prior to his departure. The strategy called for a sweeping maneuver: British forces would cross Brier Creek far upstream via a bridge to the north and west, then swing south to pin Ashe's soldiers against the wedge of land formed by the creek's junction with the river. To keep Ashe's attention elsewhere, a diversionary force would stage a show at the ruined bridge site.

On the first of March, this decoy contingent, roughly 500 strong and made up of both regular soldiers and militia, marched northward in plain view until reaching a point three miles from the destroyed crossing, where they set up camp. Under cover of darkness that same night, a much larger and more seasoned force, about 900 men drawn chiefly from the 71st Regiment along with Baird's light infantry units, pushed rapidly north toward the Paris Mill bridge. This force brought five artillery pieces and was reinforced by veteran militia companies, among them soldiers from the Florida Rangers.

They reached the bridge site by roughly ten the following morning, only to discover it in ruins, and immediately began constructing a makeshift crossing for their gear and weapons. Wary of being spotted, Prevost dispatched Baird's light infantry together with a unit of mounted light dragoons to wade across the river under cover of night on March 2. Their role was twofold: shielding the bridge construction from detection and severing any path Ashe's men might use to retreat. By the time dawn broke on March 3, Prevost had gotten his entire force across the water. Accounts differ as to whether scouts from Ashe's camp had detected the approaching British column, but regardless, Ashe made no move to prepare his men against such a threat.

Battle

A courier tore into the American encampment on the afternoon of March 3 with news that British forces were closing in. No one recorded precisely how much time remained for the troops to get into position, though everything about the way they assembled suggests it happened in haste. Roughly 900 men actually managed to fall into line, since a portion of the force had already been sent south on scouting duty and others remained posted at the bridge that had been burned. Handing out ammunition proved difficult as well, hampered by too few cartouche boxes and muskets that came in a mismatched range of calibers. Once the lines finally took shape, Brier Creek anchored the left flank, but a wide gap opened on the right, separating the end of the formation from the river itself. North Carolina's New Bern regiment anchored the left, Georgia militia fighting alongside Continental Army soldiers under Samuel Elbert held the middle, and North Carolina's Edenton regiment took up the right.

Prevost brought his men forward in three separate columns. Baird commanded the light infantry on the left, the 71st's first battalion occupied the center, and provincial troops from Carolina together with rangers made up the right wing, while Prevost kept his grenadiers and light dragoons in reserve. Gunfire began at a distance on both sides, after which Elbert pushed his men forward to shorten it. This advance produced two problems that tore a hole in the American formation: Elbert's troops veered leftward as they moved, blocking some of the New Bern regiment's line of fire, and British horsemen menaced the right flank, pulling the Edenton men away from their post in the center. Spotting this vulnerability, Prevost commanded his troops to fix bayonets and press the attack.

Bayonets were scarce among the Patriot militia. When the British bore down on them, many simply turned and fled without discharging a single shot. The Edenton troops managed a handful of volleys before giving up the fight entirely. In the center, Elbert's Continentals kept their ranks intact even as the militia on either side scattered toward the swamps, but they were ultimately encircled, leaving Elbert no choice but to surrender. The 200 soldiers stationed at the bridge finally reached the field as the engagement was ending, only to pull back swiftly rather than be swept into the collapse.

Aftermath

Losses on the British side amounted to five dead and eleven wounded. No one ever managed a complete count of American losses, since so many militiamen fled all the way back to North Carolina, and some unknown number perished in the surrounding swamps. According to Prevost, 150 American bodies turned up on the field, and his forces seized 227 prisoners, the bulk of them Continentals under Elbert.

Anthony Lytle, who led the American light infantry, scattered his troops so they might escape being taken. General Ashe himself was spotted chasing after his militia companies as they fled, and public opinion largely held him responsible for the debacle, with many insisting he had been the one leading the retreat. Though a court martial cleared him of cowardice, the tribunal did find him guilty of neglecting to properly secure his camp.

The engagement at Brier Creek crushed any American hope of driving British forces from the young state and cemented British control over the region. Coming only weeks after Patriot militia had defeated Loyalist forces at Kettle Creek north of Augusta, the defeat wiped out the boost in morale that earlier victory had produced. In his memoirs, William Moultrie argued that the setback at Brier Creek stretched the conflict out by a full year and paved the way for the British push into South Carolina in 1780. The defeat also meant Georgia fell back under British colonial rule, a status it held from 1779 until 1782.

In 2020, the site of the battle earned a place on the National Register of Historic Places.