Kettle Creek

On February 14, 1779, an engagement known as Kettle Creek unfolded in Georgia's back country, marking the earliest significant triumph for the colonial cause in that region during the war for independence. The clash occurred in Wilkes County, roughly eleven miles (18 km) from what would become Washington, Georgia. There, a body of local militia intercepted and routed a Loyalist militia column that had been marching toward British-held Augusta. In the aftermath, a number of captured Loyalists met their end on the gallows.

This triumph exposed how difficult it was for British forces to maintain control over Georgia's interior, let alone shield large groups of Loyalist volunteers stationed away from their main strongholds. Having already resolved to give up Augusta, the British managed to restore a measure of their standing weeks afterward by catching a Patriot detachment off guard at Brier Creek. Full British dominance over the Georgia back country would not materialize until 1780, when the Siege of Charleston shattered Patriot military strength across the southern theater.

Battle

It seems Boyd had no real sense of how closely his movements were being tracked, and despite posting sentries, his encampment remained something less than fully vigilant. Pickens moved forward in command of the center, flanked on the right by Colonel Dooly's men and on the left by Georgia Lieutenant Colonel Elijah Clarke's. It was an exchange of fire between scouting parties and Boyd's guards that finally tipped him off. In response, Boyd organized a defensive position toward the back of the camp and pushed a hundred men forward to meet Pickens at a hastily built barrier of fence rails and downed timber. Because his approach had secured him the high ground, Pickens managed to outflank the position, though the marshy terrain near the creek slowed both of his wings considerably. Amid fierce combat, Boyd fell with a wound that would prove fatal, and his small unit pulled back toward the larger Loyalist formation.

At that point the Patriot wings started to push out of the swampland. Major William Spurgen, now leading the Loyalists as Boyd's replacement, kept his men fighting for an hour and a half. A number of Loyalist troops fled across the creek, leaving behind horses and gear in the process. Clarke, spotting a stretch of elevated ground on the far side of Kettle Creek that the fleeing men appeared to be making for, pushed some of his own men toward it, losing his horse to enemy fire along the way. In the end the Loyalist formation gave way entirely, its men either killed, taken prisoner, or scattered.

Aftermath

Pickens emerged from the fighting with 75 captives in hand, most of them wounded men, while the Loyalist dead numbered somewhere between 40 and 70. His own losses ran from 7 to 9 killed, with another 14 to 23 either wounded or unaccounted for. A good portion of Boyd's force, some having fled the fighting and others released by Pickens on parole, made their way back to their homes. In the days that followed, many were either taken into custody or gave themselves up to Patriot officials, though what became of certain men remains uncertain to this day. According to Lieutenant Colonel Campbell, 270 of the men Boyd had recruited eventually reached him, and these were formed into the Royal North Carolina Regiment. As Pickens stood over Boyd, who lay dying, the Loyalist commander, a former South Carolina resident whom Pickens knew personally, made a final request: that a brooch be carried to his wife along with news of what had happened to him. Pickens later carried out this wish.

Among the captured Loyalists, survival from wounds proved rare, with only about 20 pulling through. Pickens moved them first to Augusta and afterward to Ninety Six, where they joined a considerable number of other Loyalist prisoners already held there. Determined to set an example, South Carolina officials brought several of these men before a court on charges of treason. Roughly 50 were found guilty, and five, some of whom had been taken at Kettle Creek, went to the gallows. Even before the trials began, British officers reacted with fury to how their captured men were being handled. General Prevost weighed retaliation against the Patriot prisoners under his control, but held back, wary that it might bring harsher treatment upon British soldiers held by the Americans elsewhere. When Prevost pushed into coastal South Carolina that April, striking back against General Lincoln's efforts to reclaim Georgia, the pressure this created led South Carolina authorities to overturn most of the convictions.

At a council convened in Augusta on February 12, Campbell resolved to give up the town, setting his withdrawal toward Savannah in motion at two in the morning on February 14, the very day the battle unfolded. Despite claims made by certain historians linking his retreat to the battle's result, Campbell had in fact departed before word of the fighting ever reached him. What drove his decision instead was the appearance of 1,200 troops under Patriot General John Ashe near General Andrew Williamson's position across the Savannah River, combined with dwindling supplies and doubt over whether Boyd's mission would succeed. Whatever gains the Patriots secured at Kettle Creek were partly erased soon after by the British triumph at Brier Creek on March 3, fought while Campbell's forces were still pulling back, in what is now Screven County.

The British would go on to seize Augusta again in June 1780, following the disintegration of Patriot resistance after the fall of Charleston under siege. Patriot forces finally reclaimed the town through their own siege, completed on June 5, 1781.