Battle of Black Mingo

A brief clash erupted during the American Revolution near Dollard's Tavern, sometimes called Red House, close to Willtown by Rhems, South Carolina, on September 29, 1780, and history remembers it as the Battle of Black Mingo.

Francis Marion, commanding Revolutionary troops, launched an assault that scattered a body of Loyalist soldiers stationed there to hold the district. These men had been positioned by British Colonel Banastre Tarleton following his destructive sweep through the surrounding countryside.

Colonel John Coming Ball led the Loyalist force, and after enduring heavy losses, his men were pushed back into the swamp at Black Mingo.

The name "Mingo" comes from a Chickasaw term meaning "chief."

Background

After British troops crushed General Horatio Gates's Continental regulars at Camden on August 16, 1780, formal resistance to British control in the South nearly collapsed entirely.

With that victory secured, the British sent out Loyalist detachments, numbering somewhere between 200 and 250 men, to hold the rural areas and stamp out Patriot guerrilla resistance, particularly the irregular units led by General Francis Marion.

Marion struck first on September 3, leading his mounted force of 50 men against Loyalist troops stationed near the Little Pee Dee River, scattering their 45-man vanguard in the process. At daybreak the following day, his men launched a charge against the Loyalist militia itself, luring all 200 of them into a trap and breaking their ranks.

Meanwhile, British forces moved through South Carolina, looting and burning property belonging to Revolutionary sympathizers. This destruction drove Marion back into the state, where outraged Revolutionaries flocked to join his ranks in great numbers. Word reached Marion that Loyalists had gathered at Shepherd's Ferry, on the southern bank of Black Mingo Creek roughly 15 miles (24 km) from his position. Though the intelligence suggested the enemy outnumbered his own force, the eagerness of his men convinced him to press forward with an assault.

Battle

Marion's plan called for catching the Loyalists off guard in the early hours, but that hope unraveled when his horses, near midnight, clattered across the wooden plank bridge spanning Black Mingo Creek, a mile downstream from where the Loyalists were camped. The noise reached the ears of camp sentinels, and shots rang out in warning. British Colonel John Coming Ball responded by rallying his troops to meet the coming assault.

To encircle the Loyalist position, Marion split his modest force into three separate columns, one advancing along the main road while the other two swung out to the left and right. Ball, for his part, arranged his men in a field bathed in moonlight near Dollard's Tavern, instructing them to withhold fire until the rebels closed to within 30 yards. Despite outnumbering their attackers, the Loyalists found themselves caught in a crossfire between two lines, and after exchanging only a handful of volleys, they broke and fled into the swamp.

The engagement itself involved fewer than a hundred men and lasted roughly a quarter of an hour, yet it took a toll on both sides. Marion's casualties numbered two dead, among them Captain George Logan, along with eight wounded. On the Loyalist side, three men were killed while thirteen more were either mortally wounded or taken prisoner.

As a trophy of the fight, Marion took possession of Colonel Ball's sorrel gelding, which he kept as his own mount for the remainder of the conflict, giving the horse the name "Ball."

Aftermath

News of the outcome at the creek traveled quickly, and in the weeks that followed Marion found no shortage of new recruits joining his ranks. The engagement also taught him something practical: from then on, he supposedly refused to send men across a bridge for a surprise attack without first putting blankets down to soften their footsteps. Historian Alan Pell Crawford noted the trouble with this practice, remarking that it made sense in theory but ran into a snag given that many of Marion's men owned no blankets whatsoever, let alone extras to spare for muffling a crossing.

The victory at Black Mingo Creek did not go unanswered. British troops and Loyalist forces responded by hunting Marion down with new intensity, and in the process they burned his plantation at Pond's Bluff along with holdings belonging to several men under his command. Not long after this retaliation, Marion and his fighters carved out a fortified refuge for themselves on Snows Island.