Battle of Fishdam Ford

In the closing stretch of the American Revolutionary War, British troops led by Major James Wemyss tried to catch Sumter's militia off guard, striking at roughly 1 am on November 9, 1780, against the camp where local Brigadier General Thomas Sumter had his Patriot forces stationed. The scheme collapsed, partly because Sumter's camp had tightened its defenses and partly because Wemyss launched the assault before daylight instead of waiting for dawn. During the fighting, Wemyss himself was wounded and taken prisoner.

Background

In accordance with the British plan known as the "southern strategy," aimed at winning the war in the American colonies, British troops seized Charleston, South Carolina in early 1780 and pushed Continental Army units out of the state entirely. After crushing a second Continental Army force at Camden that August, British General Lord Cornwallis brought his troops to a halt in the Waxhaws area of northern South Carolina. Convinced that Georgia and South Carolina were now firmly under British and Loyalist control, he resolved instead to march northward and confront the remaining Continental Army elements threatening North Carolina. By mid-September his army had reached Charlotte, North Carolina, only to find itself nearly encircled by determined North Carolina militia and Continental troops. After Loyalist forces gathering at Kings Mountain suffered a significant defeat, Cornwallis pulled his men back to Winnsboro, South Carolina, where he focused on crushing the Patriot militia bands disrupting his supply routes and lines of communication.

Among the most persistent militia leaders plaguing the British in South Carolina were Thomas Sumter and Francis Marion. Marion's operations troubled Cornwallis considerably in the state's northeastern corner, along the eastern side of the Santee River. So effective were his efforts that Cornwallis dispatched Lieutenant Colonel Banastre Tarleton that November with orders to track down the elusive Marion. Sumter, meanwhile, stirred up similar difficulties in the backcountry, prompting Cornwallis to send Major James Wemyss, leading the 63rd Regiment along with a contingent of Loyalist dragoons, to locate him.

On November 8, Wemyss received word from Loyalists in the area that Sumter's forces were camped close to Fishdam Ford. The information he gathered on the layout of Sumter's camp was so precise that certain soldiers were assigned the specific task of striking Sumter's own tent. Wemyss pressed forward swiftly and reached the vicinity of Sumter's position early on the morning of November 9. Worried that Sumter's patrols might spot his approach, he chose to launch his assault right away instead of holding off until daybreak.

Battle

Anticipating the sort of nighttime ambush the British favored, Sumter's men had taken precautions well before the fighting began. Their officers instructed them to rest with weapons in hand, keep the campfires lit, and follow precise formation orders should an assault come. Wemyss brought his troops against Sumter's outer guards, but musket balls struck him twice and he fell early in the engagement. Undeterred, his dragoons pressed onward into the encampment, where the glow of the fires turned them into easy marks for the men Sumter had positioned along the tree line just beyond the camp's edge. That first volley caught the leading British company off guard, cutting down several soldiers and wounding others. As they fell back, Wemyss's infantry pushed forward into the camp only to find themselves likewise exposed to gunfire pouring out from the woods. A bayonet charge followed, but the darkness and an unexpected fence separating the two forces threw the attack into disarray. Roughly twenty minutes after the fighting started, the British broke off and withdrew, abandoning their injured on the ground, Wemyss among them, and the field belonged to the patriots.

As for Sumter himself, he had almost no hand in the outcome, having fled his tent for the riverbank as soon as the action began.

Aftermath

After the British setback, Cornwallis pulled Tarleton back with orders to pursue Sumter instead, suspecting that Sumter meant to strike at Ninety Six. This pursuit led the two commanders to clash at Blackstock's Farm, where Sumter came close to settling the score for his narrow escape from Tarleton's grasp at Fishing Creek back in August.