Hobkirk Hill

On April 25, 1781, forces clashed at Hobkirk's Hill, just outside Camden, South Carolina, in an engagement some accounts label the Second Battle of Camden. Nathanael Greene held the hill with a modest body of American troops, and it was there that Francis Rawdon's British soldiers struck. The fighting proved intense, and in its aftermath Greene withdrew, ceding the high ground to Rawdon's numerically inferior command.

Yet that success brought Rawdon little lasting advantage. He pulled his men back to Camden shortly afterward, and within a fortnight circumstances compelled him to give up the town entirely, pulling out toward Charleston, South Carolina. This encounter stands among four separate defeats suffered by Greene during the war. Today a marker noting the battlefield's location can be found at the intersection of Broad Street and Greene Street, roughly two miles north of Camden's present day downtown.

Background

Following the clash at Guilford Court House, Cornwallis found his army exhausted and badly needing resupply. He directed his troops toward Wilmington, North Carolina, where supplies had already been arranged to await him. Greene followed the retreating British for a brief period, then made up his mind to shift his own forces into South Carolina instead. His reasoning was that threatening British-held posts there might draw Cornwallis into chasing him, giving Greene a chance to fight on terrain of his own choosing. Told of this plan, Henry "Light Horse Harry" Lee wrote back on April 2 that he fully agreed there was nothing left to do but follow the model set by Scipio Africanus, who had once defeated Carthaginian armies in Spain piece by piece, striking smaller enemy units separately instead of confronting the whole force at once, a method that wears down an opponent while limiting danger to the attacker.

Since Cornwallis showed no interest in following the Continentals, Greene turned his attention to whittling away the string of British outposts across South Carolina, aiming to push the British back within Charleston's defenses. With that goal, he set some 1,450 men in motion toward Camden, a post lying at the heart of the British network of garrisons in the state. His army for this march included four Continental regiments along with Lee's Legion, Washington's Cavalry, and Campbell's Riflemen, all moving with as much speed and stealth as could be managed. Greene also worked to win the support of the scattered partisan groups operating in South Carolina. This advance formed one piece of a larger, carefully woven plan Greene had built, joining Continental soldiers with militia units throughout the region. As part of that design, Lee and his troops were sent to reinforce General Francis Marion, whose small militia force was being hunted by 400 British soldiers under John Watson, with the goal of keeping Watson from reaching Camden ahead of the coming fight. This effort succeeded, since Lee and Marion's combined strength pushed Watson into a long detour, and his men did not rejoin the main British force at Camden until after the battle had already taken place.

Lord Francis Rawdon commanded the garrison at Camden, which consisted of the 63rd (The West Suffolk) Regiment of Foot, the Loyalist Volunteers of Ireland, the King's American Regiment, the New York Volunteers, the South Carolina Royalists, and a modest cavalry detachment.

Camden itself sat atop a low rise in the landscape. The Wateree River bordered it on the south and southwest, while Pinetree Creek ran along its eastern edge. During their yearlong hold on the town, British forces had built a chain of redoubts stretching from the Wateree to the Pinetree, guarding all approaches from the north. When Greene's army reached Camden on April 20, 1781, it became clear that any hope of catching Rawdon unprepared was gone, since his men stood ready at every point. Unable either to storm the town directly or to encircle its full ring of defenses, Greene settled his troops about a mile and a half away atop a modest rise called Hobkirk's Hill, positioned to block the Great Waxhaw Road. Lacking sufficient numbers to lay siege to Camden, Greene instead hoped to lure Rawdon into attacking his position, and arranged the camp so his men could form battle lines swiftly at the first sign of trouble.

The next evening, word reached Greene that roughly four hundred British troops were en route to Camden to strengthen Rawdon's garrison. In response, Greene sent part of his South Carolina militia, under Colonel Carrington, eastward with some artillery pieces to watch the Charleston road. Carrington soon found the ground too swampy for the cannon and pulled them back to safer ground while awaiting further instructions. Then, on April 24, after learning that the reinforcements were not actually heading toward Camden after all, Greene called Carrington's detachment back to rejoin the main camp at Hobkirk's Hill.

Early the following morning, a Continental soldier, sometimes described as a drummer, deserted and slipped into Camden. Brought before Rawdon, he revealed the layout of the Continental camp and disclosed that Greene's army had no artillery with it. Worried that Marion and Lee might soon arrive to bolster Greene's ranks, and believing the Continental cannons were still far away, Rawdon judged the moment right to launch an attack.

Battle

On that April 25th morning in 1781, Rawdon believed, mistakenly, that his Continental opponents had no cannon to bring against him. Around nine o'clock he marched out from the safety of Camden's defenses with 900 men. What he did not know was that Carrington had already made his way back to Hobkirk's Hill that same morning, bringing with him both artillery and supplies, which were then handed out among the Continental soldiers.

By eleven, many of the Continentals had turned their attention to cooking meals and laundering clothes when their forward pickets spotted the approaching British column. Rawdon's men had reached the American left flank by taking a roundabout route around a swamp bordering the ridge held by the Continental Army.

Captain Robert Kirkwood commanded these forward pickets, and their resistance bought Greene precious minutes to issue commands and arrange his troops for combat. He positioned the Virginia Regiment under Lieutenant Colonel Campbell at the far right, with a second Virginia unit led by Lieutenant Colonel Samuel Hawes stationed just to their left. At the opposite end of the line, Greene stationed the 5th Maryland Regiment, commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Benjamin Ford, and placed the 1st Maryland Regiment under John Gunby beside them to the right. Cannon occupied the middle ground, backed by North Carolina militia. Colonel Charles Harrison directed three six-pound guns served by forty Virginia artillerymen.

Rawdon, having pulled his men clear of the woods and pushed past the pickets, organized his troops and began a cautious climb up the ridge toward the assembled Continentals. Noticing that the British formation presented only a narrow front, Greene ordered his men forward. Campbell's regiment on the right was told to pivot leftward and strike the British flank, while Ford would execute a mirroring maneuver from the left side. The two remaining regiments in the middle received orders to charge straight ahead with bayonets fixed, meeting the enemy directly, and Washington was sent with his horsemen to swing around the British left and fall upon their rear. This coordinated American assault, combined with the artillery fire the British had not anticipated, took a heavy toll on Rawdon's ranks, though the line did not break.

As the 1st Maryland pressed forward against the British left, Captain William Beatty Jr., stationed to the right of that regiment, fell dead, and his company halted in its tracks. Gunby then called for his men to break off their advance and retreat, hoping to reorganize the line. Around this same moment, Benjamin Ford of the 5th Maryland suffered a fatal wound, and his troops descended into confusion. Seeing the Continental flank begin to crumble, Rawdon led a charge alongside the Volunteers of Ireland, his own regiment. The Maryland soldiers managed a brief stand, loosing several volleys before breaking and running. Despite facing nearly double his own numbers and lacking any artillery support, Rawdon emerged in control of the battlefield.

Aftermath

Washington's horsemen missed the fighting entirely. Their route around the British flank brought them instead to Rawdon's hospital and supply depot, where they seized 200 prisoners. Burdened with these captives, they arrived too late to lend a hand in the fight and instead fell in with Greene's forces as the army pulled back from the field. Washington managed one timely act, though: he returned in time to keep the three cannons out of enemy hands. Forty-five Maryland infantrymen hauled the guns off the ground under fire, holding back several assaults from Coffin's loyalist horsemen at a heavy cost in casualties.

The withdrawal proved short-lived. Rawdon pulled the bulk of his troops back to Camden, leaving behind only a single company of dragoons to hold the battlefield. Later that same afternoon, Greene dispatched Washington and Kirkwood to Hobkirk's Hill, where they caught the dragoons by surprise and chased them off, allowing Greene to bring his army back and retake the position. Gunby drew sharp criticism from Greene, who blamed him for the collapse of the line. When a court martial convened right away to examine the matter, it concluded that his "spirit and activity were unexceptionable," yet judged that his command to retreat had "in all probability" cost the army a decisive win. The tribunal said nothing of the delay caused by Washington's cavalry.

Rawdon made his way back to Camden, where he was joined on May 7 by Watson's men. Even so, with Greene pressing from one side and South Carolina militia commander Sumter from the other, and with Marion and Lee disrupting his supply lines and communication with Charleston, Rawdon concluded that holding Camden was no longer feasible. He abandoned the town on May 9 and withdrew toward Moncks Corner.

Worth noting is that Andrew Jackson, who would later become the seventh president of the United States, watched this engagement unfold. At the time, he was a prisoner of war held by the British at the jail in the Camden District.