The Battle Of Musgrove's Mill: The Prelude To Kings Mountain -- August 19, 1780

Colonel Issac Shelby's Overmountain Men crossing the Pacolet River on their way to
Musgrove's Mill. August 1780.

 The Battle of Musgrove's Mill

The Prelude To Kings Mountain

Saturday, August 19, 1780

By: C.W. Roden

(Part 11 of a 15 part series)

On the evening of Friday, August 18th, a force of about two hundred mounted Partisans under the joint command of Colonel Isaac Shelby, Lieutenant Colonel James Williams and Lieuntenat Colonel Elijah Clarke were preparing to raid a Loyalist camp at the site of Musgrove's Mill and farm, which controlled the local grain supply and guarded a strategic ford along the Enoree River in the Spartan District (present-day Spartanburg, Laurens, and Union Counties in South Carolina). 

Women's Monument at the Musgrove Mill State Historical Site
dedicated to Mary Musgrove, the daughter of the mill owner
and possibly a spy for the Patriot cause during the
Southern Campaign of the American Revolutionary War.
While her story may, or may not, have been fictional, this
monument stands in memory of Patriot women of South
Carolina who defended the State and American independence.

The owner of the mill, Mr. Edward Musgrove, was a local farmer, road manager, and land surveyor. At the time of the war he was considered a fairly aged man at about 64 years old. Like many in that part of the State, he wanted to remain neutral and wanted no part in the bloody backcountry civil war between those still loyal to the British Crown and those who supported the independence of South Carolina and the other former British colonies.

In the summer of 1780, however, the war came to his doorstep. His home and land along the river were used by the Loyalists as an encampment and his grist mill used to provide an important source of food for the hungry soldiers. 

There have been rumors that his daughter, Mary Musgrove, was a spy for the local Patriots and would listen in on the British and Loyalists camped on her father's lands, then run to the Patriot's camp to relay their plans. This was never actually proven to be true though and there is come speculation that the rumors actually come from a fictional character in a 19th century novel by John P. Kennedy called Horseshoe Robinson: A Tale of the Tory Ascendancy published in 1835. 


Shelby's Campaign & Battle Of Fort Thicketty
 

During the summer of 1780, a group of Overmountain Men (Scots-Irish, or Ulster Scotch settlers from the western Appalachian regions of North Carolina, Virginia, and what is today eastern Tennessee and Kentucky) led by Isaac Shelby joined up with Colonel Charles McDowell to raid Loyalist outposts in the Piedmont mountain region of northwestern South Carolina. 

Born in Maryland before moving further west, Shelby had his first experience fighting Native Americans as a teenager during Pontiac’s War of 1763. It was during this that, at just 13 years old, Shelby scalped an Indian scout during the conflict.

Shelby was surveying lands in Kentucky in 1780 when he heard of the Southern Continental Army's defeat at Charleston. He hurried to North Carolina, where he found a request for aid from General Charles McDowell to defend the borders of North Carolina from the British. Shelby assembled three hundred militiamen and joined McDowell.

Just prior to joining General Horatio Gates' "grand army" on their ill-fated attempt to defeat Cornwallis at Camden, General Thomas Sumter had learned that the British Major Patrick Ferguson's Loyalist troops were moving beyond the Broad River and he directed Lt. Colonel Elijah Clarke and his band of Georgia partisans to move towards that area. Clarke met up with McDowell on July 15th at Earle's Ford along the Chattooga River then moved their camp to Cherokee Ford along the Broad River.

On Tuesday, July 25th McDowell detached Shelby's Overmountain men and Clarke's Georgia Patriots, along with Rutherford County (North Carolina) Regiment of Militia under Colonel Andrew Hamilton and Colonel William Graham to attack Fort Anderson (also known locally as Thickety Fort) on the Pacolet River. Along the way they met up with two companies of the South Carolina 1st Spartan Regiment of Militia led by Captain John Collins and Captain Josiah Culbertson. A total force of about 600 men.

On the morning of Wednesday, July 26, 1780, Shelby and his 600 Patriot militia surrounded the British stronghold. The fort, a log structure built in the early 1760s during the Anglo-Cherokee War, contained a Loyalist garrison commanded by Capt. Patrick Moore. 

Shelby sent Captain William Cocke to immediately demand the fort's surrender. Captain Moore replied that he would defend the fort to the last extremity. Shelby brought his men and formed them within musket range and again demanded surrender.

Though the fort likely would have withstood the attack, Moore lost his nerve and capitulated, not wishing a repeat of the Loyalist defeat at Ramsour's Mill the previous month. Without firing a shot, Shelby's men captured 94 prisoners (93 Loyalists and a British Sergeant Major who was assigned to train the Loyalists), along with 200 badly needed muskets and ammunition. The Loyalists' muskets had been loaded with buck and ball shot and were at the ready at the nearby portholes, and likely would have been sufficient to stop twice the number of men that Shelby had.

Shelby and his men moved back to Cherokee Ford with their prisoners. The British would later censure Moore for the loss of the garrison.

The Engagement At Wofford's Iron Works & Cedar Springs 
 
After Shelby’s success at Thicketty Fort, McDowell detached about 600 men under Colonels Isaac Shelby and Elijah Clarke from his camp at Cherokee Ford to monitor British Major Patrick Ferguson’s backcountry movements with his loyalist militia and provincials. Ferguson knew of Shelby and Clarke’s partisan bands and hoped to catch them by surprise.

They rode first down the Broad River before retreating 30 to 40 miles to the northwest, stopping along Fairforest Creek about a mile from Cedar Springs. Early on August 8, they learned from the wife of a local patriot that a detachment of Ferguson’s men under Major James Dunlap -- British Legion troops and Loyalist militia --were only a half-mile away. The Patriots quickly decamped and moved about four miles toward Wofford’s Iron Works, taking a position near a peach orchard.

When Dunlap and his mounted men rode hard into the camp, the patriots, who had lined the road, opened fire, knocking many from their saddles and throwing the rest into confusion. Once Dunlap regained control, the fighting devolved into hand-to-hand combat, which Shelby described as “An action severe and bloody” that lasted about an hour. Dunlap retreated with thirty men killed and fifty taken prisoner, pursued by Shelby and Clarke for two miles. However, he met Ferguson coming up with reinforcements, and the retreat became an advance against the Patriot militia. 

Ferguson was meeting the Overmountain men in battle for the first time.

Shelby's men were gathering peaches from an orchard when they were surprised by some of Ferguson's Loyalists on a reconnaissance mission. Shelby's men quickly readied their arms and drove back the Loyalist patrol. Soon, however, the redcoats were reinforced and the patriots fell back. The pattern continued, with one side being reinforced and gaining an advantage, followed by the other. Shelby's men were winning the battle when Ferguson's main force of 1,000 men arrived.

Overwhelmed by numbers, Shelby and Clarke retreated, stopping at points to fight and hold off the loyalist advance. Ferguson pursued for four miles, until the rebels crossed the Pacolet River; he halted pursuit and watched as the patriots taunted them from atop a hill across the river where British musket fire could not reach them. Now safe, they taunted the British, and Ferguson's force withdrew from the area, thus ending the Battle of Cedar Springs. Shelby and Clarke continued toward Cherokee Ford with their fifty prisoners, having lost only four killed and twenty wounded.

Moving On Musgrove's Mill

General McDowell then ordered Shelby and Clarke to take Musgrove's Mill. They rode all night with 200 men including another North Carolina officer, Colonel James Williams, reaching their location about the evening of Friday, August 18, 1780. 

The Patriots revealed their presence when several of their scouts clashed with a Loyalist patrol across the river. Two Rebels were wounded in the brief clash. Because surprise was now out of the question, Clarke, Williams, and Shelby fell back, taking a defensive position half a mile away from Musgrove's Ford. 

In the meantime the Patriots encountered a local farmer who informed them that, contrary to their initial intelligence, the Tory garrison, commanded by Colonel Alexander Innes, had been recently reinforced by an additional 100 Loyalist militia under Colonel Daniel Clary and 200 Provincial regulars. The Provincials included a company of the Royal New Jersey Brigade under Captain Abraham de Peyster, and about 100 mounted infantry of the South Carolina Loyalist regiment, part of Innes's own command, as well as North Carolina Loyalists under Captain David Fanning. A total of approximately 500 Loyalists in the camp who were preparing for join Major Ferguson's force. 

Shelby's men and horses were too tired for a retreat and they had lost the element of surprise. With their position compromised by an enemy patrol and horses unable to go on without rest, the Patriots understood that they must stand and fight despite being outnumbered better than two to one. 

Outfits worn by the Patriot militia and British Provincials
in the Southern Campaign of the American Revolutionary War.
(Photo courtesy of the Musgroves Mill State Historical Site)

The Battle

Outnumbered, and having lost the element of surprise, Shelby, Williams, and Clarke held a council of war that night and came up with a plan that displayed the best tradition of guerrilla tactics. They would lure Innes' Loyalists into an ambush.

Early the next morning at the top of a ridge across the road leading down to Musgrove Mill, the partisans quickly formed a semicircular breastwork of brush and fallen timber about three hundred yards long. In half an hour the makeshift fortifications were complete. 

A band of about twenty Georgia men under the leadership of Captain Shadrach Inman then crossed the Enoree and engaged the enemy. Feigning confusion they retreated back across the river. Colonel Innes, believing that he could overrun and capture the Patriot force, took the bait and ordered the pursuit. 

Inman's force reached the hidden line of ambush, closely pursued by the Loyalists. The Patriots were ordered to hold fire until they could distinguish the buttons on the clothes of the approaching Loyalists. When Innes’s men were within 70 yards, they spotted the Patriot line and fired too early. However, the Patriots held their fire until the Loyalists got within killing range of their muskets and opened fired with devastating effect.

Nonetheless, the Tory Provincials were well-trained and disciplined and nearly overwhelmed the Patriot right flank with a bayonet charge. Lacking bayonets with which to defend themselves in hand-to-hand combat, the frontiersmen fell back. Attempting to relieve some of the pressure on the imperiled Patriot line, Colonel Clarke attacked the enemy’s right flank. At around the same time, one of Shelby’s men shot and wounded Innes, who fell from his horse. Shelby ordered his reserve of Overmountain Men to support him. They rallied and returned to the fray as the Loyalists began to waverand they rushed into the battle shrieking Indian war cries. Patriots ran from their positions yelling, shooting, and slashing at their enemies. The Patriots pressed home their attack, and the Loyalist wavered after a number of their officers went down, then they broke and retreated back across the river in a rout, some of them throwing their muskets as they ran. 

The whole battle took perhaps less than an hour. Within that period, 63 Tories were killed, about 90 wounded, and 70 were taken prisoner. The Patriots losses were negligible, with about 5 dead and 12 wounded. Among those killed was Captain Inman himself, who played the key role in implementing the Patriot strategy.

Marker at the Musgrove Mill National Battlefield Park
at the site where Captain Shadrach Inman fell in battle.

Aftermath

With their demoralized enemy driven back across the river, the Patriot leaders briefly considered following up on their success and attacking the British stronghold at Ninety Six. They were preparing to do so when a messenger arrived from Colonel Charles Caswell with the news of Gates' defeat at Camden three days before.

The savage action fought at Musgrove's Mill was a clear victory for the backcountry Partisans and the Overmountain Men, but it could not mitigate the double disasters at Camden and Sumter's rout at Fishing Creek. Shelby was also informed that Ferguson's Loyalists were headed their way from Ninety Six in pursuit. 

With this new intelligence, the Patriots decided to disperse their forces and withdraw north towards North Carolina. Shelby's forces covered sixty miles with Ferguson in hot pursuit before making good their escape. Williams conducted the prisoners taken at Musgrove's Mill to Hillsborough, North Carolina, where the remnants of Gates' defeated Continental Army were slowly reassembling. Shelby and his Overmountain Men fled back into North Carolina and returned to their settlements on the western side of the Appalachians. With the approach of the 1780 harvesting season, most of the Overmountain Men returned to their farms on the frontier, though it would not be the last time many of these men faced the Loyalists. McDowell remained in South Carolina to continue with harassing the Loyalists in the area with Sumter, while Clarke returned to British occupied Georgia to raise more partisans to continue the fight.

Despite yet another setback in the South Carolina backcountry, General Cornwallis, emboldened by his decisive victory of Gates' Continental army north of Camden and Tarleton's defeat of Sumter at Fishing Creek, would soon be preparing to lead his British Army north to try and implement the next stage of the British Southern Strategy -- the invasion and subjugation of North Carolina.

Nonetheless, the Battle of Musgrove’s Mill signaled that resistance to British rule had not been snuffed out. The defeat of the Loyalists there would also play a role in the upcoming campaign that would turn the tide of the Southern Campaign of the Revolutionary War decisively in the favor of the American Patriots less than two months later at a place called Kings Mountain on the border between the two Carolinas, which will be the discussed in detail in the next chapter of this series.

 

For more information about the Battles of Fort Thicketty and Musgrove's Mill and their significance to American history please consult the following sources that were used to help with this blog post: 
Partisans & Redcoats: The Southern Conflict That Turned The Tide of the American Revolution   

by Walter Edgar (2001) ISBN 0-308-97760-5
South Carolina's Revolutionary War Battlefields: A Tour Guideby R.L. Barbour (2002) ISBN 1-58980-008-7 (pbk.)