Yet, so closely had the British been pursued to the shelter of the house, and so narrow was their escape, that some of the Americans had nearly obtained entrance with them. It was only by shutting the door against some of their own officers, that they made it secure against the enemy;and in retiring from the house, now a citadel, the Americans only found safety by interposing the bodies of the officers, thus made captive at the entrance, between themselves and the fire from the windows.
One ludicrous incident is told of Major Barry, who was taken in this manner, and made use of as a shield by Lieut. Manning, as he retreated from before the house, which otherwise he could not have left in safety.
Without struggling or making the slightest effort for his extrication, Barry only enumerated his own titles with a profound solemnity.
"Sir, I am Henry Barry, Deputy Adjutant General of the British army, Secretary to the Commandant of Charleston, Captain in the 52d regiment," &c.
"Enough, enough, sir," answered Manning. "You are just the man I was looking for. Fear nothing: you shall SCREEN ME from danger, and I shall take special care of you." Manning escaped in safety with his prisoner. But there were many brave officers far less fortunate.
Many were destined to perish in the miserable after struggle, who had gone gloriously through the greater dangers of the fight.
The British tents had done what the British arms had failed to do.
Victory was lost to the Americans. Scattered throughout the encampment, the soldiers became utterly unmanageable. The enemy, meanwhile, had partially recovered from their panic. The party of Sheridan were in possession of the house. Another party held possession of the palisaded garden. Coffin was active with his remnant of cavalry, and Marjoribanks still held a formidable position in the thicket on Eutaw Creek. From the upper windows of the house, the musketry of Sheridan traversed the encampment, which the Americans now trembled to leave, lest they should suffer from their fire.
Every head that emerged from a tent was a mark for their bullets.
Aware, by this time, of the extent of his misfortune, Greene ordered a retreat, which Hampton's cavalry was commanded to cover.
In the execution of this duty Hampton encountered the British cavalry.
A sharp action ensued; the latter fled, and in the ardor of pursuit, the American horse approached so near to the position of Marjoribanks as to receive a murderous fire, which prostrated one-third of their number and scattered the rest. Before they could again be brought together, Marjoribanks, seizing upon the chance afforded by a temporary clearing of the field, emerged from the wood, at a moment which enabled him to put a successful finish to the labors of the day. Two six-pounders, which had been abandoned by the British, had been turned upon the house by the Americans; but in their eagerness they had brought the pieces within the range of fire from the windows of the house. The artillerists had been shot down; and, in the absence of the American cavalry, Marjoribanks was enabled to recover them. Wheeling them under the walls of the house, he took a contiguous position, his own being almost the only portion of the British army still in a condition to renew the action. The Americans yielded the ground about the house, but were promptly rallied in the skirts of the wood. The British were too much crippled to pursue; and the respite was gladly seized upon by the Americans to plunge headlong into the neighboring ponds, to cool the heat and satisfy the intense thirst occasioned by such efforts under the burning sun of a Carolina September.
Both sides claimed the victory, and with equal reason.
In the first part of the day it was clearly with the Americans.
They had driven the enemy from the field, in panic and with great loss.
They were in possession of five hundred prisoners, nearly all of whom they retained. They had taken two out of the five pieces of artillery which the British had brought into the action; and, something more to boast, considering the proverbial renown of the British with this weapon, it was at the point of the bayonet that they had swept the enemy from the ground. The British took shelter in a fortress from which the Americans were repulsed. It is of no consequence to assert that the latter might have taken it. They might -- it was in their power to have done so, -- but they did not; and the promptitude with which the British availed themselves of this security, entitles them to the merit which they claim. We are constrained to think that the business of the field was strangely blundered by the Americans at the sequel. This may have arisen from the carnage made at this period among their officers, particularly in their persevering, but futile endeavors, to extricate the soldiers from their tents. Under cover of a contiguous barn, the artillery presented the means of forcing the building and reducing the garrison to submission.
The attempts made at this object, by this arm of the Americans, were rash, badly counselled, and exposed to danger without adequate protection.
The British were saved by this error, by the luxuries contained within their tents, by the spirited behavior of Coffin, and the cool and steady valor of Marjoribanks.
