Journal of the Society for Army Historical Research 99/397

160

ARMY HISTORICAL RESEARCH

materiel raising new Militia regiments in the summer and fall of 1780. Of the over 240 letters in Volume II of the Cornwallis Papers (16 August to the end of October 1780), more than half detail the innumerable problems with recruiting, maintaining, and finding proper officers to lead this Militia. In one letter from August 1780, Cornwallis noted an entire battalion of his Militia defected to American Militia General Thomas Sumter and that another group mutinied, making prisoners of the officers and then deserting into North Carolina. 54 Later that month, Loyalist Lieutenant-Colonel Innes was wounded in a battle with American Militia. Adding insult to injury, his Militia also fled during the engagement. In the very same letter, Cornwallis noted that he was ‘sorry to say that I fear Major Harrison will totally fail in his attempt to raise a corps’. 55 Harrison did raise men but his ‘corps’ never consisted of more than 88 men. 56 September witnessed the continued failure of Loyalists at the moment they were needed most to cover and hold South Carolina when the Regulars and Provincials advanced. So unreliable were they that Colonel Floyd was directed to disarm the Militiamen in his command, in whom he had no confidence. 57 Concurrently, Colonel Mills had completely given up trying to raise Loyalist Militia, Major Wemyss commented these men were worse than Militia, as they only wanted to plunder and steal. According to Wemyss, the country (northeast of the British post at Camden) could not be held, even with Regulars, and two other Loyalist regiments projected for raising in the area were unlikely to be formed. 58 Given all of these major problems, the decision whether to move into North Carolina should not have been a foregone conclusion. There is only a slight indication of hesitation in Cornwallis’s correspondence with his superiors and subordinate officers, on the grounds of illness amongst his troops. Apparently his only other doubt was that he was ‘fully convinced that one enemy in the rear is worse than five on our front’. 59 One must wonder if any other concerns presented themselves to him as he planned his invasion. First and foremost should have been the violation of Clinton’s order not to jeopardise South Carolina and Georgia by moving into North Carolina. 60 He was advancing out of South Carolina with the best of his army at the exact moment when there were insurrections all over the province. If the presence of British arms was supposed to re-instil order, their removal was likely to have the opposite effect. A second question should have been, where would his experiment with the ‘clear and hold’ strategy culminate, especially if Loyalists did not present themselves in sufficient numbers given the 54 Cornwallis to Clinton, 6 Aug. 1780, The Campaign in Virginia, I, p. 236. 55 Cornwallis to Clinton, 23 Aug. 1780, Cornwallis Papers, II, pp. 16-17. 56 M.J. Clark, Loyalists in the Southern Campaign of the Revolutionary War (Baltimore, Genealogical Publishing Co., 1981), Vol. I, p. 100. 57 Cornwallis to Campbell, 20 Sept. 1780, Cornwallis Papers, II, p. 285. 58 Cornwallis to Turnbull, 27 Sept. 1780, Cornwallis Papers, II, p. 240. Wemyss to Cornwallis, 30 Sept. 1780, Cornwallis Papers, II, p. 217. 59 Cornwallis to Balfour, 6 Sept. 1780, Cornwallis Papers, II, p. 72. 60 Clinton to Cornwallis, 1 June 1780, The Campaign in Virginia, I, p. 215.