Georgia Natural Wonder #128 - Kettle Creek - Wilkes County (Part 1). 1,148

[Top Row Dawg]

Georgia Natural Wonder #128 - Kettle Creek - Wilkes County (Part 1)

Almost all these site photos are from my adventures this summer traveling the Classic South out I-20 toward Athens and Augusta. Wanted to do a tangent on Washington so I am stretching the Natural Wonder a bit here but the history more than makes up for it, 77 men died here or in later reprisals for what happened here. It is getting better every time I visit, they have board walks down by the swampy area and the Park size has grown. There are all these new markers and I worked up a pretty good sweat trying to explore it all.



Kettle Creek flows into the Little River near the Tyrone community in Wilkes County. It likely takes its name from a local fish trap, called a kittle.



Today a county park preserves the Kettle Creek battlefield. Re-channeling in the early 1920s turned the original cane-choked creek into a dry ditch.



During the American Revolution (1775-83) several incidents occurred along its banks. The South Carolina militia established a station there in 1776; an Indian attack on Robert McNabb's Fort in November 1778 resulted in McNabb's death; and in the last days of the Revolution, the rebel partisan and horse thief Josiah Dunn met his death in a skirmish nearby. Oh No! Herschel's hometown is a Tory hotbed.

Battle of Kettle Creek Site

The most important event to occur at Kettle Creek, however, took place on Sunday, February 14, 1779. The Battle of Kettle Creek was overall a minor encounter in the back country of Georgia during the American Revolutionary War. It was fought in Wilkes County about eight miles from present-day Washington, Georgia.



A militia force of Patriots decisively defeated and scattered a Loyalist militia force that was on its way to British-controlled Augusta.

Background

The British began their "southern strategy" by sending expeditions from New York City and Saint Augustine, East Florida to capture the port of Savannah, Georgia in late 1778. The New York expedition, under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Archibald Campbell, arrived first, landing at Tybee Island on December 3, 1778, and successfully captured Savannah on December 29, 1778.

British occupation of Augusta

When British Brigadier General Augustine Prevost arrived from Saint Augustine in mid-January, he assumed command of the garrison there and sent a force under Campbell to take control of Augusta and raise Loyalist forces.



Leaving Savannah on January 24, Campbell and more than 1,000 men arrived near Augusta a week later, with only minimal harassment from Georgia Patriot militia on the way. Augusta had been defended by South Carolina General Andrew Williamson leading about 1,000 militia from Georgia and South Carolina, but he withdrew most of his men when Campbell approached. His rear guard briefly skirmished with Campbell's men before withdrawing across the Savannah River into South Carolina.



Campbell started recruiting Loyalists. By February 10, 1779, about 1,100 men signed up, but relatively few actually formed militia companies, forming only 20 companies of the British Army. Campbell then began requiring oaths of loyalty, on pain of forfeiture of property; many took this oath insincerely, quickly letting Williamson know their true feelings. Early in his march, Campbell dispatched  Major John Hamilton to recruit Loyalists in Wilkes County and Lt. Colonel John Boyd on an expedition to raise Loyalists in the back country of North and South Carolina.



The leader of this expedition, James Boyd, an Irishman from Raeburn Creek, South Carolina, had traveled to Georgia with a British invasion force from New York. He carried an open commission (as a colonel) to recruit southerners for the British military from settlements behind the rebel lines. Boyd left Savannah sometime after January 20, 1779, and reached Wrightsborough, deep within the Georgia back country, by the 24th, looking for guides to the South Carolina frontier. Within a week he established a camp near present-day Spartanburg, South Carolina. As this column moved on, the men plundered and pillaged along the way, predictably drawing angered Patriots to take up arms.With 350 recruits he set out for Augusta on February 5. During their march south along the Indian frontier, Boyd and his followers were joined by 250 North Carolinian's under the command of John Moore.



The Loyalists were ineffectively pursued by small groups of rebel militiamen. Boyd's command captured Fort Independence and the outpost at Broad Mouth Creek in South Carolina, but they declined to attack the garrison of McGowan's Blockhouse on the Cherokee Ford of the Savannah River. The Loyalists crossed the river further north at Vann's Creek on February 11. The garrison of Cherokee Ford, with reinforcements, attacked Boyd's men at the crossing but were repulsed.

American response

The Continental Army commander in the South, Major General Benjamin Lincoln, based in Charleston, South Carolina, had been unable to respond adequately to the capture of Savannah. With only limited resources (he was short of both men and funds), he was able to raise about 1,400 South Carolina militia, but did not have authorization to order them outside the state. On January 30, he was further reinforced at Charleston by the arrival of 1,100 North Carolina militia under General John Ashe. Then he immediately dispatched them to join  General Andrew Williamson on the South Carolina side of the Savannah River near Augusta.



The Georgia banks of the Savannah in the Augusta area were controlled by a Loyalist force led by Colonel Daniel McGirth:-E, while the South Carolina banks were controlled by a Georgia Patriot militia led by Colonel John Dooly. When about 250 South Carolina militia under Colonel Andrew Pickens arrived, Pickens and Dooly joined forces to conduct offensive operations into Georgia, with Pickens taking overall command. They were at some point joined by a few companies of North Carolina light horse militia.


Pickens and Clark, can't find an image of Dooly.

On February 10, Pickens and Dooly crossed the Savannah River to attack a British Army camp southeast of Augusta. Finding the camp unoccupied, they learned that the company was out on an extended patrol. Suspecting they would head for a stockaded frontier post called Carr's Fort on nearby Beaverdam Creek, Pickens sent men directly there while the main body chased after the British. The British made it into the fort, but were forced to abandon their horses and baggage outside its walls. Pickens then besieged the fort until he learned that Boyd was passing through the Ninety Six district of South Carolina with seven to eight hundred Loyalists, headed for Georgia. He reluctantly raised the siege and moved to intercept Boyd.



Pickens established a strong presence near the mouth of the Broad River, where he expected Boyd might try to cross. However, Boyd, his force grown by then to 800 men, chose to go to the north. He first tried Cherokee Ford, the southernmost fording of the Savannah River, where he was met with some resistance known as the Engagement at McGowen's Blockhouse. The encounter consisted of a detachment of eight Patriots commanded by Capt. Robert Anderson with two small swivel guns in an entrenched position, who thwarted Boyd's approach to Cherokee Ford. Boyd moved north upstream about 5 miles and crossed the Savannah River there, skirmishing with a small Patriot force that had shadowed his movements on the Georgia side. Boyd reported losing 100 men, killed, wounded, or deserted, in the encounter. This was Vann's Creek as per tangent above.



By the time Pickens learned that Boyd had crossed the river, he had himself crossed into South Carolina in an attempt to intercept Boyd. He immediately recrossed into Georgia upon learning of Boyd's whereabouts. On February 14, Pickens caught up with Boyd when he paused to rest his troops near Kettle Creek, only a few miles from Colonel McGirth's Loyalist camp.



As Boyd and his men camped at Kettle Creek on February 14, he dispatched his prisoners to Augusta. He could not know that the British troops sent there to rendezvous with him had that morning begun a withdrawal toward Savannah.



Battle

On that Sunday morning, February 14, 1779, About 600 American supporters of the British cause, popularly known as Loyalists or Tories, encamped atop a hill in a bend of the creek. They were following an established trail to the nearby Quaker settlement of Wrightsborough en route to Augusta. Aside from the defensive qualities of the position, the hill offered the new arrivals food in the form of cattle penned there.



At the same time 340 South Carolina and Georgia militiamen, under Colonel Andrew Pickens of South Carolina and Colonel John Dooly and Lieutenant Colonel Elijah Clarke of Georgia, were preparing to attack Boyd's camp at Kettle Creek. Boyd was apparently unaware that he was being followed so closely, and his camp, even though guards were posted, was not particularly alert.



Pickens led the center of his 200 men in a direct assault on the rocky hill on Kettle Creek, while Dooly and Clarke attacked the camp across the creek on the left and right respectively. Pickens's advance guard disobeyed orders and fired on the Loyalist sentries, announcing the attack. Boyd formed a defensive line near the camp's rear and advanced with a force of 100 men to oppose Pickens at a crude breastwork made of fencing and fallen trees. Pickens, whose advance gave him the advantage of high ground, was able to flank this position, even though his own wings were slowed by the swampy conditions near the creek. Boyd led his men in ambushing Pickens's troops while Dooly's and Clarke's men were entangled in the swamp.



By all accounts, outnumbered and caught by surprise, the Patriots were losing the battle.



After the successful ambush, Boyd ordered his men to retreat to the camp by Kettle Creek. In one of those events frequently labeled as fate, Boyd fell to the ground, dying from a musket ball.



Boyd fell mortally wounded, shot by a party of Georgia militiamen who had become lost and found themselves in the Loyalist camp. With their leader down, the Loyalists panicked and were driven across the creek. An orderly withdrawal turned into a nightmare for the 600 men under his command.



The Patriot flanks then began to emerge from the swamps. The Loyalists, led by Boyd's second in command, Major William Spurgen, engaged the Patriots in battle for 90 minutes. Some of the Loyalists crossed the creek, abandoning horses and equipment.



Clarke alertly noticed some high ground across the creek that they seemed to be heading for and led some of his men there, having his horse shot from under him in the process. The Loyalist line was eventually broken, and its men were killed, captured, or dispersed.



Surrounded on 3 fronts, with the creek to their back, about 450 Tories followed Boyd's second in command, Maj. Spurgen, across Kettle Creek. While they were crossing the creek, Clarke emerged on the other side and charged with 50 men. The Loyalists fled, soundly defeated.



From beginning to end, the Battle of Kettle Creek lasted about four hours. 33 Patriot prisoners being held by Boyd were freed when their captors were scattered.



Boyd and between 40 and 70 Loyalists were killed.  Pickens took 75 prisoners, including most of the wounded. Pickens and Dooly lost seven men, and fifteen were wounded. Many of Boyd's men (including some that escaped the battlefield and others that Pickens paroled) returned home. A significant number were either captured or surrendered themselves to Patriot authorities in the days following the battle, and the fate of some of his men is unknown.



Two hundred and seventy of Boyd's command escaped the Battle of Kettle Creek and safely reached the British army. They were formed into the North Carolina Royal Volunteers under John Moore and the South Carolina Royal Volunteers (later the second battalion of the South Carolina Royalists Regiment). Both units virtually disappeared by the summer of 1779 because of desertions and transfers.

Treatment of prisoners

When Pickens approached the mortally wounded Boyd after the battle, the Loyalist leader, who had lived in South Carolina before the war and was known to Pickens, asked the Patriot leader to deliver a brooch to his wife and inform her of his fate. This Pickens eventually did.



Of the Loyalist prisoners, only about 20 survived their wounds. Pickens first took them to Augusta, and then Ninety Six, where they were held along with a large number of other Loyalists. Seeking to make an example of them, South Carolina authorities put a number of these Loyalists on trial for treason. About 50 of them were convicted, and five men, including some of the men captured at Kettle Creek, were hanged. British military leaders were outraged over this treatment of what they considered prisoners of war, even before the trial was held. General Prevost threatened retaliation against Patriot prisoners he was holding, but did not act out of fear that other American-held British prisoners might be mistreated. His invasion of coastal South Carolina in April 1779, a counter-thrust against movements by General Lincoln to recover Georgia, prompted South Carolina officials to vacate most of the convictions.



The Battle of Kettle Creek provided the rebel cause with a victory, however small, in the midst of a string of much larger defeats. The British had expected thousands of loyal southerners to rally to their flag and restore the whole South to the king. However, Boyd proved only able to assemble 600 men, some of whom were criminals in flight. Other men who traveled with him were allegedly coerced into joining under threats to their lives and property.



After Kettle Creek, British leaders should have realized that practical Loyalist military support in the South, if it ever existed, had disappeared. Campaigns to find a great Loyalist army in the South continued, however, through the defeats at King's Mountain, Hammond's Store, Ramsour's Mill, and even Yorktown. On the local level, many of the southerners who shared Boyd's dream to return the South to the king's cause learned the futility of their hopes on impromptu gallows at the hands of their rebel neighbors.The victory demonstrated the inability of British forces to hold the interior of the state, or to protect even sizable numbers of Loyalist recruits outside their immediate area. Pickens, who became famous for his many battles in the Revolutionary War, would later write that Kettle Creek was the "severest chastisement" for the Loyalists in South Carolina and Georgia. Dooly was later brutally murdered by British Regulars.

British reaction

In a council held in Augusta on February 12, Campbell decided to abandon Augusta and began the withdrawal to Savannah on February 14 at 2AM, the morning of the battle. Contrary to opinions expressed by some historians, Campbell did not leave because of the battle's outcome. He did not learn of the battle until after he had already left Augusta; his departure was prompted by the arrival of 1,200 of patriot General John Ashe's forces in General Andrew Williamson's camp across the Savannah River, a shortage of provisions, and uncertainty over whether Boyd would be successful in his mission.



The British, who had already decided to abandon Augusta, recovered some prestige a few weeks later, surprising a Patriot force in the Battle of Brier Creek during Campbell's retreat in present-day Screven County. Georgia's back country would not come fully under British control until after the 1780 Siege of Charleston broke Patriot forces in the South. Augusta was later recaptured by the British in June 1780. It was retaken by siege by Patriot forces on June 5, 1781.

Legacy

The British loss at Kettle Creek began when Patriot forces launched a surprise attack on British Col. John Boyd’s troops as they slaughtered a cow in their encampment. The Patriots wounded Boyd himself, which led to disarray among his forces. He basically bled to death on the battlefield, making headlines in newspapers around the world, from Philadelphia to London.



Several shallow graves of the soldiers who died in the battle have been found with help from ground-penetrating radar and specially trained dogs.
Dozens of white crosses, now mark those graves and are visible from a trail through the park. After the battle, many of the soldiers were buried where they were killed, so the white crosses provide markers of where the soldiers had lined up to face the Patriots.


As you walk that trail, you can see how the battle occurred by where the graves are located.



Though Boyd is believed to have been buried in the area, his grave site remains a mystery. The graves discovered so far are shallow, no more than 2 feet deep. Since Boyd was the commander, he was probably buried deeper than the regular soldiers. And it’s possible that after Boyd was wounded, his men carried him a short distance into the part of the battlefield where the British had set up their camp. The Kettle Creek Battlefield has been listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Most of the battlefield is owned by Wilkes County, although the full extent of locations where the action took place has not been identified.It is located off Tyrone Road in Wilkes County. Through mid-2018, the American Battlefield Trust and its partners have acquired and preserved 180 acres at the battlefield.



LandDawg Tangent - Austin Dabney

Austin Dabney (c. 1765–1830) was an enslaved African American who fought against the British in the American Revolutionary War. He was a mulatto born in Wake County, North Carolina, sometime in the 1760s. He moved with his master, Richard Aycock, to Wilkes County, Georgia, in the late 1770s. When the Georgia Militia was called up for the war, Aycock sent Dabney in his place. To address objections that Dabney was a slave, Aycock claimed he had been born free. Dabney became a soldier serving as an artilleryman under Lieutenant Colonel Elijah Clarke's unit.



Shot in the thigh during the Battle of Kettle Creek on February 14, 1779, he recovered, but was crippled for life. Giles Harris, a white soldier who lived in the area, cared for the injured man in his home. A close bond formed between Dabney and the Harris family.Dabney remembered Harris's kindness and worked for the Harris family for the rest of his life. On August 14, 1786, after the death of Richard Aycock, an act of the legislature of the state of Georgia officially emancipated Dabney and authorized the state to pay Aycock's heirs 70 pounds for Dabney's freedom. Dabney was granted 50 acres in Washington County, becoming the only African American to be granted land by Georgia for his Revolutionary War service.



He also received a state pension (an obligation later taken on by the federal government), starting at $60 a year in 1789 and rising to $96 in 1816. Dabney prospered. He worked for and supported the Harris family, sending Giles' son William Harris to Franklin College. Afterward, Dabney continued to support William financially while he successfully studied for the bar with attorney Stephen Upson. In 1835, William Harris named his son Austin Dabney Harris in his benefactor's honor.



When Dabney was barred from the Georgia Land Lotteries, Upson arranged for the state legislature to grant him 112 acres in Walton County in 1821, resulting in resentment among some white residents. When Dabney rode to Savannah to collect his annual pension along with his white neighbor, Colonel Wiley Pope, as they approached Savannah, Pope suggested that Dabney ride slightly behind, in accordance with the mores of the time. However, when the two passed the house of Governor James Jackson, Jackson ran out to Dabney and invited him to be his house guest during their stay - while Colonel Pope had to stay in the public tavern. Pope was amused by this and often told the story.



Austin Dabney died in 1830 in Zebulon, Georgia. In 2010, with the cooperation of the Harris family, the Sons of the American Revolution (SAR) held a dedication ceremony to unveil a new tombstone for Dabney and to mark the opening of the site to the public. According to an SAR member who participated in the ceremony, this was believed to be the first time that the grave of a "black patriot" in Georgia had received this honor.



Sharing the Washington town square with the Confederate monument is this unique memorial to the African-American veterans of the Revolutionary War, dedicated in 2012. It’s estimated that over 5,000 black patriots served in the Continental army and though efforts have been made to place a similar remembrance in Washington, D.C., this is thought to be the only such work of this scale and prominent placement in the country. The bust is meant to represent the best known black patriot of Georgia, Austin Dabney. As there is no contemporary image of Dabney, sculptor Kinzey Branham used an image of James Armistead Lafayette, a better-known African-American patriot who also gained his freedom after the war.

Kettle Creek Today

Monuments were erected on the hill by the federal government in 1930 and the state of Georgia in 1979. The Kettle Creek Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution maintains a cemetery in the park for the remains of Revolutionary War veterans. The Georgia Compatriots of the Sons of the American Revolution supports the preservation of the site.



Kettle Creek Battlefield Park is located on War Hill Road in Wilkes County, Georgia. To reach the park from Washington, take GA 44 west for 8.2 miles and turn right on Stone Ridge Road. In 1.2 miles turn left on Court Ground Road. Follow Court Ground for 1.3 miles and turn left on War Hill Road. The battlefield is just over 1 mile straight ahead. There is no charge to visit the park, which has no facilities at this time. Visitors can see the terrain on which the battle was fought and view a number of monuments that have been placed atop War Hill over the years. The park is open daily during daylight hours.



Wow spent a long time on that, so we will tangent on Wonderful Washington and Wilkes County later this week. Today's GNW Gal is a sexy Colonial Patriot Gal.