Emerging Revolutionary War welcomes guest historian Eric Wiser to the blog.

This is a brief story of my first and memorable visit to the Camden Battlefield in South Carolina this September past.  I am a husband and father living in the suburbs of Chicago. I make my living as an accountant. As rewarding as my career has been, it’s my strong interest in early American history that stirs my imagination. My pilgrimage to Camden was part of a visit to my friend Phil Kondos who moved to eastern Georgia with his family over a decade ago.  Phil is a gifted musician and wonderful father and happens to share a mutual love of history. This narrative of our visit will hopefully inspire others to place Camden Battlefield on their bucket list.  

My interest in the Battle of Camden mostly derives from having a Patriot ancestor who fought there. Pvt. Michael Wiser, a 23-year-old grist miller from Frederick County, Maryland, was with the First Maryland Brigade and captured by the British at Camden.[i]  

This journey to the hallowed grounds of Camden Battlefield followed the capstone of a great awakening of the battle’s significance and importance. The town of Camden was the center of South Carolina from April 20-22, 2023. Fourteen soldiers (12 Patriot, 1 British, 1 Native American Loyalist) were carefully and reverently recovered from shallow graves on the battlefield and given full military honors.  A dignitary from Great Britain and the Governor of South Carolina were featured speakers at the battlefield.[ii]   

I was unable to make my first visit to the Camden to be part of this magnificent event, so I later watched the fully recorded ceremony and all the speakers.  The final speaker captured the essence of the moment and summarized the significance of The Battle of Camden.  After hearing the words of South Carolina Battleground Trust historian Rick Wise, I knew had to make my first pilgrimage to Camden: 

And today we gather to acknowledge their service and sacrifice that fate denied them over two-hundred and forty-two years ago. Fate brought all these soldiers here far from home.  And fate determined that they remained here in this hallowed ground of this pine forest in shallow unmarked graves to face eternity.  Before us, the soldiers in these coffins are just some of the casualties from the Battle of Camden . . . These thirteen soldiers are not statistics, they lie before not as an excerpt of history.  But they are tangible and real. They represent the other four hundred plus soldiers spread across this hallowed ground hidden and unknown to us under a few inches of Earth in unmarked graves.[iii]    

Rick’s words haunted me because the randomness of fate, of which Rick spoke, spared my distant-grandfather death and so part of me was partially formed by this battle. Additionally, the idea that unrecovered human remains are still just inches below the soil, makes the Camden Battlefield a truly hallowed place.

I found Rick Wise online and thanked him for his speech at the Camden Burials. Rick was appreciative and offered to give me and my friend Phil a tour of the Camden Battlefield.  Rick offers private tours of Camden and other Revolutionary War sites throughout South Carolina. We agreed to meet at the Revolutionary War Vistors Center at midday on September 25^th.   

At the visitor’s center we saw a large black truck swing into the parking lot.  A tall broad-shouldered gentleman wearing a black collared shirt with the logo of the South Carolina Battleground Trust and exuding the confidence and continence of a soldier exited the truck and approached us.  I recognized Rick Wise from the Camden Burials speech video and after hearty handshakes, we went on our way.

Our tour started right away.  As the truck left the lot, Rick immediately pointed to a foreboding British redoubt next to the magnificent Kershaw House. Rising out of the Earth with its long abatis – the reconstructed redoubt is imposing (The original redoubt is obscured by adjacent trees). At the time of our visit, the redoubt was still under construction as an interpretive symbol of Camden as an outpost of the British empire.

Leaving the parking lot, we embarked on our drive through downtown Camden.  Rick gave us much needed context for the battle by describing what Camden was like at the time. I instantly recognized the DeKalb monument at the front of the Bethesda Presbyterian Churchyard. 

As we headed in the direction of the British march toward Gates, it became very real when Rick pointed to natural barriers between the battlefield and the town of Camden. Rick called out and explained the significance of Sanders and Gum Swamp Creek. The account of the army’s engineer and European volunteer, Colonel John Christian Senf, confirms that occupying the north bank of Sander’s Creek and its only passible point on the Great Wagon Road was the objective for the army when Gates order his men to break camp on the night of the 15th.[iv]  

The corps of the American army that fought at Camden were composed of 1,500 Delaware and Maryland Continentals under Baron DeKalb. DeKalb and his soldiers were sent south from the main army to assist in the defense of Charleston. On August 13, the Grand Army, with Horatio Gates in command, and reinforced with militia, tramped through North Carolina and South Carolina backcountry, reaching the Great Wagon Road. The army pivoted south and arrived at Rugley’s Mills 13 miles from Camden the next day suffering from fatigue and severe gastrointestinal issues.[v]   

The British learned that Gates was approaching.  Lord Cornwallis believed that attacking Gates was preferable to being attacked at Camden.[vi] 

Often overlooked is the clash in the early morning darkness of August 16, 1780, that set the stage for the battle at dawn. The ensuing fight was a ferocious linear set-piece 18^th century battle occurred under the pines along the Great Wagon Road. Organized violence in all its horrific grandeur erupted: cannon fire, musketry, bayonet charges, and slashing dragoon charges. 

Simplistically speaking, the two lines faced other and half the American line composing the militia on the left and east of the road fled the field as combat drew close.  The remaining Patriots, Delaware and Maryland Continentals, and a portion and Hal Dixon’s North Carolinians made a determined and fierce stand but were overwhelmed.   When it was over, the British reported approximately three hundred casualties of their own and almost 2,000 for the Patriots.[vii]  

Today’s battlefield resides on a narrow two-lane highway called Flat Rock Road. The battlefield is not a behemoth crawling with monuments, but is compact, quiet, and serene.  It’s not wide-open but covered with beautiful pines trees. The battlefield is part of the well curated South Carolina Liberty Trail system.  The Liberty Trail, maintained by the South Carolina Battleground Trust, includes important Revolutionary War interpretive sites in addition to Camden.

The crunch of gravel underneath the tires of Rick’s truck announced our arrival at the battlefield’s small parking lot. The DeKalb Monument, which I had seen so many times online was right there off the parking lot. The tall, majestic pine trees of which I’ve read so much about reached toward the sky.  We exited the truck and Phil immediately walked toward the DeKalb monument.

Rick was gathering items from the back of his truck when I asked, “so where would the First Maryland Brigade have been posted?”  Rick replied, “right here!”  And so there I was – at the location of my distant grandfather’s brigade on the morning of battle, August 16, 1780. It was so quiet and peaceful – the ground strewn with large pinecones. The ground was sandy and covered with long leaf pine straw that muffled our footsteps.

A surprise was in store from our guide: “You’re going to wear what your granddaddy did,” Rick spoke with humor as he pulled from his truck a bayonet scabbard and black leather cartridge box which he hung over my shoulders.  Then came replica muskets to hold and examine – a French Charleville and British Brown Bess. After Rick explained the musket’s parts, I was given an invitation to fire the Brown Bess.  I opened the cartridge box and beheld its contents, paper wadding with gunpowder – no rounds of course!    

I half-cocked the hammer, chewed open a cartridge, primed the firing pan and muzzle with powder. Here I was standing on the Old Wagon Road on the Camden Battlefield ready to fire. My finger pressed the trigger, and smoke lashed out of the weapon from the firing pan and muzzle.  I thought to myself, “imagine hundreds of these going off at once.”  I passed the Brown Bess to Phil and recording with my phone, I was able slow down the playback to see flame sprouting from the muzzle. After, we fixed bayonets and did a mock charge: “Huzzah!”

After the firing demonstration, it was time to walk the battlefield and take it all in.  We closely looked at the DeKalb Monument which honors the European general’s sacrifice and mortal wounding.

The First Maryland Brigade was posted near the monument as the reserve of the main line. General Smallwood’s brigade moved left to breach the gap on the left of Gates’ line as result of the flight of the militia, but didn’t move very far before being attacked by the British 23^rd and 33^rd regiment to their front, and four companies of light infantry on their left flank.[viii] A Continental Officer stated that “the first brigade, which, notwithstanding, manfully maintained their ground . . . disputed the ground with great obstinacy, till borne down by numbers, they were obliged to retreat. . .”[ix] The British soldier from the 71^st Fraser’s Highlanders was found in this area with a blunt force trauma skull fracture.[x]

Rick led the way to the area of the Gates’ main line that comprised the vacated left. A marker explained the panic of the militia and Rick quoted the words of militiaman William Gipson who admitted to being the first to panic, “I confess I was amongst the first that fled.  The cause of that I cannot tell, except that everyone I saw was about to do the same. It was instantaneous.”[xi]

The Patriot militia have been maligned for their departure on the left of the line.  Rick, however, made sure we learned of the North Carolinians under militia Col. Hal Dixon who stayed and tenaciously fought alongside the Second Maryland Brigade and Delaware Regiment troops west of the Great Wagon road. Dixon and his commanding officer Gen. Isaac Gregory were wounded and survived Camden.[xii]

After touring the main line of resistance we walked toward the area where the British slept on their arms after the early morning hours engagement. The professionalism of the British army at Camden was exceptional.  

We walked across the two lanes of Flat Rock Road to the area of DeKalb’s death and the heavy fighting there. The Marylanders, men from Delaware and North Carolina valiantly fought Lord Rawdon’s Loyalists despite being flanked. The Patriots here fought “with the greatest firmness and bravery” but finally retreated due to being “borne down by superior numbers. . .”[xiii] 

The location of the fighting in the reserve and right of Gates’ line was confirmed through a long archaeological metal survey conducted by James Legg and Steven E. Smith of the University of South Carolina.  Legg and Smith plotted hundreds of metal detector finds and pinned them with exact coordinates on a map. 

The value of battlefield archeology was self-evident when Legg and Smith presented their artifact map during a panel discussion before the Camden Burials.  One large blotch of plotted points east of Flat Rock Road points to the location of the First Maryland Brigade’s fight.  Another large blotch of plotted points southwest of Flat Rock Road represents the fighting of the Second Maryland Brigade, Delaware Regiment and Hal Dixon’s soldiers. With the artifact map shown on an overhead projector, Legg explained to the audience that the fight “was two separate brigade size battles in close proximity,” and that “If someone says, where was the Battle of Camden fought? You are looking at the Battle of Camden. That’s it for real, that’s empirical evidence for where the thing was.”[xiv]   

We came across our first group of small flags pointing through the soil. This was one of a handful of spots marking the remains recovered and honored in the Camden Burials. The original plan was to bury the recovered soldiers at the locations where they were discovered.  Volunteers were ready with shovels the day before the burial ceremony to prepare the final resting places. However, Department of Defense red tape forced a compromise with the Old Quaker Cemetery in Camden as their final resting place.[xv]

The thick brush in the areas we previously walked hid the other Camden Burial markers. We recrossed Flat Rock Road and Rick led us to two other burial locations.  The 71^st Fraser’s Highlander with the skull fracture was represented by a lone British flag marking his recovery. The Highlander was buried with care and dignity by his comrades and his accoutrements easily identified him. A little path led to a mass grave location with a group of American flags.  These Continentals were identified by their “USA” buttons and the musket balls that killed them were found in the grave. 

The Richland County Coroner’s office confirmed the sobering finding of the soldier’s ages. Five of the American’s recovered were teenagers and one may have been as young as fifteen.[xvi]  Rick’s words at the Camden Burials regarding these kids struck me hard as a father, “These boys, fighting as men, on a field of battle, far from home and their mothers, died together. They made a sacrifice that would not earn liberty for themselves, but for others. . .” [xvii] 

The fact that casualties were so recently recovered makes this battle seem less distant, less lived only in history books. Rick told us an interesting anecdote of a medium that toured the battlefield with him.  During their tour, the medium claimed to have seen a ghost of an American solider walking the battlefield in search of comrades in a lost, desperate fashion. 

With our walk of the battlefield concluded, Rick Wise turned his big truck onto Flat Rock Road, and we headed back toward Camden and our last stop, the Old Quaker Cemetery. We pulled up to the curb, and we could see the grave of the mysterious Agnes of Glasgow in the distance. In front of her stood neatly aligned government headstones of the Camden Burials’ veterans, all saying “UNKNOWN – REV WAR CAMDEN AUG 16, 1780.”  

The Battle of Camden was a stunning defeat, but perspective is important, and it should be remembered that America “was not founded solely on the successes we proudly venerate but also by the perseverance and resilience that followed failure and defeat.”[xviii]

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[i] Pension Statement of Michael Wiser, State of Virginia, Fauquier County December 24, 1822. Revolutionary War Pension and Bounty-Land Warrant Application Files, M804, Roll 2619, Pension File W.3906, NARA.

[ii] South Carolina Battleground Trust, https://www.scbattlegroundtrust.org/camden-burials

[iii] Rick Wise, Camden Burials Honor Ceremony, April 22, 2023, South Carolina Battleground Trust, https://www.scbattlegroundtrust.org/battlefield-honors-ceremony

[iv] Jim Piecuch, ed. The Battle of Camden: A Documentary History. (Charleston: The History Press, 2014), 23.

[v]Robert Orrison and Mark Wilcox, All That Can Be Expected: The Battle of Camden and the British High Tide in the South, August 16, 1780, (El Dorado, CA: Savas Beattie, 2023), 12-13, 28, 32, 36.

[vi] Ibid., 25.

[vii] Ibid., 66. 

[viii] Ibid., 56.

[ix] Piecuch, 49.

[x] Interview with Steven E. Smith, “Forgotten Revolutionary War Battlefield Skeletons Discovered, Battle of Camden” History Hit, 2023. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tY8ZercBKFE

[xi] Piecuch, 91.

[xii] Orrison and Wilcox, 57.

[xiii] Piecuch, 49.

[xiv] James Legg, Camden Burials Panel Discussion, April 20, 2023. https://www.scbattlegroundtrust.org/thursday-panel-discussion         

[xv] “Human Remains Discovered at Camden Battlefield” Oct 16, 2023, Emerging Revolutionary War Podcast Series.  https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/emerging-revolutionary-war/episodes/Human-Remains-Discovered-at-Camden-Battlefield-e2aj77f

[xvi] Dr. Bill Stevens and Dr. Mattie Atwell, Camden Burials Panel Discussion.

[xvii] Wise, Camden Burials Honor Ceremony.

[xviii] Ibid.