The Patriot cause in South Carolina looked bleak in July 1780

 The Patriot cause in South Carolina looked bleak in July 1780. On May 12, following a two-month siege, the British had captured Charleston, forcing American General Benjamin Lincoln to surrender his entire army—one of the worst American defeats of the war and the largest surrender of American forces until 1862. 

Once they had control of Charleston the British swept across the rest of the state. Their previous policy that had allowed citizens to remain neutral was revoked—anyone who didn’t take an oath of loyalty to the crown was now regarded a traitor and subject to hanging and confiscation of their property.

Tarleton’s notorious and hated cavalry ranged across the state, searching out disloyal citizens and earning a reputation for cruelty. One of his officers, Captain Christian Huck, was dispatched with a body of cavalry and Loyalist militia to subdue the Patriots in the northern upcountry. Huck was a German-born Loyalist from Pennsylvania, a violent and profane man with a grudge against Patriots in general and against the Scots-Irish Presbyterians of the upcountry in particular. As Huck and his men moved through the area, confiscating horses and food, roughing up the wives of absent Patriots, and rounding up “rebels” for execution, the local Patriot militia gathered and planned their attack.

In the darkness of early morning on July 12, 1780 (243 years ago today), a 250-man Patriot militia force quietly crept up on Huck’s camp in York County. They positioned themselves around the camp and waited for sunrise. As soon as it was light enough to see, the Patriots opened fire, catching Huck’s regulars and the Tory militia by surprise. Huck managed to mount his horse and was attempting to organize a counterattack when he was shot in the head and killed by a farmer named John Carroll, one of the Patriot militiamen. Soon most of those who had not been killed or wounded began to surrender. Of Huck’s 105 men, only 24 escaped. Only one Patriot was killed in the attack, and the prisoners Huck had intended to hang that morning were liberated.

Even by Revolutionary War standards it wasn’t a large battle, but Huck’s Defeat (as it came to be called) boosted sagging morale in the South and inspired continued resistance.

The painting is “Huck's Defeat, Williamson's Plantation, 1780,” by Don Troiani.