CAMDEN, BATTLE OF

CAMDEN, BATTLE OF, American Revolutionary battle taking place 16 August 1780. Following General Benjamin Lincoln's defeat and capture at Charleston, South Carolina, General Horatio Gates was given command of the American army in the southern department, consisting of 1,400 regulars and 2,052 unseasoned militia. Marching southward from Hillsboro, North Carolina, Gates met an army of two thousand British veterans under Lord Charles Cornwallis near Camden, South Carolina, early in the morning of 16 August. At the first attack, the militia fled. The regulars, standing their ground, were surrounded and almost annihilated. The Americans lost 2,000 killed, wounded, and captured; 7 cannon; 2,000 muskets; and their transport. The British loss was only 324. Gates fled to Hillsboro and vainly attempted to rally his demoralized army. On 2 December he was replaced by Nathanael Greene. Many Americans fled to the swamps and mountains and carried on guerrilla warfare.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Hoffman, Ronald, Thad W. Tate, and Peter J. Albert, eds. An Uncivil War: The Southern Backcountry during the American Revolution. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1985.

Lumpkin, Henry. From Savannah to Yorktown: The American Revolution in the South. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1981.

Pancake, John S. This Destructive War: The British Campaign in the Carolinas, 1780–1782. University: University of Alabama Press, 1985.

Nelson VanceRussell/a. r.

See alsoEutaw Springs, Battle of ; Revolution, American: Military History ; Southern Campaigns .

Camden, battle of, 1780. In December 1779 Clinton took an expedition from New York to South Carolina in the hope of drawing on loyalist support. In May 1780 Charleston was captured with 6,000 rebel prisoners. Clinton then handed over to Cornwallis. A counter-thrust by De Kalb and Gates from North Carolina was met at Camden on 16 August. Though Cornwallis was heavily outnumbered, the Americans were routed and De Kalb killed.

J. A. Cannon