Bloody Bill Cunningham, Terror of the South Carolina Backcountry

Artist's rendering of the Battle of Kings Mountain

Some time ago I wrote about Col. Banastre Tarleton of the British Legion, and how he might not have been the bad boy that so many accounts claim, but today I introduce a man who almost certainly deserved every bit of bad press he got.

Captain William Cunningham of the South Carolina backcountry was the son, nephew, and cousin to staunch loyalists at the beginning of the Revolutionary War, but being the strong-minded, contrary sort, he joined the rebel side. (That’s loyalist terminology for what we call patriots.) That lasted until first, Cunningham was refused a promotion he thought he deserved, and second, he was assigned to a location he didn’t care for. After his second attempt to resign from the Continental Army, he was court martialed for insubordination and sentenced to a whipping.

Sent home in disgrace and facing threats on his life, Cunningham fled to St. Augustine. Two years later, word reached him that patriot militia had turned his family out of their house, treating his aged father roughly and whipping his disabled brother so severely that he died. Furious, Cunningham returned to South Carolina on foot and went straight to the man responsible for his family’s suffering, Captain William Ritchie, where as the story goes, he shot Capt. Ritchie at dinner, in front of his family.

Afterward, Cunningham promptly joined the British cause. His exploits soon earned him the rank of major and later, captain, and he’s recorded as being present at the Battle of King’s Mountain. Notably fearless and an expert horseman, he was so much admired by his peers that even his enemies speak of him in tones of awe, decades later.

SC Districts from 1775 to 1784

The truly bone-chilling accounts, however, start just after the surrender of Cornwallis at Yorktown, which took place October 1781. Slipping past patriot patrols in small groups, after the British withdrawal to Charleston, Cunningham led a fairly sizeable band of men—anywhere from 80 to 300, and I lean toward the latter—on a series of raids against the patriot populace. This quickly became a campaign of vengeance on those who had committed the gravest offenses against the Tories or their families. The first incident happened at Turner’s Station on Cloud’s Creek in the upper Ninety-Six District, where Cunningham and his men surprised and surrounded a patriot force that had been harassing loyalists. A shot fired prematurely while negotiations were being made for surrender tipped Cunningham’s temper over the edge, and most of them were slaughtered.

His reign of terror over the South Carolina backcountry would later be referred to as the Bloody Scout, with the term “scout” referring to their roaming the countryside rather than a person. The moniker “Bloody Bill” would likewise not be coined until later, like Tarleton’s nickname of “Bloody Ban.” With Cunningham’s habit, however, of pinning down his enemies, then deliberately putting them to death with a singleminded fury that is legendary even today, he stands head and shoulders above Tarleton in infamy. No other figure is attributed with such habitual, wholesale slaughter, to my knowledge, and even the Waxhaws Massacre had its extenuating circumstances.

The Bloody Scout was more or less brought to a halt one frosty morning when a mounted force led by Andrew Pickens attacked one of the camps Cunningham had spread out over the banks of the Edisto River, and with the alarm raised, the other camps fled and dispersed, eventually making their way back to Charleston. There’s evidence of one more skirmish leading to slaughter not far from Charleston, which historians feel was likely the work of Cunningham, as well, but after that time his raids were never as effective as before.

This stretch of obscure RevWar history provides the setting of my next novella, The Counterfeit Tory, which releases May 1 as part of the CQ-authored Backcountry Brides Collection from Barbour. Jed Wheeler from The Highwayman returns on a mission to infiltrate William Cunningham’s troops in the hopes of bringing him down. The big question for Jed is, can he accomplish this without getting killed, himself?

[My thanks to Patrick O'Kelley for Nothing but Blood and Slaughter, his extensive work on every military action in the Carolinas during the Revolution; and to carolana.com, diceylangston.com, and Wikipedia for maps and cross-checking of facts.]

Laurel -- Susan F. Craft's New Historical Novel!

by Elaine Marie Cooper

I have been a fan of author Susan F. Craft since 2011 when I read her first Revolutionary War novel entitled, The Chamomile. I was completely swept away by the story as well as the intricate research that went into her debut novel. I anxiously awaited the release of the sequel, Laurel, which I am so pleased to say, is every bit as captivating as her first!

Her new novel releases this week and to celebrate, Susan is offering a copy to one of the commenters today at Colonial Quills. Without further ado, let me present Laurel.

What the story is about:

Desperate to rescue their kidnapped daughter, Lilyan and Nicholas Xanthakos trek two hundred miles through South Carolina mountains and backcountry wilderness, fighting outlaws, hunger, sleeplessness, and despair. When the trail grows cold, the couple battles guilt and personal shame; Lilyan for letting Laurel out of her sight, and Nicholas for failing to keep his family safe.

They track Laurel to the port of Charleston as post-Revolutionary War passions reach fever pitch.  There, Lilyan, a former patriot spy, is charged for the murder of a British officer. She is thrown into the Exchange Building dungeon and chained alongside prostitutes, thieves, and murderers. Separated from her husband, she digs deep inside to re-ignite the courage and faith that helped her survive the war.  Determined to free his wife at any cost, Nicholas finds himself forced back into a life of violence he thought he’d left behind.

Following a rumor that Laurel may be aboard a freighter bound for Baltimore, Lilyan and Nicholas secure passage on a departing schooner, but two days into the voyage, a storm blows their ship aground on Diamond Shoals. As the ship founders, both are swept overboard.

Will their love for each other and their faith sustain them as they await word of their missing child? Or is Laurel lost to them forever?

My review of Laurel:

The impeccable research of historical fiction author, Susan F. Craft, permeates every paragraph in the post-Revolutionary Era novel, Laurel.  The story of a young mother whose daughter is kidnapped, and the subsequent search, captivates a reader with both unforgettable characters and adventures that sweep a reader to another time and place. Craft is brilliant in her marriage of both fact and fiction, as she weaves a story that captures your attention from first page to last. Ms. Craft has a gift with her pen, creating words that are both breathtaking and beautiful.

I cannot wait for the third novel in the series entitled Cassia.

Author Bio:

Susan F. Craft writes historical romantic suspense. Her Revolutionary War novel, The Chamomile, won the Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance Okra Pick.  Susan recently retired after a 45-year career as a communications director, editor, and proofreader.  To assist authors to “get it right about horses in their works,” Susan worked with the Long Riders’ Guild Academic Foundation to compile A Writer's Guide to Horses that can be found at www.lrgaf.org. Forty-five years ago, she married her high school sweetheart, and they have two adult children, one granddaughter, and a granddog. An admitted history nerd, she enjoys researching for her novels, painting, singing, listening to music, and sitting on her porch watching the rabbits and geese eat her daylilies.  She has two post-Revolutionary War novels being released in 2015 by Lighthouse Publishing of the Carolinas—Laurel, in January, and its sequel Cassia in September. She is represented by Linda S. Glaz, Hartline Literary Agency.

Remember to leave a comment with your email address so that you can be notified if you are the winner of Laurel.

Dispelling Colonial Myths: "Bloody Ban" or, Why does it matter?

The infamous Ban Tarleton

Was Banastre Tarleton really the monster he's portrayed to be?

Sometimes, deconstructing myth can be hard and cruel. I've found often that people would rather hold onto their suppositions and prejudices than look at the other side of an issue--or accept evidence for another view. And it's astonished me how fact can get embellished into legend, and either romanticized or demonized, not very long after the fact.

The more I read, the more I realize that some myths will never be completely dispelled. People's opinions are sometimes literally set in stone, and so many will continue believing the idea that the patriot cause was completely righteous, and the British one completely corrupt.

I suppose that starting at the outset from a British/loyalist point of view skews one’s perspective at the outset. But I found it interesting, at the least, to find all the evidence that calls into question popular accounts of various historical events.

Enter Oatmeal for the Foxhounds.** Oh, the things one finds online! And warning, if you’re staunchly anti-British when it comes to RevWar history, you may not appreciate what amounts to a Ban Tarleton fansite, but I found it an amazingly rich resource for many of the events and important figures of the time (see in particular the “Friends, Enemies and Comrades” page). The full text of Tarleton’s own “Campaigns” is found here, as well.

The very name of Banastre Tarleton evokes some of the RevWar's wildest stories. He’s accused of everything from the immoral (a supposed claim to ravishing more women than anyone) to the macabre (digging up the corpse of an enemy for the purpose of gloating over him). The accusations of cruelty were just the beginning. But the site’s own intro says it very well:

It is human nature to want to fit the past into tidy storybook patterns, to reduce it to tales with clear-cut morals populated by heroes and villains. But if we search into the history behind the idealized heroes of myth, legend and folklore, more often than not we find only flawed and ordinary individuals, struggling to survive the sweep of events....

Years ago, in the pages of a novel set during the American Revolution, I stumbled across a less famous victim of the power of folklore: Lieutenant Colonel Banastre Tarleton, Commandant of the British Legion. Nicknamed "the Green Dragoon" by his twentieth-century biographer¹, Tarleton served under Lord Cornwallis during the Revolution's Southern Campaign, where his aggressive fighting style and gift for fluid, hit-and-run warfare earned him a dark place in local legend. Predictably, he was presented as the novel's "villain," but I found him so entertaining that I was drawn to investigate the history behind the myths of "Bloody Ban."

The young man who waited, buried and often forgotten in the pages of historical research, had little in common with the black-hearted villain immortalized in Revolutionary War myths as "the Butcher of the Carolinas." A devil-may-care charmer, the real Ban Tarleton quickly became one of my favorite historical figures, and so he remains. He was a fearless and ferocious cavalry leader, capable of showing his enemies both chivalry and ruthlessness. Away from the battlefield, he was a witty, hyper-sociable little rogue who made friends by the carriageload. (After the war, that list of friends grew to include many of his former enemies such as the Duc de Lauzun, Lafayette, Thaddeus Kosciusko and possibly even Thomas Jefferson.)

While Tarleton was far from a saint, he was just as far from being a monster, and he deserves a better accounting than he is normally given by popular "history." I was inspired to start work on this website when his reputation has been tarred-and-feathered yet again by the movie The Patriot, whose producers cite him as the template for their elegant but antisocial villain, Colonel William Tavington. ... There are vague similarities between their names, they each show plenty of panache when leading a cavalry column, and they share a fondness for fluffy black hats. Beyond that, the resemblance between them is nothing more than a figment of the Hollywood imagination. [Historian Dr. M. M. Gilchrist, AKA Doc M, has more to say on this subject.]

It’s understandable, on one hand, how one side would need all the proof they could get to show that their side was the righteous one ... even if their proof was unsubstantiated. But it’s so true that history is written by the victors ... and skewed by the victors. It’s my opinion, as writers, even or maybe especially as novelists, we owe it to our readers to understand as much as humanly possible of the motivations of all sides of a particular conflict, and of the nuances in how a particular event is reported.

But I digress. :-)

The first question to answer, possibly, is that of Tarleton’s supposed cruelty and brutality. The practice of looting and burning of local wealth is a well-documented military strategy, practiced widely by both sides during the American War for Independence. (Don’t you just love that term? I heard it just recently for the first time.)

Consider this footnote on the page addressing the Colonel Richardson story on Oatmeal For The Foxhounds:

It is all too common for authors to personify the British in the Carolinas as a gang of mindless pyromaniacs who ran around trampling crops and burning buildings for the sheer, bloody heck of it. Needless to say, this is ridiculous. In fact a) they did a lot less of it than legend claims and b) when they did it, there were solid reasons for it. (I would never say "good solid reasons" because in the long run it worked very heavily against them -- but they weren't blessed with the 20/20 hindsight we bring to the situation when we look back on its results from 200 years later.)

It is a basic military goal to keep supplies away from your enemies. In this situation, that meant that the crops and goods of people known to be in open rebellion against the Crown were subject to forfeiture. (Proclamations to this effect had been circulated.) Whenever possible, this "punishment" took the form of confiscation, because the British army desperately needed the supplies themselves. It was Cornwallis's policy to leave a portion of the property and goods for the use of the wife and children of the rebel involved, so they would not be made to suffer. (The Wickwires present a lengthy discussion of how the system was designed to work, as well as why and how it generally failed.)

In other cases -- normally when confiscation was impractical -- forfeiture took the form of destruction. There was a war on, after all, and from the British perspective the rebels were armed terrorists.

The destruction or confiscation of property was a form of punishment used by both sides. For instance, Lawrence E. Babits, A Devil of a Whipping, The Battle of Cowpens (Chapel Hill, N.C. & London: University of North Carolina Press; 1998), p48, has this comment to make on Daniel Morgan's army shortly before the battle of Cowpens: "Morgan's men plundered [Alexander] Chesney's property of everything usable, including grain, trees, clothing, and blankets. ... By camping on a Loyalist's property, Morgan punished Chesney, intimidated other Tories, and lessened his army's impact on local patriots."

One of the points The Patriot actually got right was Ben Martin's speech about the consequences of starting a war that would be fought in your own back yard. The cost can be heavy.

In addition to serving as a punishment, the destruction of rebel property had another aspect which many writers overlook. It robbed the enemy of building materials such as finished lumber and also of strong points which could be fortified. We tend to underestimate the value of finished materials nowadays, but especially in remote locations, they were rare and hard to replace. (Yes, they had plenty of trees, but they needed time and sawmills to turn raw wood into lumber.) There are cases recorded of buildings (including a church) being disassembled and their raw materials used to construct fortifications. And areas were sometimes accepted or rejected for military purposes based on the presence or absence of defensible buildings. (http://home.golden.net/~marg/bansite/banecdotes/85richardson.html#n2)

So was Tarleton worse than anyone else at the time, or was he just extraordinarily efficient in carrying out his assigned mission in the field? Other accounts speak of his quickness to condemn the misbehavior of his dragoons, and of his deference when dealing with the property of Thomas Jefferson.

If you’re interested in reading more about the various legends that have grown up around Tarleton, I would refer you to the Banecdotes page.

Did Tarleton consider his hounds to be military equipment? :-)

**Why "Oatmeal for the Foxhounds"? The phrase comes from a requisition written by Tarleton requesting feed for the hounds brought along on campaign. Apparently fox hunting was considered a good sport to keep officers and their horses conditioned during periods of inactivity in wartime ...

Rebecca Motte, A Revolutionary War Heroine

Susan F. Craft


Rebecca Brewton Motte

     During their occupation of Charlestown (now Charleston), SC, the British under Sir Henry Clinton chose the home of Rebecca Motte as their headquarters. Imprisoned in her home, Mrs. Motte found a clever way to hide her daughters in the attic from the soldiers for seven months. In January 1781, after her husband died, Mrs. Motte was granted permission to leave Charleston to go with her daughters to her Mount Joseph Plantation in Calhoun County, near the Congaree River.

     Ironically, the British took over the plantation, which became a principal supply depot for the British campaign in the South. Known as Fort Motte, it garrisoned about 200 soldiers under the command of Lt. Donald McPherson.

     American forces sought to destroy the British interior chain of military posts, including Fort Motte, to gain control of everything within thirty miles of the sea. Before General Francis Marion and Lt. Colonel Lighthorse Harry Lee attacked the plantation on May 8, 1781, the Motte family was asked to retreat to a farmhouse nearby. When American forces failed to take the fort, they decided to burn the British out.

Mrs. Motte encouraged the Americans to set the main house afire in order to dislodge the British. She herself is said to have provided the arrows used to ignite the roof. (One firsthand account of the siege says that Nathan Savage, a private in Marion's brigade, made up a ball of rosin and brimstone, to which he set fire and slung it on the roof of the house.) The British surrendered when the fire broke out, and tradition has it that both sides assisted in putting out the fire, saving the house.

The Capture of Fort Motte
Mort Kunstler, Artist

Brigadier General Francis Marion

      Following the successful American siege, Mrs. Motte graciously hosted a dinner for officers of both armies. Their dinner was interrupted with such a noise that General Marion raced outside to find his men mistreating and threatening to hang British soldiers. Marion became enraged that his men would treat their prisoners in such a manner and ordered his men to desist.

Rebecca and The Fox

Chris Weatherhead as Rebecca Motte

     Chris Weatherhead, film/TV/stage star, film director and author, was so taken with Rebecca’s story that she created a one-woman, one-act play, Rebecca and The Fox.

     Chris, what was it about Rebecca that drew you to her story?

Rebecca Brewton Motte embodied the greatest attributes a person can have; extraordinary courage, uncanny wit, wisdom, kindness, generosity, humility and amazing patience.  Her contributions to the cause of freedom as well as those of her husband, Jacob, are difficult to measure as they were supporting liberty in so many ways prior to and during the war. 

During the occupation in Charleston, Rebecca was aware the British were notorious for raping women at their whim, and having three daughters, she found a clever way to hide them – she courteously kept telling the British leaders that the back stairway was “under repair” and could not be used. These “repairs” went on for seven months while she had servants and herself, sneaking up to the attic room with food and supplies for the girls! I have such respect for Rebecca Motte and I long to have such a resourceful mind and diplomatic ability if I ever had to handle such a crisis!!

     The idea for a play about Rebecca sprang from the feature film I directed and co-starred in, All for Liberty, about a little known extraordinary hero of the backcountry of South Carolina, Captain Henry Felder, who happens to be the sixth-great grandfather of my nationally recognized actor/writer/producer husband, Clarence Felder. We spent years on the project and so much research that we have enough to do various projects on the American Revolution for the rest of our lives!

What research did you do for the play?

I read a ton of books – the bibliography is as long as my arm! Also, Tony Youmans, the wonderful director of the Old Exchange Building was extremely helpful as an Historical Advisor and steered us to uncover surprising connections between Mrs. Motte, her husband, and many heroes of that dangerous time. She was a friend and great supporter to many military leaders during the war years. The show includes Rebecca’s experiences with General ‘Swamp Fox’ Francis Marion, Isaac Hayne, William Moultrie, “Lighthorse” Harry Lee, and Lt. Colonel John Laurens, who were dedicated patriots, fighting the British in South Carolina, using every resource, even some mysterious, deadly arrows. It’s a great way to truly entertain our audiences as well as illuminate our rich heritage and the cost of freedom.

Who designed your costume for the play?

(right) Chris Weatherhead as Rebecca Motte
and assistant Erica Magtira

The costume was conceived in a meeting with long-time designer and historical living historian, Jean Robertson Hutchinson, who has designed and built exceptionally beautiful period clothing for Actors’ Theatre of South Carolina for 16 years – she creates in many periods of female dress and is a member of the Colonial Ladies Society as well. Because I can only wear one outfit for a whole show – I am the only one onstage – we had to find an iconic gown and shoes and make it so lovely people could enjoy it throughout the show as I moved about the stage. We love getting a great idea and then going shopping to find exactly the right fabrics. As we laughed and got a chance to talk as we looked at every piece of fabric in about three stores – touching them all several times - we finally found an exceptional cotton of an intense blue for the skirt that is a type of Indigo color, for which South Carolina was so famous! And a cotton Colonial printed Chintz with a very complimentary and popular pattern typical of the times for a lady of Rebecca’s social status – we were so happy! The audience raves about the gown with its delightful bright blue and bows, and the red leather period shoes with bows too!

Tell us about yourself.

I had a lot of classical training in England, California, and New York as I had become an actress originally to be as versatile as I could. So, I’ve performed many periods of history and modern characters as a professional actress for decades on stage, TV and film.  And now I can say I’ve gone from a daytime series star to American Revolutionary War Heroine! In my New York City years, I played a super evil and power-hungry vixen, Alicia Van Dine, on location in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico, for “THE EDGE OF NIGHT” for ABC. I co-starred on the daytime TV series for 2 years, before realizing I was getting too much fan mail from inmates in prisons across the country who seemed to want to be like me. I was becoming a committed Christian and did not want to glorify criminal behavior, so I soon left the show. I moved to California where in between acting on TV, films and stage in LA, I began seven years of writing, producing and visiting in the prison system there for Match-Two Prisoner Outreach. [For movie listings visit IMDB Movie Data Base and type in name.]

Moving to South Carolina to help care for a family member, I co-founded Actors' Theatre of South Carolina with my husband, Clarence Felder, producing 70 productions and performing many roles including Mary Chesnut’s War For Independence! and portrayed Mary Chesnut for C-SPAN's American Writer’s Series.  I co-starred, co-wrote and directed the feature film, All for Liberty, which has won nine international film festival awards and three national historical awards [from Sons & Daughters of the American Revolution]. It is now distributed worldwide to buy or rent from Bridgestone Multimedia Group. (www.gobmg.com)

Reviews for Rebecca and The Fox

…elegantly and persuasively captures the essence of SC's Revolutionary heroine, Rebecca Motte, and her turbulent times.

Alexia Jones Helsley, Historian, Archivist & Author

…multi-talented Chris Weatherhead wrote and stars as the Revolutionary War heroine, Rebecca Motte, under the masterful direction of Clarence Felder…Weatherhead is gracious…full of the kind of theatrical chemistry which captures the audience on her historical adventure…fighting battles using charm, wit, kindness and extraordinary courage…willing to do anything to save her family…obviously much research went into the script…kudos also to Jean Robinson Hutchinson’s costuming talents…Bravo to Rebecca and the Fox! Sandy Katz, national entertainment journalist

     Theater at its best - plunks you in the maelstrom of the Revolutionary War in South Carolina…heroes come alive…brilliant acting…

provokes thought long after the curtain falls.

Susan F. Craft, Author of award winning Revolutionary War novel, The Chamomile

“…a perfect performance…charming and realistic… Rebecca was proud, brave, clever and resilient… shares friendship with General Francis Marion, "The Swamp Fox," and other patriots around her… Brava!”     Diane Scher, entertainment journalist

 

(My thanks to Bridgestone Multimedia Group for permission to use the DVD cover for All for Liberty)

 

Susan F. Craft is the author of The Chamomile, a Revolutionary War romantic suspense. which won the Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance Fall 2011 Okra Pick.