Who used guerrilla warfare in the Revolutionary War

U
ntil his unconventional victory at Trenton in December 1776, George Washington, the founding father of the United States of America, had incurred a series of losses both on the battlefield and of political confidence in his leadership.

The first and largest battle of the war against the British took place in August 1776 in Brooklyn, New York, also called the Battle of Long Island, which saw the Revolutionary Army bested by a professional force led by experienced and determined officers. The British Army had several centuries of development proven in many wars and was a formidable force in which overconfidence naturally prevailed in the war of the American Revolution.

Trenton was a real guerrilla action in which a military leader, classically trained, sought to strike against a fixed military position, which in its genre, would have resulted in retreat if faced with firm opposition or capture of the target. George Washington chose a plan to be implemented in a manner and at a time not seen before in the revolutionary conflict, which was destined to catch the opposing elite force of German mercenaries by surprise and eventually, mean defeat of the Hessians.

The plan was simple in concept and entailed the movement of several thousand soldiers across a swift, wide, ice-ridden river to face an encamped enemy half their number, at night, on Christmas Day, accompanied by three times the artillery compliment of the target, in the dead of winter.

Washington had his force of over 2,000 men and 18 pieces of artillery mustered at dusk to begin a Christmas-night crossing of the Delaware River from Pennsylvania into British-held New Jersey, across a flowing waterway beset with large floes of ice that could crush or sink a boat. Among the many vessels used for the event were long, short draft Durham boats capable of carrying many tons of cargo crewed by Massachusetts sailors from Marblehead.

Various delays, including worsening weather, saw Washington's forces cross just nine miles north of Trenton in the early morning. Washington nevertheless pursued the attack and divided his force into east and west elements for an encompassing attack on the slothful, but still dangerous, Hessians.

The Trenton attack force had a key commander in Colonel Henry Knox who secured the crossing of men and cannon before proceeding to Trenton where artillery was strategically placed and moved, when necessary, to command the open streets. The Hessians were unable to launch a significant counter-attack or reduce themselves to small roving irregular bands under the Germanic military theory prevailing at that time. 

In general terms, heavy and slow artillery had not been part of the guerrilla arsenal ,but used and discarded after capture as part of an overall strategy, or retained if desired for the rare occasions of securing base territory gathering points. Over time, artillery was replaced by ubiquitous rocket propelled grenades, wire guided anti-tank mobile missiles or shoulder fired anti-aircraft missiles and more recently, vehicle-borne explosive devices.

On 26 December 1776, Washington led his men to the first encounter with a Hessian outpost, a mile from Trenton, when there was an exchange of gunfire before they fled to Trenton to warn their companions of the American assault. Washington dispersed his men and cannon at key points, ironically at King and Queen Streets, the very spot Rall had contemplated but omitted to establish an artillery emplacement. The disciplined Hessians repeatedly retreated, returning fire and receiving cover fire from other soldiers as they went towards the north end of Trenton.

Colonel Rall, who took command after some delay, got his men to come up the streets to overcome the rebel artillery, but this failed at every attempt due to the volume of fire from the American rebels, and even some citizenry, from the protection of buildings along the open streets. The Hessians then faced an overwhelming attack of men, musket shot and cannon fire, which led to the capture and abandonment of the Hessian cannons, forcing a full retreat to the rising open field to the north of Trenton where Rall got his men to form proper lines to counter-attack. Some Hessians fled the area completely in a wild melee to reach safety and evade capture.

The Hessians broke and fled to a nearby orchard having incurred about 100 casualties, which only increased their demoralised stance as they faced abject defeat in North America for the first time. German speaking members of Washington’s raiding party shouted out to the Hessians to surrender, which they eventually did in acknowledgement of the futility of further conflict. The captives were nearly 1,000 in number with a dead commander, many dead officers and all their arms, artillery and supplies seized by the rebel army.

Washington had secured his first victory, which started a reversal of fortune for the British in its American colonies, which culminated at Yorktown in 1781, with the aid of French assistance to the American Revolution. Naysayers of the D-Day casualties to liberate France and Europe should remember this. Some may think that the decimation of the Hessian force was a better outcome for the American cause, but a thousand examples of defeated Hessian soldiers marching through Pennsylvania to Philadelphia, and in some cases deserting to the rebel side, was invaluable to Washington.

This excerpt is the second in a series taken from Peter Polack's latest book, Guerilla Warfare: Kings of Revolution,  released in October 2018 by Casemate Short History. To find out more about the book, click here. 

END NOTES

1. Michael Lee Lanning, The American Revolution 100, Sourcebooks, 2008, 32

2. David F. Burg, The American Revolution, Facts on File, 2007, 150

3. Anthony H. Cordesman, Iraq’s Insurgency and the Road to Civil Conflict, Prager, 2008, 587

4. Ian Barnes, The Historical Atlas of the American Revolution, Routledge, 2000, 86-87

By the time of the Revolutionary War, Francis Marion, best known to history as the Swamp Fox, was acquainted with both conventional and irregular warfare. By then a trained Continental officer who had helped repulse the British at Fort Sullivan alongside Colonel William Moultrie, Marion had initially been recruited into service during the French and Indian War at age 24 by Captain John Postell in 1757, and then participated in South Carolina’s 1759–61 attacks into Cherokee lands.

Marion was a student of Major Robert Rogers’s 28 Rules of Ranging, and in his long military career, Marion formulated, practiced and executed his own particular modes of “maneuvering.” The United States Marine Corps’ modern doctrinal manual, Warfighting, defines maneuver warfare as “a state of mind bent on shattering the enemy morally and physically by paralyzing and confounding him, by avoiding his strength, by quickly and aggressively exploiting his vulnerabilities, and by striking him in a way that will hurt him most.” The sentiment certainly applies to Marion’s approach.

By the time of the Revolutionary War’s Southern Campaigns of 1780–1782, enterprising 48-year-old Patriot partisan General Francis Marion did everything in his power to effectuate Rogers’s concepts in the Carolinas following the surrender of Charleston. His philosophy, as described by the Harvard Business Review in a description of how the practice can be adapted beyond the battlefield, amounted to “not … destroy[ing] the adversary’s forces but … render[ing] them unable to fight as an effective, coordinated whole.… Instead of attacking enemy defense positions, maneuver warfare practitioners [to] bypass those positions, capture the enemy’s command-and-control center in the rear, and cut off supply lines. Moreover, maneuver warfare doesn’t aim to avoid or resist the uncertainty and disorder that inevitably shape armed conflict; it embraces them as keys to vanquishing the foe.”

Ultimately, as a result of Marion’s simpler, straightforward execution of innovative techniques, guerrilla tactics, interdiction and irregular warfare, liberty was slowly won blow by blow in South Carolina combat. The hand of fate was also in play for Marion’s success. First, he escaped the surrender of Charleston because he was recuperating from a broken ankle away from the city. Then, days before the Battle of Camden, Marion and two dozen men rode into General Horatio Gates’s camp offering assistance. These men were scruffy, backcountry Williamsburg District militia. Colonel Otho Holland Williams, adjutant general, asserted that Gates was “glad of an opportunity of detaching” the “burlesque” Marion away into the South Carolina interior. Whatever the reason, by August 15, 1780, Gates ordered Marion to “go Down the Country to Destroy all boats & Craft of any kind” to prevent British troops from escaping Camden. The dismissal spared Marion being captured or killed in that devastating Patriot loss.

The Rise of the Swamp Fox

After Camden, un-civil warfare magnified on both sides, exacerbated by civil strife and other forms of violence, igniting an epistolary barrage amongst Patriot and British commanders. Marion was particularly upset after his old friend Captain John Postell was captured by the British while under a white flag of truce in March 1781. “The hanging of men taken prisoners, and the violation of my flag will be retaliated, if a stop is not put to such proceedings, which are disgraceful to all civilized nations. All of your officers and men who have fallen in my hands have been treated with humanity and tenderness; and I wish sincerely, that I may not be obliged to act contrary to my inclinations, but such treatments as my unhappy followers whom the chance of war have thrown in my enemies’ hands meet with such, such must those experience who fall in my hands,” wrote Marion.

As 1780 wore on, the Williamsburg District was transformed by Marion’s emergence, seemingly mocking the British claim to have subdued South Carolina. Major General Charles, Lord Cornwallis assigned the destruction of Marion’s Brigade to that rapid-riding, hard-charging British Legion commander, Lieutenant Colonel Banastre Tarleton. Marion set out to ambush the small troop then escorting Tarleton, who had descended upon Colonel Richard Richardson’s plantation, stripped his house and set it afire. In turn, Marion realized that the British were also on their way to seize him. On November 8, Tarleton vigorously pursued Marion from Jack’s Creek northwest of Nelson’s Ferry for 20-plus miles east to Ox Swamp. Marion’s men galloped through the swamp’s watery morass along trails that few could have followed. With dogged determination equal to Marion’s, Tarleton drove his men forward until they reached the Woodyard. Tarleton’s Legion could not cross that swamp in the dark, resting at its edge for the night.

Marion would not retreat indefinitely, deciding to make a stand near Benbow’s Ferry. With felled trees blockading paths and swamps protecting their rear and flanks, Marion’s marksmen awaited the man whom Patriots called the “Butcher.” Tarleton’s men swung around the swamp’s edge, hoping to again pick up Marion’s trail on its opposite side. For seven hours, the British officer drove Legion calvary, wagons and two artillery pieces at a pace that made his horses drop in their tracks. Riders who lost their mounts were left to trot along exhaustedly. Tarleton’s scouts reported that the route headed into miry Ox Swamp. Unable to discover a trail across or through it, Tarleton despaired after intensely chasing so long through the swampy morass to no avail.

Tarleton is credited with declaring, “Come my boys. Let us go back, and we’ll soon find the Gamecock [Thomas Sumter]. But as for this damned old Fox, the devil himself could not catch him!” This earned moniker struck true and spread quickly. Incredibly daring, the great guerrilla fighter terrorized the British Army in South Carolina, swiftly striking, then vanishing ghost-like from fields into swamps.

The Exemplar Victory

Parker’s Ferry was a major thoroughfare crossing the Pon Pon River (Edisto River) about 33 miles west of Charleston. Here, Brigadier General Francis Marion planned a famously successful ambush. British and Loyalist troops were operating in the summer of 1781 throughout the Low Country around Charleston, foraging for provisions and attempting to suppress the Patriot militia. On August 10, 1781, Major General Nathanael Greene dispatched Marion to assist Colonel William Harden’s Patriot militia. Marion learned that a Loyalist force of 100 troops, commanded by William “Bloody Bill” Cunningham, was at the Pon Pon River to join a larger force of British regulars, Hessians and other Loyalist militia.

Marion placed his 445 troops in the thick woods about the causeway leading to Parker’s Ferry, a mile away. Several dragoons galloped forward to entice the more than 600 Loyalist, British and German troops into a Patriot trap. As shots were fired, British Lieutenant Colonel Ernest Leopold von Borck ordered Major Thomas Fraser and his dragoons to charge to the scene. Fraser’s troops galloped blindly into the “gauntlet” that Marion had set for them.

Harden’s men moved back 100 yards from the ambush line so they could be used as reserves. Major Samuel Cooper’s 60 swordsmen were told to attack the rear of the enemy after the ambush was initiated. They then waited for the British, as von Borck left camp in midafternoon with his infantry, accompanied by two pieces of artillery in front of the column and Fraser’s mounted South Carolina Royalists in the rear. It was almost dark when they stumbled into a firefight between Marion’s men and Loyalists who had just discovered them. Fraser sent Lieutenant Stephen Jarvis charging forward while he placed three other divisions on the road and to the left and right of the road. Mounted Patriots charged Jarvis, who reversed course quickly. Fraser believed these to be Harden’s men and ordered his cavalry in full gallop to intercept them. Marion now had the British right where he wanted them, and instantly Fraser’s horsemen were surprised. At 40 yards, the Patriots opened with buckshot and downed the British dragoons. Fraser rallied and tried to charge, but the Patriots delivered a second and a third volley. There was no way for Fraser to attack into the thick trees and nearby swamp, so he withdrew down the causeway, down the full length of the ambush. British Captain Archibald Campbell was wounded twice, and Fraser was badly bruised when his horse was killed, and the rest of his cavalry rode over him as he lay in the road.

British casualties, at 125 killed and 80 wounded, were heavy, while Marion suffered only one man killed and three wounded. Marion’s victory at Parker’s Ferry on August 30 directly impacted the Battle of Eutaw Springs nine days later by depriving British of horses not available to fight there on September 8. Marion maneuvered through enemy territory back to the Santee River and joined Greene to command that battle’s right militia line at Eutaw Springs. Parker’s Ferry is the exemplar of Marion’s guerilla warfare tactics.