1 He was a Scotchman by birth, son of an eminent judge, James Ferguson, Lord of Sessions and Justiciary, and nephew of a nobleman of great literary talents, Patrick Murray (Lord Elibank), deemed by Robertson, Ferguson, Hume and contemporary sages equal to the best authors of the Scottish Augustan age. Patrick Ferguson sought renown in a different career, but possessed an equally vigorous mind and brilliant parts. At the early age of eighteen he entered the army in the German war, and was distinguished by his cool and determined courage. He early displayed an inventive genius, sound judgment and intrepid heroism, which constitute the successful soldier. He had invented a new species of rifle, that could load at the breech and fire seven times in a minute with certainty and precision. He was present in 1777 at the battle of Brandywine, and in that achievement used with his corps his invention with fatal effect. He distinguished himself on the North River in 1779, and was sent to aid General Clinton in the South. His signal service in the reduction of Charleston in May, 1780, is mentioned with great praise in the dispatches of the Commander-in-Chief.

A letter written by an officer of the "Provincial Brigade," under command of Ferguson, Lieut. Anthony Allaire, of the Loyal American Regiment, corroborates Ramsey (215) as to the numbers of picked regulars (100), the nucleus of Ferguson's command, which originally "consisted of about 150 men from the Provincial corps, in whom perfect confidence might on all occasions be placed," as their conduct at King's Mountain proved. By the severities (see Allaire's letter) of an extraordinary campaign Ferguson's detachment of the Provincial corps d'elite had been reduced to 100 men. This detachment from the Provincial Corps or Brigade of American Loyalists was officered by American Loyalists also detached from a number of regiments belonging to the same corps.

Among those whose names are particularly mentioned were Captain Abraham de Peyster of New York, Senior Captain of the Fourth, or King's American, Regiment, raised in and about the city of New York. He is sometimes mentioned as "local" Major and "Territorial," or Militia Colonel. Captain John Taylor, First Battalion of the New Jersey Volunteers (Sabine's Fragments, Vol. II.; Mackenzie, 10). Captain Samuel Ryerson, Third Battalion New Jersey Volunteers. He came from near Paterson, N. J., and had a brother Joseph, who for good conduct was promoted to a Lieutenantcy in the Prince of Wales Volunteers. (Sabine's American Loyalists, II., 250-1.) Lieutenant Anthony Allaire, Lieutenant in the Loyal American Regiment (Hough, p. 3). Lieutenant R. M'Ginnis, Lieutenant in the Royal Garrison Battalion. He was killed at King's Mountain (S. II. F.). Lieutenant Allaire says that in 1780 he belonged to Lieutenant-Colonel Isaac Allen's Second Battalion N. J. Volunteers, Cortland Skinner's N. J. Brigade. Lieutenant Stevenson, Third Battalion New Jersey Voluntees (S. II. F.).

Colonel Alexander Gorden, Aid-de-Camp to General Greene, etc., in his "Anecdotes of the Revolutionary War in America" (Charleston, S. C., 1822) bears emphatic testimony to the characteristics of the Loyal organizations. He observes: Many of the officers of the Provincial Corps were pure in character, and are to be named with respect. They were the decided enemies of our cause, but free from the pollution of in atiable avarice; and in the hour of victory, alive to the impulses of humanity, they forgot not that they were men. Their zeal and activity in the cause in which they had engaged were of the highest utility to our enemies. and leads to the development of a melancholy fact, that in almost every instance where our armies have been foiled in action, the opposition proceeded from our own countrymen. Allen's, Skinner's, Browne's, Hamilton's, Simcoe's, and other American Corps, greatly distinguished themselves by their bravery, and were comparatively generous and merciful. The stigma remains on Tarleton's Legion alone, that as often as they gained an advantage, and triumphed in success, the virtue of humanity was lost."

*

*

*

THE SOUTHERN CAMPAIGN

1780

GATES AT CAMDEN

Since writing the article printed with this title in the last October number of the Magazine, my friend, Mr. Charles A. Campbell, has called my attention to a letter from an actor in the campaign which had not before fallen under my observation, and which corroborates every position assumed by me.

This letter, written by General Thomas Pinckney from Clermont, 27th July, 1822, to the Hon. William Johnson, appeared in the August number of the Historical Magazine for 1866. The purpose of the letter was to defend General Gates against some of the charges brought against him by Mr. Johnson in his Life of General Greene. General Pinckney was an Aid-de-Camp of Gates during the Southern Campaign of 1780. After the war he was Governor of South Carolina, and later Minister to the Court of St. James during the first administration of Washington.

The letter is of considerable length, and covers the entire period of the campaign, from the time when Major Pinckney was transferred from the staff of Baron de Kalb to that of General Gates on the arrival of the latter at the camp near Coxe's Mills, and his taking command of the army. "From that day," writes General Pinckney, "I was constantly with him until the fatal 16th of August. In this capacity I saw all the orders before they were issued; was employed in composing his proclamation and in some of his correspondence, particularly in a letter to Lord Rawdon on the subject of military usage, with respect to flags of truce and in dispatches to Genl. Sumter, &c. &c.; which circumstances I mention to show the confidential footing on which I was placed by the General; whence I may have been acquainted with his views and intentions, although they were not disclosed to Col. Otho Williams, who acted as Adjutant-General." On the narrative of Colonel Williams Mr. Johnson relied for many of his facts and opinions in his incidental account of the disaster of Camden.

In this letter it is clearly shown that Gates had no intention of making an attack on the enemy, but of taking a strong position near Camden, by which he could confine their hostile dispositions and cut

off their supplies from the upper parts of the Wateree and Peedee Rivers, and thus compel them to retreat or come out and attack him upon a ground where the militia could be used to advantage. The plan of Gates Pinckney considers "to have been consistent with sound military principles," and the best in his opinion that could have been adopted.

With regard to the charge that Gates was not diligent to obtain precise information as to the strength of the enemy, General Pinckney testifies that he himself was one of the persons directed to obtain information, and that no opportunity was lost to secure complete intelligence; and he confirms what the Gates correspondence shows, that "Gates was not materially deficient in information of the enemy's force."

As to the personal conduct of Gates on the battle-field, Pinckney also testifies that in what "he witnessed while with him he saw no indication of want of presence of mind," and his account of the battle shows that until Gates was borne away from the field by the torrent of dismayed militia, he (Gates) had personally directed the movements of his army from "the head of the line."

Passing to a consideration of the route of march taken by Gates from Deep River, by Mask's Ferry on the Peedee, to Lynch's Creek, General Pinckney pertinently observes that "this was nearly the precise route which General Greene pursued the succeeding April, the country being in both cases destitute of provisions, owing to previous exhaustion and the natural sterility of a great part of the soil," and expresses his admiration for General Gates' prompt decision on arriving at De Kalb's camp, and being informed that the entire country had been stripped of provisions, that "we may as well march on and starve as starve lying here."

The whole of this important letter should be read by those who desire to arrive at a correct conclusion with regard to this important piece of history. It will be found a complete vindication of the military correctness of Gates' movements, and of his personal bearing on the field.

JOHN AUSTIN STEVENS

TRACTS OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION

In the Library of Brown University is a volume of fourteen bound pamphlets, all of them, with one exception, written on subjects connected with the American Revolutionary War. They are all English prints or reprints from American editions. Most of them are referred to in catalogues on American works, like those of Rich and Bartlett. In looking through these productions, all of them written more than one hundred years since, one is carried back to a period of great excitement both in America and in the mother country. We note, with curiosity and interest, the play of human passions, the sometimes calm. and at other times passionate statement of grievances, and the attempted vindication of courses of conduct pursued. The first of the pamphlets referred to is "The Address of the People of Great Britain to the Inhabitants of America, 1775." The name of the writer is not found upon the title page. Rich quotes the Monthly Review as follows: "This address is said and believed to have been written by Sir John Dalrymple, and printed at the public expense, to be distributed in America, where the greatest part of a large impression has been sent apparently to co-operate with a late conciliatory resolution of the House of Commons. It is replete with expressions of tender affections for the inhabitants of the Colonies, and paints the measures and intentions of government towards them, in the softest and most pleasing colors." Sir John Dalrymple was a Scotch baronet, for many years a Baron of Exchequer in Scotland, who died in 1810. As a writer, besides numerous pamphlets which he wrote, he is best known by his "Memoirs of Great Britain and Ireland from 1681 to 1771."

The "Address," after a brief introduction, proceeds to discuss the two methods by which America proposes to retaliate on Great Britain for the grievances which she has inflicted upon her Colonies, to wit, war and a suspension of trade. "We owe to you, to ourselves, to our holy religion, and to that system of glory and liberty, involved in the united power of the British Empire, and to be dissolved only by the dissolution of its parts, and which we wish to last till time shall be no more, to give you our thoughts upon these two modes of opposition with freedom and with truth. So may Heaven deal kindly with us and our posterity in the hour of need, as we mean kindness and not unkindness to you and your posterity, in what we are now to say to you on

these heads." The utter improbability of success in taking up arms against the government is, in the first place, calmly discussed. A people situated as the Americans are can hope to make good their cause only on the ground that they have strongly fortified towns, a disciplined army and navy, and large pecuniary strength, of higher importance than all other things is this last, since in modern times "the success of war depends more on the largest purse than on the longest sword." Sir John then draws a gloomy picture of what he seems most honestly to believe will take place if there should be a resort to arms. Among the predictions which he makes was one similar to that made by many persons in the early stages of our late civil war, and which, in both instances, was not fulfilled. "The most valuable part of your fortunes in the Southern Provinces is composed of slaves ready to rebel against their masters, or run away from them on the appearance of an enemy." He ventures the opinion that in from six to twelve weeks every town along the entire coast of the Colonies might be reduced to ashes by English ships of war, or if not absolutely destroyed, laid under the most grievous contributions, "your slaves lost or become your masters, yourselves fled for protection from thence to the woods, or to hide you from your own shame; your trade annihilated, and your vessels and seamen captives in the port of that enemy whose rage you had provoked." No wonder all the sympathies of this warm-hearted Scotchman were stirred within him as he gazed upon the picture which his imagination had drawn, and that in earnest emphatic language he besought the American people to pause as they stood upon the edge of the awful chasm which was yawning for their destruction.

Equally fallacious were the hopes cherished of the results which would follow a suspension of trade, and the non-payment of debts due to British merchants. Two can play a game of this kind as well as one. If America refuses to receive articles of English production, England may close its markets against all articles of American manufacture, and the effect of the prohibition of all trade with England would be fatal to the prosperity of America

The writer of the address proceeds to an examination of the subjects of difference between the two parties. America declares that England has no right to bind her in any case whatever, and asserts that England claims that right in all cases whatever. He then vindicates Great Britain in the claim of supremacy which she sets up, and contends that the existence of a kind and conciliatory spirit on both sides would lead to an easy adjustment of all the difficulties which have