The next day, May 8, Clinton called for the unconditional surrender of Charles Town, but Lincoln insisted on retaining all military honors. Instead, the British commenced a massive bombardment with almost two hundred cannons, some firing incendiary shells. On the twelfth, Lincoln sued for a cease-fire and agreed to surrender. He and his most senior officers were to be accepted as prisoners, with the opportunity to be treated well and exchanged for British captives of similar rank. All other captured men, more than 3,300, were to be imprisoned on British ships, with a good prospect of dying of exposure and disease. About one thousand civilians, including volunteer militiamen from Virginia and the Carolinas, would be put on parole, their names recorded, and released on their word of honor that they would not again take up arms against the crown. This was the greatest defeat of the Americans and the supreme British victory of the war.

General Sir Henry Clinton sailed for New York after turning over authority to Lord Cornwallis, with instructions that he was to hold Charles Town at all costs, and not let excursions farther northward put the city at risk. He also announced unilaterally that all those on parole were to be released, their names recorded, and that they would be required to swear allegiance to the crown and actively support the British cause. To this, many Americans swore falsely and later joined the revolutionaries, realizing that they would be executed as traitors if subsequently captured by the British.

CHAPTER 43

Cornwallis Triumphant

MAY 1780

After Charles Town fell and the large rebel army surrendered, Lord Cornwallis was confident that all doubtful citizens in the deep south would acknowledge the inevitability of his ultimate victory and support the British cause. He instructed his force commanders to offer amnesty to any family that made this reasonable decision, but to be harsh with those not willing to take an oath of support or at least neutrality. This was a wise policy, but not one always followed by troops in the field, who had to obtain sustenance by force from homesteads in the area and were often interested in the spoils of war or the settlement of grievances against their former peacetime neighbors. Banastre Tarleton made little effort to control his men’s harsh treatment of captured or wounded enemy or their families, and in Georgia, there was a parallel conflict. Governor Wright attempted to carry out London’s orders to woo settlers back to the crown, but Thomas Brown and his Rangers were now in command in Augusta, and privately ridiculed Wright’s order for clemency toward Georgia settlers. Brown assumed that he and his men were under the command of General Prevost, who had now returned to St. Augustine and had little interest in north Georgia.