IV

In Which Colonel Maitland Starts South

FROM beneath the oaks that fringed its graceful bluff Beaufort looked out across a Bay strangely alive with activity. It was September 12th and the 900 troops comprising His Majesty’s garrison on Port Royal Island were pulling out. The armed ship Vigilant and the Scourge and Vindictive galleys were taking on cargoes of Redcoats. Britain’s only stronghold between New York and Savannah was being hurriedly evacuated. Bagpipes commingled with Highland burr and German guttural to make a cacophony sadly out of character with the timeless languor associable with Beaufort. The Hessians particularly were glad to leave this Carolina Low-country. Die grosse Hitze und die menge derer Sandfliegen in diesen Wohnplaz von Schlangen und Crocodillen!

The gravity of the business he was about was sharply etched on the face of the commanding officer at Beaufort. It will be well to glance for a few moments at this forty-seven-year-old British soldier, for Lieutenant Colonel John Maitland of the Seventy-first Regiment of Scotch Foot is to play a large part in this drama of Revolutionary history. No family in Scotland was more illustrious than that of this youngest son of Charles, Sixth Earl of Lauderdale, a nobleman distinguished for “the sweetest disposition and finest accomplishments.”¹ From Thirlestane Castle, the magnificent seat of the Maitlands at Lauder, had come some of the great men of that country, among them the first Duke of Lauderdale, who was the “1” in the famous “Cabal” of the reign of Charles II. Within its massive walls, “Bonnie Prince Charlie’’ had found refuge after his defeat at Culloden, when John Maitland was a boy. The lineage of Colonel Maitland was scarcely less distinguished on the side of his late mother, the former Elizabeth, Lady Ogilvy. Her father, who was Earl of Findlater and Seafield, had been Lord High Chancellor of Scotland.

Had he time for such musings, Colonel Maitland might well ponder the fate that had brought him from his seat in the House of Commons, where he represented the Borough of Haddington, to these climes. For the “easy fortune” and high station he enjoyed at home he had exchanged the hard life of a soldier in this rebellion-torn part of the world. An empty right sleeve attested the fact that he had already fulfilled his duty to King and country. A cannon ball had carried away that hand twenty years before during Admiral Boscawen’s victorious action against the French in Lagos Bay, Spain, where Captain Maitland fought with the Marines, being “the only Commission Officer,” he wrote, “wounded in that Ingagement.”²

With the coming of the American Revolution he had re-entered the same branch of service with the rank of Major. In the fighting in the Jerseys in ’78 he proved himself an alert, resourceful officer. Striking up the Delaware on one occasion, a British force commanded by Maitland and Captain John Henry of the navy had destroyed thirty-seven American vessels, including two frigates and eleven large merchantmen. During that year he was transferred at his request to the Seventy-first Regiment. He was “so beloved” among the Highland troops, it was said, that “they could have been put upon no service led on by him but what they would have gone with the greatest alacrity.”³ Colonel Maitland was in fact universally popular—admired by friend, respected by foe. When he communicated with General Moultrie it was not in the condescending manner some British officers affected toward the colonials. It was with the politeness of gentleman dealing with gentleman. He had earlier attracted, it was said, the “particular notice of General Washington with whom he was personally acquainted.” The Scotch officer on one occasion had jocularly notified the American commander that in the future his men would wear red feathers in their bonnets so that he would know the Highlanders were to be credited with annoying his posts and obstructing his convoys. Until the end of the War the Seventy-first wore Maitland’s red feather.⁴

He had had no hand in the fearful pillage that took place during the British incursion into South Carolina. “There will not be the least cause for censure on any part of the conduct of the hon. col. Maitland . . . and some few other officers, who did not come divested of politeness and humanity,” said a Charlestown paper.⁵ This was no ordinary compliment, coming from a Whig gazette.

Since his arrival in the South, Maitland had greatly increased his military stature. At Stono Ferry he had beaten off a strong attack by the Americans, displaying much skill in rallying troops and in the timeliness of his dispositions. General Prevost arrived as the battle ended, “only to applaud,” as a Savannah newspaper put it, “the gallant behaviour, defence, and prudent disposition of Col. Maitland.” His conduct did the Scotch officer great honor, declared Sir Henry Clinton, adding that he had but “acted very much like himself.”⁶

The same news that had galvanized Savannah had set the Beaufort garrison in motion. Frenchmen on the coast! Prevost’s attempts to communicate with Maitland had miscarried. On the fifth of September a barge with ten Negroes at the sweeps was captured in Skull Creek by a small party of Americans under Lieutenant de Treville. Captain Vardy had unsuccessfully tried to destroy the dispatch which directed Colonel Maitland to evacuate Beaufort and come to Savannah.⁷ When the French ships first sighted off Tybee disappeared, Prevost had sent another dispatch. The original orders were countermanded. Maitland was to hold himself in readiness to move at a moment’s notice. If intelligence should be obtained from any source that Savannah was the enemy’s real objective he was to run no risk of being cut off. Eventually word had gotten through concerning d’Estaing’s intentions.

The way by land was blocked. So was the route by sea. As Colonel Maitland was leaving Beaufort on the 12th an English naval officer recorded in his journal, “At Sunset a French Ship anchored off Tybee; two more anchored in the South Channel, and one in the North.”⁸ The inland water passage south of Beaufort had in all probability been sealed by this time.

There were some eight hundred effective troops at Beaufort—the same soldiers General Robert Howe had once called “raw boys from the Highlands who would not fight.” They had showed before what they could do. They would do so again, if Maitland could but get the Seventy-first to Savannah! By some sort of miracle he had to do so—soon.

If Colonel Maitland was at all distracted from that object, it must have been when his eyes fell upon the courthouse and the gaol as he looked up at the little settlement of thirty houses. The British had been using them as hospitals and the sick were being evacuated. There were many on the invalid list, for this was an unhealthy country—a land where “Even on the most beautiful days the air is not pure,” complained the Hessians.⁹ Yet these Carolina islands, wrote Prevost, were “reckon’d the Montpelier of this Country.”¹⁰

There was a flush, too, on Colonel Maitland’s face. It was not the flush of strong drink for which he was reputed to have a fondness. Somewhere on this malarial coast he had contracted what the physicians of the day diagnosed as “bilious fever.” His health had been much impaired by the long and enervating summer during which the temperature had hovered for three straight weeks between 90 and 98, reaching 103 at one point. But if the thought occurred to this officer that he should be with the sick instead of at the head of his troops he instantly dismissed it. . . . The vessels moved away. The tabby-frame house which had been the headquarters of the Honorable John Maitland for the past two months faded around the bend in the deepening twilight of the September afternoon. To the south thunder rolled through heavily overcast skies.

“Haste on, ye brave! Your Country cries;

Fierce wolves of France and faction wait:

The FREEBORN, chains, shame, death defy;

Your swords decide an empire’s fate.”

(From Savannah, a Poem in Two Cantos to the Memory of the Honourable Colonel John Maitland by Robert Colvill, London, 1780)