Carolina Celts & The American Revolution

This month, many Southern Nationalists will celebrate April as “Confederate History Month.”  These individuals are justifiably patriotic toward that undeniably distinct region in the United States that once sought independence from Washington, DC.  Beginning with secession declarations and ultimately culminating in a Lincoln-induced crisis at Fort Sumter in April 1861, the South would permanently establish itself as a region that has always stood bravely in the face of expanded tyrannical government.  In that vein, there is another event in American history that occurred in April that did not start in the South, but ended in the South: the American Revolution. 

In fact, it would be hard for anyone to deny that the South may not have kicked off the Revolution, but it ended it – when Yankees could not.  It is yet another example by which the South lays a greater claim to a unique American identity than any other region on this continent.  The weight of historical evidence proves that the United States would still be a British Commonwealth had Southerners not finished off the British Army throughout the extensive and exhaustive Carolinas Campaign that culminated in the surrender of British General Charles Cornwallis at Yorktown, Virginia in October 1781. 

Unfortunately, while so many Southerners focus on the seminal events of the mid-19^th Century, they ignore their outsized influence in the creation of an independent country.  In large part, I blame Yankee historians, most of whom focus on Boston.  That is a shame, but not surprising. 

The South’s role in the American Revolution is far too broad a topic for a simple article.  No doubt, the readers of Identity Dixie are aware of Virginia’s important contributions to the creation of the United States.  From General George Washington’s leadership to Thomas Jefferson’s Declaration to James Madison’s Constitution, these men were allowed to be worshipped until recently.  But there is more to the story than the noble Virginian elite who led in the creation of a new type of government.  The Western Carolina Celt won the war.

Those who are familiar with Revolutionary history know that there are three distinct phases of that war.  The first phase focused primarily in the North.  Throughout a series of losses suffered by the early Continental Army, coupled with a few minor victories, a stunning blow at Saratoga, New York, put a stake in the heart of British attempts to “decapitate” radical New England from the rest of the colonies.  That stated, even at that phase of the war, there was no guarantee of an independent American state.  New York, a commercial outpost from its inception, was a loyalist stronghold.  Few New Yorkers supported the war.  Northwestern New Yorkers on the periphery of Iroquois territory enjoyed the comfort of knowing British Imperial protection and treaties protected them.

As it pertained to Pennsylvania, the German settlers of that state had little interest or investment in a British-American colonial enterprise.  However, many were dedicated religious pacificists – Quakers.  Even if they supported the war on personal grounds, they certainly would not fight for independence.  Needless to say, the conflict was unpopular outside of New England.  But the South had remained incredibly quiet relative to the rest of the colonies.  This led the British to falsely believe that the South supported remaining within the Empire, despite a few radicals in Virginia.

The next phase of the war, after Saratoga, can largely be described as an attempt at attrition.  A war designed to suppress a colonial uprising was growing unpopular in the United Kingdom.  Whereas the British endured astounding proportional casualties in the beginning of the war, the total numbers were light by the standards of European Continental numbers.  The real issue was elite intransigence at a time by which growing unrest was beginning to resonate among commoners.  The Americans, for all their faults, were seen to be fighting for Enlightenment ideals.  American propaganda highlighted the fact that had the British Parliament, led by a German King, invited their fellow Anglos to enjoy some parliamentary representation, the Americans would have no cause to fight.  Whether that was true or not, it certainly would have taken the bite out of the American cause.  British subjects were aware of this in the late-1770s.

Ironically, while the British needed to suppress potential domestic unrest, especially in Ireland and the English Midlands, Continental monarchies seeking an opportunity to land a blow to British power began to support the American cause after Saratoga.  France and Spain were critical to this cause.  While the British entrenched themselves in major urban centers in the Mid-Atlantic states – Philadelphia, Baltimore, and New York – Continental monarchies supported a revolutionary movement that would ultimately undo them.  For the British, however, the prolonged nature of the war and its growing unpopularity led King George III’s ministry to determine that a quick end could be facilitated by means of a Southern Strategy.  The British would focus on the South, killing any vestige of Revolutionary support, and further reemphasizing the impossibility of American independence to isolated New England.  It was a miscalculation of immeasurable proportions.  The British simply did not understand Colonial Dixie.

The third and most active phase of the Revolution – often ignored by Boston-based historians – began with an attempt by the British to reimpose dominance in South Carolina.  The Siege of Charleston which began in March 1780 was a British victory by May.  In fact, at the time, it was considered one of the greatest victories of the British in the war.  It established a beachhead for internal Carolina operations, and it was largely assumed by the British that Loyalists would assist in the suppression of the South.  Unfortunately for the British, the demographics of the Carolinas did not favor them.

The book Cracker Culture: Celtic Ways in the Old South, by Professor Grady McWhiney describes the unfavorable demography of the Carolinas for British occupiers.  To begin, McWhiney’s book , which begins with a prologue by fellow Southern historian, Professor Forrest McDonald, describes how the Irish – not the Scots-Irish – settled much of the Carolinas in the early days of its colonial history in the 1700s.  Many historians mistook them for Scots-Irish settlers, typified by more loyal inclinations to the Crown, because of the Northern Irish ports from which they hailed.  That was a product of geography, not genetics.  Underdeveloped Southern Ireland had few ports that were suited for transcontinental ships.  Correspondingly, if an Irishman from Cork or Roscommon wanted to emigrate to America, he did so out of Antrim or Ulster.  The Scots-Irish of the early 18^th Century had little incentive to leave Northern Ireland at the time; the native Irish, however, had a great deal of incentive to carveout a new path.

There was also a very heavy Scottish presence in the Carolinas.  The Scots of the early 18^th Century suffered indignities related to an occupation of Scottish territory by English troops in the aftermath of the Second Jacobite War.  Many Scots chose to emigrate to the Carolinas and Georgia, the latter a debtor’s colony in the 1700s.  By the time the Third Jacobite War occurred in 1745, it was clear that the British had no interest in a power sharing agreement with Scotland in a “United” Kingdom.  More Scots moved to the Carolinas by virtue of trans-Pennsylvanian routes to Western Virginia and the Carolina Appalachians.

By the 1760s, the Carolinas were demographically comprised of a heavy combination of Scottish and Irish settlers with a significant German population in the Piedmont area of North Carolina and the northern portion of Georgia – on the periphery of Cherokee lands.  The Scots-Irish would come to the South, too, but not nearly in the significant numbers needed to become the demographic force they would eventually become.  Regardless, it was clear that the Carolinas, especially the western and northeastern areas, had become a Celtic stronghold, with a small number of Anglo settlers on the southern coasts – from Manteo to Charleston – somewhat similar to Virginia, but with less of a Cavalier influence. 

The Carolina Celts whom the British believed would remain loyal, largely derived from deeply anti-British societies.  What was misconstrued as imposed submission (i.e., having been beaten by superior Anglo Saxons, the Carolina Celts would submit to British authority), was really a cautious approach to revolution.  Unlike the radical New England Anglos, many of whom hailed from Southern England, these Celts had experienced British savagery and suppression.  They knew what it took to defeat the British and, in all honesty, based on writings from the Western Carolinas at the time, they did not believe their fellow American Colonists enjoyed the capacity to do that which it would take to defeat the British.  They were largely right, as evidenced by the dismal performance of New Englanders throughout the war.

As such, the Carolina Celts wanted to stay out of the war – neither supporting the British, and although sympathizing with their fellow Americans, believing Yankees to be inept at best, and potentially tyrannical at worst.  Although Pastor Mather Byles was a Bostonian, his quote, “Which is better – to be ruled by one tyrant three thousand miles away or three thousand tyrants one mile away?” seems to capture Carolina Celtic sentiment as it pertained to their misgivings regarding the potential for New England dominance in a post-Revolutionary Era.  Their fears would prove prescient by 1865.

Returning to the war, after the Siege of Charleston, General Cornwallis was given command of cleaning up rebels in the South while the British feared a French attack on New York.  The bulk of British forces remained in garrison up North, while the British enlisted the support of largely coastal Carolina Anglos and interior German Loyalists to augment their forces in the South.  Unfortunately for the British, Southerners did not fight like Yankees – in silly, organized lines.  Rather, outnumbered by a combined British and Loyalist force, and having lost much of their armaments in Charleston, the American colonists attacked British supply lines as they moved toward the interior of the Carolinas.  Francis Marion, the inspiration for Mel Gibson’s character in The Patriot, led a new type of guerilla warfare.  Frustrated by the unwillingness of Southerners to “fight like men,” Cornwallis unleashed British calvary Lieutenant Colonel Banastre Tarleton, augmented by a Loyalist militia, on the American guerillas.  Their brutality – known as “Tarleton’s Quarters” – quickly spread to the rest of the Carolinas.  The Carolina Celt was taking notice.

The Siege at Charleston was not only a British victory, but a costly propaganda failure.  When the British won, they refused to treat the Americans with the dignities afforded to surrendered armies.  Rather, they treated the Americans as criminals.  The cruelty was so bad that George Washington likewise chose to begin treating British prisoners with similar disdain.  The Carolina Celts were aware of the events in the East, but did nothing about it.  Now that the Loyalists were mistreating American colonists closer to home, Carolina Celts were beginning to mobilize.

Western Virginia’s Daniel Morgan, the product of Welsh immigrants, knew how the Carolina Celt thought.  Rather than fight in the manner prescribed by the British, French, and American Continentals, he utilized a combination of disruptive Kentucky sharpshooters (who were adept at the newly invented rifle), trained American Continentals in his command, and newly forming, Western rebel militia – mostly comprised of Carolina Celts, who had yet to really take part in the war.  At the Battle of Cowpens, Morgan’s knowledge of the strengths and weaknesses of his Celtic army enabled him to defeat the Loyalist Militia and British calvary, led by Tarleton, in January 1781.  It became a turning point in the war. 

Morgan’s strategy was simple.  By exploiting British arrogance, he set his inexperienced, less disciplined Carolina Militia in the center.  He required of them only three shots at point blank range before running in a preordered retreat.  On the flanks, experienced Continentals were positioned to endure either attacks to their flank (a common element of British calvary tactics) or empowered them to attack the British running into a boxed entrapment.  Unlike the British, the goal was not the capture of territory, but inflicting high casualties and drawing the British deeper into the Carolinas.  Southern Theater Commander, Nathanael Greene, used the method so well that Mao Zedong would later credit Greene as a role model.

Constantly chasing the Carolina Celts into minor Pyrrhic victories, the British suddenly found themselves in enemy territory, surrounded by hostile Carolina Celts.  As they gave chase to Greene’s army, they climbed deeper and deeper into an impossible supply chain trap.  The Carolina Celts attacked seemingly from everywhere.  By the time Cornwallis realized what Greene was doing – drawing him deeper and deeper away from British supplies and the British Navy – it was too late.  The only possible solution was either destroying Greene’s army, now receiving a steady supply of fresh Celtic volunteers who felt this was the way to beat the British (fighting, causing casualties, then fleeing to fight another day), or escaping to the Virginia coast to flee and regroup elsewhere.  Eventually, Cornwallis did just that – chasing Greene until he made a desperate run to Hampton Roads.

Greene, meanwhile, implored Washington multiple times to help him finish off the British.  Washington believed that French forces and a British mistake would allow him to yield a final blow closer to Philadelphia.  He also had little regard for Carolina Celts who showed no inclination to assist in the early days of the war. Again, this was a misinterpretation of Carolina Celtic sympathies.  When French intelligence officers corroborated Greene’s strategic advantage, only then did a combined French and American force under General Rochambeau and General George Washington race to entrap Cornwallis.  The British Navy, caught off guard by Cornwallis’ predicament, raced to assist him, but a combination of weather and the French Navy under the Comte de Grasse stopped British naval support.  Cornwallis eventually realized, under siege, his war was over.  What happens next is characteristically Celtic.

When the British surrendered at Yorktown, the Western Carolina militia simply went home.  For them, the war was over.  They punished those who invaded their land and mistreated their kith and kin.  Yankee volunteers to the American Continental Army questioned their loyalty and motivations.  Writers from the era describe their surprise at the general lack of celebration exhibited by the Carolina Celts.  They did a job and just went home, almost as quickly as they came into the war.  For the Carolina Celts, however, who knew the histories of the lands from which they hailed, there had to be some satisfaction knowing they avenged centuries of defeat by their forefathers at the hands of the British.  They beat the British when Southern Anglo-originated Yankees failed to do so.  There was no honor in celebrating over the defeated – as their colleagues from Connecticut and New Hampshire apparently did.  Farms required their return.

In sum, it is hard to look at the South’s experience during the American Revolution as anything but extraordinary.  This article provides a minor glimpse into the most exciting and often forgotten theater.  Yankee mythology effectively frames the American Revolution in the following way: Tea Party, Minute Men at Lexington and Concord, Bunker Hill, Declaration of Independence, Washington Crosses the Delaware, Valley Forge, Saratoga, and finally Yorktown.  In fact, there is no United States without the humble and fierce Carolina Celt.

More Southerners need to explore that part of their history, too, and reclaim their rightful place of honor.