1780 Mid-November in the Carolinas has:
1) Tarleton (Brit officer) chasing Francis Marion in SC
2) Thomas Sumter had gone to Hillsboro, NC during Kings Mountain, where the SC governor Rutledge was in exile ... where he is trying to get a promotion (Brig Gen) .. and he gets one and then recruits/gathers a force to get back into the fray in SC. Unlike Marion, the Gamecock uses the promise of private plunder to be able to get more men to fight with him.
3) Cornwallis in Winnsboro, SC in winter quarters and Wemyss was on patrol near there while Tarleton was away chasing the fox.
Wemyss learns that Sumter is within 30 miles of him and requests from Cornwallis to engage. Cornwallis prefers Tarleton but agrees with the restriction of no night attacks. Wemyss plans a dawn raid and also recruits an assassination squad for locating Sumter. They arrive only to find that Sumter had moved to Fish Dam Road five more miles downriver from where he expected ... and in a strategic error, ordered a post-midnight attack in which the Tories were repulsed by the militia force and Wemyss was shot through the arm and knee maiming him for life. He was captured and then paroled and never took the field again. He was remembered only as the burner of churches that were "sedition shops". The assassination squad caught Sumter sleeping in his tent BUT he escaped barely clothed and hung bareback on a horse all night for warmth.
After this event Sumter bragged that his force now grew from 300 to 1000 overnight. This news caused Tarleton (w/ 300-400 Tories) to quit hunting the fox and go back after Sumter and on November 20th at Blackstock's Plantation he attacked Sumter before his 250 man Scottish bag-playing foot soldiers and an artillery unit could assist. As a result, 60% of his force was killed/wounded and gave Thomas Sumter his biggest win. (Although Sumter himself took five buckshot to the chest and was out of commission for three months) Sumter's militia fought from covered positions and even turned back a bayonet charge by the British 63rd Foot regulars.
[This is a huge chapter - going to split it up .. next up will be Snippet 11B .. and that one will include a Major John Vanderhorst as one of Francis Marion's leaders of a duel team to settle the conflict .. 20 men on each side march 50 yards and turn (distance then was 100 yards) .. you will not believe what happened]
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