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Andrew Pickens was another militia/partisan leader from South Carolina, although he was not destined to become a lasting legend like Marion or to a lesser extent Sumter. A farmer at the outbreak of the war, he served as a captain of militia as early as 1775, and was a colonel by 1779, when he won the battle of Kettle Creek, in Georgia. After the fall of Charleston, he surrendered the post he commanded and returned home on parole, but he soon broke it and returned to active rebellion. He was promoted to brigadier-general and commemorated by the Continental Congress for his participation in the battle of Cowpens.
In April, 1781, he raised a regiment of regulators who were to be "paid in plunder taken from Loyalists." He commanded this group during the capture of Augusta, the unsuccessful siege of Ninety Six, and the battle of Eutaw Springs, where he was wounded. He later led a series of raids against the Cherokee, burning a number of their towns.1
In a letter to David Ramsay, Thomas Brown took him to task for his accusations against British-allied Indian tribes, holding it up in contrast to Pickens' raid:
[H]ow ample a field for your fertile genius, without a flight into the regions of fiction, will the Indian expedition of General Pickens afford you -- such a scene of devastation and horror! Thirteen villages destroyed! Men, women, and children thrown into the flames, impaled alive, or butchered in cold blood! How different the conduct of those you style savages!
Brown's letter also contains an account of Pickens and his militia after the siege of Augusta which provides an enlightening glimpse of how he was viewed by those who fought against him:
From Colonel Lee, who commanded the Continental Legion, a gentleman of the most honourable and liberal sentiments, and from his officers, the King's troops experienced every security and attention; from the militia, under a General Pickens, every species of abuse and insult. Colonel Lee and his officers exerted themselves in an uncommon degree, and took every possible precaution to protect the prisoners from violence. The King's Rangers were paroled, and quartered at a gentleman's house, with a guard of Continental dragoons, under the command of Captain Armstrong. The militia prisoners were confined to a stockade fort, where General Pickens and his militia were quartered. After Colonel Lee marched from Augusta, Colonel Grierson, who had rendered himself peculiarly obnoxious to the enemy by his spirited and unwearied exertions in the cause of his country, was under the custody of the main guard, about ten paces from General Pickens' quarters. His spirit and unshaken loyalty in every change of fortune, marked him out as a proper victim to sacrifice to their savage resentment. One of General Pickens' men, named James Alexander, entered the room where he was confined with his three children, shot him through the body, and returned unmolested by the sentinel posted at the door, or the main guard. He was afterwards stripped, and his clothes divided among the soldiers, who, having exercised upon his dead body all the rage of the most horrid brutality, threw it into a ditch without the fort. Thus fell the brave, unfortunate Colonel Grierson [...] under the eye of General Pickens, by the hand of a bloody, sanctioned, and protected villain, in shameful violation of a solemn capitulation.
After the murder of Colonel Grierson, another execrable villain named Shields, (an unseen marksman,) the same day, in the same fort, under the eye of General Pickens, in the presence of his officers, without interruption from the sentries or guards, called Major Williams, of the Georgia Militia, to the door of the prison, and shot him through the body. These outrages served only as a prelude to a concerted plan for murdering all the prisoners. To execute this diabolical design, a hundred of General Pickens' unseen marksmen, accompanied by three colonels, marched with drawn swords to the quarters of the King's Rangers. Captain Armstrong being informed of their intention, threatened, and ordered his guards to oppose them if they advanced. Then, addressing himself to the King's Rangers, he told them, that if attacked, to consider themselves released from their paroles, and defend themselves. The determined spirit of Captain Armstrong and Major Washington, who were present, struck such a terror into these ruffians, that, apprehending an obstinate resistance, they instantly retired.
Enraged at the repetition of such abominable outrages by this band of assassins, not yet satiated with blood, I wrote to General Pickens, reproaching him with a violation of the articles of capitulation, in defiance of every principle of honour and good faith, and informed him, that the officers and men, having acted by my orders, ought to be exempted from violence; and if it was his determination that I should share the fate of Colonel Grierson, he would at least find that a man, conscious of having faithfully discharged his duty to his king and country, would meet his fate with indifference.
The prisoners shortly afterwards embarked for Savannah, under the charge of Major Washington, who, apprehending the commission of further outrages, distributed the guards among the different boats. By this precaution, the different detachments from General Pickens' camp, who had taken post on the banks of the river, were prevented, after repeated attempts, from firing into the boats.2
Pickens was a straight-laced Presbyterian, often cited -- even by his friends -- for his lack of humor as well as his taciturn and reluctant manner of speaking.
[Thanks to John Fredrikson for pointing out the existence of a Pickens biography.]
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1 Mark M. Boatner III, Encyclopedia of the American Revolution (Mechanicsburg, PA: Stackpole Books, 1994), p866. [ back ]
2 Thomas Brown to David Ramsay, n.d., in Rev. George White, Historical Collections of Georgia (New York: Pudney and Russell, 1854), p617-8. [ back ]
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