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Survey of
Historic Sites and Buildings

	CAMDEN BATTLEFIELD South Carolina
Location: 5 miles north of Camden on county road just west of U.S. 521 and 601, Kershaw County. Documentary History of the Battle of Camden Katawbas Valley Land Trust

Ownership and Administration (1961). 2 acres are held by the Hobkirk Hill Chapter, Daughters of the American Revolution; the rest is in private ownership.

Significance. Although it was the worst of a series of disasters to American forces in the South, the Battle of Camden, August 16, 1780, actually had a beneficial result in that it brought the capable Nathanael Greene to the American command. Second only to Washington as a skilled tactical commander, Greene then launched a decisive campaign that, even though barren of victories, cleared the southern interior of British troops within a year.

The surrender of Gen. Benjamin Lincoln at Charleston on May 12, 1780, left only one organized American force in the South, and this was wiped out at Waxhaws on May 29. In July, however, another American army, consisting of Continentals and militia, advanced into South Carolina from the North under Gen. Horatio Gates. Confident that he outnumbered his opponent, Lord Charles Cornwallis, Gates detached part of his force to aid the partisan leader, Thomas Sumter, in a raid on distant British supply lines. Gates and Cornwallis collided near Camden on the morning of August 16, 1780.

The battle was of short duration. Gates formed the Continentals under Baron de Kalb (originally Johann or Hans Kalb, son of a peasant) on the right and the militia on the left. As the British advanced, the militia suddenly gave way and streamed from the field in wild flight. The British dashed through in pursuit and soon isolated and surrounded the Continentals. They continued to fight tenaciously until De Kalb was shot down, when the remnants quit the field. Gates failed to rally the beaten army, but managed to reassemble part of it at Hillsborough on August 19. Cornwallis fell back to Wininsboro after Maj. Patrick Ferguson's defeat at Kings Mountain, and Gates moved to Charlotte. There on December 2 he was relieved by Nathanael Greene.

Present Appearance (1961). The battlefield today is little changed from its original appearance. It is a flat area of open fields and pine woods, bordered on the east and west by small streams, with no intrusions on the historic scene. A stone monument erected by the Hobkirk Hill Chapter, Daughters of the American Revolution, marks the approximate site of De Kalb's fall, and a roadside narrative marker completes the interpretive development of the battlefield. [65]