MARCH 1776: NEGLECTED REVOLUTIONARY WAR MILITARY ACTION

With the 4th of July holiday fast approaching, Balladeer’s Blog offers readers another seasonal post regarding overlooked military actions, this time from March of 1776.

MARCH 1st – British troops led by Major John Maitland landed and took Cockspur Island at the mouth of the Savannah River in Georgia. The Redcoats clashed with American Militiamen and drove them off. Both sides were left with wounded men following the exchange of gunfire, but no fatalities are known.

MARCH 2nd and 3rd – The Battle of the Rice Boats, aka the Battle of Yamacraw Bluff, took place along the Savannah River and the border between Georgia and South Carolina. Six hundred men of America’s 1st Georgia Regiment under Colonel Lachlan McIntosh coordinated actions with 500 members of the South Carolina militia.

        Four British warships, along with multiple smaller vessels, launched a joint land and sea effort to seize American rice ships in the area in order to feed the British forces. Over 300 British infantrymen took part in commandeering the rice boats by surprise overnight.

        Morning of March 3rd saw the American forces position their four artillery pieces at Yamacraw Bluff and open fire on the British vessels. Land forces of both nations fought it out in a battle that lasted over 4 hours.

        The rebel land forces won out, burning the rice boats to keep the food out of British hands and used one of the burning vessels as a fire ship, setting it on a collision course with the other warships, causing three of them to burn and sink while the men abandoned ship. British losses were 6-11 killed and unknown numbers of wounded. Americans suffered 2-5 killed and 3 wounded.

MARCH 3rd-4th – America’s makeshift rebel navy of 8 ships under Esek Hopkins raided Nassau in the Bahamas. 200 colonial marines temporarily occupied Nassau and its 2 forts, plundered 71 cannon and 24 casks of gunpowder, then departed. 

MARCH 11th – Off Georgia and South Carolina, American Colonel Stephen Bull led 400 South Carolinian militiamen in retaking Hutchinson Island from the British forces occupying it. The Redcoats were forced to abandon the island, leaving behind two artillery pieces and destroying 2,000 pounds of food.

MARCH 15th – Near Charlestown, South Carolina, England’s HMS Syren chased and captured an American ship that was transporting a Pennsylvania Artillery Company. 

MARCH 20th – At Cochrane’s Mill near Cross Creek, North Carolina, 16 armed colonists loyal to England bluffed rebel Colonel William Graham and his Tryon County Regiment of Militia to surrender to them by convincing the Americans that they were heavily outnumbered. Leading the Loyalists were Captain Thomas Reid and Captain Walter Cunningham.   

MARCH 25th – A joint force of Georgia militiamen and Creek Indians attacked Tybee Island, where British Marines were making captured plantation slaves cut wood and collect drinking water for them. The American forces opened fire. Nearby British warships fired three broadsides at the rebel troops then tried to land reinforcements for the British Marines already on the island.

        Sustained gunfire from the Americans eventually drove off the Brits. The rebels reported no dead or wounded, but the British lost 1-3 dead, a handful of wounded and lost 13 captured Marines. 

FOR MORE REVOLUTIONARY WAR BATTLES PRIOR TO THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE CLICK HERE.