Battle of Hobkirk ' s Hill The Battle of Hobkirk ' s Hill ( sometimes referred to as the Second Battle of Camden ) was a battle of the American Revolutionary War fought on April 25 , 1781 , near Camden , South Carolina . A small American army under Nathanael Greene defended a ridge known as Hobkirk ' s Hill against an attack by an even smaller British force led by Francis Rawdon . After a fierce clash , Greene retreated a few miles , leaving Rawdon ' s soldiers in possession of the hill . The battlefield marker is located at Broad Street and Greene Street north of the center of Camden . Even though Rawdon was the victor , he soon fell back to Camden . Later in the day Greene sent a small force of cavalry and infantry to pick up the American wounded and stragglers . These soldiers drove off a troop of loyalist dragoons . Despite his tactical success , Rawdon found it necessary to abandon Camden two weeks later and withdraw toward Charleston , South Carolina . The battle was one of four contests in which Greene met tactical defeat , yet his overall strategy was successful in depriving the British of all South Carolina except Charleston . Greene considered the battle a lost opportunity to defeat a significant British force of the British Army and compel them to abandon their outposts scattered across South Carolina for the safety of Charleston . Background . After the Battle of Guilford Court House , Cornwallis ' s force was spent and in great need of supply . He therefore moved his army towards Wilmington , North Carolina where he had previously ordered supplies to be sent . Greene pursued the British force for a short time before deciding to take his forces into South Carolina . Greene hoped that by threatening the British garrisons in the state he could force Cornwallis to pursue him and then engage the British on ground favorable to his army . When informed of this strategy , Henry " Light Horse Harry " Lee replied on April 2 : When Cornwallis did not pursue the Continental Army , Greene chose to reduce the British garrisons scattered throughout South Carolina in order to force the British back into Charleston . To this end , Greene started his army of 1 , 450 men , made up of four Continental regiment s , Lee ' s Legion , Washington ' s Cavalry and Campbell ' s Riflemen , as rapidly and secretly as possible towards Camden , which was at the center of the British line of posts in South Carolina . At the same time he hoped to secure the cooperation of the various partisan bands in South Carolina . The movement was part of an intricate campaign organised by Greene involving Continental and militia troops all across the colony . To that end , he sent Lee and his men to assist General Francis Marion , whose small band of militia was being pursued by 400 British troops under John Watson , in the hopes of preventing Watson and his men from reaching Camden before the battle . To that end he was successful , as the combined forces of Lee and Marion forced Watson to make a lengthy detour before eventually rejoining the British forces at Camden after the battle . The Camden garrison under Lord Francis Rawdon included the 63rd ( The West Suffolk ) Regiment of Foot , the Volunteers of Ireland , the King ' s American Regiment , the New York Volunteers , the South Carolina Royalists and a small detachment of cavalry . The town of Camden was situated on a gentle elevation . To the south and southwest lay the Wateree River and to the east was Pinetree creek . A ring of redoubt s , constructed by the British during their year long occupation of the town , stretched from the Wateree to the Pinetree and covered the northern approaches . Upon arrival on April 20 , 1781 at Camden , it was apparent that the Continentals had lost the element of surprise as Rawdon ' s forces were prepared on all fronts . Being unable to storm the town or surround the entire circle of fortifications , Greene chose to encamp his army about a mile and a half away on a small elevation called Hobkirk ' s Hill , blocking Great Waxhaw Road . As he did not have enough men to besiege Camden , Greene , hoping to draw Rawdon into an attack on the position , organized the camp so that battle positions could be taken quickly in the event of an alarm . The following evening , Greene ' s intelligence indicated that a force of some four hundred British soldiers was marching to Camden to join Rawdon ' s garrison . Greene detached some of the South Carolina militia under Colonel Carrington to the east with some of his artillery to cover the road from Charleston . Finding the terrain too marshy for the artillery , Carrington removed the cannon to a position of safety and awaited further orders . On April 24 , having received updated information that the additional forces were not on their way to join the Camden garrison , Greene ordered Carrington back to Hobkirk ' s Hill . Early the next morning a Continental deserter , sometimes identified as a drummer , made his way into Camden . He was brought before Rawdon and informed the British commander of the Continental Army ' s dispositions and that they had no artillery . Fearing that Generals Marion and Lee were on their way to join Greene and believing the Continental artillery was many miles away , Rawdon decided it was a judicious time to attack . Battle . On the morning of April 25 , 1781 , Rawdon was still under the impression that the Continental army was without its artillery . At approximately 9 : 00 am he left the security of the Camden fortifications with 900 troops . Unknown to Rawdon , Carrington had returned to Hobkirk ' s Hill that morning , together with the artillery and provisions , which were distributed to the Continental troops . At around 11 am , while many of the Continentals were occupied with cooking and washing clothes , their advanced pickets detected the British forces which had gained the American left by a long march skirting a swamp next to the ridge occupied by the Continental Army . The advanced pickets , under Captain Robert Kirkwood , were able to delay the British advance giving Greene time to give orders and line his forces up for battle . He placed the Virginia Regiment under Lieutenant Colonel Campbell on the extreme right with another Virginia Regiment under Lieutenant Colonel Samuel Hawes to their left . On the extreme left , Greene placed the 5th Maryland Regiment under Lieutenant Colonel Benjamin Ford , with the 1st Maryland Regiment commanded by John Gunby to their right . The artillery was placed in the center with North Carolina militia in the rear . The three 6 - pound cannons and 40 Virginia gunners were directed by Colonel Charles Harrison . Having extricated his forces from the woods and forced back the pickets , Rawdon arranged his forces and slowly advanced up the ridge towards the waiting Continentals . Greene , perceiving the British forces were presenting a narrow front , ordered an attack . He instructed Campbell on the right to wheel his men to the left and engage the British on their flank with Ford to take his men and make a similar movement on the left . Greene ordered the two remaining regiments in the center to advance with bayonets and confront the enemy head on , while Washington was to take his cavalry around the British left flank and attack the enemy in the rear . The forceful movement of the Americans and the unexpected contribution of their artillery to the exchange inflicted heavy casualties on the British , but their line held . During the advance of the 1st Maryland on the British left , Captain William Beatty Jr . , who was in command to the right of the 1st Maryland regiment , was killed causing his company to stop their advance . Gunby ordered his men to stop their advance and fall back with the intention of reforming their line . At this time , Benjamin Ford of the 5th Maryland was mortally wounded throwing his troops into disorder . When the Continental flank began to fall apart , Lord Rawdon and the Volunteers of Ireland ( Rawdon ' s Personal Regiment ) charged . The Maryland troops rallied briefly to fire a few rounds and then fled . Lord Rawdon , although outnumbered nearly two to one , and without artillery , took the field . Casualties . The British casualties were 39 killed , 210 wounded and 12 missing . The American casualties may be ascertained from two documents written by Colonel Otho Holland Williams , General Greene ' s deputy adjutant - general . The first of these , a ‘ List of the officers killed , wounded , and taken prisoners , in the action before Camden , the 25th of April , 1781 ’ , details 1 officer and 18 enlisted men killed , 5 officers and 108 enlisted men wounded , 2 officers captured ( one of them wounded ) and 136 enlisted men missing . Williams wrote , “ The greatest part of those who are missing had not well understood the order to rally at Saunder ' s creek ; some were killed ; 47 of them were wounded , and are in the enemy ' s hospital ; we have tidings of about one third of the remaining number , and hope they will be able to join us ” . The second of these documents is a letter from Williams to his brother , dated April 27 , in which he wrote , “ Capt I . Smith of the Third , and Capt Lunt [ Lieut ] Bruff are both prisoners , last wounded . Lieut Trueman is a prisoner , and it is said thirty - nine privates of our army are taken , besides a number wounded , the whole amounting to about fifty ” This would indicate that 2 officers and 39 enlisted men were taken prisoner apart from the 1 officer and 47 enlisted men who were wounded and captured . The total American loss at Hobkirk ’ s Hill would therefore appear to be 19 killed ; 113 wounded ; 48 wounded prisoners ; 41 unwounded prisoners and 50 missing unaccounted for , some of whom were killed . Aftermath . Washington and his cavalry never made it to the action . Their circuit to reach the British rear took them to Rawdon ' s hospital and commissary area , where they took 200 prisoners . Thus laden , they were too late to assist in the battle , and joined Greene ' s army on its retreat from the battlefield . Washington did , however , return in time to save the three cannons from capture . The guns were dragged from the field by 45 Maryland infantrymen . This company repelled a number of charges by loyalist horsemen under John Coffin but they suffered serious losses in the process . The American retreat did not last long . Rawdon withdrew most of his forces to Camden , leaving only a company of dragoon s at the battlefield . That afternoon , Greene sent Washington and Kirkwood back to Hobkirk ' s Hill , where they ambushed and drove the dragoons away ; Greene turned the army around and reoccupied the site . Colonel Gunby was castigated by Greene for his actions that caused the line to break . A court martial that was immediately convened found that his " spirit and activity were unexceptionable " but that his order to fall back was " in all probability the only cause why we did not obtain a complete victory " , without mentioning the failures of Washington and his cavalry ' s late arrival . Rawdon returned to Camden , where Watson ' s men joined him on May 7 . However , the ongoing presence of Greene on one flank and South Carolina militia general Thomas Sumter on another , and the fact that Marion and Lee were wreaking havoc with his supply and communications with Charleston , convinced him that he could no longer hold Camden . On May 9 , Rawdon abandoned Camden , retreating to Moncks Corner . It is notable that the future seventh president of the United States , Andrew Jackson , witnessed the battle . He was being held by the British at the Camden District jail as a prisoner of war .