Note 1109 — Chapter VI · (continued 2)

According to Lincoln's official report, the Continental troops, "including the sick and wounded", surrendered prisoners of war at Charleston numbered 2,487. Adding to this the 89 Continentals killed, we have 2,576, or within five of the number of the garrison as given in the New Jersey Gazette for June 23, 1780 (Hough, Charleston, 198). Lincoln says further that at the time of surrender the militia "effectives" did not exceed 500 men (Lee, Memoirs, i. 141), in all not over 3,000. Clinton, in his report as usually printed, gives the total as 5,612, or 5,618, "together with town and country militia, French and seamen, make about six thousand men in arms." In Beatson, Memoirs, vi. 209, the number of seamen is printed as 100 instead of 1,000—a considerable reduction, and perhaps nearer the mark. Clinton's estimate was further increased in the royalist newspapers of the time to "between seven and eight thousand men." Lincoln's figures are probably the nearest to the truth, as all the contemporary writers on the American side insisted that Clinton counted among his prisoners every man capable of bearing arms in Charleston. At any rate, whatever their number, the militia, excepting the artillery company, seem to have been of but little service, as their loss in killed and wounded was not over forty, and in this estimate is included the total loss to those inside the lines not otherwise accounted for. Lincoln stated his killed at 89, and wounded at 140. But both Ramsay and Moultrie say that from five to six hundred Continentals were in the hospital at the time of the surrender.