A Hoo-Hah at Wahab's Plantation: A Loyalist Tuck-Up during the Rev War

The Battle of Wahab's Plantation was no garden-variety squabble. It was a sneaky tuck-up on a Loyalist camp, going down during the American Revolutionary War. Just a few days after General Cornwallis marched north from South Carolina with the British army, Major William R. Davie, a North Carolina militia leader, saw his chance and grabbed it. The Loyalists, thinking they were safe in the Wahab plantation, were deceitfully kept unawares. In the Waxhaw shindig of 1780, this battle was far from ordinary, and here's why.

Background The British were trying to stake their claim in the Southern states with their 'southern strategy' for winning the American Revolutionary War. They had captured Charleston, South Carolina early in 1780, and driven the Continental Army forces from South Carolina. Following his successful take at Camden in August 1780, British General Lord Cornwallis stopped off in the Waxhaw region of northern South Carolina. Believing British and Loyalist forces to be in control of Georgia and South Carolina, he decided to turn north and deal with the Continental Army holdouts in North Carolina.

Cornwallis' moves were followed closely by companies of North Carolina militia. One force under Thomas Sumter stayed back and fussed British and Loyalist outposts in the South Carolina backcountry, while another, under Major William R. Davie, kept a fairly tight leash on his force as it moved northward. When he heard that companies of Loyalist dragoons and British light infantry were nesting in a camp behind Cornwallis’ army, he made a plan to try for a surprise attack on one of those camps.

== Battle ==Riding off on the evening of September 20, he found the Loyalist camp at Wahab’s Plantation, not too far from the light infantry camp. Sending William Davidson and a crew through a cornfield to snatch the plantation house, he started moving up the lane toward the camp. The surprise was almost complete, and the Loyalists took off, leaving 15 dead and 40 wounded. == Aftermath ==Davie did not hang around at the Loyalist camp, as the infantry spotted, and were arming themselves.

He took away 96 horses and 120 muskets, and beat it to the north. Walkup’s plantation was torched. Davie linked up with British forces a few days later when they entered Charlotte, North Carolina.

Sources: Wikipedia, OpenStreetMap, Wikidata