![The Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs: Print Collection, The New York Public Library. “Major General Benjamin Lincoln, Benjamin Lincoln [facsimile signature]” New York Public Library Digital Collections.](https://www.thenmusa.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Screenshot-2025-12-02-at-12.31.42 PM-copy.png)
Lincoln’s reputation was sullied by his tardy response to the British raid on Charleston, but Governor Rutledge and Colonel Moultrie insisted on keeping him in command. Meanwhile, Clinton’s army of 8,700 British and Hessian troops sailed southwards, escorted by a Royal Navy flotilla under Adm. Mariot Arbuthnot. Clinton convinced Arbuthnot to land the troops at the undefended Stono River outlet, which offered a safe path for the army to move inland towards Charleston. Unlike 1779, when American troops fought hard to delay Prevost’s advance, Clinton’s troops reached the Wappoo Cut—a tidal creek connecting the Stono and Ashley Rivers—without serious fighting. While British engineers bridged the creek, light boats brought up supplies, reinforcements and siege guns. British gunners at Fenwick’s Point fired on an American armed galley in the Ashley River early on 12 March 1780. A stray cannon shot landed in the city, a clear warning that British invaders were at Charleston’s doorstep.
"The Enemy’s present disposition of his force and all his late operations indicate a design to attack Charles Town by a siege in form. To complete the investiture he must introduce his Ships of war into the harbor-that it is his intention appears from his fixing buoys on the bar, barricading his Ships wastes—and anchoring them in a station where they may embrace the first favorable spring-tides to enter. His Transports and Store ships have removed from Edisto Up Stono River where they lie contiguous to Wappoo Cut, which is the water communication from thence to Ashley River-At a point of the Main-Land formed by the issuing of the former into the latter, he raised in the course of a night, the 11th inst., a battery of six embrasures. This Situation is naturally very advantageous, he will probably render very strong, and establish in it his deposit of military Stores and provisions. He then may either force a passage over Ashley River, or turn it by a circuitous march-fortify a camp on the neck and open his trenches. The best communications between his magazines and Camp will be across the Ashley River."
Lt. Col. John Laurens to General George Washington, 14 March 1780Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/03-25-02-0033.