After Eutaw Springs, the British retreated to their post at Fair Lawn Plantation. In November 1781, Brig. Gen. Francis Marion sent Col. Hezekiah Maham with 180 horsemen and Col. Isaac Shelby with 200 mountain riflemen to eliminate British foraging parties in the area. When the Whigs moved against the hospital and armory at Colleton House, the outnumbered garrison at nearby Fort Fairlawn did not interfere. Maham and Shelby's forces captured about 150 British soldiers, officers, and doctors without a fight. Those that were well enough to travel were taken as prisoners of war, and the rest were sent to the fort. Then the house ~ containing a substantial store of guns and supplies ~ was destroyed by fire.
This incident resulted in much controversy about the proper rules of warfare. The British held Maham and Shelby ~ and their commanding officer, Francis Marion ~ responsible for "such unmanly practices" as attacking a "parcel of sick, helpless soldiers in a hospital at Colleton House" and burning the building. Gen. Nathaniel Greene, the senior Continental officer in South Carolina, responded that the military supplies stored in the house had made it a legitimate target. Shelby wrote that it was in fact the British, not he and Maham, who had torched Colleton House, while Louisa Carolina Colleton, the owner of the property, accused the British of burning all of the plantation buildings ~ not only the mansion, but barns, granaries, mills, and the entire slave village.
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