Major James Wemyss had a plan and a sketch. He knew which tent was Thomas Sumter's. He had detached specific men to ride for that tent and kill or capture the Carolina Gamecock the moment the attack began. He had every advantage of intelligence. What he did not have, in the dark hour before 1 a.m. on November 9, 1780, was the patience to wait for dawn. His men were close. He thought Sumter's patrols would spot them. So Wemyss charged in the dark, and by the campfires that the militia had deliberately kept burning, the British became targets while the Americans stayed in shadow. Twenty minutes later it was over. Wemyss was on the ground with two musket wounds, captured. Sumter was on the Broad River bank, having slipped out of his tent at the first shot. The patriots had won a small, important battle by being ready when surprise came.
By autumn 1780, Lord Cornwallis was unhappy. The British 'southern strategy' had captured Charleston in early 1780 and routed Continental forces. After his great victory over Horatio Gates at Camden in August, Cornwallis had marched into North Carolina, expected to be greeted by Loyalists rising in support. Instead he found himself in Charlotte, virtually surrounded by hostile militia. Then on October 7, the over-mountain men annihilated Major Patrick Ferguson's Loyalist command at Kings Mountain. Cornwallis fell back to Winnsboro, South Carolina, and turned his attention to two militia commanders who would not stop harassing his supply lines: Thomas Sumter in the backcountry and Francis Marion in the eastern lowlands. He sent Banastre Tarleton after Marion. He sent Major James Wemyss with the 63rd Regiment and Loyalist dragoons after Sumter.
On November 8, local Loyalists told Wemyss that Sumter was encamped near Fishdam Ford on the Broad River. The intelligence was good - Wemyss knew the layout of the camp well enough to dispatch men specifically against Sumter's tent. What he did not know was that Sumter's officers had given strict orders that night. The men were to lie on their arms - fully equipped, weapons at hand, sleeping ready. The campfires were to be kept burning. And every man was to know exactly where he was supposed to go if attacked. The American militia, often dismissed as undisciplined, had absorbed the lessons of repeated British surprise raids. They were waiting to be attacked. They were ready when it came.
Wemyss led from the front. He charged Sumter's sentries himself and was hit twice by musket fire almost immediately, going down. His dragoons kept the charge, riding into the lit camp - and the campfires showed them perfectly to the militia, who had stepped back into the woods just outside the firelight. The Americans fired a first volley that took the lead British company by surprise. The dragoons retreated. The British infantry then advanced into the camp and met the same kind of fire from the dark trees. A British bayonet charge - the bayonet was the redcoat's most reliable killing tool - faltered because nobody could see a fence between the lines until they were on top of it. After twenty minutes the British broke and fell back, leaving their wounded, including the badly hit Wemyss, on the field. Sumter himself, for all his fame, had no part in the fight. He had bolted from his tent at the first alarm and made it to the riverbank, where he stayed.
The British failure at Fishdam Ford was small in casualties but large in consequence. Cornwallis recalled Tarleton from the hunt for Francis Marion and sent him after Sumter instead, believing Sumter was about to attack the British post at Ninety Six. The two would meet on November 20 at Blackstock's Farm. There, Sumter nearly avenged his own near-capture at Fishing Creek in August, badly wounding Tarleton's force. Wemyss spent the rest of the war as a prisoner. The small fight at Fishdam Ford had not changed the strategic balance, but it had given the patriots a clear win at a moment when wins were scarce. It also taught a lesson that the British seemed to keep needing to relearn: militia, given competent officers and a few minutes' warning, were not the easy targets the regulars assumed.
Located at 34.60N, 81.42W on the Broad River, in Chester County, South Carolina, about 40 miles northwest of Columbia. The ford was historically a fishing weir crossing - the British troops were marching from Winnsboro, about 13 miles east. Nearest airports: Fairfield County (KFDW) 8 nm southeast, Chester Catawba Regional (KDCM) 22 nm north, Columbia Metropolitan (KCAE) 42 nm south. From altitude the Broad River winds through wooded ridges and small farms; the historic site is unmarked from the air. Recommended viewing 2,500 to 4,000 ft AGL.