The Thomas Cox Mill, willed to him by his father William, is where General Baron Johan deKalb camped and resupplied the Continental Army while awaiting General Horatio Gates to assume command in the summer of 1780. With the fall of Charleston and capture of General Lincoln in May, 1780, deKalb assumed temporary command of the war effort in the south while awaiting the arrival of Gates.
The soldiers had been marching for weeks with few provisions when they arrived at Buffalo Ford on Deep River. The Continental forces were 1,400 Delaware and Maryland Continentals, three companies of artillery, and 60 calvary. The militia forces joining them included 1,450 from Virginia and 1,200 from North Carolina, but they were also poorly supplied.
In a letter to Gates, deKalb wrote:
“You will find the Army in a few days at or near Coxe’s mill; your shortest road will be by Lindsey’s mill, Col. Thaxton and Rocky river. Your waggons, if you have any, would go better by Chatham Court house; your Quarters will be marked near camp.”
To General Washington, deKalb wrote:
“We live from hand to mouth, and get very little, but what is collected by Detachments, and brought in with our Baggage Waggons, the Scatter’d few farms in this part, and sending the Corn to Mills occasion great loss of time, nor is there any better prospect.”
After arriving in late July, Gates also wrote pleading for supplies:
“The Deplorable State of the Commissary and Quarter Master’s Departments, and the intire (sic) Deficiency of Magazines to Supply the Southern Army, Oblige me to Request General Huger to be the Bearer of this Letter…”
The military leaders probably knew they could go in and tell the residents in this predominantly Quaker area to provide what the army needed. Gates wanted to engage the British and hurried the rest and resupply effort. Lt. Col. H. L. Landers, a historian in the Army War College, wrote in 1929:
“A small magazine of supplies was gathered together at Coxe’s mill, on Deep River, where the troops arrived on the 19th day of July and encamped near Buffalo Ford. In the new camp it was soon found that shortage of supplies still continued. There was scarcely sufficient grain even for the immediate subsistence of the troops, and the only meat ration that could be procured was lean beef, driven daily out of the woods and canebrakes, where the cattle had wintered.”
Gates subsequently marched the army toward the British positions in Camden, SC eager to repeat previous battle success he led at Saratoga. The march of over 3000 poorly supplied soldiers and militia through Carolina pines in the dog days of summer was foolish. The British were victorious at Camden on August 16, 1781, and Gates fled the battle, literally, in disgrace.
Sources of note:
Forebears and Kinfolks 