Battle of Camden Point - Thornton's Picnicing Force Ambushed

The tragedy of the Battle of Camden is that it should never have taken place when and where it did.

The American General Horatio Gates, hero of Saratoga, had taken command of the troops in the South from Baron Johann de Kalb only a short six weeks before the battle. His mission was to clear the British from the Carolinas. De Kalb's men were bordering on starvation and exhaustion; consequently, he advised Gates to take a longer route into South Carolina by way of Charlotte, where friends and supplies were plentiful.