On his way down, Sumter made several successful attacks on British outposts,
which were conducted more immediately by Col. Lee and Col. Wade Hampton.
Generals Sumter and Marion formed a junction near Biggen,
and marched to attack the fort there, garrisoned by five hundred infantry
and one hundred cavalry, and commanded by Col. Coates, a spirited officer.
His cavalry at first repulsed Sumter's advance, but were driven in
by the state troops under Col. Hampton. In the evening after,
Col. Coates set fire to the church, which contained all
his heavy baggage and stores, and retreating by the Strawberry road
over Watboo bridge, destroyed it, and thus gained a considerable advance
upon Sumter, who had to march round by a ford in pursuit.
Coates, in like manner, threw the plank off Huger's bridge,
and proceeded rapidly for Quimby. Here he had loosened
the planks of the bridge, and was waiting for his rear guard;
but, in the mean time, Lee had come up with and taken it.
Dr. Irvine, by advancing too far among the combatants,
was wounded in this affair,* together with several of Lee's men.
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