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on Fayssoux was constantly on the move. He accompanied General Moultrie to the Black Swamp in the spring of 1779 and retreated after the siege of Savannah, swamped with casualties.
In February 1780, a British expeditionary force commanded by Lt. Gen. Sir Henry Clinton made landfall south of Charleston for the first time since the patriots repelled the enemy during the Battle of Sullivan’s Island. On April 1, British siege operations began in earnest. Charleston’s garrison, 5600 continental soldiers and patriot militiamen under Maj. Gen. Benjamin Lincoln surrendered on May 12, 1780. Fayssoux and his medical colleagues became prisoners of war.
Dr. Olyphant previously named Fayssoux physician and surgeon-general of the army, a recommendation endorsed by Congress. Now, as an officer and physician on parole under the conditions specified by the capitulation, he had a certain amount of freedom of movement. Olyphant was also paroled, and then exchanged, but he had so mishandled his finances prior to the war that his British creditors managed to have him confined for a time to house arrest. This placed the burden of managing the hospital and sick prisoners on Fayssoux’s shoulders.
Early on the morning of August 27, 1780, Fayssoux was among twenty-nine patriots arrested by Charleston’s notoriously cruel commandant Lt. Col. Nisbet Balfour. After a short period of confinement in the Royal Exchange and Customs House, these “Ringleaders of Rebellion” were rowed to the armed ship Lord Sandwich, anchored in the harbor. Afloat within sight of the town and their homes, they anxiously awaited their fate. Fayssoux, considered essential medical personnel, was soon released and returned to town. Most of the detainees, including his mentee David Ramsay and patriot leader Christopher Gadsden, were transported to St. Augustine, East Florida, where they remained in exile for the better part of a year.
Plan of the Siege of Charleston ca. 1794. Robert Charles Lawrence Ferguson Collection.
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