ALS, DLC:GW. GW’s aide-de-camp Tench Tilghman docketed the letter: “no answer necessary.”

With the fall of Charleston on 12 May and the capture of Maj. Gen. Benjamin Lincoln, Kalb assumed temporary command of the southern department while awaiting the arrival of Maj. Gen. Horatio Gates, newly appointed to that command by Congress. Kalb’s letter to the Board of War was his first report. He faced a dire situation. The British had established control of South Carolina. After arranging affairs in the state, Gen. Henry Clinton turned over command in the south to Lt. Gen. Earl Cornwallis and embarked with his light infantry, grenadiers, and two regiments for New York City. Cornwallis, left with an army of about 8,300 rank and file, disposed his troops to occupy the state and support Loyalist militia forces. After establishing a garrison in Charleston, he deployed about 2,500 men at Camden and dispersed smaller forces at Cheraw Hill, Georgetown, Rocky Mount, Ninety Six, and Beaufort. Similar small contingents occupied Augusta and Savannah in Georgia.

With South Carolina firmly in British hands, a new American army centered on Kalb’s Maryland division began forming in North Carolina. Kalb’s Maryland troops became the only field-ready continental infantry in the department after the defeat of Col. Abraham Buford’s Virginia continentals on 29 May (see William Galvan to GW, 13 June). A handful of Virginia state troops and some Continental cavalry augmented Kalb’s division. Small bands of South Carolina militia remained active combating Loyalist forces in the upcountry parts of the state. The other southern states were calling larger militia forces into service. Virginia had called up 2,500 men and ordered them south. North Carolina had summoned another large body into active service to join the 400 troops already in the field (see Thomas Jefferson’s first letter to GW, 11 June). While waiting for reinforcements, Kalb remained greatly outnumbered in experienced troops, and he faced the challenge of supplying his men with provisions (see Kalb to GW, 29 June).

Affairs in the southern department assumed increasing importance for GW as the major operations of the war shifted to that theater. His remoteness from that region meant that GW could only provide advice and reinforcements to Kalb, and later, Gates, but he closely followed developments and advocated for the importance of the southern army in his communications with Congress.