In March 1781, Lord Francis Hastings Rawdon, the British commanding officer in Charleston, planned a two-pronged assault against General Francis Marion’s forces. From Camden, Col. Welbore Ellis Doyle and the Volunteers of Ireland moved east and south to destroy Marion’s camp at Snow’s Island, while from Fort Watson, Col. John Watson and a combined British and Loyalist force advanced along the Santee River toward Marion’s main force near Nelson’s Ferry. The engagements that followed between Watson and Marion became known as Watson’s Chase or the Bridges Campaign. Marion and Watson first clashed on March 6 on the quarter-mile-long causeway over Wyboo Swamp, where Marion had prepared an ambush. Their cavalry fought several times on the causeway, and Marion’s men at first held back Watson’s advance. When two British cannons arrived, Marion ordered a retreat down River Road to John Cantey’s plantation. After the battle, Patriot sympathizers in the area repeatedly told the story of Gavin James, a private in Marion’s Brigade, who faced enemy soldiers advancing across the causeway with only his musket, killing one with a shot and two more with his bayonet.