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Description

Nice example of Faden's plan of the Battle near Camden, reissued by Stedman in his History of the American War. On the night of August 15, 1780, Major General Horatio Gates and his troops met the British Troops led by Cornwallis, just north of Gum Swamp. Cornwallis had arrived in Col. Rawdon's camp at Camden, South Carolina on August 13th to lead the British Army to battle. A short night battle was fought under a full moon and both sides pulled back. At dawn the ranks were in place and the battle commenced again. The Americans had about 2300 hundred men spread across the sand facing about 2000 British soldiers. At first light, the American cannons opened and the British 33rd Regiment advanced into the Patriot militia with bayonets fixed. Most of the American militiamen on the American left flank from North Carolina and Virginia broke their positions and fled the battlefield. DeKalb's Continentals advances and pushed back the Loyalist Provincial troops, but the failure of the American left soon flanked DeKalb and forced the Continental's retreat. Gen. Gates joined in the flight and did not stop until he reached Charlotte. Some of the North Carolina Militia remained and First Maryland moved to the far left through the retreating ranks and advanced engaging the British right. The American right led by Baron de Kalb held the hill and fought until they were either captured or forced from the field. The American right advanced through the Loyalists before they were surrounded by most of the British Army. A fighting retreat was made across a narrow stream to the rear where Baron Dekalb and some of his troops made a final stand. The Battle of Camden was a tremendous field defeat for Gates' "Grand Army" by the British Southern Army. Includes Birmingham Library Stamp.

William Faden Biography

William Faden (1749-1836) was the most prominent London mapmaker and publisher of the late-eighteenth and early-nineteenth centuries. His father, William Mackfaden, was a printer who dropped the first part of his last name due to the Jacobite rising of 1745. 

Apprenticed to an engraver in the Clothworkers' Company, he was made free of the Company in August of 1771. He entered into a partnership with the family of Thomas Jeffreys, a prolific and well-respected mapmaker who had recently died in 1771. This partnership lasted until 1776. 

Also in 1776, Faden joined the Society of Civil Engineers, which later changed its name to the Smeatonian Society of Civil Engineers. The Smeatonians operated as an elite, yet practical, dining club and his membership led Faden to several engineering publications, including canal plans and plans of other new engineering projects.

Faden's star rose during the American Revolution, when he produced popular maps and atlases focused on the American colonies and the battles that raged within them. In 1783, just as the war ended, Faden inherited his father's estate, allowing him to fully control his business and expand it; in the same year he gained the title "Geographer in Ordinary to his Majesty."

Faden also commanded a large stock of British county maps, which made him attractive as a partner to the Ordnance Survey; he published the first Ordnance map in 1801, a map of Kent. The Admiralty also admired his work and acquired some of his plates which were re-issued as official naval charts.

Faden was renowned for his ingenuity as well as his business acumen. In 1796 he was awarded a gold medal by the Society of Arts. With his brother-in-law, the astronomer and painter John Russell, he created the first extant lunar globe.

After retiring in 1823 the lucrative business passed to James Wyld, a former apprentice. He died in Shepperton in 1826, leaving a large estate.