Accordingly seventy of the prisoners were tried before a civil court and five of them were hanged.

For this hanging of prisoners the Loyalists, of course, retaliated in kind.

Both the British and American regular officers tried to restrain these fierce passions but the spirit of the war in the South was ruthless.

To this day many a tale of horror is repeated and, since Loyalist opinion was finally destroyed, no one survived to apportion blame to their enemies.

It is probable that each side matched the other in barbarity.
The British hoped to sweep rapidly through the South, to master it up to the borders of Virginia, and then to conquer that breeding ground of revolution.