Chapter 32

killed one hundred men, and Marion was drowned, attempting to escape." The only officer drowned in the flight, was Lieut. Smyzer of Horry's cavalry.

The loss of the brigade in horses and accoutrements was greater than in men. Their greater loss, however, was of that confidence in themselves and one another, which it was one of the greatest objects of Marion's training to inspire. The true secret of the superiority of regulars over militia-men lies in the habit of mutual reliance. They feel each other's elbows, in military parlance--they are assured by the custom of mutually depending one upon the other. This habit impresses them with a conviction, which the terrors of conflict do not often impair, that they will not be deserted; and, thus assured, they hurry into the battle, and remain in it so long as the body with which they move can act together. Once broken, however, the cry is 'sauve qui peut'. Not so with militia-men. They never forget their individuality. The very feeling of personal independence is apt to impair their confidence in one another. Their habit is to obey the individual impulse. They do not wait to take their temper from their neighbor right and left. Hence their irregularity--the difficulty of restraining them--of making them act in routine, and with entire reference to the action of other bodies. So far from deriving strength from feeling another's elbow, they much prefer elbow room. Could they be assured of one another, they were the greatest troops in the world. They ARE the greatest troops in the world--capable of the most daring and heroic achievements--wherever the skill of the commander can inspire this feeling of mutual reliance. Frequent cooperation of the same persons under the same leader produces it, and makes them veterans. The old soldiers of the brigade had it in perfection. It was one of the excellences of Marion that it followed so certainly and rapidly from his peculiar training. That it should be lost or impaired, was a most serious evil. That it would not have been endangered, we are sure, had it not been that the brigade no longer consisted of the brave fellows who had clung to him through the campaigns of the last two years. The new recruits were, in all probability, to blame for the mischance; and something, perhaps, is due to the unhappy quarrel between Mayham and Horry. The former was terribly mortified by the affair--mortified that Marion should have hurried to the scene of action without apprising him, and vexed that his own regiment should have behaved so badly. He complains that others should "expend the strength of the regiment without giving HIM the satisfaction of being present." Captain John Caraway Smith, the officer who led the column thus disastrously aside, resigned the day after the affair. His conduct had been habitually brave. But a short time before, as already shown, he had behaved with the most determined and audacious gallantry at the head of the same troop. That their training was defective is beyond question, but no imputation rested upon their courage or his own. Nevertheless, we have Napoleon's authority for the opinion that every man has his 'moment de peur'. No man is equally firm on all occasions. There are moods of weakness and irresolution in every mind, which is not exactly a machine, which impair its energies, and make its course erratic and uncertain. The truth was known in earlier ages. The old poets ascribed it to supernatural influence. Envious deities interposed between valor and its victim, paralysing the soul of the one and strengthening that of the other. Thus we find even Hector, upon occasion, the slave of panic, and Paris, on the other hand, almost emulating the spirit of his brother.

The conduct of Captain Smith, in this affair, has been excused by Mayham. He ascribes it to an error of Marion himself. He says that, "Marion (who was an infantry officer) gave the order to 'file off from the house to the right,' instead of ordering 'to charge!' This induced his officers to believe that they were to retreat and not to fight." This may be true; but it is scarcely probable. Retreat from the house, except into the river, seems to have been cut off. The only other avenue was the lane. At the end of this was the enemy, drawn out in order of battle. Upon these the advance was ordered. We have seen that Marion himself exulted in the conviction that the enemy was in his power. His exultation could not have been entirely concealed from his officers. It must have declared itself in some way. The halt and hesitation of the British were perceptible to all. They were in superior numbers, and when they reached the head of the lane, the horses of the American cavalry were unbitted and feeding. A sudden and resolute charge, according to Mayham, on the part of the British, would have resulted in the entire defeat of the regiment. That they did not order this charge betrayed their apprehensions, and should have encouraged, in similar degree, the Americans--DID encourage them, and hence the resolve of Marion to advance upon them. That it should be supposed he would hurry forward, in the very teeth of the enemy, only to dash aside in confusion from the struggle, is scarcely reasonable. But Mayham was offended with Marion. The latter had decided against him in the controversy with Horry; and the subsequent movement against the British, without stopping to require his presence, was another mortifying circumstance which he was not likely to forget. Biased by his feelings, he was not willing to believe that the seeming slight was in reality due to the emergency of the case, which would not allow a moment's hesitation in Marion's movement at such a juncture.

As soon as the presence of Marion was known, the fugitives gathered around him. But for his absence they had never been dispersed. Horry's regiment was very much crippled; Mayham's in equally bad condition. Of M'Donald's, and the brigade, a few hundred were soon brought together; and with his deranged and dispirited band, our partisan retired beyond the Santee to repair and recruit his strength, and revive the confidence of his men in their leaders and themselves. In the meanwhile, the country which he had so recently covered and protected was harried by the British. They improved the interval of his absence by successful incursions. The cattle had been already put beyond their power, on the other side the Santee; but they stripped the plantations within their reach, as well of slaves as of provisions. Greene could do nothing to prevent them. His own army was in a state of convulsion and commotion; suffering from distress and discontent, and threatened with dissolution. Recent occurrences had awakened his fears for his own security.

One result of Marion's recent disaster was to put an end to the dispute between Horry and Mayham. Their respective regiments were so reduced, after the affair at Wambaw, that it was deemed advisable to amalgamate them. Having resolved upon this measure, Gov. Mathews, who had succeeded Rutledge, applied to Marion to know who of the two was the best cavalry officer--an opinion which Marion yielded with great reluctance. His personal preferences went with Horry, but he could not hesitate in declaring for Mayham. Horry, with the ambition of a spirited soldier, eagerly desired a command of cavalry,--was a good infantry officer, and had all the requirements of skill and bravery. But he was no horseman, and it is said that, in several of his charges, he was indebted to some one or other of his men for his own safety, being commonly unhorsed. His gallantry and patriotism were equally unquestionable. They had been displayed from the beginning of the war. The preference shown Mayham caused Horry's resignation from the service; but to console him for the mortification, Marion made him commandant of Georgetown, a post which united the responsibilities and duties of a military and civil service.

With the adjournment of the Assembly at Jacksonborough, the army of Greene moved down from Skirving's plantation to Bacon's bridge, at the head of Ashley river. Here, within twenty miles of the enemy, a dangerous conspiracy ripened almost to maturity among the Pennsylvania troops, composed in part of the very mutineers who had triumphed over government in the insurrection in Jersey, and who, as Lafayette observed,* "had been well paid and well clothed in consequence of it." This, we believe, was the only body of troops furnished to the Southern army, during the Revolution, from any of the States north of Maryland and Delaware. We make this remark with the view to the correction of a very general error, arising from the vague manner in which it is customary for our historians to speak of the sources of the personnel of the Southern army. The armies led by Gates and Greene, to the defence of Carolina, were truly from States north of her, but they were not Northern States. Two fine bodies of troops came from Maryland and Delaware, but the rest were from Virginia and North Carolina,--with the exception of the Pennsylvania line, of which we have now to speak. These, as we have seen, had been refractory in Jersey, and instead of being punished, were paid for their sedition. It was natural that they should endeavor to renew an experiment which had already proved so profitable. The mutineers were directed by one Sergeant Gornell. Their number is unknown. They were solely of the Pennsylvania line, and might have been successful but for an attempt which they made upon the fidelity of the Marylanders. Their purpose was to deliver Greene to the enemy, and otherwise facilitate the objects of the latter, who were to make a concerted movement, in force, upon the American army, at a prescribed moment. The integrity of the Marylanders, whom Gornell approached, was not to be shaken; and to their fidelity and the quick ears of one of the camp-women, the army was indebted for its safety. The circumstances were all in favor of the success of the conspirators. There was a general discontent in the army. The troops were badly fed and clothed--were unpaid, doubtful of pay, and suffering present distresses. They were inactive. Many of them were new recruits. Greene was no longer surrounded by the tried and true men and officers, who had borne the brunt of the contest. The term of service of the former had in great part expired, some of his best officers were on furlough, and he had offended others. Sumter had left the army in disgust; Pickens was operating against the Indians; Marion was recruiting his brigade on the Santee; Williams had gone home; Howard was in Maryland, scarcely recovered from his wounds; Wayne was in Georgia, doing good service in that quarter; St. Clair was absent on leave; Lee had gone to Virginia to get married, and his legion was almost shorn of officers; Eggleston had gone with him to Virginia, and the brave fellows, Armstrong and Carrington, had fallen into the hands of the enemy. The time was well chosen for mutiny, and as the hour drew near for the consummation of the purpose of the conspirators, the British army was set in motion from below,--not so secretly, however, but that their movements were made known to the Americans. Symptoms of mutiny became apparent in the camp, and it was necessary to proceed with vigor. Doubtful of a large number of those around him, Greene summoned Marion with all his force from the Santee, while his own army was kept in order of battle. The arrest of Gornell, with that of four others, all sergeants of the Pennsylvania line, took place the night before the conspiracy was to take effect. Gornell was tried and executed; the others were sent under guard into the interior. This proceeding was the signal for the flight of at least a dozen more, who, having been committed, broke away on the night of Gornell's seizure, and found protection with the enemy, who advanced in force to receive them. This prompt proceeding suppressed the mutiny. The development of the conspiracy, the state of preparedness in the camp of Greene, and the movement of Marion, had the effect of discouraging the farther advance of the British army; and Marion, while yet in motion for the camp of Greene, from which he was but eight miles distant, was summoned in haste to the protection of Georgetown, against which the enemy was reported to have sailed from Charleston. A forced march of four days brought him to White's Bridge, when it was discovered that the alarm was unfounded. The enemy had not shown himself, and was not nigh. In this march of one hundred and sixty miles, Marion's men had but a single ration of rice. Their sole food, with this exception, was lean beef. The march took place in April, when there is no forage for cattle, and when such as survive the winter, are compelled to wander far in the swamps and thickets in search of the scanty herbage which sustains them. The march of our partisan in these two expeditions was conducted solely on foot. The country south of the Santee had been so completely foraged by the British, during his vacation of it, that he was compelled to dismount his infantry in his movements until the spring herbage should enable him to feed his horses. His force was reduced to two hundred militia and one hundred and twenty horse. It was the wish of General Greene that he should take post as near the enemy as possible, in order both to shorten his limits beyond Cooper river, and to enable Col. Laurens, who now commanded the legion of Lee, to pass the Ashley, and close upon the British between the latter river and Goose Creek. But with his infantry dismounted, he dared not venture so completely within the reach of an enemy so superior; and with the double purpose of securing a retreat, if necessary, and of forming a junction with any party when desirable, either at Huger's Bridge, over the west branch of Cooper river, or at Strawberry Ferry, he took post at Sinkler's plantation on the Santee. This left him within twenty-five miles of each of these designated routes. His cavalry meanwhile patrolled the country as low as Haddrell and Hobcaw, and in sight of the British posts at those places. They thus procured the earliest news of the enemy's movements, and checked his incursions in that quarter. The effect of Marion's presence with his brigade was soon felt, as well by his people as by the British. By the latter it was deemed important to relieve themselves from a neighbor at once so vigilant and inconvenient. A messenger, feigning to be a deserter, was dispatched by General Leslie, whose plan was to make his way through the scouts of Marion, to the Scotch and loyal settlements on the borders of North Carolina. These were to be stirred up to insurrection, and Marion was to be diverted from a quarter in which his presence was particularly annoying. The messenger succeeded in his object, but was less fortunate in his return. He had done the mischief required at his hands, fomented the insurrection, and set the loyalists in motion. The proofs were conclusive against him, and he perished by military execution. The timely notice which Marion obtained of his labors enabled him to prepare against the event.

* Johnson's Life of Greene, Vol. 2, p. 319.--