The Life of General Francis Marion Part 30

"Well," replied he, "you made a very lucky escape that day: for do you know that we were twelve hundred strong, owing to colonel Small's joining us in the march?"

"Then truly," said I, "if that were the case, I made a lucky escape, sure enough."

"And where were you," he asked again, "when general Marion so completely surprised our guard at Nelson's old fields: were you there?"

I told him I was not, but that my brother, Hugh Horry, was.

"Well," continued he, laughing heartily, "that was MY lucky day.

I had a command there that morning of about thirty men, as an advance.

We had not left the guard more than five minutes before the Americans charged and swept all. The moment we heard the firing and the cries of our people, we squatted in the high gra.s.s like so many rabbits, then running on the stoop, till we gained the woods, we cleared ourselves." I laughed, and asked how many men he supposed Marion had that morning."

He replied, he really did not know, but supposed he must have had three or four hundred.

"Well, sir," said I, "he had exactly thirty."

The reader may perhaps conceive Ferguson's astonishment: I cannot describe it.

Soon as the dishes were removed, we were presented with a spectacle to which our eyes had long been strangers, a brave parade of excellent wine: several hampers of which had been received at the fort the very day before we commenced the attack. To poor soldiers like us, who, for years, had hardly quenched our thirst on any thing better than water or apple brandy grog, this was a sight immensely refres.h.i.+ng.

Whether it was owing to the virtues of this n.o.ble cordial, with the recollection of our late glorious victories; or whether it was the happy result of our generosity to the enemy, and of their correspondent politeness to us, I do not know; but certain it is, we were all very gay. But in the midst of our enjoyments, which none seemed to relish with a higher glee than general Marion, a British soldier came up and whispered to one of their officers, who instantly coming round to the general, told him in a low voice, that the Americans were hanging the tories who had been taken in the fort!

In a moment he sprang up, in a violent pa.s.sion, and s.n.a.t.c.hing his sword, ran down towards our encampment. We all followed him, though without knowing the cause. On turning the corner of the garden which had concealed their cruel deeds, we discovered a sight most shocking to humanity, a poor man hanging in the air to the beam of a gate, and struggling hard in the agonies of death. "Cut him down! cut him down!" cried the general, as soon as he had got near enough to be heard, which was instantly done.

Then running up, with cheeks as red as fire coals, and half choked with rage, he bawled out, "In the name of G.o.d! what are you about, what are you about here!"

"Only hanging a few tories, sir," replied captain Harrison of Lee's legion.

"Who gave you a right, sir, to touch the tories?"

To this, young M'Corde, of the same corps, replied, that it was only three or four rascals of them that they meant to hang; and that they had not supposed the general would mind that.

"What! not mind murdering the prisoners. Why, my G.o.d!

what do you take me to be? do you take me for a devil?"

Then, after placing a guard over the tories, and vowing to make an example of the first man who should dare to offer them violence, he returned with the company to Mrs. Motte's table.

Of the three unfortunate tories that were hung dead, one was named Hugh Mizcally. The name of the person so timely cut down was Levi Smith, a most furious tory. This t.i.tle produced him such respect among those degenerate Britons, that they appointed him gatekeeper of Charleston, a circ.u.mstance that operated much against the poor whigs in the country. For Smith soon broke up a pious kind of fraud, which the wives and daughters of the tories had for some time carried on at a bold rate.

To the immortal honor of the ladies of South Carolina, they were much more whiggishly given than the men; insomuch that though married to tories, they would be whigs still.

These fair ladies, in consequence of their relation to the tories, could, at pleasure, pa.s.s into Charleston; which they never left without bringing off quant.i.ties of broad cloth cut and jumped into petticoats, and artfully hid under their gowns. The broad cloth, thus brought off, was for regimentals for our officers. -- Things went on swimmingly in this way for a long time, till Smith, getting one day more groggy and impudent than usual, swore that some young women who were going out at the gate, looked much bigger over the hips than they had need, and insisted on a search. The truth is, these fair patriots, preparing for a great wedding in the country, had thus spoiled their shape, and brought themselves to all this disgrace by their over greediness for finery. But Mr. tory Smith affected to be so enraged by this trick, which the girls had attempted to play on him, that he would never afterwards suffer a woman to pa.s.s without first pulling up her clothes.

He carried his zeal to such length, as one day very grossly to insult a genteel old lady, a Mrs. M'Corde.

Her son, who was a dragoon in Lee's legion, swore vengeance against Smith, and would, as we have seen, have taken his life, had not Gen. Marion interposed.

In the Charleston papers of that day, 1781, Smith gives the history of his escape from Marion, wherein he relates an anecdote, which, if it be true, and I see no reason to doubt it, shows clear enough that his toryism cost him dear.

In his confinement at Motte's house, he was excessively uneasy.

Well knowing that the whigs owed him no good will, and fearing that the next time they got a halter round his neck, he might find no Marion to take his part, he determined if possible to run off.

The tories were all handcuffed two and two, and confined together under a sentinel, in what was called a 'bull-pen', made of pine trees, cut down so judgmatically as to form, by their fall, a pen or enclosure.

It was Smith's fortune to have for his yoke-fellow a poor sickly creature of a tory, who, though hardly able to go high-low, was prevailed on to desert with him. They had not travelled far into the woods, before his sick companion, quite overcome with fatigue, declared he could go no farther, and presently fell down in a swoon.

Confined by the handcuffs, Smith was obliged to lie by him in the woods, two days and nights, without meat or drink! and his comrade frequently in convulsions! On the third day he died. Unable to bear it any longer, Smith drew his knife and separated himself from the dead man, by cutting off his arm at the elbow, which he bore with him to Charleston.

The British heartily congratulated his return, and restored him to his ancient honor of sitting, Mordecai-like, at the king's gate, where, it is said, he behaved very decently ever afterwards.

Smith's friends say of him, that in his own country (South Carolina) he hardly possessed money enough to buy a pig, but when he got to England, after the war, he made out as if the rebels had robbed him of as many flocks and herds as the wild Arabs did Job. The British government, remarkable for generosity to their friends in distress, gave him money enough to return to South Carolina with a pretty a.s.sortment of merchandise. And he is now, I am told, as wealthy as a Jew, and, which is still more to his credit, as courteous as a christian.

Chapter 28.

The author congratulates his dear country on her late glorious victories -- recapitulates British cruelties, drawing after them, judicially, a succession of terrible overthrows.

Happy Carolina! I exclaimed, as our late victories pa.s.sed over my delighted thoughts; happy Carolina! dear native country, hail!

long and dismal has been the night of thy affliction: but now rise and sing, for thy "light is breaking forth, and the dawn of thy redemption is brightening around."

For opposing the curses of slavery, thy n.o.blest citizens have been branded as 'rebels', and treated with a barbarity unknown amongst civilized nations.

They have been taken from their beds and weeping families, and transported, to pine and die in a land of strangers.

They have been crowded into midsummer jails and dungeons,*

there, unpitied, to perish amidst suffocation and stench; while their wives and children, in mournful groups around the walls, were asking with tears for their husbands and fathers!

-- * All Europe was filled with horror at the history of the one hundred and twenty unfortunate Englishmen that were suffocated in the black hole of Calcutta. Little was it thought that an English n.o.bleman (lord Rawdon) would so soon have repeated that crime, by crowding one hundred and sixty-four unfortunate Americans into a small prison in Camden, in the dogdays.

They have been wantonly murdered with swords and bayonets,*

or hung up like dogs to ignominious gibbets.

-- * A brother of that excellent man, major Linning, of Charleston, was taken from his plantation on Ashley river, by one of the enemy's galleys, and thrust down into the hold. At night the officers began to drink and sing, and kept it up till twelve o'clock, when, by way of frolic, they had him brought, though sick, into their cabin, held a court martial over him, sentenced him to death, very deliberately executed the sentence by stabbing him with bayonets, and then threw his mangled body into the river for the sharks and crabs to devour.

They have been stirred up and exasperated against each other, to the most unnatural and b.l.o.o.d.y strifes. "Fathers to kill their sons, and brothers to put brothers to death!"

Such were the deeds of Cornwallis and his officers in Carolina!

And while the churches in England were, everywhere, resounding with prayers to Almighty G.o.d, "to spare the effusion of human blood,"

those monsters were shedding it with the most savage wantonness!

While all the good people in Britain were praying, day and night, for a speedy restoration of the former happy friends.h.i.+p between England and America, those wretches were taking the surest steps to drive all friends.h.i.+p from the American bosom, and to kindle the flames of everlasting hatred!

But, blessed be G.o.d, the tears of the widows and orphans have prevailed against them, and the righteous Judge of all the earth is rising up to make inquisition for the innocent blood which they have shed.

And never was his hand more visibly displayed in the casting down of the wicked, than in humbling Cornwallis and his b.l.o.o.d.y crew.

At this period, 1780, the western extremities were the only parts of the state that remained free. To swallow these up, Cornwallis sent Col. Ferguson, a favorite officer, with fourteen hundred men. Hearing of the approach of the enemy, and of their horrible cruelties, the hardy mountaineers rose up as one man from Dan to Beersheba.

They took their faithful rifles. They mounted their horses, and with each his bag of oats, and a sc.r.a.p of victuals, they set forth to find the enemy. They had no plan, no general leader.

The youth of each district, gathering around their own brave colonel, rushed to battle. But though seemingly blind and headlong as their own mountain streams, yet there was a hand unseen that guided their course. They all met, as by chance, near the King's mountain, where the ill-fated Ferguson encamped.

Their numbers counted, made three thousand. That the work and victory may be seen to be of G.o.d, they sent back all but one thousand chosen men.

A thousand men on mountains bred, With rifles all so bright, Who knew full well, in time of need, To aim their guns aright.