e Commander-in-Chief of
the British forces, Sir Henry Clinton, in person. He conducted his
approaches with a caution highly complimentary to the besieged. The
fortifications were only field works, and might have been overrun in
less than five days by an audacious enemy. The regular troops within the
city were not above two thousand men. The citizen militia increased the
number to nearly four thousand. For such an extent of lines as encircled
the place, the adequate force should not have been less than that of
the enemy. The fortifications, when the British first landed their
'materiel', were in a dilapidated and unfinished state, and, at that
time, the defenders, apart from the citizens, scarcely exceeded eight
hundred men; while the small pox, making its appearance within the
walls, for the first time for twenty years--an enemy much more dreaded
than the British,--effectually discouraged the country militia from
coming to the assistance of the citizens. Under these circumstances, the
conquest would have been easy to an active and energetic foe. But Sir
Henry does not seem to have been impatient for his laurels. He was
willing that they should mature gradually, and he sat down to a regular
and formal investment.

It was an error of the Carolinians, under such circumstances, to risk
the fortunes of the State, and the greater part of its regular military
strength, in a besieged town; a still greater to do so in defiance of
such difficulties as attended the defence. The policy which determined
the resolution was a concession to the citizens, in spite of all
military opinion. The city might have been yielded to the enemy, and the
State preserved, or, which was the same thing, the troops. The loss of
four thousand men from the ranks of active warfare, was the great and
substantial loss, the true source, in fact, of most of the miseries and
crimes by which the very bowels of the country were subsequently torn
and distracted.

It was the great good fortune of the State that Francis Marion was not
among those who fell into captivity in the fall of Charleston. He had
marched into the city from Dorchester, when his active services were
needed for its defence; but while the investment was in progress,
and before it had been fully completed, an event occurred to him, an
accident which was, no doubt, very much deplored at the time, by which
his services, lost for the present, were subsequently secured for the
country. Dining with