than overcoming him by science, his chief successes
were the result of the panic which his surprises and his butcheries
inspired. He seems never to have been successful against an equal and
resolute foe. But, as courage and activity are, perhaps, after all,
and before all, the most necessary requisites for a soldier, Tarleton's
services were inappreciable to the invading army. In one month after its
arrival, his legion was mounted and began its career of slaughter. While
yet the city was sustaining the siege, he penetrated the country, in
pursuit of those bands of militia horse, which, by direction of the
American commander, still kept the open field. On the 18th of March,
he surprised a company of militia at Salkehatchie Bridge, killed and
wounded several and dispersed the rest. Five days after, another
party at Pon-Pon shared the same fortune. He was not so successful at
Rantowles on the 23d of the same month, where in a rencounter with Col.
Washington, his dragoons were roughly handled, and retreated with loss.
He avenged himself, however, on Washington, in less than a month after,
by surprising him at Monk's Corner. Col. White soon after took command
of the southern cavalry, and obtained some trifling successes, but
suffered himself to be surprised at Lenud's ferry on the Santee. These
events all took place prior to the surrender of the city. The activity
of Tarleton, with the general remissness, and want of ordinary military
precautions on the part of the militia which opposed itself to him, made
his progress easy, and thus enabled him to cut off every party that was
embodied in the field. He was now to succeed in a much more important
and much more bloody enterprise. A Continental force from Virginia
of four hundred men, under Col. Beaufort,* had been dispatched to the
relief of Charleston. Beaufort had reached Camden before he was apprised
of the surrender of that city. This event properly determined him to
retreat. Earl Cornwallis, meanwhile, had taken the field with a force of
twenty-five hundred men, and was then in rapid progress for the Santee.
Hearing of the advance of Beaufort, he dispatched Tarleton in quest of
him, with a select body of infantry and cavalry, in all, seven hundred
men. Beaufort was overtaken near the Waxhaw settlements, and summoned to
surrender. This person does not seem to have been designed by nature for
military operations. He halted at the summons, hesitated awhile, sent
his wagons ahe