the spirit
to play a generous game, they would certainly ruin us. But they have
no idea of that game. They will treat the people cruelly, and that one
thing will ruin them and save the country." Weems, speaking for
Horry, describes in ludicrous terms, their journey through North
Carolina,--through a region swarming with Tories, but, fortunately for
our travellers, who were venomous without being active. Our fugitives
were without money and without credit, and "but for carrying a knife,
or a horse fleam, or a gun-flint, had no more use for a pocket than a
Highlander has for a knee-buckle. As to hard money we had not seen a
dollar for years." In this resourceless condition--a condition, which,
it may be well to say in this place, continued throughout the war, they
made their way with difficulty until they joined the Continental army.
Gates had superseded De Kalb in its command, and was pressing forward,
with the ambition, seemingly, of writing a dispatch like Caesar's,
announcing, in the same breath, the sight and conquest of his enemy.
Marion and his little troop of twenty men, made but a sorry figure in
the presence of the Continental General. Gates was a man of moderate
abilities, a vain man, of a swelling and ostentatious habit, whose
judgment was very apt to be affected by parade, and the external show of
things. Some of his leading opinions were calculated to show that he was
unfit for a commander in the South. For example, he thought little of
cavalry, which, in a plain country, sparsely settled, was among the
first essentials of success, as well in securing intelligence, as in
procuring supplies. It was not calculated therefore to raise the troop
of our partisan in his esteem, to discover that they were all good
riders and well mounted. Marion, himself, was a man equally modest in
approach and unimposing in person. His followers may have provoked the
sneer of the General, as it certainly moved the scorn and laughter of
his well-equipped Continentals. We have a description of them from the
pen of an excellent officer, the Adjutant General of Gates' army. He
says, "Col. Marion, a gentleman of South Carolina, had been with the
army a few days, attended by a very few followers, distinguished by
small leather caps, and the wretchedness of their attire; their number
did not exceed twenty men and boys, some white, some black, and all
mounted, but most of them miserably equipped; their appearance was in
fact so burlesque,