selves by sudden onslaught for
the ruin of their homesteads. On this retreat, Marion took with him the
two field-pieces which we found him placing in battery on the Pedee a
short time before. His desire to save these pieces was due rather to the
supposed effect which their possession had upon the minds of the Tories,
than because of any real intrinsic use which they possessed in his
hands. They encumbered his flight, however, and he disposed of them,
finally, without compunction. Wheeling them into a swamp he left them,
where, possibly, they remain to this day, the object of occasional start
and wonderment to the stalking deer-hunter. This, says Judge James, "was
the last instance of military parade evinced by the General." Marching
day and night he arrived at Amy's Mill, on Drowning Creek. From this
place, he sent forth his parties, back to South Carolina, to gain
intelligence and rouse the militia. He himself continued his march. He
pitched his camp finally, on the east side of the White Marsh, near
the head of the Waccamaw. There may have been a motive, other than the
desire for safety, which led Marion to choose and retain this position.
The borders of North Carolina swarmed with Tories, chiefly descendants
of the Scotch, who constituted, on frequent subsequent occasions, the
perplexing enemies with whom our partisan had to contend. It is not
improbable, though history does not declare the fact, that he chose the
present occasion for overawing the scattered parties, who were always
stretching with lawless footsteps from Cape Fear to the Great Pedee. It
was while he lay at this place, that the venerable Judge James, then a
boy of sixteen, had the honor, for the first time, to dine with Marion.
It was in the absence of Major James, the father of the boy, who was one
of the volunteers sent back to South Carolina. The artless description
which the Judge has given us of this event, so characteristic of Marion,
and of the necessities to which he was habitually compelled to submit,
will better please than a much more elaborate narrative.

"The dinner was set before the company by the General's servant, Oscar,
partly on a pine log and partly on the ground. It consisted of lean
beef, without salt, and sweet potatoes. The author had left a small pot
of boiled hominy in his camp, and requested leave of his host to send
for it, and the proposal was gladly acquiesced in. The hominy had
salt in it, and proved, though eaten out of