fore us, "I could forbear no longer, and said with
great warmth, 'By G--d, sir, did I command this brigade, as you do, I
would hang them both up in half an hour!' Marion sternly replied,--'This
is none of your business, sir: they are both before me!--Sergeant of the
guard, bring me a file of men with loaded arms and fixed bayonets!'--'I
was silent!' adds Horry: 'all our field officers in camp were present,
and when the second refusal of the sword was given, they all put their
hands to their swords in readiness to draw. My own sword was already
drawn!'"

In the regular service, and with officers accustomed to, and bred up
in, the severe and stern sense of authority which is usually thought
necessary to a proper discipline, the refractory offender would most
probably have been hewn down in the moment of his disobedience. The
effect of such a proceeding, in the present instance, might have been of
the most fatal character. The 'esprit de corps' might have prompted the
immediate followers of the offender to have seized upon their weapons,
and, though annihilated, as Horry tells us they would have been, yet
several valuable lives might have been lost, which the country could ill
have spared. The mutiny would have been put down, but at what a price!
The patience and prudence of Marion's character taught him forbearance.
His mildness, by putting the offender entirely in the wrong, so
justified his severity, as to disarm the followers of the criminals.
These, as we have already said, were about sixty in number. Horry
continues: "Their intentions were, to call upon these men for
support--our officers well knew that they meant, if possible, to
intimidate Marion, so as to [make him] come into their measures of
plunder and Tory-killing." The affair fortunately terminated without
bloodshed. The prudence of the general had its effect. The delay gave
time to the offenders for reflection. Perhaps, looking round upon
their followers, they saw no consenting spirit of mutiny in their eyes,
encouraging their own; for, "though many of these refugees were present,
none offered to back or support the mutinous officers;"--and when the
guard that was ordered, appeared in sight, the companion of the chief
offender was seen to touch the arm of the other, who then proffered
the sword to Marion, saying, "General, you need not have sent for the
guard."* Marion, refusing to receive it, referred him to the sergeant
of the guard, and thus doubly degrad