Gates, is before me. I am fully sensible your service is hard
and sufferings great, but how great the prize for which we contend!
I like your plan of frequently shifting your ground. It frequently
prevents a surprise and perhaps a total loss of your party. Until a more
permanent army can be collected than is in the field at present, we must
endeavor to keep up a partisan war, and preserve the tide of sentiment
among the people in our favor as much as possible. Spies are the eyes of
an army, and without them a general is always groping in the dark, and
can neither secure himself, nor annoy his enemy. At present, I am badly
off for intelligence. It is of the highest importance that I get
the earliest intelligence of any reinforcement which may arrive at
Charleston. I wish you, therefore, to fix some plan for procuring such
information and conveying it to me with all possible dispatch. The spy
should be taught to be particular in his inquiries and get the names
of the corps, strength and commanding officer's name--place from whence
they came and where they are going. It will be best to fix upon somebody
in town to do this, and have a runner between you and him to give you
the intelligence; as a person who lives out of town cannot make the
inquiries without being suspected. The utmost secrecy will be necessary
in the business."

This letter found Marion at one of his lurking places on Black river.
It was properly addressed to him. He was the man who, of all others,
was not only best acquainted with the importance of good information,
furnished promptly, but who had never been without his spies and
runners, from the first moment when he took the field. He readily
assumed the duty, and upon him Greene wholly relied for his intelligence
of every sort. Every occurrence in Charleston, Georgetown, and the whole
low country, was promptly furnished to the commander, to whom,
however, Marion complains generally of the embarrassment in procuring
intelligence, arising from the want of a little hard money--but
this want was quite as great in the camp of Greene as in that of the
partisan.

It is probable that Marion had communicated to General Gates a desire to
strengthen his militia with a small force of regular troops. With such a
force, it was expected that something of a more decisive nature could
be effected. His eye was upon Georgetown. The capture of that post was
particularly desirable on many accounts; and if his views and wis