gh
subordinate, succeeded in preventing this desire. Instructions which he
brought from Greene, and which he earnestly dwelt upon, required their
cooperation against the British posts below Camden. Lee urged, also,
that such a pursuit would take them too far from Greene, with the
movements of whose army it was important that Marion's force should
act as intimately as possible. Marion yielded the point with great
reluctance, and was heard repeatedly after to regret that his orders did
not permit him to follow the dictates of his own judgment. Had he done
so, with his force strengthened by the Continental bayonets, and new
supplies of powder for his rifles, Watson's flight to Georgetown, which
he could scarcely have reached, would have been far more uncomfortable
than he found it on the previous occasion.

Lee led the way with his legion towards the Santee, while Marion,
placing Witherspoon with a small party on the trail of Watson, pursued
his line of march through Williamsburg. Having once resolved, Marion's
movements were always rapid and energetic. On the fifteenth of April,
only a day after the junction with Lee, he was before Fort Watson.

This was a stockade fort, raised on one of those remarkable elevations
of an unknown antiquity which are usually recognized as Indian mounds.
It stands near Scott's Lake on the Santee river, a few miles below the
junction of the Congaree and Wateree. The mound is forty feet in height,
and remote from any other elevation by which it might be commanded.
The garrison at this post consisted of eighty regular troops, and forty
loyalists. It was commanded by Lieut. McKay, a brave officer, of the
regular service. To the summons of Marion he returned a manly defiance,
and the place was regularly invested.

Besieged and besiegers were alike without artillery; with a single
piece, the former might well have defied any force which Marion
could bring against him. The place would have been impregnable to the
Americans. As it was, its steep sides and strong palisades forbade any
attempt to storm. To cut off the garrison from Scott's Lake, where
it procured water, was the first step taken by the besiegers. But the
besieged, by sinking a well within the stockade, below the level of the
contiguous water, counteracted the attempt. For a moment, the assailants
were at fault, and, without artillery, the prospect was sufficiently
discouraging. But while doubting and hesitating, Col. Mayham, of
the