eral Greene
compared the disagreeableness of Marion's toils with those of others,
he certainly overlooked, not only the peculiar character of those toils,
but the peculiar privations which distinguished the career of Marion's
men, and the particularly painful duties which so frequently belonged to
it. His own previously expressed opinions with regard to the warfare, as
carried on between Whig and Tory in the south, will be found to furnish
a sufficient commentary upon the comparison which he thus makes. Greene
himself, by the way, is not without blame in some respects, in relation
to the southern commanders of militia. The slighting manner in which
he spoke of them, and of their services, in letters not intended to be
public, was such, that some of them, Sumter for example, never forgave
him. His prejudices were those of the regular service, the policy
of which is always to disparage the militia. To Marion himself, his
language was of a different character. Take the following extract of a
letter, written to the latter only one month before the correspondence
above referred to. This letter is dated, from the camp before Camden,
April 24, 1781, and will give a faint idea of the true claims of Marion
upon the regard of his country. "When I consider," writes Greene, "how
much you have done and suffered, and under what disadvantage you have
maintained your ground, I am at a loss which to admire most, your
courage and fortitude, or your address and management. Certain it is, no
man has a better claim to the public thanks than you. History affords
no instance wherein an officer has kept possession of a country under so
many disadvantages as you have. Surrounded on every side with a superior
force, hunted from every quarter with veteran troops, you have found
means to elude their attempts, and to keep alive the expiring hopes of
an oppressed militia, when all succor seemed to be cut off. TO FIGHT
THE ENEMY BRAVELY WITH THE PROSPECT OF VICTORY, IS NOTHING; BUT TO FIGHT
WITH INTREPIDITY UNDER THE CONSTANT IMPRESSION OF DEFEAT, AND INSPIRE
IRREGULAR TROOPS TO DO IT, IS A TALENT PECULIAR TO YOURSELF. Nothing
will give me greater pleasure than to do justice to your merit, and
I shall miss no opportunity of declaring to Congress, to the
commander-in-chief of the American army, and to the world, the great
sense I have of your merit and your services."

The correspondence of Greene with Marion, on the subject of the horses,
closed with