a letter on the part of the latter, in which he turned off
the affair on grounds that proved his feelings tranquillized. A present
of a fine horse, for Greene's own use, accompanied this letter. It has
been shown that, on the day of the capture of Fort Motte, Greene rode
into the camp of Marion, at that place. We can conceive of no other
motive for his presence here, than a desire to make his reconciliation
perfect. He brought no force with him to promote the object of the
besiegers, and his stay was limited to a brief interview.

But the evil effect of this affair did not end here. The militia,
alarmed at the idea of having their horses taken from them, soon began
to scatter, and, pleading the planting season upon which they had
entered--some, indeed, without any plea,--they left the camp in numbers,
and before the leaguer was well over, the force of Marion was reduced to
something less than two hundred men. With this remnant of his brigade,
as soon as Fort Motte was yielded, Marion detached himself from the
regular troops and struck down towards Monk's Corner, hanging upon the
skirts of Lord Rawdon's army, then in full retreat from Camden.

Perhaps the most interesting portions of our traditionary history in
the South, will be found to have occurred to the scattered bodies of the
partisan cavalry, while on their return movements to and from the army,
after such a dispersion as that from which the brigade of Marion was
now suffering. It was no easy matter for the small group, or the single
trooper, to regain the family homestead, or the friendly neighborhood
in which their wives and little ones were harbored. Every settlement
through which they passed had its disaffected population. It might be
small or large, but its numbers did not affect its activity, and, with
the main body of the Whigs in camp, or on the road, the Tories, in
remote sections of the country, were generally equally strong and
daring. These waylaid the customary pathways, and aware of all the
material movements of the regular troops, made their arrangements to
cut off stragglers or small detached bodies. When we consider the
active malignity by which the civil war in Carolina was marked; the
wild forests in which it took place; the peculiar ferocity which it
stimulated, and the various characteristics of the local modes of
warfare, the chase and the surprise, we shall have no occasion for
wonder at the strange and sometimes terrible events by which i