lina. The modes and objects of culture, and
probably the climate, have undergone a change. The time was autumn, the
most sickly period of our year; and, to sleep in such a region now, even
for a single night, would be considered certain death to the white man.
It does not seem, at that period, that much apprehension of malaria was
felt.*

* Judge James refers to this place as Peyre's, not Payne's,
plantation, and notes "It appears now there was very little
sickness at that day." In a footnote, he goes on to say:
"Very soon after the revolutionary war, this scene was
entirely changed. Planters, in clearing their land, had
rolled logs and other rubbish from their fields, into the
lakes and creeks leading from the river, and many threw
trees into it to get them quickly out of the way.... The
waters below being obstructed, they flooded the low grounds.
..." This would explain the early absence, and later
presence, of malaria, as the mosquitoes necessary for
transmitting it would thrive in the still waters created by
the planters.--A. L., 1996.--

But Marion did not linger long in any one situation. Hearing that the
British were about to send their wounded from Fairlawn to Charleston,
his restless enterprise prompted him to aim at the capture of the
detachment. Moving rapidly by night, he threw himself below the former
place, on the opposite bank of the river, and would certainly have
intercepted them, but for a slave of one of the plantations, who,
hastening to the British camp, reported his proximity. The arrival of
a superior force compelled him to steal away with a caution like that
which marked his approach.

The command of the British army, in consequence of a wound received
by General Stewart at Eutaw, had devolved on Major Doyle. This army,
recruited by the force of M'Arthur, was still, after all its losses,
fully two thousand men. That of Greene, reduced by wounds and sickness,
could not muster one thousand fit for duty. His cavalry had been greatly
thinned by the late battle, and it was not until the cavalry of Sumter's
brigade could be brought together, with Marion's mounted infantry, and
the horse of Horry and Mayham, that the superiority of the American
general could be restored. Doyle had taken post at Fludd's plantation,
three miles above Nelson's Ferry, on the Santee, with the main body of
the British; M'Arthur held the post at Fairlawn, with