ts, as well as to add something to the measure of
patriot revenge for the wrongs and resentments of the past. But Marion
resolutely refused to sanction the enterprise. His answer proves equally
the excellence of his judgment and the benevolence of his heart. "My
brigade," said he, "is composed of citizens, enough of whose blood has
been shed already. If ordered to attack the enemy, I shall obey; but
with my consent, not another life shall be lost, though the event should
procure me the highest honors of the soldier. Knowing, as we do, that
the enemy are on the eve of departure, so far from offering to molest, I
would rather send a party to protect them."

This noble feeling would have saved the lives of Laurens, Wilmot, Moore,
and other gallant young men, who were sacrificed at the last hour when
all provocations to strife had ceased--when the battle was already
won--when the great object of the war had been attained by the one
party, and yielded, however reluctantly, by the other. Capt. Wilmot,
with a small command, was stationed to cover John's Island, and to watch
the passage by Stono. Fond of enterprise he was tempted occasionally to
cross the river and harass the enemy on James' Island. In one of these
adventures, undertaken in conjunction with the celebrated Kosciusko,
against an armed party of the enemy's wood-cutters, he fell into an
ambuscade, was himself slain, while his second in command, Lieut. Moore,
severely wounded, fell into the hands of the British. This was the last
blood shed in the American revolution. It need not to have been shed.
The denouement of the protracted drama had already taken place. The
conquest of the Indians by Pickens was complete; the Tories no longer
appeared in bodies, though, for some time after, individuals of the
scattered bands occasionally continued the habits of outlawry which
the war had taught them, and dealt in deeds of midnight robbery and
crime;--and the British armies were simply preparing to depart. On the
14th of December, while the American columns entered the city from the
neck, those of the British retired to their ships; the movements of
which, as their white sails distended to the breeze, presented, in the
language of Moultrie, "a grand and pleasing sight." It was a sight,
however, which the militia, always undervalued, always misunderstood
and misrepresented, were not permitted to behold. They had fought the
battle, it was true, "but the civil authority" conceive