OUR narrative begins in South Carolina, during the summer of 1780.
The arms of the British were at that time triumphant throughout the
colony. Their armies overran it. Charlestown, the chief city, had
stood a siege, and had fallen, after a protracted and honourable
defence. One-half of the military strength of the lower country,
then the most populous region, had become prisoners of war by this
disaster; and, for the present, were thus incapacitated from giving
any assistance to their brethren in arms. Scattered, crushed, and
disheartened by repeated failures, the whigs, in numerous
instances, hopeless of any better fortune, had given in their
adhesion to the enemy, and had received a pledge of British
protection. This protection secured them, as it was thought, in
their property and persons, and its conditions simply called for
their neutrality. Many of the more firm and honourably tenacious,
scorning all compromise with invasion, fled for shelter to the
swamps and mountains; and, through the former, all Europe could not
have traced their footsteps. In the whole state, at this period,
the cause of American liberty had no head, and almost as little
hope: all was gloomy and unpromising. Marion, afterward styled the
"Swamp Fox," and Sumter, the "Game Cock"--epithets aptly
descriptive of their several military attributes--had not yet
properly risen in arms, though both of them had been engaged
already in active and successful service. Their places of retreat
were at this time unknown; and, certainly, they were not then
looked to, as at an after period, with that anxious reliance which
their valour subsequently taught their countrymen to entertain.
Nothing, indeed, could be more deplorably prostrate than were the
energies of the colony.
General
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