The Life of Francis Marion [45]
forest. He was too conspicuous a person, had made too great a figure in previous campaigns, and his military talents were too well known and too highly esteemed, not to render him an object of some anxiety as well to friends as foes. Still suffering from the hurts received in Charleston, with bloody and malignant enemies all around him, his safety depended on his secrecy and obscurity alone. Fortunately he had "won golden opinions from all sorts of people." He had friends among all classes, who did not permit themselves to sleep while he was in danger. Their activity supplied the loss of his own. They watched while he slept. They assisted his feebleness. In the moment of alarm, he was sped from house to house, from tree to thicket, from the thicket to the swamp. His "hair-breadth 'scapes" under these frequent exigencies, were, no doubt, among the most interesting adventures of his life, furnishing rare material, could they be procured, for the poet and romancer. Unhappily, while the chronicles show the frequent emergency which attended his painful condition, they furnish nothing more. We are without details. The melancholy baldness and coldness with which they narrate events upon which one would like to linger is absolutely humbling to the imagination; which, kindled by the simple historical outline, looks in vain for the satisfaction of those doubts and inquiries, those hopes and fears, which the provoking narrative inspires only to defraud. How would some old inquisitive Froissart have dragged by frequent inquiry from contemporaneous lips, the particular fact, the whole adventure, step by step, item by item, -- the close pursuit, the narrow escape, -- and all the long train of little, but efficient circumstances, by which the story would have been made unique, with all its rich and numerous details! These, the reader must supply from his own resources of imagination. He must conjecture for himself the casual warning brought to the silent thicket, by the devoted friend, the constant woman, or the humble slave; the midnight bay of the watch dog or the whistle of the scout; or the sudden shot, from friend or foe, by which the fugitive is counselled to hurry to his den. A thousand events arise to the imagination as likely to have occurred to our partisan, in his hours of feebleness and danger, from the rapid cavalry of Tarleton, or the close and keen pursuit of the revengeful Tories. To what slight circumstances has he been indebted for his frequent escape! What humble agents have been commissioned by Providence to save a life, that was destined to be so precious to his country's liberties!
How long he remained in this situation is not exactly known, -- probably several months. As soon as he was able to mount his horse, he collected a few friends, and set out for North Carolina. A Continental force was on its way from Virginia under Baron De Kalb. His purpose was to join it. It was while on this route, and with this object, that he encountered his old friend and long tried associate in arms, Col. P. Horry.*
-- * There were two Horrys, brothers, both of whom were very brave and distinguished adherents of our partisan. Peter Horry held a captain's commission in the same regiment with Marion, at the battle of Fort Moultrie. Hugh Horry was the particular favorite of his General. A life of Marion, purporting to be in part by the former, but really composed entirely by the Rev. M. L. Weems, from facts furnished by Horry, is already well known to the public. A MS. life of Peter Horry is now before me, and has furnished me with several illustrations of the war, during this narrative. Both of these brothers served under Marion, to the close of the war, with equal courage and fidelity. --
Horry describes his ankle, at this meeting, as still "very crazy" -- so much so that it required his help and that of Marion's servant to lift him from his horse. But his spirits were good. He was still cheerful, and possessed that rare elasticity of character which never loses its tone under privations
How long he remained in this situation is not exactly known, -- probably several months. As soon as he was able to mount his horse, he collected a few friends, and set out for North Carolina. A Continental force was on its way from Virginia under Baron De Kalb. His purpose was to join it. It was while on this route, and with this object, that he encountered his old friend and long tried associate in arms, Col. P. Horry.*
-- * There were two Horrys, brothers, both of whom were very brave and distinguished adherents of our partisan. Peter Horry held a captain's commission in the same regiment with Marion, at the battle of Fort Moultrie. Hugh Horry was the particular favorite of his General. A life of Marion, purporting to be in part by the former, but really composed entirely by the Rev. M. L. Weems, from facts furnished by Horry, is already well known to the public. A MS. life of Peter Horry is now before me, and has furnished me with several illustrations of the war, during this narrative. Both of these brothers served under Marion, to the close of the war, with equal courage and fidelity. --
Horry describes his ankle, at this meeting, as still "very crazy" -- so much so that it required his help and that of Marion's servant to lift him from his horse. But his spirits were good. He was still cheerful, and possessed that rare elasticity of character which never loses its tone under privations