most sincerely hope," wrote Cornwallis to Tarleton, "that you will get at Mr. Marion." But Mr. Marion was not so easily to be caught. On the appearance of a superior force, under the command of Tarleton, which it would have been vain to resist, the skilful partisan turned his forces in another direction, to the borders of North Carolina, where he overawed the Scotch Tories in that dis- affected region. The ruthless conduct of the British whom he had left behind, now raised the South Carolinians to fresh resistance, when Marion, ever mindful of his opportunity, returned to the State with speed, accomplishing sixty miles in one day, and in a bold night attack, defeated a large body of Tories on the Black Mingo. Following this up with some smaller successes of the kind, he again attracted the attention of Tarleton, who issued out of Charleston in force for Ms capture, and when he was fairly on his heels, wearied out and perplexed by the windings of his foe, gave up the chase, it is said, with the exclamation, "Come, my boys! let us go back. We will soon find the Game Cock [Marion's brother partisan, Sumter], but as for this damned Swamp-fox, the devil himself could not catch him."
The tide was now turning, as the people felt their strength. King's Mountain, in the autumn of this memorable 1780, brought a vast accession of strength to the popular cause, in the proof that the best British troops were not invincible before an aroused yeomanry; but there was much yet to be done before the day of final deliverance was secured. It was a slow, weary, harassing policy which was to be pursued, of surprises and escapes, of self-denial and endurance, of the watchful, unyielding virtue of Marion and his men. They took post in an island fortress of wooded swamp land, at the junction of the Pedee and Lynch's Creek, known as the "camp of Marion," where he recruited his forces, husbanded his strength, and sallied forth on his raids against the foe. This is the spot where the popular admiration of Marion finds its home and centre. "His career as a partisan," says his faithful biographer, the novelist Simms, "in the thickets and swamps of Carolina, is abundantly distinguished by the picturesque; but it was while he held his camp at Snow's Island that it received its highest colors of romance. In this snug and impenetrable fortress, he reminds us very much of the ancient feudal baron of France and Germany, who, perched on a castled eminence, looked down with the complacency of an eagle from his eyrie, and marked all below him for his own. The resemblance is good in all respects but one. The plea and justification of Marion are complete. His warfare was legitimate." It is in this place the scene is laid of an interview with the British officer, so familiar to the public in popular narratives and pictorial illustration. A flag from the enemy, at the neighboring post of Georgetown, is received with the design of an exchange of prisoners. The officer is admitted blindfold into the encampment, and on the bandage being taken from his eyes, is surprised equally at the diminutive size of the General and the simplicity of his quarters. He had expected, it is said, to see some formidable personage of the sons of Anak of the standard military figure, which, as Mr. Simms remarks, averaged, in the opposing generals during the war, more than two hundred pounds. On the
