** Tarleton's Memoirs, &c, 205.
***This view is from the south side of the stream.
Lincoln Calumniated.—De Kalb sent to the South.—His March.—Sketch of his Public Life
limpid. Numerous teams drawing heavy loads of cotton, on their way to Camden, were passing at the time, and the songs and loud laughter of the happy teamsters enlivened the dreary aspect of nature. *
Let us consider the important events which occurred here.
Misfortune is too often mistaken for a fault, and censoriousness seldom makes candid distinctions.
When General Lincoln was finally obliged to surrender Charleston and his army to Sir Henry Clinton,May 12, 1780 calumny, with its busy tongue, decried his fair fame, and whispered doubts respecting his skill and courage. That blow, struck by a skillful hand, almost demolished the Southern army, and for a moment the patriots were dismayed. But the elasticity of hope was found in the national councils, and preparations were soon made to concentrate the various detachments of the regular army then in the South, and the volunteers whom Sumter and others were collecting, to turn back toward the sea-board the flood of invasion. A month before the fall of Charleston, when it was perceived that the chief theater of the campaign of 1780 was to be in the Southern States, Maryland and Delaware troops were sent thither, under the Baron De Kalb, *** a German officer, who had distinguished himself in the French service.