toward Georgetown. They sat down before Fort Watson on the evening of the same day.
Fort Watson was garrisoned by eighty regulars and forty Loyalists, under the command of Lieutenant M'Kay, a brave and active young officer of the British army. Marion immediately sent a flag demanding the unconditional surrender of the fort and the garrison. M'Kay promptly refused, for he doubtless hourly expected the approach of Watson with his large force, who, he knew, was on his march thither from Georgetown. Perceiving the garrison to be well supplied with water from Scott's Lake, that resource was cut off by the besiegers; but M'Kay and his men opened another communication with the lake three days afterward. They sunk a well within the stockade to a depth below the level of the lake, and dug a trench at the base of the mound from the well to the water, and secured it by an abatis. This circumstance perplexed the assailants, for they had no cannons, and the stockade was too high to be seriously affected by small arms. To the fertile genius of Lieutenant-colonel Maham, * of Marion's brigade, this disadvantage was overcome. Near the fort was a small wood. The trees were cut down, carried upon the shoulders of the men within rifle shot of the fort, and piled up so as to form a quadrangular tower of sufficient height to overlook the stockades. Upon the top of this, a parapet was made of smaller trees, for the defense of those upon the top of the tower. All of this work was accomplished during the darkness of the night, which was intensified by a cloudy sky; and at dawn the garrison were awakened by a deadly shower of balls from a company of sure marksmen upon the top of the tower. At the same moment, a party of volunteers of Marion's militia, under Ensign Johnson, and another from the Continentals, of Lee's legion, ascended the mound and attacked the abatis with vigor. Resistance was vain; and the fort thus assailed was untenable. M'Kay had anxiously awaited the approach of Watson, but that officer, unwilling to allow any thing to impede his progress toward Camden, left this post to its fate. The garrison, no longer able to hold the fort, surrendered by capitula-
* Hezekiah Maham was born on the twenty-sixth of June, 1739. We have no record of his early life. He was a member of the first Provincial Congress of South Carolina; and in the spring of 1776 was elected a captain in Colonel Isaac Huger's regiment. He was with that officer at the siege of Savannah, and at the battle of Stono. As lieutenant colonel of an independent corps of cavalry, he performed many daring exploits in the low country of the Carolinas. At the close of the campaign of 1781, he was obliged to leave active service on account of sickness. While at home, he was made a prisoner and paroled, by which he was not allowed to enter the army again during the war. He died in 1789, at the age of fifty years. His descendant, J. J. Ward, Esq., living near Georgetown, erected a handsome monument to his memory in 1845, upon which are the following inscriptions: Front side.—"Within this Cemetery, and in the bosom of the homestead which he cultivated and embellished while on earth, lie the mortal remains of Colonel Hezekiah Maham. He was born In the parish of St. Stephen's, and died A.D. 1789, aet. fifty years; leaving a name unsullied in social and domestic life, and eminent for devotion to the liberties of his country, and for achievements in arms, in the Revolution which established her independence." Right side.—"Impelled by the spirit of freedom which animated his countrymen, he devoted himself to its support, and promoted the cause of American Independence, by his service in the state committees, instituted by recommendation of the General Congress, in the Jacksonborough Assembly, and in various other civil capacities." Left side.—"Successively a captain in the first rifle regiment, a commander of horse in Marion s brigade, and lieutenant colonel of an independent corps of cavalry, raised by authority of General Greene, he bore an efficient and conspicuous part in the capture of the British posts, and in the series of skillful maneuvers and gallant actions, which resulted in the final extinction of the British dominion in South Carolina, and secured to her and to the confederacy the blessings of Peace, Liberty, and Independence." On the back.—"His relative, Joshua John Ward, of Waccamaw, unwilling that the last abode of an honest man, a faithful patriot, and a brave and successful soldier, should be forgotten and unknown, has erected this memorial, A.D. 1845."
Marion's Residence.—The Wife of Marion.—Return to Orangeburg—Sketch of Marion's House.
tion,April 23, 1781 and Marion with his prisoners and booty, pushed forward and encamped upon the high hills of Santee, to await further orders from Greene, while Lee turned his attention to the movements of Watson. The loss of the Americans was only two killed, and three Continentals and three militia-men wounded. The subsequent movements of Marion and Lee, in efforts to prevent Watson's junction with Rawdon, have been noticed in the preceding chapter.
I tarried at the site of Fort Watson only long enough to make the sketch on page 706, when I hastened back to Vance's Ferry, and pushed on toward Orangeburg. Late in the evening I reached the house of Mr. M'Ance, within fifteen miles of Orangeburg, where I was hospitably entertained.
There I met an elderly lady who had been very intimate with the wife of Marion for several years previous to her death. She informed me that Mrs. Marion (whose maiden name was Videau, one of the Huguenot families) was much younger than the general. She was a large woman, weighing, a year or two before her death, two hundred and thirty pounds. My informant had often visited her at her residence, built by the general at Fond Bluff-, on the Santee (near the Nelson's Ferry road to Charleston), about three miles below Eutaw Springs. Miss Videau brought wealth to her husband, and their dwelling was always the abode of liberal hospitality.