As for Gates, he offered no welcome to this ragged squad. The leader modestly offered him some advice about the military condition of the South, but the general in command was clothed in too dense an armor of conceit to be open to advice from any quarter, certainly not from the leader of such a Falstaffian company, and he was glad enough to get rid of him by sending him on a scouting expedition in advance of the army, to watch the enemy and report his movements.
This service precisely suited him to whom it was given, for this small, non-intrusive personage was no less a man than Francis Marion, then but little known, but destined to become the Robin Hood of partisan warriors, the celebrated "Swamp-Fox" of historical romance and romantic history.
Marion had appeared with the title of colonel. He left the army with the rank of general. Governor Rutledge, who was present, knew him and his worth, gave him a brigadier's commission, and authorized him to enlist a brigade for guerilla work in the swamps and forests of the State.
Thus raised in rank, Marion marched away with his motley crew of followers, they doubtless greatly elevated in dignity to feel that they had a general at their head. The army indulged in a broad laugh, after they had gone, at Marion's miniature brigade of scarecrows. They laughed at the wrong man, for after their proud array was broken and scattered to the winds, and the region they had marched to relieve had become the prey of the enemy, that modest partisan alone was to keep alive the fire of liberty in South Carolina, and so annoy the victors that in the end they hardly dared show their faces out of the forts. The Swamp-Fox was to pave the way for the reconquest of the South by the brave General Greene.
No long time elapsed before Marion increased his disreputable score to a brigade of more respectable proportions, with which he struck such quick and telling blows from all sides on the British and Tories, that no nest of hornets could have more dismayed a marauding party of boys. The swamps of the Pedee were his head-quarters. In their interminable and thicket-hidden depths he found hiding-places in abundance, and from them he made rapid darts, north, south, east, and west, making his presence felt wherever he appeared, and flying back to shelter before his pursuers could overtake him. His corps was constantly changing, now swelling, now shrinking, now little larger than his original ragged score, now grown to a company of a hundred or more in dimensions. It was always small. The swamps could not furnish shelter and food for any large body of men.
Marion's head-quarters were at Snow's Island, at the point where Lynch's Creek joins the Pedee River. This was a region of high river-swamp, thickly forested, and abundantly supplied with game. The camp was on dry land, but around it spread broad reaches of wet thicket and canebrake, whose paths were known only to the partisans, and their secrets sedulously preserved. As regards the mode of life here of Marion and his men, there is an anecdote which will picture it better than pages of description.
A young British officer was sent from Georgetown to treat with Marion for an exchange of prisoners. The Swamp-Fox fully approved of the interview, being ready enough to rid himself of his captives, who were a burden on his hands. But he was too shrewd to lay bare the ways that led to his camp. The officer was blindfolded, and led by devious paths through canebrake, thicket, and forest to the hidden camp. On the removal of the bandage from his eyes he looked about him with admiration and surprise. He found himself in a scene worthy of Robin Hood's woodland band. Above him spread the boughs of magnificent trees, laden with drooping moss, and hardly letting a ray of sunlight through their crowding foliage. Around him rose their massive trunks, like the columns of some vast cathedral. On the grassy or moss-clad ground sat or lay groups of hardy-looking men, no two of them dressed alike, and with none of the neat appearance of uniformed soldiers. More remote were their horses, cropping the short herbage in equine contentment. It looked like a camp of forest outlaws, jovial tenants of the merry greenwood.
The surprise of the officer was not lessened when his eyes fell on Marion, whom he had never seen before. It may be that he expected to gaze on a burly giant. As it was, he could scarcely believe that this diminutive, quiet-looking man, and this handful of ill-dressed and lounging followers, were the celebrated band who had thrown the whole British power in the South into alarm.
Marion addressed him, and a conference ensued in which their business was quickly arranged to their mutual satisfaction.
"And now, my dear sir," said Marion, "I should be glad to have you dine with me. You have fasted during your journey, and will be the better for a woodland repast."