CHAPTER XLIX.
MILDRED ARRIVES AT THE TERM OF HER JOURNEY.——THE READER IS FAVORED WITH A GLIMPSE OF A DISTINGUISHED PERSONAGE.
Cornwallis, after the battle of Camden, turned his thoughts to the diligent prosecution of his conquests. The invasion of North Carolina and Virginia was a purpose to which he had looked, from the commencement of this campaign, and he now, accordingly, made every preparation for the speedy advance of his army. The sickness of a portion of his troops and the want of supplies rendered some delay inevitable, and this interval was employed in more fully organizing the civil government of the conquered province, and in strengthening his frontier defences; by detaching considerable parties of men towards the mountains. The largest of these detachments was sent to reinforce Ferguson, to whom had been confided the operations upon the north-western border.
The chronicles of the time inform us that the British general lay at Camden until the 8th of September, at which date he set forward towards North Carolina. His movement was slow and cautious, and for some time, his head-quarters were established at the Waxhaws, a position directly upon the border of the province about to be invaded. At this post our story now finds him, the period being somewhere about the commencement of the last quarter of the month.
A melancholy train of circumstances had followed the fight at Camden, and had embittered the feelings of the contending parties against each other to an unusual degree of exasperation. The most prominent of these topics of anger was the unjust and severe construction which the British authorities had given to the obligations which were supposed to affect such of the inhabitants of South Carolina, as had, after the capitulation of Charleston, surrendered themselves as prisoners on parole, or received protections from the new government. A proclamation, issued by Sir Henry Clinton in June, annulled the paroles, and ordered all who had obtained them to render military service, as subjects of the king. This order, which the prisoners, as well as those who had obtained protections, held to be a dissolution of their contract with the new government, was disobeyed by a large number of the inhabitants, many of whom had, immediately after the proclamation, joined the American army.
Cornwallis permitted himself, on this occasion, to be swayed by sentiments unworthy of the character generally imputed to him. Many of the liberated inhabitants were found in the ranks of Gates at Camden, and several were made prisoners on the field. These latter, by the orders of the British general, were hung almost without the form of an inquiry: and it may well be supposed that in the heat of war and ferment of passion, such acts of rigor, defended on such light grounds, were met on the opposite side by a severe retribution.
Almost every day, during the British commander's advance, some of the luckless citizens of the province whom this harsh construction of duty affected, were brought into the camp of the invaders, and the soldiery had grown horribly familiar with the frequent military executions that ensued.
It was in the engrossment of the occupations and cares presented in this brief reference to the history of the time, that I have now to introduce my reader to Cornwallis.
He had resolved to move forward on his campaign. Orders were issued to prepare for the march, and the general had announced his determination to review the troops before they broke ground. A beautiful, bright, and cool autumnal morning shone upon the wide plain, where an army of between two and three thousand men was drawn out in line. The tents of the recent encampment had already been struck, and a long array of baggage-wagons were now upon the high-road, slowly moving to a point assigned them in the route of the march. Cornwallis, attended by a score of officers, still occupied a small farm-house which had lately been his quarters. A number of saddle-horses in the charge of their grooms, and fully equipped for service, were to be seen in the neighborhood of the door; and the principal apartment of the house showed that some of the loiterers of the company were yet engaged in despatching the morning meal. The aides-de-camp were seen speeding between the army and the general, with that important and neck-endangering haste which characterizes the tribe of these functionaries; and almost momentarily a courier arrived, bearing some message of interest to the commander-in-chief.