Upon their return to the spot where they had left their party they found that Major James, upon his own account, had also surprised a party of the enemy and routed them without loss of a man. So, with Mr. Foster’s wagons rolling along in the midst of them they made their way toward the point where they were to meet Marion.
CHAPTER XI
HOW TOM MET WITH A BLINDFOLD ADVENTURE
In the fall Marion defeated a large body of the enemy at the Black Wingo. News had filtered its way into Carolina that General Greene had succeeded Gates and was advancing with fresh recruits and the remnant of the fugitives who survived the fatal battle of Camden. Marion was most anxious to show Greene and his Continentals that there was a spirit in the state, so he became more than usually active.
He recruited his force at Williamsburg and was marching to attack Colonel Harrison, who was in force upon Lynch’s Creek; but his progress in this direction was suddenly arrested one afternoon when Tom and Cole dashed back from a scout and informed him that there was a large gathering of Tories in and about Salem and the fork of the Black River. Colonel Tynes, who commanded this force, had brought with him large supplies of the materials of war and comfort-things in which Marion’s riders stood very much in need. Tom drew pictures of new English muskets, broadswords, bayonets, pistols, saddles and bridles, powder and ball, and large stores of hard money which Tynes had also brought to tempt new levies.
His men wanted so much for all these things that Marion could not resist the boy’s eloquence. Harrison, for the time, was forgotten; and the half-naked brigade was headed for Tarcote, in the forks of the Black River. Crossing the lower ford of the northern branch of the river, at Nelson’s plantation, Marion came upon the camp of Tynes at midnight. A hurried survey revealed the fact that the Tories had made no preparation to ward off an attack. Most of them were asleep; but many were grouped about the camp-fires.
Hastily collecting his men, Marion struck like lightning. The surprise was complete; the panic universal. Marion lost not a single man, and gained a great store of clothing, arms and ammunition, as Tom had predicted he would.
One after another these victories came; they were small in themselves but they gave the patriots courage; they revived spirits that had drooped since the taking of Charleston and the burnings and hangings by Tarleton and his fierce dragoons. As the leaves yellowed and fell, and long before the Christmas season set in, the cause of liberty once more grew bright in Carolina.
Cornwallis was quick to feel this; his parties were continually under arms; his columns were ever scouring the country for the elusive but dangerous foe. But Marion had taught his countrymen how to fight their powerful enemy; surprise, ambuscades, night marches, rapid retreats—that was the story of his work, and it brought the British, as far as results were concerned, almost to a standstill.
On December 30, 1780, Cornwallis, from his camp at Winnsborough, wrote to Sir Henry Clinton at New York:
“Colonel Marion has so wrought upon the minds of the people ... that there is scarcely an inhabitant between the Santee and Peedee that is not in arms against us. Some parties have even crossed the Santee and carried terror to the gates of Charleston.”