He ran away, at least, though he did not do any fighting first.
Five months after the battle of Camden, there was another battle at Cowpens. The British army, commanded by Tarleton, was only a little larger than the American. The redcoats were so badly beaten that they lost over nine hundred men, while the American loss was only seventy-two.
One day, not long after, Tarleton was bullying a southern woman in her home, where he and some of his officers were quartered. There was, on the American side, a Colonel Washington, a distant relative of the commander-in-chief. In his insulting way, Tarleton asked, when the lady said this officer was a relative of hers:
“What does Colonel Washington look like? I have never had the pleasure of meeting him.”
“You might have seen him,” said the lady, sweetly, “if you had looked behind you at the Battle of Cowpens!”
This polite way of calling him a coward made Tarleton very angry, but he was no match in wit for a brave and brilliant southern woman.
Though many of the wealthiest people of the south were Tories, some of them were true patriots. A widow named Motte had just built a beautiful home on a hilltop, and had furnished it elegantly, when the British decided that it would make a fine fort, and promptly took possession of it. General Marion and his guerrilla band surrounded the mansion and told Mrs. Motte, who was then staying in a neighbor’s house, that if he could set her house afire he could “smoke out” the British and capture them. That woman patriot was glad to sacrifice her lovely home for the good of her country; so Marion burned down the mansion and made the redcoats his prisoners.
WINNERS OF THE WEST
WOLFE AND MONTCALM, THE RIVAL HEROES OF QUEBEC
MORE than one hundred years after Champlain returned from France to his beloved Quebec, France and Great Britain were at war. In America this struggle was called the French and Indian War, because the English colonists had to fight against the French and their Indian allies, who came down from Canada to keep the English out of the country along the Ohio River. In Europe this strife, in which several other nations took part, was known as the Seven Years’ War.