Baffled by the light brigade of Gist, in procuring provisions on the south side of the river, they had crossed it, and, apprised of the movements of Laurens, placed an ambush for him on his road to the Point.
That night was spent by Laurens among the ladies of the place where he lingered. It is recorded that the company did not separate until a couple of hours before the time when the detachment was set in motion.
The prospect of his encounter was the topic of conversation, and with the cheery, elastic spirit of youth, he gaily offered the ladies a conspicuous place from which they might enjoy a sight of the action without incurring its dangers. Before sunrise his voice was hushed for ever.
Unsuspicious of an enemy, he rode at the head of his command.
The British were posted in a place thickly covered with fennel and high grass.
With the advance guard when they were discovered, he promptly ordered a charge, gallantly leading which, he fell at the first fire.
Laurens was one of those brave and ardent spirits, generous, high-souled, and immaculate, which, in times of sordid calculation and drilled soldiership, recall to our minds the better days of chivalry. He was the Bayard of the southern youth in the war of the revolution, uniting all the qualities of the famous chevalier, `sans peur et sans reproche'.
That he should have fallen, unnecessarily, at the close of the war, when nothing was to be gained, and nothing to be saved, by valor, --and in an obscure encounter on a field of mere predatory warfare, doubles the mortification of such a close to a noble and admirable career.
A lesson from the pure and correct code of Marion's military morals would have saved this precious blood, and preserved this gallant youth for nobler fortunes. The following anecdote will illustrate the admirable character of his mode of thinking on such subjects.
While he held his position at Watboo, after he had beaten Frasier, he was advised that a British party, which had been dispatched to procure water at Lempriere's Point, could be cut off with little difficulty. The British were then preparing for embarkation.
A parting blow was recommended, as calculated to hurry their movements, as well as to add something to the measure of patriot revenge for the wrongs and resentments of the past. But Marion resolutely refused to sanction the enterprise. His answer proves equally the excellence of his judgment and the benevolence of his heart.
"My brigade," said he, "is composed of citizens, enough of whose blood has been shed already. If ordered to attack the enemy, I shall obey;but with my consent, not another life shall be lost, though the event should procure me the highest honors of the soldier. Knowing, as we do, that the enemy are on the eve of departure, so far from offering to molest, I would rather send a party to protect them."This noble feeling would have saved the lives of Laurens, Wilmot, Moore, and other gallant young men, who were sacrificed at the last hour when all provocations to strife had ceased -- when the battle was already won -- when the great object of the war had been attained by the one party, and yielded, however reluctantly, by the other.
Capt. Wilmot, with a small command, was stationed to cover John's Island, and to watch the passage by Stono. Fond of enterprise he was tempted occasionally to cross the river and harass the enemy on James' Island.
In one of these adventures, undertaken in conjunction with the celebrated Kosciusko, against an armed party of the enemy's wood-cutters, he fell into an ambuscade, was himself slain, while his second in command, Lieut. Moore, severely wounded, fell into the hands of the British.
This was the last blood shed in the American revolution.
It need not to have been shed. The denouement of the protracted drama had already taken place. The conquest of the Indians by Pickens was complete;the Tories no longer appeared in bodies, though, for some time after, individuals of the scattered bands occasionally continued the habits of outlawry which the war had taught them, and dealt in deeds of midnight robbery and crime; -- and the British armies were simply preparing to depart. On the 14th of December, while the American columns entered the city from the neck, those of the British retired to their ships; the movements of which, as their white sails distended to the breeze, presented, in the language of Moultrie, "a grand and pleasing sight."It was a sight, however, which the militia, always undervalued, always misunderstood and misrepresented, were not permitted to behold.
They had fought the battle, it was true, "but the civil authority"conceived their uses to be over, and "they were excluded as dangerous spectators;" an unworthy and most ungrateful decision, in which, we are pleased to learn from a self-exculpatory letter of General Greene, he had no participation, and which he did not approve.
The forces of the British withdrawn from the shores of Carolina, the country, exhausted of resources, and filled with malcontents and mourners, was left to recover slowly from the hurts and losses of foreign and intestine strife.
Wounds were to be healed which required the assuasive hand of time, which were destined to rankle even in the bosoms of another generation, and the painful memory of which is keenly treasured even now.
