Marion's Camp at Snow's Island -- The Character of his Warfare --Of his Men -- Anecdotes of Conyers and Horry --He feasts a British Officer on Potatoes -- Quells a Mutiny.
Marion's career as a partisan, in the thickets and swamps of Carolina, is abundantly distinguished by the picturesque; but it was while he held his camp at Snow's Island, that it received its highest colors of romance.
In this snug and impenetrable fortress, he reminds us very much of the ancient feudal baron of France and Germany, who, perched on castled eminence, looked down with the complacency of an eagle from his eyrie, and marked all below him for his own. The resemblance is good in all respects but one. The plea and justification of Marion are complete.
His warfare was legitimate. He was no mountain robber, --no selfish and reckless ruler, thirsting for spoil and delighting inhumanly in blood. The love of liberty, the defence of country, the protection of the feeble, the maintenance of humanity and all its dearest interests, against its tyrant -- these were the noble incentives which strengthened him in his stronghold, made it terrible in the eyes of his enemy, and sacred in those of his countrymen. Here he lay, grimly watching for the proper time and opportunity when to sally forth and strike. His position, so far as it sheltered him from his enemies, and gave him facilities for their overthrow, was wonderfully like that of the knightly robber of the Middle Ages. True, his camp was without its castle --but it had its fosse and keep -- its draw-bridge and portcullis.
There were no towers frowning in stone and iron -- but there were tall pillars of pine and cypress, from the waving tops of which the warders looked out, and gave warning of the foe or the victim.
No cannon thundered from his walls; no knights, shining in armor, sallied forth to the tourney. He was fond of none of the mere pomps of war.
He held no revels -- "drank no wine through the helmet barred,"and, quite unlike the baronial ruffian of the Middle Ages, was strangely indifferent to the feasts of gluttony and swilled insolence.
He found no joy in the pleasures of the table. Art had done little to increase the comforts or the securities of his fortress.
It was one, complete to his hands, from those of nature -- such a one as must have delighted the generous English outlaw of Sherwood forest --isolated by deep ravines and rivers, a dense forest of mighty trees, and interminable undergrowth. The vine and briar guarded his passes.
The laurel and the shrub, the vine and sweet scented jessamine, roofed his dwelling, and clambered up between his closed eyelids and the stars. Obstructions, scarcely penetrable by any foe, crowded the pathways to his tent; -- and no footstep, not practised in the secret, and `to the manner born', might pass unchallenged to his midnight rest. The swamp was his moat;his bulwarks were the deep ravines, which, watched by sleepless rifles, were quite as impregnable as the castles on the Rhine.
Here, in the possession of his fortress, the partisan slept secure.
In the defence of such a place, in the employment of such material as he had to use, Marion stands out alone in our written history, as the great master of that sort of strategy, which renders the untaught militia-man in his native thickets, a match for the best drilled veteran of Europe. Marion seemed to possess an intuitive knowledge of his men and material, by which, without effort, he was led to the most judicious modes for their exercise.
He beheld, at a glance, the evils or advantages of a position.
By a nice adaptation of his resources to his situation, he promptly supplied its deficiencies and repaired its defects.
Till this was done, he did not sleep; -- he relaxed in none of his endeavors.
By patient toil, by keenest vigilance, by a genius peculiarly his own, he reconciled those inequalities of fortune or circumstance, under which ordinary men sit down in despair. Surrounded by superior foes, he showed no solicitude on this account. If his position was good, their superiority gave him little concern. He soon contrived to lessen it, by cutting off their advanced parties, their scouts or foragers, and striking at their detachments in detail. It was on their own ground, in their immediate presence, nay, in the very midst of them, that he frequently made himself a home. Better live upon foes than upon friends, was his maxim; and this practice of living amongst foes was the great school by which his people were taught vigilance.
The adroitness and address of Marion's captainship were never more fully displayed than when he kept Snow's Island;sallying forth, as occasion offered, to harass the superior foe, to cut off his convoys, or to break up, before they could well embody, the gathering and undisciplined Tories. His movements were marked by equal promptitude and wariness. He suffered no risks from a neglect of proper precaution. His habits of circumspection and resolve ran together in happy unison. His plans, carefully considered beforehand, were always timed with the happiest reference to the condition and feelings of his men. To prepare that condition, and to train those feelings, were the chief employment of his repose. He knew his game, and how it should be played, before a step was taken or a weapon drawn.
When he himself, or any of his parties, left the island, upon an expedition, they advanced along no beaten paths. They made them as they went.
He had the Indian faculty in perfection, of gathering his course from the sun, from the stars, from the bark and the tops of trees, and such other natural guides, as the woodman acquires only through long and watchful experience. Many of the trails, thus opened by him, upon these expeditions, are now the ordinary avenues of the country.
On starting, he almost invariably struck into the woods, and seeking the heads of the larger water courses, crossed them at their first and small beginnings. He destroyed the bridges where he could.
