Meanwhile, the hero of Saratoga—a man who, at
that time, almost equally with Washington, divided the
good opinion of his countrymen—arrived from Virginia
and took command of the southern army. The arrival
of Gates was a relief to the brave German soldier, De

[figure description] Page 175.[end figure description]

Kalb, who previously had the command. The situation
of the army was then most embarrassing. It lay
at Deep river, in the state of North Carolina, in a steril
country, filled either with lukewarm friends or certain
enemies. The executive of the colony had done
but little to secure aid or co-operation for the continentals.
Provisions were procured with difficulty, and
the militia came in slowly, and in unimportant numbers.
The command of the state subsidy had been intrusted
to a Mr. Caswell, a gentleman without the qualities
which would make a good soldier, but with sufficient
pretension to make a confident one. He strove to
exercise an independent command, and, on various
pretences, kept away from a junction with De Kalb, in
whom his own distinct command must have been
merged. Even upon Gates's arrival, the emulous militia-man
kept aloof until the junction was absolutely
unavoidable, and until its many advantages had been
almost entirely neutralized by the untimely delay in
effecting it. This junction at length took place on the
fifteenth day of August, nearly a month after Gates's
assumption of the general command.

A new hope sprang up in the bosoms of the continentals
with the arrival of a commander already
so highly distinguished. His noble appearance, erect
person, majestic height and carriage, and the bold play
of his features, free, buoyant, and intelligent in the
extreme, were all calculated to confirm their sanguine
expectations. In the prime of life, bred to arms, and
having gone through several terms of service with
character and credit, every thing was expected by the
troops from their commander. Fortune, too, had almost
invariably smiled upon him; and his recent success at
Saratoga—a success which justice insists should be
shared pretty evenly with Arnold, the traitor Arnold,
and others equally brave, but far more worthy—had
done greatly towards inspiriting his men with assurances,
which, it is not necessary now to say, proved
most illusory. Nor was De Kalb, to whom General
Gates intrusted the command of the Maryland division

[figure description] Page 176.[end figure description]

of the army, including that also from Delaware, without
his influence in the affections of the continentals.
He was a brave man, and had all his life been a soldier.
A German by birth, he was, in the service of the King
of France, a brigadier, when transferred to America
in the revolutionary struggle. Congress honoured him
with the commission of a major-general, and he did
honour to the trust—he perished in the execution of
its duties.

The command given to Gates was so far a shadowy
one. With the Maryland and Delaware regiments, it
consisted only of three companies of artillery under
the command of Lieutenant-colonel Carrington, which
had just joined from Virginia, and a small legionary
corps under Colonel Armand, a foreigner, of about sixty
cavalry and as many foot. But the general was not to
be discouraged by this show of weakness, though evident
enough to him at the outset. He joined the army on
the 25th July, was received with due ceremony by a
continental salute from the little park of artillery, and
received the command with due politeness from his
predecessor. He made his acknowledgments to the
baron with all the courtesy of a finished gentleman,
approved and confirmed his standing orders, and, this
done, to the surprise of all, gave the troops instructions
to hold themselves in readiness to move at a moment's
warning. This was an order which manifested the
activity of their commander's mind and character; but
it proved no little annoyance to the troops themselves,
who well knew their own condition. They were without
rum or rations—their foragers failed to secure
necessary supplies in sufficient quantity—and nothing
but that high sense of military subordination which
distinguished the favourite line of continentals under
De Kalb's direction, could have prevented the open utterance
of those discontents which they yet could not
help but feel. De Kalb ventured to remind Gates of
the difficulties of their situation. A smile, not more
polite than supercilious, accompanied the reply of the
too confident adventurer.

[figure description] Page 177.[end figure description]

“All this has been cared for, general. I have not
issued orders without duly considering their bearing,
and the unavoidable necessities they bring with them.
Wagons are on the road with all the articles you name
in sufficient quantity, and in a day or two these discontents
will be all satisfied. Your line is not refractory,
I hope?”

“Never more docile, I beg your excellency to believe,
than now. The troops I command know that
subordination, not less than valour, is the duty of the
soldier. But human nature has its wants, and no small
part of my care is, that I know their suffering—not from
their complaints, sir, for they say nothing—but from
my own knowledge of their true condition, and of what
their complaints might very well be.”

“It is well—they will soon be relieved; and in order
to contribute actively to that end, it is decided that we
march to-morrow.”

“To-morrow, sir! Your excellency is aware that
this is impracticable unless we move with but one-half
of our baggage, for want of horses. Colonel Williams
has just reported a large deficiency.”

With evident impatience, restrained somewhat by a
sense of politeness, Gates turned away from the baron
to Colonel Otho Williams, who was then approaching,
and put the question to him concerning the true condition
of the army with regard to horses. The cheek
of the old veteran, De Kalb, grew to a yet deeper hue
than was its habitual wear, and his lips were compressed
with painful effort as he heard the inquiry.
Williams confirmed the statement, and assured the
general, that not only a portion of the baggage, but a
portion of the artillery must be left under the same
deficiency in the event of a present movement.

“And, how many field-pieces are thus unprovided,
Colonel Williams?”

“Two, sir, at least, and possibly more.”

Gates strode away for a few moments, then returning
quickly, as if in that time he had effected his resolve,
he exclaimed—

[figure description] Page 178.[end figure description]

“They must be left: we shall do without them.
We must move to-morrow, gentlemen, without loss of
time, taking the route over Buffalo ford towards the
advance post of the enemy on Lynch's creek. We
shall find him there, I think.”

Gates seemed to think that nothing more was wanting
to success than finding his enemy, and his eye
looked the confident expectation of youth, unprepared
for, and entirely unthinking of, reverse. Flattered by
good fortune to the top of his bent, she now seemed
desirous of fooling him there: and his eye, lip, look,
and habitual action, seemed to say that it was now with
him only to see, to conquer. De Kalb turned away
sorrowfully in silence; but Colonel Williams, presuming
on large personal intimacy with the general, ventured
to expostulate with him upon the precipitate step
which he was about to take. He insisted upon the necessity
of horse, not only for the baggage and artillery,
but for the purpose of mounting a large additional force
of the infantry, to act as cavalry along the route. But
Gates, taking him by the arm, smiled playfully to his
aide, as he replied—

“But what do we want with cavalry, Williams?—we
had none at Saratoga.”

Perhaps it would be safe to assert that the game
won at Saratoga was the true cause of the game lost
at Camden. The folly of such an answer was apparent
to all but the speaker. With a marked deference, careful
not to offend, Williams suggested the radical difference
between the two regions thus tacitly compared.
He did not dwell upon the irregular and broken surface
of the ground at Saratoga, which rendered cavalry
next to useles,s and, indeed, perfectly unnecessary;
but he gave a true picture of the country through
which they were now to pass. By nature steril, abounding
with sandy plains and swamps, thinly inhabited,
nothing but cavalry could possibly compass the extent
of ground over which it would be necessary that they
should go daily in order to secure provisions. He proceeded,
and described the settlers in the neighbourhood

[figure description] Page 179.[end figure description]

as chiefly tories—another name for a banditti the most
reckless and barbarous, who would harass his army
at every step, and seek safe cover in the swamps whenever
he should turn upon them. Williams, who knew
the country, ably depicted its condition to his superior,
and with a degree of earnestness only warranted by
the friendship existing between them. It was, nevertheless,
far from agreeable to his hearer, who, somewhat
peevishly, at length responded—

“Colonel Williams, we are to fight the enemy, you
will admit? He will not come to us, that is clear.
What next? We must go to him. We must pit the
cock on his own dunghill.”

“It will be well, general, if he doesn't pit us there.
Though we do seek to fight him, there's no need of
such an excess of civility as to give him his own choice
of ground for it; and permit me to suggest a route by
which we shall seek him out quite as effectually, I
think, and, with due regard to your already expressed
decision, on better terms for ourselves.”

“Proceed!” was all the answer of Gates, who began
whistling the popular air of Yankee Doodle, with
much sang froid, at intervals, even while his aide was
speaking. The brow of Williams grew slightly contracted
for an instant; but well knowing the habits of
the speaker, and regarding much more the harmony of
the army and its prospect of success than his own
personal feelings, he calmly enough proceeded in his
suggestions. A rude map lay on the table before him,
on which he traced out the path which he now counselled
his superior to take.

“Here, sir, your excellency will see that a route
almost northwest would cross the Peedee river, at or
about the spot where it becomes the Yadkin: this
would lead us to the little town of Salisbury, where
the people are firm friends, and where the country all
around is fertile and abundant. This course, sir, has
the advantage of any other, not only as it promises us
plenty of provisions, but as it yields us an asylum for
the sick and wounded, in the event of a disaster,

[figure description] Page 180.[end figure description]

either in Mecklenburgh or Rowan counties, in both of
which our friends are stanch and powerful.”

The suggestion of disaster provoked a scornful
smile to the lips of Gates, and he seemed about to
speak, but perceiving that Williams had not yet concluded,
he merely waved his hand to him to proceed.
Williams beheld the smile and its peculiar expression,
and his manly and ingenuous countenance was slightly
flushed as he surveyed it. His tall, graceful figure rose
to its full height, as he went on to designate the several
advantages offered to the army by the suggested route.
In this review were included, among other leading objects,
the establishment of a laboratory for the repair
of arms at Salisbury or Charlotte—a depot for the security
of stores conveyed from the northward by the
upper route—the advantage which such a course gave
of turning the left of the enemy's outposts by a circuitous
route, and the facility of reaching the most considerable
among them, (Camden,) with friends always
in the rear, and with a river (the Wateree) on the
right. These and other suggestions were offered by
Williams, who, at the same time, begged to fortify his
own opinions by a reference to other and better informed
gentlemen than himself on the subject. Gates,
who had heard him through with some impatience,
only qualified in its show by the manifest complacency
with which he contemplated his own project, turned
quietly around to him at the conclusion, and replied
briefly—

“All very well, Williams, and very wise—but we
must march now. To-morrow, when the troops shall
halt at noon, I will lay these matters, as you have suggested
them, before the general officers.”

Laying due stress upon the word general, he effectually
conveyed the idea to the mind of Williams, that, though
he had received the suggestions of a friend and intimate,
he was not unwilling to rebuke the presumption
of the inferior officer aiming to give counsel. With a
melancholy shake of the head, De Kalb turned away,
jerking up the hips of his smallclothes, as he did so,

[figure description] Page 181.[end figure description]

with a sufficiently discontented movement. Williams
followed him from the presence of the infatuated generalissimo,
and all parties were soon busy in preparation
for a start.

The next morning, the journey was begun; the army
setting forth, unmurmuring, though without half
their baggage, and with no present prospect of provisions.
Gates, however, seemed assured of their proximity,
and cheered his officers, and through them, the men,
with his assurance. At noon they came to a halt, and
here they were joined by Colonel Walton, bearing advices
from Marion, and bringing up his own skeleton corps,
which was incorporated with Colonel Dixon's regiment
of the North Carolina militia. The services of Walton,
as, indeed, had been anticipated by him, were appropriated
at once by the general in his own family. No conference
took place at this halt, as Gates had promised
Williams. After a brief delay, which the men employed
in ransacking their knapsacks for the scraps and remnants
which they contained, the march was resumed:
the wagons with provisions not yet in sight, and their
scouts returning with no intelligence calculated for their
encouragement. The country through which their journey
was to be taken, exceeded in sterility all the representations
which had been made of it. But few settlements
relieved, with an appearance of human life,
the monotonous originality of the wild nature around
them; and these, too, were commonly deserted by their
inhabitants on the appearance of the army. The settlers,
dividing on either side, had formed themselves into
squads to plunder and prey upon the neighbouring and
more productive districts. They were Ishmaelites in
all their practices, and usually shrunk away from any
force larger than their own; conscious that power must
only bring them chastisement. The distresses of the
soldiery, on this sad and solitary march, increased with
every day in their progress. Still, none of the provisions
and stores promised them by the general at their
outset, came to hand. In lieu of these, they had the
long perspective, full of promise, before them. There

[figure description] Page 182.[end figure description]

was the Peedee river at hand, the banks of which
they were told, exceedingly fertile, held forth the prospect
of abundance; but hour after hour came and
passed, without the realization of these promises. The
preceding crop of corn along the road had been long
since exhausted, and the new grain was yet in the fields,
unripened and unfit for use. But the necessity was
too peremptory, and not to be restrained. The soldiery
plucked the immature ears, and boiling them with
the lean beef which herded in the contiguous swamps,
they provided themselves with all the food available in
that quarter. Green peaches were the substitute for
bread; and fashion, too, became a tributary to want, and
the hair powder so lavishly worn by all of the respectable
classes at that period, was employed to thicken
the unsalted soups, for the more reserved appetites of
the officers. Such fare was productive of consequences
the most annoying and enfeebling. The army was
one of shadows, weary and dispirited, long before it
came in sight of an enemy.

It was on the third day of August that the little army
crossed the Peedee, in batteaux, at Mask's ferry,
and were met on the southern bank by Lieutenant-colonel
Porterfield, of Virginia, with a lean detachment
of troops which he had kept together with much
difficulty after the fall of Charlestown. A few hours
after, and while the army was enjoying its usual noonday
halt, the little partisan corps of the Swamp Fox
rode into camp. His presence created some sensation,
for his own reputation had been for some time spreading;
but the miserable and wild appearance of his little
brigade, was the object of immense ridicule on the
part of the continentals. They are represented by
the historian as a most mirthful spectacle, all well
mounted, but in wretched attire, an odd assemblage of
men, and boys, and negroes, with little or no equipment,
and arms of the most strange and various assortment.
Colonel Marion was at once introduced to the marquee
of the general, but his troops remained exposed to the
unmeasured jest and laughter of the continentals. One

[figure description] Page 183.[end figure description]

called them the crow-squad, from their sooty outsides;
this name another denied them, alleging, with a sorry
pun, that they had long since forgotten how to crow,
though they were evidently just from the dunghills.
A third, more classical, borrowed a passage from Falstaff,
and swore he should at once leave the army, as
he wouldn't march into Coventry with such scarecrows;
but a fourth said, that was the very reason that he
should stick to it, as Coventry was the only place for
them. The fierce low-country men did not bear this
long; and as they sauntered about among the several
groups which crowded curiously around them, sundry
little squabbles, only restrained by the hard efforts of the
officers, took place, and promised some difficulty between
the parties. Our friend Porgy himself, though
withal remarkably good-natured, was greatly aroused
by the taunts and sarcasms uttered continually around
him. He replied to many of those that reached his
ears, and few were better able at retort than himself;
but his patience at length was overcome entirely, as,
among those engaged most earnestly in the merriment
at his expense, he heard the frequent and boisterous
jokes of Colonel Armand, a mercenary soldier, who, in
broken English, pressed rather rudely the assault upon
our friend Porgy's equipment in particular. Armand
was a man lean and attenuated, naturally; and his recent
course of living had not materially contributed to
his personal bulk. Porgy eyed him with wholesale
contempt for a few moments, while the foreigner blundered
out his bad grammar and worse English. At
length, tapping Armand upon the shoulder with the utmost
coolness and familiarity, he drew his belt a
thought tighter around his waist, while he addressed
the foreigner.

“Look you, my friend—with the body of a sapling,
you have the voice of a puncheon, and I like nothing
that's unnatural and artificial. I must reconcile these
extremes in your case, and there are two modes of
doing so. I must either increase your bulk or lessen
your voice. Perhaps it would be quite as well to do

[figure description] Page 184.[end figure description]

both; the extremes meet always most readily: and by
reducing your voice, and increasing your bulk at the
same time, I shall be able to bring you to a natural and
healthy condition.”

“Vat you mean?” demanded Armand, with a look
of mixed astonishment and indignation, as he drew
away from the familiar grasp which Porgy had taken
upon his shoulder.

“I'll tell you: you don't seem to have had a dinner
for some time back. Your jaws are thin, your complexion
mealy, and your belly—what there is of it—is
gaunt as a greyhound's. I'll help to replenish it.
Tom, bring out the hoecake and that bit of shoulder,
boy. You'll find it in the tin box, where I left it.
Now, my friend, wait for the negro; he'll be here in
short order, and I shall then assist you, as I said before,
to increase your body and diminish your voice:
the contrast is too great between them—it is unnatural,
unbecoming, and must be remedied.”

Armand, annoyed by the pertinacity, not less than
by the manner of Porgy, who, once aroused, now held
on to him all the while he spoke, soon ceased to laugh
as he had done previously; and, not understanding one-half
of Porgy's speech, and at a loss how to take him,
for the gourmand was eminently good-natured in his aspect,
he repeated the question—

“Vat you sall say, my friend?”

“Tom's coming with ham and hoecake—both good,
I assure you, for I have tried them within the hour;
you shall try them also. I mean first to feed you—and
by that means increase your bulk—and then to flog you,
and so diminish your voice. You have too little of
the one, and quite too much of the other.”

A crowd had now collected about the two, of whom,
not the least ready and resolute were the men of Marion.
As soon as Armand could be made to understand
what was wanted of him, he drew back in unmeasured
indignation and dismay.

“I shall fight wid de gentilmans and officer, not wid
you, sir,” was his reply, with some show of dignity, to

[figure description] Page 185.[end figure description]

the application of Porgy. A hand was quietly laid on
his shoulder, and his eye turned to encounter the glance
of Major Singleton.

“I am both, sir, and at your service, Colonel Armand,
in this very quarrel, though, in justice, you owe
the right to Mr. Porgy, who also seeks it. You waived
your rank when you ridiculed the private, and put yourself
out of the protection of your epaulet. Conceding
you the point, however, permit me to repeat, sir,
that I am at your service.”

“But, sare, vat you sall be name?”

“Singleton—Major Singleton, of the brigade of Colonel
Marion, who will answer for my rank, as well as
for my honour.”

“But, sare, I sall not laugh at de gentilmans.”

“It matters not—will you compel me to disgrace you,
sir?” was the stern reply.

The scene and disputation now grew exceedingly
warm, and the uproar reaching head-quarters, soon
brought out the commander-in-chief. By this time, Armand's
corps had clustered about their commander, and
Singleton was surrounded, in like manner, by his own
little squad from the Cypress. Swords were already
drawn, and Humphries, Davis, and the rest, not forgeting
Lance Frampton, with rifles and sabres ready, were
each facing some particular foe, when the stern voices
of the general officers called for silence, and the drum
rolled in obedience to their commands, calling the several
squads to their appointed stations. The affray
was thus prevented, which, a moment before, seemed
inevitable. Such is military subordination. Gates, with
the leading officers, again returned to the conference,
which had been highly animated and important before
this interruption.

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