I repeat, the force under General Marion was made up of gentlemen, the greater number of whom owned plantations in or near the Williamsburg district, and the fact that they had for a leader such a man as my uncle, Major James, is sufficient proof as to their character.
Although these men were by this time come to believe that the Cause for which they had struggled so long was much the same as lost, so far as we in the southern colonies were concerned, yet they were not of the class that acknowledges itself beaten while life remains.
Therefore it was, that instead of being yet further disheartened by this failure which followed a brilliant victory, they were the more determined to strike every possible blow before the end should come.
The cruel and barbarous proclamation of Lord Clinton aroused their anger rather than fear, and within half an hour after it had been circulated among us, I heard my uncle, the major, say that no document could have been put in a style better calculated to drive recruits into our ranks than that which was written evidently for the purpose of frightening the colony into submission.
There is, perhaps, a good word to be spoken for those men, who, having been released from captivity by us, were willing to serve under General Marion.
They had been whipped at the very moment victory seemed certain, and it is little wonder that the faint-hearted should have begun to despair, when, after four years of desperate struggling, the "rebellion" was well-nigh crushed out.
At the moment, we of Williamsburg could have no sympathy for such cowards, as we called them, and had any of the men begged us for food I question if we would have supplied their wants, so angered were we by the refusal to enlist.
It was evident to every man among us that it was not safe to remain on this road over which the British soldiers were continually passing, and particularly since those whom we had defeated would speedily give information to all the king's officers in the colony.
From this hour our little brigade would be hunted down without mercy, and there could be no question but that the chase would be a lively one since the Britishers in this section had no other "rebels" with whom to occupy their attention.