The party of Lewis, apprehending an ambush, immediately fell back and put themselves in cover. The conflict lasted through the better part of the day, one side gaining ground, and now the other.
It closed in the final defeat of the enemy, who were pursued with a savage and unsparing spirit. One half of their number were left dead upon the ground. Their leader was Major Gainey.
Great expectations were formed of his ability to cope with Marion.
On this occasion, though he made his escape, his mode of doing so was characterized by a peculiar circumstance, which rendered it particularly amusing to one side and annoying to the other.
He was singled out in the chase by Sergeant McDonald, a fierce young fellow, who was admirably mounted. Gainey was fortunate in being well mounted also.
McDonald, regarding but the one enemy, passed all others.
He himself said that he could have slain several in the chase.
But he wished for no meaner object than their leader.
One man alone who threw himself in the way of the pursuit became its victim.
Him he shot down, and, as they went at full speed down the Black river road, at the corner of Richmond fence, the sergeant had gained so far upon his enemy, as to be able to plunge his bayonet into his back.
The steel separated from his gun, and, with no time to extricate it, Gainey rushed into Georgetown, with the weapon still conspicuously showing how close and eager had been the chase, and how narrow the escape.
The wound was not fatal.
The next affair was with Col. Tynes, who had been defeated by Marion some time before, made prisoner and sent to North Carolina.
But the North Carolina jailors seem to have been pretty generally Tories, for we find Horry complaining that they discharged the prisoners quite as fast as they were sent there; and it was the complaint of some of Marion's officers that they had to fight the same persons in some instances, not less than three or four times. Tynes had collected a second force, and, penetrating the forests of Black river, was approaching the camp of our partisan. Marion went against him, fell upon him suddenly, completely routed him, taking himself and almost his whole party prisoners.
He made his escape a second time from North Carolina, and with a third and larger force than ever, reappeared in the neighborhood of Marion's camp.
Horry was sent against him with forty chosen horsemen.
He travelled all night, and stopped the next day at the house of a Tory, where he obtained refreshments. His men succeeded in obtaining something more. The Tory most liberally filled their canteens with apple-brandy; and when the Colonel got within striking distance of Tynes and his Tories, scarcely one of his troops was fit for action.
He prudently retreated, very much mortified with the transaction.
Marion captured a part of Tynes' force a few days after, and this luckless loyalist seems to have disappeared from the field from that moment.
Watson's march against Marion was conducted with great caution.
The operations of the partisan, meanwhile, were continued without interruption. About the middle of February, he was apprised of the march of Major McIlraith from Nelson's Ferry, at the head of a force fully equal to his own. This British officer seems to have been singularly unlike his brethren in some remarkable particulars.
He took no pleasure in burning houses, the hospitality of which he had enjoyed; he destroyed no cattle wantonly, and hung no unhappy prisoner.
The story goes that while Marion was pressing upon the steps of the enemy, he paused at the house of a venerable lady who had been always a friend to the Whigs, and who now declared her unhappiness at seeing him.
Her reason being asked, she declared that she conjectured his purpose --that he was pursuing McIlraith, and that so honorable and gentle had been the conduct of that officer, on his march, that she was really quite unwilling that he should suffer harm, though an enemy.
What he heard did not impair Marion's activity, but it tended somewhat to subdue those fiercer feelings which ordinarily governed the partisans in that sanguinary warfare. He encountered and assailed McIlraith on the road near Half-way Swamp, first cutting off two picquets in his rear in succession, then wheeling round his main body, attacked him at the same moment in flank and front. McIlraith was without cavalry, and his situation was perilous in the extreme. But he was a brave fellow, and Marion had few bayonets. By forced marches and constant skirmishing, the British major gained an open field upon the road. He posted himself within the enclosure upon the west of the road. Marion pitched his camp on the edge of a large cypress pond, which lay on the east, and closely skirted the highway. Here McIlraith sent him a flag, reproaching him with shooting his picquets, contrary, as he alleged, to all the laws of civilized warfare, and concluded with defying him to combat in the open field. The arguments of military men, on the subject of the laws of civilized warfare, are sometimes equally absurd and impertinent.
Warfare itself is against all the laws of civilisation, and there is something ludicrous in the stronger reproaching the feebler power, that it should resort to such means as are in its possession, for reconciling the inequalities of force between them.
Marion's reply to McIlraith was sufficiently to the purpose.
He said that the practice of the British in burning the property of those who would not submit and join them, was much more indefensible than that of shooting picquets, and that while they persisted in the one practice, he should certainly persevere in the other.
