In that book he wrote—the book in which he never so much as names the name of Ireton—my Lord Cornwallis's commissary-general, Charles Stedman, damns Colonel Tarleton in a most gentlemanly manner for his ill-success at the Cowpens, and would charge to his account personal the failure of Cornwallis's plan to crush in detail the patriot Army of the South.

Now little as I love, or have cause to love, Sir Banastre Tarleton,—they tell me he has been knighted and now wears a major-general's sword-knot,—'tis but the part of outspoken honest enmity to say that we owed the victory at the Cowpens to no remissness on the part of the young legion commander who, if he were indeed the most brutal, was also the most active and enterprising of Lord Cornwallis's field officers.

No, it was no remissness nor lack of bravery on the part of the enemy. 'Twas only that the tide had turned. King's Mountain had been fought and won, and there were to be no more Camdens for us.

In the affair at the cow pastures, which followed hard upon Richard's and my return from our flying visit to Winnsborough, the very elements fought for us and against the British. As for instance: Tarleton, with his famous legion of horse, and infantry enough to make his numbers exceed ours, began his march on the eleventh and was rained on and mired for four long days before he had crossed the Broad and had come within scouting distance of us.

Left to himself, Dan Morgan would have locked horns with the enemy at the fording of the Pacolet; but in the council of war, our colonel and John Howard of the Marylanders were for drawing Tarleton still deeper into the wilderness, and farther from the British main, which was by this moved up as far as Turkey Creek. So we broke camp hastily and fell back into the hill country; and on the night of the sixteenth took post on the northern slope of a low ridge between two running streams.

For its backbone our force had some three hundred men of the Maryland line and two companies of Virginians. These formed our main, and were posted on the rising ground with John Howard for their commander. A hundred and fifty paces in their front, partly screened in the open pine, oak and chestnut wooding of the ground, were Pickens's Carolinians and the Georgians; militiamen, it is true, but skilled riflemen, and every man of them burning hot to be avenged on Tarleton's pillagers.

Still farther to the front, disposed as right and left wings of outliers, were Yeates and his fellow borderers and some sixty of the Georgians set to feel the enemy's approach; and in the reserve, posted well to the rear of the Marylanders and Virginians, was our own colonel's troop guarding the horses of the dismounted Georgians.

'Twas when we were all set in order to await the sun's rising and the enemy's approach that Dan Morgan rode the lines and harangued us. He was better at giving and taking shrewd blows than at speech-making; but we all knew his mettle well by now, and I think there was never a man of us to laugh at his unwonted grandiloquence and solemn periods. In the harangue the two battle lines had their orders: to be steady; to aim low; and above all to hold their fire till the enemy was within sure killing distance.

"'Tis a brave old Daniel," said Dick, whilst the general was sawing the air for the benefit of the South Carolinians. "'Twill not be his fault if we fail. But you are older at this business than any of us, Jack; what think you of our chances?"

I laughed, and the laugh was meant to be grim. I knew the temper of the British regulars, and how, when well led, they could play the hammer to anybody's anvil.

"Any raw recruit can prophesy before the fact," said I. "We have Tarleton, his legion, the Seventh, a good third of the Seventy-first, and two pieces of artillery in our front. If they do not give a good account of themselves, 'twill be because Tarleton has marched them leg-stiff to overtake us."

Dick fell silent for the moment, and when he spoke again some of Dan Morgan's solemnity seemed to have got into his blood.

"I have a sort of coward inpricking that I sha'n't come out of this with a whole skin, Jack; and there's a thing on my mind that mayhap you can take off. You have had Madge to yourself a dozen times since that day last autumn when I asked her for the hundredth time to put me out of misery. As I have said, she would not hear me through; but she gave me a look as I had struck her with a whip. Can you tell me why?"

The morning breeze heralding the sunrise was whispering to the leafless branches overhead, and there was nothing in all Dame Nature's peaceful setting of the scene to hint at the impending war-clash. Yet the war portent was abroad in all the peaceful morning, and my mood marched with the lad's when I gave him his answer.

"Truly, I could tell you, Richard; and it is your due to know it from no other lips than mine. Mayhap, a little later, when restitution can go hand in hand with repentance and confession—"

"No, no;" he cut in quickly. "Tell me now, Jack; your 'little later' may be all too late—for me. Does she love you?—has she said she loves you?"

"Nay, dear lad; she despises me well and truly, and has never missed the chance of saying so. Wait but a little longer and I pledge you on the honor of a gentleman you shall have her for your very own. Will that content you?"

At my assurance his mood changed and in a twinkling he became the dauntless soldier who fights, not to die, but to win and live.

"With that word to keep me I shall not be killed to-day, I promise you, Jack; and that in spite of this damned queasiness that was showing me the burying trench." And then he added softly: "God bless her!"

I could say amen to that most heartily; did it, and would have gone on to add a benison of my own, but at the moment there were sounds of galloping horses on our front, and presently three red-coated officers, one of them the redoubtable Colonel Tarleton himself, rode out to reconnoitre us most coolly.

I doubt if he would have been so rash had he known that Yeates and his borderers were concealed in easy pistol-shot; but the simultaneous cracking of a dozen rifles warned and sent the trio scuttling back to cover.

Dick swore piteously, with the snap-shot skirmishers for a target. "The fumblers!" he raged. "'Twas the chance of a life-time, and they all missed like a lot of boys at their first deer stalking!"

"They will have another chance, and that speedily," I ventured; and, truly, the chance did not tarry.

From our view point on the rising ground we could see the enemy forming under cover of the wood; and as we looked, the two pieces of cannon were thrust to the front to bellow out the signal for the assault.

'Twas a sight to stir the blood when the enemy broke cover into the opener wooding of the field to the tune of the roaring cannon, the volleyings of small arms and the defiant huzzaings of the men. The sun was just peering over the summit of Thicketty Mountain, and his level rays fell first upon the charging line sweeping in like a tidal wave of red death to crumple our skirmishers before it.

"Lord!" says Richard; "if Yeates and the Indian come alive out of that—"

But the outliers closed upon our first line in decent good order, firing as they could; and in less time than it takes to write it down the onsweeping wave of red was upon the Carolinians. We looked to see the militia fire and run, home-guard fashion; but these men of Pickens's were made of more soldierly stuff. They took the fire of the assaulting line like veterans, giving ground only when it came to the bayonet push.

"That fetches it to us," said Richard, most coolly; drawing his claymore when the Carolinians began to come home like spindrift ahead of the wave of red. Then he had a steadying word for the men of his company, and a hearty shout and a curse for some of the Georgians who had cut around the flanks of our main to come at their horses in the rear.

But the lad's assertion that our time was come was only a half prophecy. The Marylanders, with the Virginians on either flank, stood firm, giving the onrushing wave a shock that went near to breaking it. But the British were better bayoneted than we, and when it came to the iron our lads must needs give ground sullenly, fighting their way backward as a stubborn assault fights its way inch by inch forward.

"Here come their reserves," said Dick, pointing with his blade to a second red line forming in the farther vistas of the wood. "Lord! shall we never get into it?"

'Twas just here that an order sent by Colonel Howard to his first company, directing it to charge by the flank, came near costing us a rout. The order was misunderstood,—'twas received at the precise moment of the upcoming of the British reserves,—and the Marylanders fell back. In the turning of a leaf our entire fighting front gave way, and what of the Georgians there were left in the mellay made a frantic dash for the horses.

At this crisis John Howard saved the day for us by shrewdly executing the most difficult manoeuver that is ever essayed by a field officer in the heat of battle. Suffering his men to drift backward until the enemy, sure now of success, were rushing on in disorder to give the coup de grÂce, he gave the quick command: "About face! Fire! Charge!"

I saw the volley delivered in the faces of the redcoats at pike's length range; saw the Virginians on the flanks bend to encircle the enemy; saw the rout transfer itself at the roar of the muskets from our side to the recoiling British. Then I heard Dick's shouted command. "Charge them, lads! they're sabering the Georgians!"

A section of Tarleton's horse had hewed its way past our flank and was at work on the militiamen scrambling for their mounts. At it we went, with our brave colonel a horse's length ahead of the best rider in the troop, pistols banging and sword blades whistling, and that other curious sound you will hear only when the cavalry engages—the heavy dunch of the horses coming together like huge living missiles hurled from catapults.

'Twas soon over, and the enemy, horse and foot, was flying in hopeless confusion through the open wood. Our troop led the pursuit; and this brings me to an incident in which thy old chronicler—figuring in the histories as an unnamed sergeant—had his share.

It was in the hot part of the chase, and Colonel Tarleton—a true Briton in this, that he would be first in the charge and last in the retreat—was galloping with two of his aides in rear of the dragoons. Since many of us knew the British commander by sight, there was a great clapping-to of spurs to overtake and cut him off. In this race three horses outdistanced all the others; the great bay ridden by Colonel Washington, a snappy little gray bestridden by the colonel's boy bugler, and my own mount.

When the crisis came, our colonel had the wind of the boy and me and was calling on Colonel Tarleton to surrender at discretion. For answer the three British officers wheeled and fell upon him. Never was a man nearer his death. In a whiff, Tarleton was foining at him in front whilst the two aides were rising in their stirrups on either hand to cut him down.

'Twas the little bugler boy who saved his colonel's life, and not the unnamed "sergeant," as the histories have it. Having neither a sword nor the strength to wield one, the boy reined sharp to the left and pistoled his man as neatly as you please. Seeing his fellow sabreur drop his weapon and clap his hand to the pistol-wound, my man hesitated just long enough to let me in with the clumsiest of upcuts to spoil the muscles of his sword arm. This transferred the duel to the two principals, who were now at it, hammer and tongs. Both were good swordsmen, but of the twain our colonel was far the cooler. So when Tarleton made to end it with a savage thrust in tierce, Washington parried deftly and his point found his antagonist's sword hand.

At this, Tarleton dropped his blade,—it hangs now over the chimney-piece in Mr. Washington's town house in Charleston,—gave the signal for flight, and the three Britons, each with a wound to nurse, wheeled and galloped on. But in the act Tarleton snatched a pistol from his holster and let drive at our colonel, wounding him in the knee, so we did not come off scatheless.

This pistoling of Colonel Washington by the British commander skimmed a little of the cream from our great and glorious victory. 'Twas no serious hurt, but wanting it I make no doubt we should have ridden down the flying dragoons, adding them, and their doughty colonel to boot, to the five-hundred-odd prisoners we took.

The battle fought and won,—'twas over and done with two full hours before noon,—Dan Morgan knew well what must befall, lacking the swiftest after-doing on our part. With Greene near a hundred miles away, and my Lord Cornwallis less than three hours' gallop to the southward on Turkey Creek, the time was come for the hastiest welding of our little army with that of the general-in-command; if, indeed, the promptest running would take us to the upper fords of the Catawba before Cornwallis should intervene and cut us off.

Accordingly, Jennifer and I were detailed to carry the news of the victory to Greene's camp at Cheraw Hill; and when we rode away on the warm trail of the flying British, we left Dan Morgan's men hard at it, burning the heavy impedimenta of the capture, and otherwise making ready for the swiftest of forced marches to the north.

'Twould be a thankless task to take you with us stage by stage on our cross-country gallop to advertise General Greene of the victory at the cow pastures. Suffice it to say that we made shift to turn the head of the advancing British main, now in motion and hastening with all speed to cut Dan Morgan off; that we were by turns well soaked by rain and stream, deep mired in bogs, chased times without number by the enemy's outriders, and hardshipped freely for food and horse provender before we saw the camp on the Pedee. All this you may figure for yourselves, the main point being that we came at length to the goal, weary, mire-splashed and belted to the last buckle-hole to pinch down the hunger pains, but sound of skin, wind and limb.

Having our news, which set the camp in a pretty furor of rejoicing, I promise you, General Greene lost not an hour in making his dispositions. Leaving Isaac Huger and Colonel Otho Williams in command at Cheraw, the general sent Edward Stevens with the Virginians by way of Charlotte to Morgan's aid, and himself took horse, with a handful of dragoons in which Dick and I were volunteers, to ride post haste to a meeting with Morgan at the upper fords.

Again I may pass lightly over an interval of three days spent hardily in the saddle, coming at once to that rain-drenched thirty-first of January, cold, raw and dismal, when we drew rein at Sherrard's Ford and found Dan Morgan and his men safe across the Catawba with his prisoners, and my Lord Cornwallis quite as safely flood-checked on the western bank of the stream.

Having done our errand, Dick and I reported at once to our colonel. 'Twas of a piece with William Washington's goodness of heart to offer us leave to rest.

"You have had weary work of it, I doubt not, gentlemen," he would say. "Your time is your own until General Greene sets us in order for what he has in mind to do."

I looked at Dick, and he looked at me.

"May we count upon twenty-four hours, think you, Colonel?" I asked.

"Safely, I should say."

"Then I shall ask leave of absence for Captain Jennifer and myself till this time to-morrow," I went on. "This is our home neighborhood, as you know, and we have a little matter of private business which may be despatched in a day."

"Will this business take you without the lines?"

"That is as it may be, sir. I do not know the bounds of the outposting."

The colonel wrote us passes to come and go at will past the sentries, and I drew Dick away.

"What is it, Jack?" he asked, when we were by ourselves.

"'Tis the fulfilling of my promise to you, Richard. Get your horse and we will ride together."

"But whither?" he queried.

"To Appleby Hundred—and Mistress Margery."