in the Cherokee war, and at once, upon
news of the fight at Lexington, raised a regiment and played an
important part in driving the British from Charleston in 1776--a
victory so decisive that the southern states were freed from attack for
over two years.

After the crushing defeat of Gates at Camden Marion's little band was
the only patriot force in South Carolina, but he harassed the British so
effectively that he soon became genuinely feared. No one ever knew where
he would attack, for the swiftness of his movements seemed almost
superhuman. No hardship disturbed him; he endured heat and cold with
indifference; his food was of the simplest. Every school-boy knows the
story of how, inviting a British officer to dinner, he sat down
tranquilly before a log on which were a few baked potatoes, which formed
the whole meal, and how the Englishman went away with the conviction
that such a foe as that could never be conquered. No instance of
rapacity or cruelty was ever charged against him, nor did he ever injure
any woman or child.

As a partisan leader, Sumter was second only to Marion, and for two
years the patriot fortunes in the South were in their hands. Together
they joined Greene when he took charge of the southern army, and proved
invaluable allies. Sumter lived to the great age of ninety-eight, and
was the last surviving general officer of the Revolution. He was, too,
the last survivor of the Braddock expedition, which he had accompanied
at the age of twenty-one, and which had been cut to pieces on the
Monongahela twenty years before the battle of Lexington was fought.

"Light Horse Harry" Lee, whose "Legion" won such fame in the early
years of the Revolution and whose services with Greene in the South were
of the most brilliant character, also lived well into the nineteenth
century. It was he who, in 1799, appointed by Congress to deliver an
address in commemoration of Washington, uttered the famous phrase,
"First in war, first in peace, first in the hearts of his countrymen."
His son, Robert Edward Lee, was destined to become perhaps the greatest
general in our history.

* * * * *

So passed the era of the Revolution, and for thirty years the new
country was called upon to face no foreign foe; but pressing upon her
frontier was an enemy strong and cruel, who knew not the meaning of the
word "peace." Set on by the British during the Revolution, the Indians
continued their warfa