The boys shoved the corn this way and that;
sometimes the red would win, sometimes the white. At last the white
kernel gained the victory, and the boys shouted, "Hurrah for
Washington--Tarleton runs!"

Tarleton had been quietly looking on without their knowing it. When
he saw how the game ended, he turned angrily away. He had seen enough
of "the little rebels,"[8] as he called them.

[Footnote 6: Cowpens: see paragraph 140.]

[Footnote 7: Colonel William Washington was a relative of General
George Washington.]

[Footnote 8: Rebels: this was the name which the British gave to the
Americans because we had been forced to take up arms to overthrow
the authority of the English king, who was still lawfully, but not
justly, the ruler of this country. Had he been a just and upright
ruler, there would probably have been no rebellion against his
authority at that time.]

211. Andrew is taken prisoner by the British; "Here, boy, clean those
boots"; the two scars.--Not long after our victory at Cowpens, Andrew
Jackson was taken prisoner by the British. The officer in command
of the soldiers had just taken off his boots, splashed with mud.
Pointing to them, he said to Andrew, Here, boy, clean those boots.
Andrew replied, Sir, I am a prisoner of war, and it is not my place
to clean boots. The officer, in a great passion, whipped out his sword
and struck a blow at the boy. It cut a gash on his head and another
on his hand. Andrew Jackson lived to be an old man, but the marks
of that blow never disappeared: he carried the scars to his grave.

[Illustration: ANDREW JACKSON AND THE OFFICER'S BOOTS.]

212. The prisoners in the yard of Camden jail; seeing a battle through
a knot-hole.--Andrew was sent with other prisoners to Camden, South
Carolina,[9] and shut up in the jail-yard. There many fell sick and
died of small-pox.

One day some of the prisoners heard that General Greene--the greatest
American general in the Revolution, next to Washington--was coming
to fight the British at Camden. Andrew's heart leaped for joy, for
he knew that if General Greene should win he would set all the
prisoners at liberty.

General Greene, with his little army, was on a hill in sight Of the
jail, but there was a high, tight board fence round the jail-yard,
and the prisoners could not see them. With the help of an old razor
Andrew managed to dig out a knot from one of the boards. Through that
knot-hole he watched the battle.

Our men we