, having taken much pains to
find out from Gen. Marion who was the best cavalry officer of the two,
Horry or Maham, incorporated the two regiments and gave the command to
the latter. The preference appears to have been extorted from Marion.
The fact was that Horry, though said to be a good infantry officer,
failed in one most essential requisite in the command of cavalry, and
that was horsemanship. In several charges he made, it is said he was
indebted to some one or other of his men for saving his life; yet
possessing great personal bravery, his supreme delight was always to
be at the head of cavalry. From the commencement of this narrative, his
patriotism has been conspicuous: in fact, his property was wasted and
his life often exposed in the cause of his country, and few men were
more devoted to her than Col. Peter Horry. He now resigned, but as some
consolation, Gen. Marion made him commandant of Georgetown, with full
powers to regulate its trade and defend it from the enemy. It was from
thence and Cainhoy, that Gen. Marion after long perseverance, got much
clothing for Greene's army. But Col. P. Horry, instead of leaving trade
to flow into Georgetown as freely as the tides which passed before him,
put it under such restrictions that the merchants soon began to murmur.
About the 20th of April, there was an alarm excited among the civil
authority of the state, that the British in Charleston had been
reinforced and were about to attack Gen. Greene. Gov. Matthews
immediately wrote to order Gen. Marion to his assistance. He lay at that
time near Murray's ferry; his men had been dismounted by an order from
the same authority, and they now set out for Bacon's bridge on foot
for the first time. When they reached within eight miles, the alarm had
subsided; but another had taken place, that the enemy had sailed for
Georgetown, and the governor ordered Marion there. After a forced march
of four days he arrived at White's bridge; but there was no enemy near
Georgetown. In this march of about one hundred and sixty miles, Marion's
men had but one ration of rice; all the rest were of lean beef driven
out of the woods in the month of April. As Ganey's party had been
troublesome to the people of North Carolina, and had not observed the
treaty of neutrality with Gen. Marion, made June 17th, 1781, a joint
expedition was concerted between Gov. Matthews, of South and Gov. Martin
of North Carolina, to subdue them.* Of this expedition Gen.