ened by the
startling news that Benedict Arnold, the hero of Saratoga, had turned
traitor. Smarting under a reprimand from Washington for misconduct,
Arnold agreed with Clinton to surrender West Point. The plot was
discovered by the capture of Clinton's agent, Major Andre, who was hung
as a spy. Arnold escaped to the British lines.

There was now no organized American force in the Carolinas, and
Cornwallis began a triumphant march northward. The brave mountaineers of
North Carolina and Virginia rose in arms. October 7th, 1,000 riflemen
fell upon a detachment of 1,100 British, strongly posted on King's
Mountain, N. C, and after a sharp struggle killed and wounded about 400,
and took the rest prisoners. In this battle fell one of the Tory
ancestors of the since distinguished American De Peyster family.

The King's Mountain victory filled the patriots with new hope and zeal,
and kept the loyalists from rising to support the British. Cornwallis
marched south again.

[Illustration: Several men camped in a swamp.]
General Marion in Camp.

Gates was now removed and General Nathaniel Greene placed in charge of
the Southern department. Greene was one of the most splendid figures in
the Revolution. Son of a Rhode Island Quaker, bred a blacksmith,
ill-educated save-by private study, which in mathematics, history, and
law he had carried far, he was in 1770 elected to the legislature of his
colony. Zeal to fight England for colonial liberty lost him his place in
the Friends' Society. Heading Rhode Island's contingent to join
Washington before Boston at the first shock of Revolutionary arms, he
was soon made brigadier, the initial step in his rapid promotion.
Showing himself an accomplished fighter at Trenton, Princeton,
Germantown, Monmouth, and the battle of Rhode Island, and a first-rate
organizer as quartermaster-general of the army, he had long been
Washington's right-hand man; and his superior now sent him south with
high hopes and ringing words of recommendation to the army and people
there.

[Illustration: Portrait.]
Marquis de Lafayette.

[1781]

Greene's plan of campaign was the reverse of Gates's. He meant to harass
and hinder the enemy at every step, avoiding pitched battles. January
17, 1781, a portion of his army, about 1,000 strong, under the famous
General Daniel Morgan, of Virginia, another hero of Saratoga, was
attacked at Cowpens, S. C., by an equal number of British under the
dashing Tarleton. T