n, and peeping
through the weeds with tearful eyes, will mark the ghastly ruin poured
over their homes, and the happy fields where they had so often played.
'Who did this?' they will ask their mothers. 'The white people, the
Christians did it!' will be the reply."

"It would be no easy matter," says Hewatt, the earliest regular
historian of Carolina, "to describe the hardships which this little army
endured, in the wilderness, from heat, thirst, watching, danger, and
fatigue. Thirty days did Colonel Grant continue in the heart of the
Cherokee territories, and upon his return to Fort Prince George, the
feet and legs of many of his army were so mangled, and their strength
and spirits so much exhausted, that they were unable to march farther."
But the chastisement which the Indians had received, secured the object
for the attainment of which it was inflicted. The Cherokees sued for
peace, and Marion once more retired to the obscurity of rural life; we
may well believe with a human sense of satisfaction, that the painful
duty upon which he had been engaged was at length over. Unhappily, the
details of the war, beyond those which we have given, do not enable
us to ascertain the extent of his services. We are simply told that he
behaved well, with skill and spirit. More than this perhaps it would
be unreasonable to expect from any degree of talent, in the subordinate
situation which he at that time occupied.

Chapter 5.

1775. Marion is returned for the Provincial Congress from
St. John's, Berkeley--Made Captain in the Second Regiment
--Fort Johnson taken--Battle of Fort Moultrie.

Engaged in rural and domestic occupations we hear no more of Marion,
except as a citizen and farmer, until the beginning of the year 1775. In
the latter capacity he is reputed to have been successful; and between
the labors and sports of the field, the more violent humors of youth
seem to have been dissipated in exercises which are seldom followed by
reproach. He was very fond of angling and hunting, and with rod or gun,
his leisure was employed in a way that would not have displeased the
gentle Isaak Walton. These constituted his chief pastimes for the
fourteen years that had elapsed since his Cherokee campaigns. His
connection with public events had long since ceased; but, from all
accounts, he still continued, in some degree, to fill the eyes of his
countrymen. His firmness and purity of character, his gentle tempe