In this way small bands of resolute men kept Cornwallis busy, and held
the state for the American cause, until General Greene went south and
took command. Greene was one of the greatest of the American generals,
and after a long campaign he drove the British out of the state. But if
it had not been for the partisans the South would have been lost long
before he could be spared to go there; and if the partisans had not kept
a British army busy there, it might have gone very hard with the
Americans in the rest of the country.

When we rejoice in the freedom of our country we ought not to forget how
much we owe the partisans, and especially such men as Justice Gaston and
the Rev. William Martin, who first set the partisans at their work. It
would have been much easier and pleasanter for them to remain quiet
under British rule; and they had nothing to gain for themselves, but
everything to lose, by the course they took. Gaston knew that his home
would be burned for what he did, and the eloquent old Scotch preacher
knew that he would be put into a prison-pen for preaching war sermons
to his people; but they were not men to flinch. They cared more for
their country than for themselves, and it was precisely that kind of men
throughout the land, from New England to Georgia, who won liberty for us
by seven years of hard fighting and terrible suffering.

THE CHARGE OF THE HOUNDS.

AN INCIDENT OF THE CREEK WAR.

A terrible bit of news was carried from mouth to mouth through the
region that is now Alabama at the beginning of September, 1813. The
country was at that time in the midst of the second war with Great
Britain, and for a long time British agents had been trying to persuade
the Creeks--a powerful nation of half-civilized but very warlike Indians
who lived in Alabama--to join in the war and destroy the white
settlements in the Southwest.

For some time the Creeks hesitated, and it was uncertain what they would
do. But during the summer of 1813 they broke out in hostility, and on
the 30th of August their great leader, Weatherford, or the Red Eagle, as
they called him, stormed Fort Mims, the strongest fort in the Southwest.
He took the fort by surprise, with a thousand warriors behind him, and,
after five hours of terrible fighting, destroyed it, killing about five
hundred men, women, and children.

This was the news that startled the settlers in the region where the
Alabama and Tombigbee rivers come together. I