Horry, however, with proper spirit, entreated not to be sent again to the offender, giving, as a reason for his reluctance, that, in consequence of the previous rudeness of the other, he was not in the mood to tolerate a repetition of the indignity, and might, if irritated, be provoked to violence. Marion then dispatched his orderly to the guilty major, with a request, civilly worded, that he might see him at head quarters. He appeared accordingly, accompanied by the captain who had joined with him in the outrage, and under whose influence he appeared to act. Marion renewed his demand, in person, for the sword of Croft. The other again refused to deliver it, alleging that "Croft was a Tory, and even then with the enemy in Georgetown."--
* The brigade of Marion was for a long period without medical attendance or a surgeon to dress his wounded. If a wound reached an artery the patient bled to death. To illustrate the fierce hostility of Whigs and Tories, a single anecdote will suffice. On one occasion, Horry had three men wounded near Georgetown. A surgeon of the Tories was then a prisoner in his ranks, yet he positively refused to dress the wounds, and suffered a fine youth named Kolb, to bleed to death before his eyes, from a slight injury upon the wrist.
--
"Will you deliver me the sword or not, Major ------?" was the answer which Marion made to this suggestion.
"I will not!" was the reply of the offender. "At these words,"says Horry in the MS. before us, "I could forbear no longer, and said with great warmth, `By G--d, sir, did I command this brigade, as you do, I would hang them both up in half an hour!'
Marion sternly replied, -- `This is none of your business, sir: they are both before me! -- Sergeant of the guard, bring me a file of men with loaded arms and fixed bayonets!' -- `I was silent!' adds Horry:
`all our field officers in camp were present, and when the second refusal of the sword was given, they all put their hands to their swords in readiness to draw. My own sword was already drawn!'"In the regular service, and with officers accustomed to, and bred up in, the severe and stern sense of authority which is usually thought necessary to a proper discipline, the refractory offender would most probably have been hewn down in the moment of his disobedience.
The effect of such a proceeding, in the present instance, might have been of the most fatal character. The `esprit de corps' might have prompted the immediate followers of the offender to have seized upon their weapons, and, though annihilated, as Horry tells us they would have been, yet several valuable lives might have been lost, which the country could ill have spared.
The mutiny would have been put down, but at what a price!
The patience and prudence of Marion's character taught him forbearance.
His mildness, by putting the offender entirely in the wrong, so justified his severity, as to disarm the followers of the criminals.
These, as we have already said, were about sixty in number. Horry continues:
"Their intentions were, to call upon these men for support --our officers well knew that they meant, if possible, to intimidate Marion, so as to [make him] come into their measures of plunder and Tory-killing."The affair fortunately terminated without bloodshed.
