THERE was one book, of "American manufacture," which especially delighted our boyhood. It has lingered with us. It left that peculiarly clear and ineffaceable impression which is only made on the boyish mind-as if the things told were matters of personal knowledge with us, that occurred a great while ago, and very wonderful. It was not a marvellous "Historie of Sathanic Witchcraft in ye Colonies," printed with suitable pauses for shuddering; nor a tasteful collection of the most interesting crimes, as the "Pirate's Own Book," and "Lives of Eminent Highwaymen ;" nor a "Narrative of Indian Wars," with tattooed cuts, and pleasantly interspersed with long captivities, and strange glimpses into the solitary distant abodes and wild life of the Red Men. It had no advantages of attraction by delicate paper, or covers exceedingly gilt. There was no artistic merit about it, such as makes Defoe's "Crusoe," and the travels of "Gulliver," and the wonderful allegory of the tinker's "Pilgrim," equally interesting to the young and the old. But the book was connected with the most eventful period of our country's history, the revolutionary war-a period which every American, for all time to come, will doubtless read over and call back to mind, to be imagined and lived through by them. selves, with a more earnest and thrilling delight than any other since the first opening of the country. And this connection was of a very peculiar kind. There were not, among the scenes set forth, any movements of trained officers, and great armies, and regular campaigns; there were not even the recognised tactics of war; but there was the same serious and calculating, yet hazardous determination, which everywhere marked that memorable struggle; while, in addition, about the accidents and incidents which the unpretending narrative described, there was a degree of romance belonging to no other part of the contest over the country. It was altogether a singular union of impressions-a Robin Hood and border-war interest, united

with the stirring sense of dangers undergone, and blood spilt, to establish a great nation in freedom. Weems's Life of Marion will be forgotten by no one who ever read it in childhood.

The qualities of that eccentric writer were certainly remarkable. Some of them are the traits of a really Bunyanlike genius, and would have been so considered, had not the extreme exaggeration and love of fun everywhere exhibited, too fully occupied the mind of the reader. No one, especially, could fail to be struck with the imagination displayed in both of his narratives, and also by the opulence of poetic language, though replete with an amount of hyperbole that makes it, at times, sufficiently near the ridiculous. All his writings are but an illustration in point. We remember a particular passage:

"Oh, Marion!" he exclaims, in the person of the valiant Peter Horry, at the close of his preface, where he seems to have had an unusual fit of inspiration-" Oh, Marion, my friend my friend! never can I forget thee! Although thy wars are all ended, and thyself at rest in the grave, yet I see thee still. I see thee as thou wert wont to ride, most terrible in battle to the enemies of thy country. Thine eyes, like balls of fire, flamed beneath thy lowering brows. But lovely still wert thou in mercy, thou bravest among the sons of men! For, soon as the enemy, sinking under our swords, cried for quarter, thy heart swelled with commiseration, and thy countenance was changed, even as the countenance of a man who beheld the slaughter of his brothers; the basest tory who could but touch the hem of thy garment was safe; the avengers of blood stopped short in thy presence, and turned abashed from the lightning of thine eyes.

"Oh, that my pen were of the quill of that swan that sings to future days! Then shouldest thou, my friend, receive the ful ness of thy fame; the fathers of the years to come should talk of thy noble deeds; and the youth yet unborn should rise up and call thee blessed!"

But the ground required to be thoroughly traversed again. The reverend biogra

pher, though he, in fact, took very few liberties on the field, had such a habit we may say, a faculty-of presenting all the picturesque scenery, and making that which was not such appear so, that however the reader may be amused, he will believe himself not authentically instructed. But even if the eccentric narrator had made the most discreet use of his genius, the subject would still have remained to be written over. The account which he gave was but partial, made up, in a great degree, of anecdote. Of the materials requisite for a full narrative, many which he might probably have gathered he neglected; many others which he could not have found, time, in the natural course of things, has brought to light. For the fact, in regard to historical composition, is different from what might be supposed. The materials of history can rarely be obtained contemporaneously with the events related. It is only with the departure of years that the sources of information are fully open. Old chests, old family bookcases, and antique-fashioned secretaries, with queer devices for hiding things, are then suffered to be ransacked; the historian is far removed from causes of prejudice; and the calm, fair narrative is produced, bearing to all future time the events of a long preceding age. Mr. Simms has been able most successfully to avail himself of this fact; he has discovered many treasures of information, and produced a complete and ample biography. Were it, indeed, of almost any other man, we should be disposed to find fault with it as too much extended. Histories and biographies are becoming, of late, alarmingly corpulent; many of them will never be able to carry down such bulk of body to posterity. But the life of Marion eminently deserved to be written, and written freely and minutely. Any name that has so lived in the hearts of a people must have deserved such a tribute; if not, in any case-then the facts should be carefully set forth, to show his fame unjust. And here we might with assurance rest the merits of Marion; for all authenticated facts bear witness that his reputation is not greater than were his deeds. As no state, throughout that memorable struggle, bore herself with a greater spirit of self-devotion, at greater expense of suffering and blood, and the anguish of broken ties, than his native South Carolina, so was there no man, more resolutely heroic in suffering and

VOL. I.-NO. I.

self-denial, or whose efforts did more, with the exception of Washington's, to forward the revolutionary cause, than Francis Marion. And over all this the manner of his warfare has flung a strange romance, that belongs to no other name whatever in the annals of our history. His whole career, with his band of brave partisans, for several years, was one of the most wild and stirring adventure. The things related of them are just those which delight the imagination, while they excite the warmest personal interest. We see them, chased by the enemy, like Robin Hood's men of the good greenwood," suddenly vanish in swamp and thicket; we see them lie concealed at noonday in sunny nooks in the forest; we see them at midnight issue forth on secret and sudden enterprises, to be executed with bold adroitness; we see them, too, enduring the dearest privations-of food, and clothing, and rest, and the affectionate intercourse of wives and children at the fireside visited with turns of despondency, and unable to see the triumphs of the future in the unceasing struggles of the present, yet bearing all with manly cheerfulness, and unflinching determination to abide the issue. And what might that issue be? For aught that they could foresee, final subjugation and the death of traitors. By dwelling on such things we begin to appreciate the thrilling cause of liberty; and it is not wonderful that "Marion,'

," "Marion's brigade," and "Marion's men," have "passed into household words" for children and youth, and have become themes of fiction and song.

We regret that we have not space to dwell at leisure upon the wide and most interesting subject which this little volume opens to us. The whole partisan warfare of the South, and the contemporary movements of the continental armies in that region, offer many topics for delightful disquisition. But we must employ some other occasion. The merits of the biography, however, are worthy of notice; and we shall extract a few passages which may present them to advantage.

Marion appears to have begun his military career in that terrible struggle, in 1761, in which the spirit of the pow. erful and warlike Cherokees was first

broken. A passage, recounting the causes of the war, may be cited as a specimen of the lucid and easy style of narration that runs through the book, and because it is a better account than we have yet seen of the real origin of that conflict, so disastrous to the native

race.

"At the opening of the year 1759, the colony of South Carolina was on the eve of an Indian war. The whole frontier of the Southern Provinces, from Pennsylvania to Georgia, was threatened by the savages, and the scalping-knife had already begun its bloody work upon the weak and unsus. pecting borderers. The French had been conquered upon the Ohio. Forts Frontenac and Duquesne had fallen. British and Provincial valor, aided by strong bodies of Cherokee warriors, had everywhere placed the flag of Britain above the fortresses of France. With its elevation, the Indian allies of the French sent in their adhesion to the conquerors; and, their work at an end, the Cherokee auxiliaries of Britain prepared to return to their homes, covered with their savage trophies, and adequately rewarded for their services. It happened, unfortunately, that, while passing along the frontiers of Virginia, the Cherokees, many of whom had lost their horses during the campaign, supplied themselves rather unscrupu. lously from the pastures of the colonists. With inconsiderate anger, the Virginians, forgetting the late valuable services of the savages, rose upon their footsteps, slew twelve or fourteen of their warriors, and made prisoners of as many more. This rash and ill-advised severity aroused the nation. The young warriors flew to arms, and pouring their active hordes upon the frontier settlements, proceeded to the work of slaughter without pausing to discriminate between the offending and the inno The emergency was pressing, and Governor Lyttleton, of South Carolina,

cent.

called out the militia of the province. They were required to rendezvous at the Congarees, about one hundred and forty miles from Charleston. To this rendezvous Francis Marion repaired, in a troop of provincial cavalry commanded by one of his brothers. Carolinians had somewhat lessened the apThe prompt preparation of the petite of the savages for war. Perhaps their own preparations were not yet sufficiently complete to make them hopeful of its issue. The young warriors were recalled from the frontiers, and a deputation of thirty-two chiefs set out for Charleston, in order to propitiate the anger of the whites, and arrest the threatened invasion of their country. Whether they were sincere in their professions, or simply came for the purpose of deluding and disarming the Carolinians, is a question with the historians. It is certain that Governor Lyttleton doubted their sincerity, refused to listen to their explanations, and carrying them along with sioners in sacred trust, he proceeded to him, rather as hostages than as commismeet the main body of his army, already assembled at the Congarees. The treatment to which they were thus subjected filled the Cherokee deputies with indignation, which, with the usual artifice of the Indian, they yet contrived to suppress. But another indiscreet proceeding of the Governor added to the passion which they felt, and soon baffled all their powers of concealment. In resuming the march for the nation, he put them into formal custody, placed a captain's guard over them, and in this manner hurried them to the frontiers. Whatever may have been the merits of this movement as a mere military precaution, it was of very bad policy in a civil point of view. It not only degraded the Indian chiefs in their own, but in the eyes of their people. His captives deeply and openly resented this indignity and breach of faith; and, brooding in sullen ferocity over the disgrace which they suffered, meditated in silence those schemes of vengeance which they subsequently brought to a fearful maturity. But though thus impetuous and imprudent, and though pressing forward as if with the most determined purposes, Lyttleton was in no mood for war. His policy seems to have contemplated nothing further than the alarm of the Indians. Neither party was exactly ripe for the final issue. The Cherokees needed time for preparation, and the Governor, with an army ill-disciplined and imperfectly armed, found it politic, when on the very confines of the enemy's country, to do that which he might very well have done in Charleston-listen to terms of accommodation. Having sent for Attakullakullah, the wise man of the nation, who had always been the stanch

friend of the whites, he made his complaints, and declared his readiness for peace-demanding, however, as the only condition on which it could be granted, that twenty-four men of the nation should be delivered to him, to be disposed of as he should think proper, by death or otherwise,

as an atonement for that number of the Carolinians massacred in the late foray of the savages. A treaty was effected, but with some difficulty, on these terms. Compliance with this sine qua non was not so easy, however, on the part of the Cherokee chiefs. The moment it was understood, the great body of their people fled to the mountains, and the number of hostages could be secured only by the detention of twenty-two of those chiefs already in the Governor's custody. The captives were placed for safe-keeping at the frontier fort of Prince George.

"But the natural sense of the savage is not inferior to that by which the laws of the civilized are prescribed in their dealings with one another. The treaty thus extorted from their leaders while in a state of duress, was disregarded by the great body of the nation. They watched their opportunity, and scarcely had the Governor disbanded his forces, when the war-whoop resounded from the frontiers."

The result of the conflict is well known. The Cherokees were terribly defeated; nor did the vindictiveness of the whites stop there, as it should have done, but "fourteen hundred of their towns were burnt-their granaries were yielded to the flames-their cornfields ravaged, while the miserable fugitives, flying from the unsparing sword, took refuge with their almost starving families among the barren mountains." It was worthy of Marion that he always spoke of this destruction, which he had no authority to hinder, with expressions

of horror.

The tidings of the battle of Lexington had no sooner rung through the southern settlements, than Marion entered the struggle with his whole soul. Yet, for such a part, his physical ener

gies seemed entirely inadequate. Weems says, that" at his birth this great soldier was not larger than a New England lobster, and might easily enough have been put into a quart pot. A little hyperbole be reckoned upon in this statement; but Henry Lee, in his memoirs, describes him, in after life, as "in stature of the smallest size, thin, as well as low."

may

The rest of that description, however, will show why he became the indefatigabie, skilful partisan, followed into dangers by his men with unbounded trust, and feared by his enemies as far as they could hear the report of his daring.*

Such was the man; and the following finely-drawn picture of the manner in which he had trained his parties to move, wonderful energy and skill in perilous fills out a perfect idea of him, and of his strategy. We have read of no one but an Indian warrior equalling him in these respects.

"When he himself, or any of his parties, left the island upon an expedition, they advanced along no beaten paths. They made them as they went. He had the Indian faculty in perfection, of gathering his course from the sun, from the stars, from the bark and the tops of trees, and such other natural guides, as the woodman acquires only through long and watchful experience. Many of the trails, thus opened by him, upon these expeditions, are now the ordinary avenues of the country. On starting, he almost invariably struck into the woods, and seeking the heads of the larger water courses, crossed them at their first and small beginnings. He destroyed the bridges where he could. He preferred fords. The former not only facilitated the progress of less fearless enemies, but apprized them of his own approach. If speed

was essential, a more direct, but not less cautious route was pursued.

He

"The secrecy with which Marion conducted his expeditions was, perhaps, one of the reasons for their frequent success. intrusted his schemes to nobody, not even his most confidential officers. He consult

ed with them respectfully, heard them patiently, weighed their suggestions, and silently approached his conclusions. They knew his determinations only from his actions. He left no track behind him, if it were possible to avoid it. He was often vainly hunted after by his own detachment. He was more apt at finding them than they him. His scouts were taught a peculiar and shrill whistle, which, at night, could be heard at a most astonishing distance. We are reminded of the signal of Roderick Dhu:

-' He whistled shrill,

And he was answered from the hill, Wild as the scream of the curlew, From crag to crag, the signal flew.' His expeditions were frequently long, and his men, hurrying forth without due preparation, not unfrequently suffered much privation from want of food. To guard against this danger, it was their habit to watch his cook. If they saw him unusual. ly busied in preparing supplies of the rude, portable food, which it was Marion's custom to carry on such occasions, they knew what was before them, and provided themselves accordingly. In no other way could they arrive at their general's intentions. His favorite time for moving was with the setting sun, and then it was known that the march would continue all night. Before striking any sudden blow, he has been known to march sixty or seventy miles, taking no other food in twenty-four hours, than a meal of cold potatoes and a draught of cold water. The latter might have been repeated. This was truly a Spartan process for acquiring vigor. Its results were a degree of patient hardihood, as well in officers as men, to which few soldiers in any periods have attained. These marches were made in all seasons. His men were badly clothed in homespun, a light wear which afforded little warmth. They slept in the open air, and frequently without a blanket. Their ordinary food consisted of sweet potatoes, garnished, on fortunate occasions, with lean beef."

It

As a sequel to this description of their partisan expeditions, the following exquisite picture of one of their noted sylvan encampments may be added. occurs in connection with an anecdote, which is doubtless familiar to every reader, of the young British officer and

the feast of sweet potatoes.

"He was encountered by one of the scout

ing parties of the brigade, carefully blindfolded, and conducted, by intricate paths, through the wild passes, and into the deep recesses of the island. Here, when his eyes were uncovered, he found himself surrounded by a motley multitude, which might well have reminded him of Robin Hood and his outlaws. The scene was unquestionably wonderfully picturesque and attractive, and our young officer seems to have been duly impressed by it. He was in the middle of one of those grand natural amphitheatres so common in our swamp forests, in which the massive pine, the gigantic cypress, and the stately and ever-green laurel, streaming with moss, and linking their opposite arms, inflexibly locked in the embrace of centuries, group together, with elaborate limbs and leaves, the chief and most graceful features of Gothic architecture. To these recesses, through the massed foliage of the forest, the sunlight came as sparingly, and with rays as mellow and subdued, as through the painted window of the old cathedral, falling upon aisle and chancel. Scattered around were the forms of those hardy warriors with whom our young officer was yet destined, most probably, to meet in conflict,-strange or savage in costume or attitude-lithe and sinewy of frame -keen-eyed and wakeful at the least alarm. Some slept, some joined in boyish sports; some, with foot in stirrup, stood ready for the signal to mount and march. The deadly rifle leaned against the tree, the sabre depended from its boughs. Steeds were browsing in the shade, with loosened bits, but saddled, ready at the first sound of the bugle to skirr through brake and thicket. Distant fires, dimly burning, sent up their faint white smokes, that, mingling with the thick forest tops, which they could not pierce, were scarce distinguishable from the long gray moss which made the old trees look like so many ancient patriarchs."

The style employed in the biography is among the best examples of descriptive narrative we have seen for some

time. It is a style not easy to hit, requiring, at times, great simplicity and degree of richness and fluency; and alterseness of language; at times, an equal the reader a moment's doubt as to the ways a clearness which shall not give writer's meaning. The work is certainly full of interest, and we believe it will add materially to Mr. Simms's reputation as a writer.