Read Ebook: The Life of General Francis Marion by Weems M L Mason Locke

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Ebook has 1053 lines and 85948 words, and 22 pages

Here the memory of that fatal letter went like a dagger to his heart, bleaching his manly cheeks.

He would have evaded the question; but in vain, for Louisa, startled at the sudden paleness of his looks, insisted the more earnestly to know the cause.

He delayed a moment, but conscious that the secret must soon come out, he took the letter from his pocket, and with a reluctant hand put it into hers.

Scarcely had she run through it, which she did with the most devouring haste, when she let it drop from her hands, and faintly articulating, "Ah, cruel priest!" she fell upon his bosom, which she bathed with her tears.

After some moments of distress too big for utterance, Marion, deeply sighing, at length broke silence.

"Ah, Louisa! and must we part so soon!"

At this, starting up with eyes suffused with tears but beaming immortal love, she hastily replied -- "Part!"

"Yes!" continued he, "part! for ever part!"

"No, Marion, no! never! never!"

"Ah! can you, Louisa, leave father and mother, and follow a poor banished husband like me?"

"Yes -- yes -- father, mother, and all the world will I leave to follow thee, Marion!"

"O blessed priest, I thank you! Good bishop Rochelle, holy father in God, I thank you -- your persecution has enriched me above princes. It has discovered to me a mine of love in Louisa's soul, that I never dreamed of before."

"My dearest Gabriel, did you ever doubt my love?"

"Yes, yes," replied she, eagerly interrupting him, "that's the very reason I would leave all to follow you. For, oh my love! how could I enjoy father or mother, country or kin, and you a wanderer in the earth, without a place whereon to lay your head! That single thought would cover my days with darkness, and drive me to distraction. But give me your company, my Gabriel, and then welcome that foreign land with all its shady forests! Welcome the thatched cottage and the little garden filled with the fruits of our own fondly mingled toils! Methinks, my love, I already see that distant sun rising with gladsome beams on our dew-spangled flowers. I hear the wild wood-birds pouring their sprightly carols on the sweet-scented morning. My heart leaps with joy to their songs. Then, O my husband! if we must go, let us go without a sigh. God can order it for our good. And, on my account, you shall cast no lingering look behind. I am ready to follow you wherever you go. Your God shall be my God. Where you live I will live, and where you die, there will I die, and will be buried by your side. Nothing my beloved, but death, shall ever part me from you."

"Angelic Louisa!" cried Marion, snatching her to his bosom in transports -- "Wondrous woman! what do I not owe to God, ever blessed, for such a comforter! I came just now from Rochelle with the load of a mountain on my heart. You have taken off that mountain, and substituted a joy most lightsome and heavenly. Like a ministering angel, you have confirmed me in duty; you have ended my struggles -- and by so cheerfully offering to forsake all and follow me, you have displayed a love, dear Louisa, which will, I trust, render you next to my God, the eternal complacency and delight of my soul."

In the midst of this tender scene, a servant came running to inform Louisa that her mother, Madame D'Aubrey, had just arrived, and was coming to her in the garden. This startled our lovers into a painful expectation of another trial. For as Louisa was an only daughter, and her parents dotingly fond of her, it was not to be imagined that they would give her up without a hard struggle. Seeing the old lady coming down the walk towards them, they endeavored to adjust their looks, and to meet her with the wonted smile. But in vain. The tumult in their bosoms was still too visible in their looks to escape her discernment. She eagerly asked the cause. Their changing countenances served but to increase her fears and the vehemence of her curiosity. The bishop's letter was put into her hands. Its effects on the good old lady were truly distressing. Not having, like her daughter, the vigor of youth, nor the fervors of love to support her, she was almost overcome.

Soon as her spirits were a little recovered, she insisted that her daughter and son-in-law should instantly step into her coach and go home with her. "Your father, my dear," said she to Louisa, "your father, Monsieur D'Aubrey, will, I am certain, do something for us."

But in this she was woefully mistaken, for Monsieur D'Aubrey was one of that blind sort who place all their religion in forms and notions. He could smile and look very fond upon a man, though not over moral, provided that man went to his church -- praised his preacher and opinions, and abused everybody else; but would look very sour on the best man on earth who differed from him in those things. In short, he was destitute of love, the sole life of religion. And though on account of his wife's importunities and his daughter's repose, he had consented to her marriage with Marion, yet he never liked the young `heretic', and therefore he read the order of his banishment without any burst of grief, and made no effort to revoke the decrees of the church against him, but abandoned him to his fate.

Such insensibility to her husband's interest distressed poor Louisa exceedingly. However, it had this good effect: It contributed greatly to lessen her regret at parting with her parents.

"O had they but loved me as you do, my Marion," said she, "could they have been so indifferent when my all was at stake? No, indeed," continued she, "they could not," and burst into tears.

"Dearest Louisa!" replied he, tenderly embracing her, "would not I leave father and mother and all for you?"

"Well," returned she, with eyes of love, outshining all diamonds, "and am I not going to leave all for you? Yet a few days and I shall have no father, no mother, no country; cut off from all the world but you, Marion! alas! what will become of me if you should prove cruel to me?"

"Cruel! cruel to you, Louisa! O my God, can that ever be?"

"Ah Marion! but some excellent women have left father and mother, and followed their husbands; and yet, after all have been cruelly neglected by them!"

"Yes, Louisa; and God forgive them for that horrid crime! But to me such a deed were utterly impossible. I live for happiness, Louisa, I live for happiness, my angel. And I find so much happiness in loving, that I would as soon cease to live as cease to love. Some indeed, `sordid celebutes' for example, seem to exist without love; but it is only a seeming existence, most joyless and imperfect. And they bear the dullness of apathy the better, because they have never known the transports of affection. But with me, my charmer, the case is happily different; for at the moment I first saw those angel eyes, they infused a sweetness into my heart unknown before. And those delicious sparks, fanned by your loves and graces, have now risen to such a flame of bliss, that methinks, were it to go out, my life would go out with it. Then, my first and last, and only sweetheart, I pray you, do not fear that I shall ever cease to love you: for indeed that can never be while you continue even half as lovely as you are at present."

"Well then, Marion," replied she, fondly pressing his ruddy cheeks to her heaving bosom, "if it depends on me, on my constant affection and studiousness to please, you shall never love me less; but more and more every day of your life."

The next morning, accompanied by Madame D'Aubrey, Marion and Louisa returned home in order to make the best preparations, which the shortness of the time would allow, to quit their country for ever.

In choosing his place of exile, it has been said that Marion's thoughts were at first turned towards the West Indies. But it would appear that Heaven had decreed for him a different direction. For scarcely had he reached his home, much agitated about the means of getting off in time, before a letter was brought him from an intimate friend in Rochelle, informing him that a large ship, chartered for the Carolinas, by several wealthy Huguenot families, was then lying at anchor under the Isle de Rhee. Gratefully regarding this as a beckoning from heaven, they at once commenced their work, and prosecuted it with such spirit, that on the evening of the ninth day they embraced their weeping friends and went on board the ship.

It is said that many of the most respectable families of Carolina -- the Gourdines, Hugers, Trapiers, Postells, Horrys, &c. came over in the same ship.

The next day, the clouds began to bank the eastern sky, and the winds to whistle from the hills. Pleased with the darkly rippling waters, the ready ship got home her anchors and loosed her sails. Then wheeling before the freshening gale, she bid adieu to her native shores, and on wings of wide-spread canvas, commenced her foaming course for the western world.

But though mutual love and confidence in heaven were strong in the bosoms of young Marion and his Louisa, yet could they not suppress the workings of nature, which would indulge her sorrows when looking back on the lessening shores; they beheld dwindled to a point and trembling in the misty sky, that glorious land, at once their own cradle and the sepulchre of their fathers.

Some natural tears they shed, but wiped them soon, for the earth was all before them where to choose their place of rest; and Providence their guide.

But Marion and Louisa did not leave their country empty handed. Her Parents, 'tis supposed, gave Louisa money, but what sum, after this long lapse of time, is uncertain. Nor does tradition say for how much Marion sold his little farm. But it is well known that on their arrival in Carolina, they went up into the country, and bought a plantation on Goose Creek, near Charleston, where their dust now sleeps, after a long life endeared by mutual love, and surrounded by every comfort that industry and prudence can bestow.

We have said that Marion left his country for the sake of his RELIGION: which appears to have been of that cheerful sort for which a wise man would make any sacrifice. It was the religion of the gospel, that blessed philosophy which asks not a face of gloom, but a heart of joy. And thereunto enjoin a supreme love of God, and a close walk with him in a pure and benevolent life. From this, the genuine spring of all the sweetest charities and joys of life, Marion derived that cheerfulness which appears never to have failed him. Even in his last will, where most men fancy they ought to be gloomy as the grave whither they are going, his cheerfulness continued to shine with undiminished lustre. It was like the setting of a cloudless sun: which, after pouring its fattening beams on the fields of a live-long summer's day, goes down in smiles to rise a brighter beauty on another day. This will is certainly an amiable curiosity, and as it may be of service to the reader, by showing him how free and easy a good life makes a man with death, I will record it: at least the principal features of it, as I got them from the family.

After having, in the good old way, bequeathed "his soul to God who gave it," and "his body to the earth out of which it was taken," he proceeds in the manner following:

In the first place, as to debts, thank God, I owe none. And therefore shall give my executors but little trouble on that score.

Secondly -- As to the poor, I have always treated them as my brethren. My dear family will, I know, follow my example.

Thirdly -- As to the wealth with which God has been pleased to bless me and my dear Louisa and children, lovingly we have labored together for it -- lovingly we have enjoyed it -- and now, with a glad and grateful heart do I leave it among them.

He then proceeds to the distribution. Liberally to his children: but far more so to his wife -- and at the end of each bequest assigns his reasons, viz.,

I give my ever beloved Louisa all my ready money -- that she may never be alarmed at a sudden call. I give her all my fat calves and lambs, my pigs and poultry -- that she may always keep a good table. I give her my new carriage and horses -- that she may visit her friends in comfort. I give her my family bible -- that she may live above the ill tempers and sorrows of life. I give my son Peter a hornbook -- for I am afraid he will always be a dunce.

But Peter was so stung with this little squib, that he instantly quit his raccoon hunting by nights, and betook himself to reading, and soon became a very sensible and charming young man.

His eldest son, who, after his father, was named Gabriel, married a Miss Charlotte Corde, by whom he had six children -- Esther, Gabriel, Isaac, Benjamin, Job, and our hero Francis, the least as well as the last of the family. As to his sister Esther, I have never heard what became of her; but for his four brothers, I am happy to state, that though not formidable as soldiers, they were very amiable as citizens. They bought farms -- proved their oxen -- married wives -- multiplied good children, and thus, very unlike our niggardly bachelors, contributed a liberal and laudable part to the population, strength, and glory of their country. God, I pray heartily, take kind notice of all such; and grant, that having thus done his will in this world, they may partake of his glory in the next.

Marion's first appearance -- a humble cultivator of the earth -- the great Cherokee war of 1761 comes on -- volunteers his services to his country -- is appointed a first lieutenant in the provincial line -- commands a forlorn hope -- narrowly escapes with his life -- the Anglo-American and the Indian forces engaged -- bloody battle -- the Indians defeated -- their country laid waste -- peace made -- Marion retires.

Among the Mohawks of Sparta, it was a constant practice on the birth of a male infant, to set a military granny to examine him, as a butcher would a veal for the market, and if he were found any ways puny, he was presently thrown into a horse pond with as little ceremony as a blind puppy. Had such been the order of the day in 1732, Carolina would never have boasted a Marion; for I have it from good authority, that this great soldier, at his birth, was not larger than a New England lobster, and might easily enough have been put into a quart pot. This puny appearance continued with him till the age of twelve, when it was removed by the following extraordinary providence.

On a trip to the West Indies, which his friends put him upon for his health's sake, the little schooner in which he was embarked was suddenly attacked by some monstrous fish, probably a thorn-back whale, who gave it such a terrible stroke with his tail as started a plank. The frightened crew flew to their pumps, but in vain; for the briny flood rushed with such fury into their vessel, that they were glad to quit her, and tumble as fast as they could into their little jolly boat. The event showed that this was as but a leap "out of the frying pan into the fire"; for their schooner went down so suddenly as not to give them time to take a mouthful of food with them, not even so much as a brown biscuit or a pint of water. After three wretched days of feverish hunger and thirst, they agreed to kill a little cabin dog who had swam to them from the schooner just before she sunk. On his raw flesh they feasted without restraint; but the blood they preserved with more economy, to cool their parched lips. In a few days, however, their own blood, for lack of cooling food, became so fiery hot as to scald their brain to frenzy. About the tenth day the captain and mate leaped overboard, raving mad; and the day following the two remaining seamen expired in the bottom of the boat, piteously crying to the last for WATER! WATER! God of his mercy forgive me, who have so often drank of that sweet beverage without grateful acknowledgments! Scarcely was this melancholy scene concluded before a vessel hove in sight, standing directly for the boat, as if purposely sent to save the child that was tossing in it on the gloomy waves.

Little Marion was so weak that he could not stir hand or foot to climb up the side of the vessel. The captain, however, soon had him on board; and by means of chocolate and turtle broth, sparingly given him at first, recruited him so fast, that, by the time he reached his native shores, he was in much better health than ever. So that on his return to his friends, it was found, as is often the case, that what was at first looked on as a great misfortune, had proved a very noble blessing. His constitution seemed renewed, his frame commenced a second and rapid growth; while his cheeks, quitting their pale suet-colored cast, assumed a bright and healthy olive. According to the best accounts that I have been able to procure, Marion never thought of another trip to sea, but continued in his native parish, in that most independent and happy of all callings, a cultivator of the earth, till his twenty-seventh year.

A report then prevailing that the Cherokee Indians were murdering the frontier settlers, Marion turned out with his rifle, as a volunteer under governor Lyttleton. The affair, however, proved to be a mere flash in the pan: for the Cherokees finding that things were not exactly in the train they wished, sent on a deputation with their wampum belts and peace-talks to bury the hatchet and brighten the old chain of friendship with the whites; and the good-natured governor, thinking them sincere, concluded a treaty with them. The troops of course were dismissed, and Marion returned to his plantation.

Scarcely, however, had two years elapsed, before the perfidious Cherokees broke out again in a fresh place, killing and driving the defenceless inhabitants at a most barbarous rate. Marion instantly flew again to the governor with the tender of his services to fight for his afflicted countrymen. His excellency was so pleased with this second instance of Marion's patriotism, that he gave him a first lieutenancy in the provincial line under the brave captain William Moultrie. The reported force and fury of the Indians struck such a terror through the colony, that colonel Grant with twelve hundred regulars, was ordered out on a forced march to succor the bleeding frontiers.

On their way they were joined at Ninety-Six, May 14, 1761, by twelve hundred provincials, all men of surest aim with the deadly rifle.

To draw off the enemy from their murderous excursions, Col. Grant wisely determined to push the war at once into their own country; which was no sooner discovered by them, than they instantly collected their whole force to oppose him. The only passage into their country was through a dark defile or gap in the mountain, which it was resolved should be forced as rapidly as possible. A forlorn hope of thirty brave fellows were ordered to explore the dangerous pass: and Marion, though but a young lieutenant, had the honor to be appointed their leader. At the head of his command he advanced with rapidity, while the army moved on to support him. But scarcely had they entered the gloomy defile, when, from behind the rocks and trees, a sheet of fire suddenly blazed forth, which killed twenty-one of his men! With the remainder, he faced about and pushed back with all speed; whereupon great numbers of tall savages, frightfully painted, rushed from their lurking places, and with hideous yells and uplifted tomahawks, pursued and gained upon them so fast, that nothing but the nearness of the advanced guard saved them from destruction. The Anglo-American army then prepared themselves for a serious and bloody conflict.

An enemy in such force, so well posted, and defending the only pass into their country, would, they well knew, fight desperately. And well aware, also what slaughter would follow upon their own defeat, they determined to yield the victory only with their lives. A long summer's day was before them, for the sun had just risen above the hills, a bright spectator of the coming fight. Then, in high spirits, with justice on their side, and an approving conscience, they cheerfully left the event to Heaven. The British were formed in small corps, the more promptly to support the riflemen, who led the van, and now with wide extended wings began to move. In a little time they came in sight of the enemy, who appeared flying backwards and forwards, as if not well satisfied with their ground. The provincial marksmen then rapidly advancing, flew each to his tree, and the action began. From wing to wing, quite across the defile, the woods appeared as if all on fire; while the incessant crash of small arms tortured the ear like claps of sharpest thunder. The muskets of the British, like their native bull-dogs, kept up a dreadful roar, but scarcely did more than bark the trees, or cut off the branches above the heads of the Indians. While, with far less noise, the fatal rifles continued to lessen the numbers of the enemy. The action was kept up with great spirit for nearly two hours, during which the superiority of the American riflemen was very remarkably displayed. For in that time they lost only fifty-one -- whereas of the Indians there fell one hundred and three, which so disheartened them that they fled and gave up their country to the conquerors, who prepared immediately to enter it.

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