第62章 Chapter (7)

The prudence of the general had its effect. The delay gave time to the offenders for reflection. Perhaps, looking round upon their followers, they saw no consenting spirit of mutiny in their eyes, encouraging their own;for, "though many of these refugees were present, none offered to back or support the mutinous officers;" -- and when the guard that was ordered, appeared in sight, the companion of the chief offender was seen to touch the arm of the other, who then proffered the sword to Marion, saying, "General, you need not have sent for the guard."*Marion, refusing to receive it, referred him to the sergeant of the guard, and thus doubly degraded, the dishonored major of Continentals --for he was such -- disappeared from sight, followed by his associate.

His farther punishment was of a kind somewhat differing from those which are common to armies, by which the profession of arms is sometimes quite as much dishonored as the criminal. Marion endeavored, by his punishments, to elevate the sense of character in the spectators.

He had some of the notions of Napoleon on this subject.

He was averse to those brutal punishments which, in the creature, degrade the glorious image of the Creator. In the case of the two offenders, thus dismissed from his presence, the penalty was, of all others, the most terrible to persons, in whose minds there remained the sparks even of a conventional honor. These men had been guilty of numerous offences against humanity. Marion expelled them from his brigade.

Subsequently, their actions became such, that he proclaimed their outlawry through the country.** By one of these men he was challenged to single combat, but he treated the summons with deserved contempt.

His composure remained unruffled by the circumstance.

* Horry's MS., from which the several extracts preceding have been made.

-- pp. 100-103.

** He set up on trees and houses, in public places, proclamations in substance thus, that Major ---- and Capt. ----did not belong to his brigade, that they were banditti, robbers and thieves, -- were hereby deemed out of the laws, and might be killed wherever found. -- Horry's MS. pp. 104, 105.

In this affair, as in numerous others, Marion's great knowledge of the militia service, and of the peculiar people with whom he sometimes had to deal, enabled him to relieve himself with little difficulty from troublesome companions. Of these he necessarily had many;for the exigencies of the country were such that patriotism was not permitted to be too nice in the material which it was compelled to employ.

The refugees were from various quarters -- were sometimes, as we have seen, adopted into his ranks from those of the defeated Tories, and were frequently grossly ignorant, not only of what was due to the community in which they found themselves, but still more ignorant of the obligations of that military law to which they voluntarily put themselves in subjection.

Marion's modes of punishment happily reached all such cases without making the unhappy offender pay too dearly for the sin of ignorance.

On one occasion, Horry tells us that he carried before him a prisoner charged with desertion to the enemy. "Marion released him, saying to me, `let him go, he is too worthless to deserve the consideration of a court martial.'" Such a decision in such a case, would have shocked a military martinet, and yet, in all probability, the fellow thus discharged, never repeated the offence, and fought famously afterwards in the cause of his merciful commander.

We have something yet to learn on these subjects. The result of a system in which scorn is so equally blended with mercy, was singularly good.

In the case of the person offending (as is frequently the case among militia)through sheer ignorance of martial law, it teaches while it punishes, and reforms, in some degree, the being which it saves. Where the fault flows from native worthlessness of character the effect is not less beneficial.

One of Marion's modes of getting rid of worthless officers, was to put them into coventry. In this practice his good officers joined him, and their sympathy and cooperation soon secured his object.

"He kept a list of them," said Horry, "which he called his Black List.

This mode answered so well that many resigned their commissions, and the brigade was thus fortunately rid of such worthless fellows."The values of such a riddance is well shown by another sentence from the MS. of our veteran. "I found the men seldom defective, were it not for the bad example set them by their officers."*--

* MS. p. 55.