[Sidenote:  Transactions in South Carolina and Georgia.]

In the South, Lord Cornwallis, after having nearly demolished the American army at Camden, found himself under the necessity of suspending, for a few weeks, the new career of conquest on which he had intended to enter.  His army was enfeebled by sickness as well as by action; the weather was intensely hot, and the stores necessary for an expedition into North Carolina had not been brought from Charleston.  In addition, a temper so hostile to the British interests had lately appeared in South Carolina as to make it unsafe to withdraw any considerable part of his force from that state, until he should subdue the spirit of insurrection against his authority.  Exertions were made in other parts of the state, not inferior to those of Sumpter in the north-west.  Colonel Marion, who had been compelled by the wounds he received in Charleston to retire into the country, had been promoted by Governor Rutledge to the rank of a brigadier general.  As the army of Gates approached South Carolina, he had entered the north-eastern parts of that state with only sixteen men; had penetrated into the country as far as the Santee; and was successfully rousing the well-affected inhabitants to arms, when the defeat of the 16th of August chilled the growing spirit of resistance which he had contributed to increase.

With the force he had collected, he rescued about one hundred and fifty continental troops who had been captured at Camden, and were on their way to Charleston.  Though compelled, for a short time, to leave the state, he soon returned to it, and at the head of a few spirited men, made repeated excursions from the swamps and marshes in which he concealed himself, and skirmished successfully with the militia who had joined the British standard, and the small parties of regulars by whom they were occasionally supported.

His talents as a partisan, added to his knowledge of the country, enabled him to elude every attempt to seize him; and such was his humanity as well as respect for the laws, that no violence or outrage was ever attributed to the party under his command.

The interval between the victory of the 16th of August, and the expedition into North Carolina, was employed in quelling what was termed the spirit of revolt in South Carolina.  The efforts of the people to recover their independence were considered as new acts of rebellion, and were met with a degree of severity which policy was supposed to dictate, but which gave a keener edge to the resentments which civil discord never fails to engender.  Several of the most active militia men who had taken protections as British subjects, and entered into the British militia, having been afterwards found in arms, and made prisoners at Camden, were executed as traitors.  Orders were given to officers commanding at different posts to proceed in the same manner against persons of a similar description; and these orders were, in many