University of Virginia Library

ADVERTISEMENT.

Spending a few weeks, some eighteen months ago,
with a friend,[1] in the neighbourhood of the once beautiful,
but now utterly decayed, town of Dorchester,
South Carolina, I availed myself of the occasion to revisit
the old, and, at one time, familiar ruins. When a
boy, I had frequently rambled over the ground, and listened
to its chronicles from the lips of one—now no
more—who had been conversant with all its history.
Many of its little legends were known to me, and the
story of more than one of its inhabitants, of whom
nothing now remains but the record in the burial-place,
had been long since registered in my mind.
These,—together with its own sad transition by repeated
disasters, from the busy bustle of the crowded
thoroughfare, to the silence and the desolation of the
tombs—were well adapted to inspire in me a sentiment
of veneration; and, with the revival of many old
time feelings and associations, I strolled through the
solemn ruins—the dismantled church—the frowning
fortress, now almost hidden in the accumulating forests—reading
and musing as I went, among the mouldering
tombstones, and finding food for sweet thoughts
and a busy fancy at every step in my ramble. The

walls of the fort, built of the shell and mortar, or tapia
work, and still in tolerable preservation—the old church,
tottering, but still erect, and the grassy hillocks marking
the dwelling-places of the dead—are all that now
remain in proof of its sometime existence, as the abiding-place
of living man.

In this ramble, the restless imagination grew active
in the contemplation of objects so well calculated to
stimulate its exercise. Memory came warmly and
vividly to its aid, and recalled a series of little events,
carefully treasured up by the local tradition, which, unconsciously,
my mind began to throw together, and to
combine in form. Some of these had long before ministered
to my own pleasurable emotions—why should
they not yield similar pleasure to others? I revolved
them over, thoughtfully, with this idea. The Revolutionary
history of the colony was full of references to
the neighbourhood; and numberless incidents, of a nature
purely domestic, were yet so associated with
some of the public occurrences of that period, that I
could not well resist the desire to link them more
closely together. The design grew more familiar and
more feasible, the more I contemplated it; and though
intervening difficulties, and other labours, have hitherto
prevented my prosecution of the purpose, I have
still continued to revolve it over as some unavoidable
and favourite topic. To these circumstances, and to
this desire, “The Partisan” owes its origin.

The work was originally contemplated as one of a
series, to be devoted to our War of Independence.
With this object, I laid the foundation more broadly
and deeply than I should have done had I purposed
merely the single work. Several of the persons employed

were destined to be the property of the series;—
that part of it, at least, which belonged to the locality.
Three of these works were to have been devoted to
South Carolina, and to comprise three distinct periods
of the war of the Revolution in that state. One, and
the first of these, is the story now submitted to the
reader. I know not that I shall complete, or even continue
the series. Much will depend upon the reception
of the present narrative. I will not bind myself
to the prosecution of an experiment, hazardous in
many respects, and the success of which, is, at present,
so problematical.

The “Partisan” comprises the leading events from
the fall of Charlestown, to the close of 1780; and is
proposed as a fair picture of the province—its condition,
resources, and prospects—pending the struggle of Gates
with Cornwallis, and immediately after the disastrous
close of that campaign, in the complete defeat of the
southern defending army. In the narrative, the various
and very copious histories of the time have been
continually before me. I have drawn from one, or
from the other, as it seemed most to answer my purpose,
or to accord with the truth. The work, indeed,
is chiefly historical.

Even where the written history has not been found,
tradition, and the local chronicles, preserved as family
records, have contributed the rest. The story of
Frampton, for example, greatly modified, indeed, in
many respects, was one which I had heard in childhood.
That of Col. Walton is a familiar one in Carolina
domestic history—recorded and unrecorded. The
minor events—the little ambuscade and sortie—the
plans of fight—of forage—of flight and safety—are all

familiar features of the partisan warfare; and the title
of the work, indeed, will persuade the reader to look
rather for a true description of that mode of warfare,
than for any consecutive story comprising the fortunes
of a single personage. This, he is solicited to keep in
mind, as one of my leading objects has been to give a
picture, not only of the form and pressure of the time
itself, but of the thousand scattered events making
up its history. The very title should imply something
desultory in the progress and arrangement of the tale;
and my aim has been to give a story of events, rather
than of persons. The one, of course, could not well
have been done without the other; yet it has been my
object to make myself as greatly independent as possible
of the necessity which would combine them. A
sober desire for history—the unwritten, the unconsidered,
but veracious history—has been with me, in this
labour, a sort of principle. The phases of a time of
errors and of wrongs—of fierce courage—tenacious
patriotism—yielding, but struggling virtue, not equal to
the pressure of circumstances, and falling for a time,
Antæus-like, only for a renewal and recovery of its
strength—it has been my aim to delineate, with all the
rapidity of one, who, with the mystic lantern, runs his
uncouth shapes and varying shadows along the gloomy
wall, startling the imagination and enkindling curiosity.
The medium through which we now look at these
events, is, in some respects, that of a glass darkened.
The characters rise up before us grimly or indistinctly.
We scarcely believe, yet we cannot doubt. The evidence
is closed—the testimony now irrefutable—and
imagination, however audacious in her own province,
only ventures to imbody and model those features of
the past, which the sober truth has left indistinct, as
not within her notice, or unworthy her regard.

I have entitled the “Partisan” a tale of the Revolution—it
was intended to be particularly such. The
characters, many of them, are names in the nation,
familiar as our thoughts. Gates, Marion, De Kalb,
and the rest, are all the property of our country. In
the illustrations which I have presumed to give of
these personages, I have followed the best authorities.
The severity with which I have visited the errors of
the former general, is sustained by all the writers—
by Otho Williams, by Lee, by Johnson, and the current
histories. There can be little doubt, I believe, of the
truth, in his case, of my drawing. It may be insisted
on, as of questionable propriety, thus to revive these
facts, and to dwell upon the faults and foibles of a man
conspicuous in our history, and one, who, in a single
leading event, contributed so largely to the glory of its
pages. But, on this point, I am decided, that a nation
gains only, in glory and in greatness, as it is resolute
to behold and to pursue the truth. I would paint the
disasters of my country, where they arose from the
obvious error of her sons, in the strongest possible
colours. We should then know—our sons and servants,
alike, should then know—how best to avoid them. The
rock which has wrecked us once, should become the
beacon for our heirs hereafter. It is only by making
it so, that the vicissitudes of life—its follies or misfortunes—can
be made tributary to its triumphs. For
this reason I have dwelt earnestly upon our disasters;
and, with a view to the moral, I have somewhat departed
from the absolute plan of the story, to dilate upon
the dangerous errors of the leading personages in the

events drawn upon. The history of the march of
Gates's army, I have carefully elaborated with this
object; and the reflecting mind will see the parallel
position of cause and effect which I have studiously
sought to make obvious, wherever it seemed to me
necessary for the purposes of instruction. It is in this
way, only, that the novel may be made useful, when it
ministers to morals, to mankind, and to society.