INTRODUCTION.
In the winter of eighteen hundred and eighteen-nineteen, I had
occasion to visit the western section of South Carolina. The
public conveyances had taken me to Augusta, in Georgia. There
I purchased a horse, a most trusty companion, with whom I had
many pleasant experiences: a sorrel, yet retained by me in
admiring memory. A valise strapped behind my saddle, with a
great coat spread upon that, furnished all that I required of
personal accommodation. My blood beat temperately with the
pulse of youth and health. I breathed the most delicious air in
the world. My travel tended to the region of the most beautiful
scenery. The weather of early January was as balmy as October;
a light warm haze mellowed the atmosphere, and cast the softest
and richest hues over the landscape. I retraced my steps from
Augusta to Edgefield, which I had passed in the stage coach.
From Edgefield I went to Abbeville, and thence to Pendleton.
I was now in the old district of Ninety Six, just at the foot of the
mountains. My course was still westward. I journeyed alone, or
rather, I ought to say, in good company, for my horse and I had
established a confidential friendship, and we amused ourselves
with a great deal of pleasant conversation—in our way. Besides,
my fancy was busy, and made the wayside quite populous—with
people of its own: there were but few of any other kind.
In the course of my journey I met an incident, which I have
preserved in my journal. The reader of the tale which occupies
this volume has some interest in it.
“Upon a day,” as the old ballads have it, one of the best days
of this exquisite climate, my road threaded the defiles of some of
the grandest mountains of the country. Huge ramparts of rock
toppled over my path, and little streams leaped, in beautiful
cascades, from ledge to ledge, and brawled along the channels,
which often supplied the only footway for my horse, and, gliding
through tangled screens of rhododendron, laurel, arbor vitæ,
and other evergreens, plunged into rivers, whose waters exceed
anything I had ever conceived of limpid purity. It may be
poetical to talk of liquid crystal, but no crystal has the absolute
perfection of the transparency of these streams. The more
distant mountain sides, where the opening valley offered them to
my view, were fortified with stupendous walls, or banks of solid
and unbroken rock, rising in successive benches one above
another, with masses of dark pine between; the highest forming
a crest to the mountain, cutting the sky in sharp profile, with
images of castellated towers, battlements, and buttresses, around
whose summits the inhabiting buzzard, with broad extended
wings, floated and rocked in air and swept in majestic circles.
The few inhabitants of this region were principally the tenants
of the bounty lands, which the State of South Carolina had
conferred upon the soldiers of the Revolution; and their settlements,
made upon the rich bottoms of the river valleys, were
separated from each other by large tracts of forest.
I had much perplexity in some portions of this day's journey in
finding my way through the almost pathless forest which lay
between two of these settlements. That of which I was in quest
was situated upon the Seneca, a tributary of the Savanna river,
here called Tooloolee. It was near sundown, when I emerged
from the wilderness upon a wagon road, very uncertain of my
whereabout, and entertaining some rather anxious misgivings as
to my portion for the night.
I had seen no one for the last five or six hours, and upon
falling into the road I did not know whether I was to take the
right or the left hand—a very material problem for my solution
just then.
During this suspense, a lad, apparently not above ten years of
age, mounted bare back on a fine horse, suddenly emerged from
the wood about fifty paces ahead of me, and galloped along the
road in the same direction that I had myself resolved to take. I
quickened my speed to overtake him, but from the rapidity of his
movement, I found myself, at the end of a mile, not as near him
as I was at the beginning. Some open country in front, however,
showed me that I was approaching a settlement. Almost at the
moment of making this discovery, I observed that the lad was
lying on the ground by the road-side. I hastened to him,
dismounted, and found him sadly in want of assistance. His
horse had run off with him, thrown him, and dislocated, as it
afterwards appeared, his shoulder-joint.
Whilst I was busy in rendering such aid as I could afford, I
was joined by a gentleman of venerable aspect, the father of the
youth, who came from a dwelling-house near at hand, which, in
the engrossment of my occupation, I had not observed. We
lifted the boy in our arms and bore him into the house.
I was now in comfortable quarters for the night. The gentleman
was Colonel T—, as I was made aware by his introduction, and
the kindly welcome he offered me, and I very soon found myself
established upon the footing of a favored guest. The boy was
laid upon a bed in the room where we sat, suffering great pain,
and in want of immediate attention. I entered into the family
consultation on the case. Never have I regretted the want of an
acquisition, as I then regretted that I had no skill in surgery. I
was utterly incompetent to make a suggestion worth considering.
The mother of the family happened to be absent that night; and,
next to the physician, the mother is the best adviser. There was
an elder son, about my own age, who was playing a fiddle when
we came in; and there was a sister younger than he, and brothers
and sisters still younger. But we were all alike incapable. The
poor boy's case might be critical, and the nearest physician, Dr.
Anderson, resided at Pendleton, thirty miles off. This is one of
the conditions of frontier settlement which is not always thought
of.
In the difficulty of the juncture, a thought occurred to Colonel
T., which was immediately made available. “I think I will send
for Horse-Shoe Robinson,” he said, with a manifest lighting up
of the countenance, as if he had hit upon a happy expedient. “Get
a horse, my son,” he continued, addressing one of the boys, “and
ride over to the old man, and tell him what has happened to
your brother; and say, he will oblige me if he will come here
directly.” At the same time, a servant was ordered to ride to
Pendleton, and to bring over Dr. Anderson.
In the absence of the first messenger the lad grew easier, and it
became apparent that his hurt was not likely to turn out
seriously. Colonel T., assured by this, drew his chair up to the
fire beside me, and with many expressions of friendly interest
inquired into the course of my journey, and into the numberless
matters that may be supposed to interest a frontier settler in his
intercourse with one just from the world of busy life. It happened
that I knew an old friend of his, General —, a gentleman
highly distinguished in professional and political service, to whose
youth Colonel T. had been a most timely patron. This circumstance
created a new pledge in my favor, and, I believe, influenced
the old gentleman in a final resolve to send that night for his
wife, who was some seven or eight miles off, and whom he had
been disinclined to put to the discomfort of such a journey in the
dark, ever since it was ascertained that the boy's case was not
dangerous. I am pretty sure this influenced him, as I heard him
privately instructing a servant to go for the lady, and to tell her
that the boy's injury was not very severe, and “that there was a
gentleman there who was well acquainted with General —.'
I observed, hanging in a little black frame over the fireplace, a
miniature engraved portrait of the general, which was the only
specimen of the fine arts in the house—perhaps in the settlement.
It was my recognition of this likeness that led, I fear, to the weary
night ride of the good lady.
In less than an hour the broad light of the hearth—for the
apartment was only lit up by blazing pine faggots, which, from
time to time, were thrown upon the fire—fell upon a goodly
figure. There was first a sound of hoofs coming through the
dark—a halt at the door—a full, round, clear voice heard on the
porch—and then the entrance into the apartment of a woodland
hero. That fine rich voice again, in salutation, so gentle and so
manly! This was our expected counsellor, Horse-Shoe Robinson.
What a man I saw! With near seventy years upon his poll, time
seemed to have broken its billows over his front only as the ocean
breaks over a rock. There he stood—tall, broad, brawny, and
erect. The sharp light gilded his massive frame and weather-beaten
face with a pictorial effect that would have rejoiced an
artist. His homely dress, his free stride, as he advanced to the
fire; his face radiant with kindness; the natural gracefulness of
his motion; all afforded a ready index to his character. Horse
Shoe, it was evident, was a man to confide in.
“I hear your boy's got flung from his horse, Colonel,” he said,
as he advanced to the bed-side. “Do you think he is much
hurt?” “Not so badly as we thought at first, Mr. Robinson,”
was the reply. “I am much obliged to you for coming over tonight.
It is a great comfort to have your advice in such
times.”
“These little shavers are so venturesome—with horses in particular,”
said the visitor; “it's Providence, Colonel, takes care of
'em. Let me look at you, my son,” he continued, as he removed
the bed-clothes, and began to handle the shoulder of the boy.
“He's got it out of joint,” he added, after a moment. “Get me a
basin of hot water and a cloth, Colonel. I think I can soon set
matters right.”
It was not long before the water was placed beside him, and
Robinson went to work with the earnestness of a practised
surgeon. After applying wet cloths for some time to the injured
part, he took the shoulder in his broad hand, and with a sudden
movement, which was followed by a shriek from the boy, he
brought the dislocated bone into its proper position. “It doesn't
hurt,” he said, laughingly; “you are only pretending. How do
you feel now?”
The patient smiled, as he replied, “Well enough now; but I
reckon you was joking if you said that it didn't hurt.”
Horse Shoe came to the fireside, and took a chair, saying,
“I larnt that, Colonel, in the campaigns. A man picks up
some good everywhere, if he's a mind to; that's my observation.”
This case being disposed of, Horse Shoe determined to remain
all night with the family. We had supper, and, after that, formed
a little party around the hearth. Colonel T. took occasion to tell
me something about Horse Shoe; and the Colonel's eldest son
gave me my cue, by which he intimated I might draw out
the old soldier to relate some stories of the war.
“Ask him,” said the young man, “how he got away from
Charleston after the surrender; and then get him to tell you
how he took the five Scotchmen prisoners.”
We were all in good humor. The boy was quite easy, and
everything was going on well, and we had determined to sit up
until Mrs. T. should arrive, which could not be before midnight.
Horse Shoe was very obliging, and as I expressed a great interest
in his adventures, he yielded himself to my leading, and I got out
of him a rich stock of adventure, of which his life was full. The
two famous passages to which I had been asked to question him
—the escape from Charleston, and the capture of the Scotch
soldiers—the reader will find preserved in the narrative upon
which he is about to enter, almost in the very words of my
anthority. I have—perhaps with too much scruple—retained
Horse Shoe's peculiar vocabulary and rustic, doric form of speech—
holding these as somewhat necessary exponents of his character.
A more truthful man than he, I am convinced, did not survive the
war to tell its story. Truth was the predominant expression of
his face and gesture—the truth that belongs to natural and
unconscious bravery, united with a frank and modest spirit.
He seemed to set no especial value upon his own exploits,
but to relate them as items of personal history, with as little
comment or emphasis as if they concerned any one more than
himself.
It was long after midnight before our party broke up; and
when I got to my bed it was to dream of Horse Shoe and his
adventures. I made a record of what he told me, whilst the
memory of it was still fresh, and often afterwards reverted to it,
when accident or intentional research brought into my view events
connected with the times and scenes to which his story had
reference.
The reader will thus see how I came into possession of the
leading incidents upon which this “Tale of the Tory Ascendency”
in South Carolina is founded.
It was first published in 1835. Horse-Shoe Robinson was then
a very old man. He had removed into Alabama, and lived, I am
told, upon the banks of the Tuskaloosa. I commissioned a friend
to send him a copy of the book. The report brought me was,
that the old man had listened very attentively to the reading of
it, and took great interest in it.
“What do you say to all this?” was the question addressed to
him, after the reading was finished. His reply is a voucher,
which I desire to preserve: “It is all true and right—in its right
place—excepting about them women, which I disremember. That
mought be true, too; but my memory is treacherous—I disremember.”
