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the Americans under Gates from the battlefield at Camden, can be referred to only with mortification, but it is gratifying to know that there were no South Carolina troops engaged in that battle. The blame for the disaster rests very largely upon Gates himself, who exhibited exceedingly poor judgment in his preparations for the battle and timidity in his flight from the field.

We must not fail to mention the brilliant cavalry officer, "Light-Horse Harry" Lee, whose conduct in South Carolina was not always becoming, but who, as the father of the great Robert E. Lee, must ever have profoundest interest.

Carolina's Unmatched Record.-Taken all in all, South Carolina's record fully justifies the opinion of Bancroft, the New England historian: "Left mainly to her own resources, it was through the depths of wretchedness that her sons were to bring her back to her place in the republic after suffering more and daring more and achieving more than the men of any other State." He might well have paid the same tribute to the women of South Carolina, for unquestionably in the number and in the heroism of their adventures in the war the South Carolina women are ahead of those in any other State of the Union. Three of them made rides far more perilous than that made by Paul Revere. Take, for instance, the wonderful rides made by Mrs. Jane Thomas and Mrs. Dillard through the depths of the forest at the dead of night, to give information to the patriots, enabling them to escape massacres that were planned for them and to turn impending disaster into victory. The

immortal names of women in South Carolina whose fame was won by daring and devotion include those of Ann Kennedy, Dicey Langston, Rebecca Motte, Mrs. Bratton, the Martin sisters, Emily Geiger (a little mythical), and doubtless there are many others worthy of a place in this list.

Low-Country and Up-Country.-So the low-country of South Carolina can point to the splendid victory at Fort Moultrie in the early part of the war, and the upcountry, though aroused later into activity, can, with equal pride, show the fields of King's Mountain and Cowpens in its closing period, all of which contributed, in a very large degree, to the ultimate success of the cause for which the colonies were battling against England.

CHAPTER XI

A GREAT NAVAL ENGAGEMENT

The naval battle off the northeastern coast of England, September 23, 1779, between the Bonhomme Richard, commanded by John Paul Jones, and the Serapis, Captain Richard Pearson, is one of the most remarkable in

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all history and the most remarkable feat in that fight was the boarding of the Serapis by the sailors of the Richard, when the latter was sinking. John Paul Jones selected to lead the boarders in this daring and unequaled task, John Mayrant, a South Carolinian. At an agreed signal from Jones, Mayrant was to leap over the rail, leading the American sailors. He did this and was in

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stantly wounded by a thrust with a boarding-pike by one of the English sailors, whom he shot to death at the same moment with his pistol. Jones afterward,

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in his report, said that all of his officers had acted so bravely he did not know how he could leave out any of their names, and yet he did not see how he could mention them all. The other officers unanimously voted that Mayrant should be mentioned and the others omitted, because, they said, "he was our leader," and Jones, in response, pronounced him "the bravest of the brave." So upon Mayrant, after Jones himself, rests the chief glory of the most remarkable naval fight of the Revolution and of American history; yet rare, indeed, is it that Mayrant's name is mentioned in accounts of this battle and in the numerous biographies of John Paul Jones. But in the elaborate work of Augustus C. Buell, published by Charles Scribner's Sons, Paul Jones, the Founder of the American Navy, John Mayrant will be found in his proper place of honor, where the earlier historians of the Revolution placed him.

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