The Carolinian by Rafael Sabatini

Author:Rafael Sabatini
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Endymion Press

PART II

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CHAPTER I - MARRIAGE

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THIS IS, AS YOU WILL long since have realized, no history of the Revolution in South Carolina, but simply an account of certain fateful transactions in the life of Mr. Harry Fitzroy Latimer. If I am now to touch upon historical matters which may be considered to lie outside of that gentleman’s story, these are introduced to supply the necessary and, I hope, elucidatory hyphen connecting the first act of this personal drama, upon which the curtain was rung down on the night of Brewton’s ball in June of 1775, with the second and final act upon which it is to be rung up again in May of the year 1779, at the time of Prevost’s Raid.

Mr. Latimer’s absence from Charles Town did not extend beyond three months. Far sooner than any could have imagined on the night of his departure did the drums of war beat a rally to all patriots. Long before he had reached his plantation of Santee Broads, indeed within a few hours of his setting out to journey thither, came express riders into Charles Town with the dreadful news that war was no longer an ultimate possibility but already an accomplished fact.

In the North a great battle had been fought on the heights above Boston between the insurgent colonial forces and the troops which the British Government had lately been pouring into Massachussets under Howe, Clinton and Burgoyne. And by this battle the colonies were definitely committed to that civil war which until the eleventh hour, even after the skirmish at Lexington, they had still looked to avert. The die was cast. All hope that the dispute might be settled by advocacy and argument was at an end. Only the arbitrament of arms remained.

The heralding throughout America of this fateful decision sent across the continent a wave of enthusiasm which few patriotic people have not known in the hour of war’s declaration. They were committed. Come now what might, they knew where they stood, and what remained to do. Where men perceive this clearly the rest matters little by comparison. So they girded themselves for battle, but still in the main with no thought of independence as the object of their strife. Like their ancestors Pym and Hampden they were making a stand not against sovereignty, but against the abuse of sovereign rights.

The Continental Congress had met at Philadelphia, and conscious of what was coming some weeks before the event itself carried conviction to the remoter provinces, it voted to raise an army of twenty thousand men. Two days before Bunker’s Hill was fought Congress unanimously elected to the position of commander-in-chief “Mr. Washington, the Potomac planter,” as he was contemptuously designated by tories and British alike, but who, in spite of their ill-informed and misplaced scorn, was destined to become one of the great figures of all time.

In Charles Town there was a feverish activity of preparation, the reflection of which you will find in the collection of letters and general orders published by William Moultrie and designated his Memoirs.

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