From this post, Stewart moved to McCord's ferry, on the Congaree, on the south side of which he took post, amidst the hills near the confluence of the Wateree and Congaree. Greene's camp lay directly opposite, and the fires of the mutual armies were distinctly seen by each other.
The heat of the weather suspended all regular military operations.
Two large rivers intervening secured each from sudden attack, and their toils were confined to operating in small detachments, for foraging or convoy. In this service, on the American side, Col. Washington was detached -- as soon as the course of Stewart was ascertained -- down the country across the Santee; Lee was sent upward, along the north bank of the Congaree; the latter to operate with Col. Henderson, then in command of Sumter's brigade, at Fridig's ferry, and the former to strike at the communication between the enemy and Charleston, and to cooperate with Marion and Mayham, in covering the lower Santee. Col. Harden, at the same time, with a body of mounted militia, had it in charge to straiten the enemy upon the Edisto.
The activity of these several parties and their frequent successes, were such that Stewart was compelled to look for his supplies to the country below him. This necessity caused him to re-establish and strengthen the post at Dorchester, in order to cover the communication by Orangeburg; and to place a force at Fairlawn, near the head of the navigation of Cooper river, from which supplies from Charleston were transported to headquarters over land. As this route was watched by Marion, Washington and Mayham, the British commander was compelled, in order to secure the means of communication with the opposite bank of the Congaree and to draw supplies from thence, to transport boats adapted to the purpose, on wagon-wheels, from Fairlawn to the Congaree.
Such were the relative positions of the two armies until the 22d of August, when Greene, calling in all his detachments except those under Marion, Mayham and Harden, broke up his camp at the High Hills and proceeded to Howell's ferry, on the Congaree, with the intention immediately to cross it and advance upon Stewart. That officer, on hearing of the movement of the Americans, fell back upon his reinforcements and convoys, and took up a strong position at the Eutaw Springs.
Meanwhile, Marion disappeared from the Santee on one of those secret expeditions in which his wonderful celerity and adroit management conducted his men so frequently to success. His present aim was the Pon-Pon.
Col. Harden was at this time in that quarter, and closely pressed by a superior British force of five hundred men. Detaching a party of mounted militia to the neighborhood of Dorchester and Monk's Corner, as much to divert the enemy from his own movements as with any other object, he proceeded with two hundred picked men on his secret expedition.
By a forced march, he crossed the country from St. Stephen's to the Edisto --passing through both lines of the enemy's communication with Charleston, and reached Harden -- a distance of one hundred miles -- in season for his relief. His approach and arrival were totally unsuspected by the enemy, for whom he prepared an ambush in a swamp near Parker's ferry.
A small body of his swiftest horse were sent out to decoy the British into the snare. A white feather, rather too conspicuously worn by one of his men in ambush, had nearly defeated his design.
Some Tories passing, discovered this unnecessary plumage, and one of them fired upon the wearer. This led to an exchange of shots; but Major Frazier, by whom the British were commanded, assuming the party thus concealed to be that of Harden, whom it was his aim to find, pursued the horsemen whom Marion had sent out to entice him to the ambuscade. His cavalry was led at full charge within forty yards of the concealed riflemen.
A deadly fire was poured in, under which the British recoiled;attempting to wheel and charge the swamp, they received a second;and, closely wedged as their men were upon the narrow causeway over which they came, every shot bore its warrant. There was no retreating, no penetrating the ambush, and the British cavalry had but to go forward, along the road to the ferry, thus passing the entire line of the ambuscade.
The corps was most effectually thinned by the time it got beyond rifle reach;and still more fatal would have been the affray to the advancing infantry of Frazier -- a large body, with a field-piece --but for one of those lamentable deficiencies of materiel, which so frequently plucked complete success from the grasp of the Americans.
The ammunition of our partisan failed him, and he was compelled to yield the ground to the enemy, who was otherwise wholly in his power.
The British loss was unknown. Twenty-seven dead horses were counted on the field the day after; the men had all been buried.
As Marion's men fired with either a ball or heavy buck-shot, and as none would aim at horses, the loss of the British must have been very great.
Nine days after, at the battle of Eutaw, they had few cavalry in the field.
But, though the victory was incomplete, Marion had attained his object.
He had rescued Harden, without loss to himself. He had traversed more than two hundred miles of country, through a region held by the enemy;returned by the same route, -- delivered his prisoners to the care of Mayham, -- returned twenty miles below the Eutaw, in order to watch the communication between that place and Fairlawn -- then, at the call of Greene, made a circuit and passed the British army, so as to reach a position on the south side of the Santee, in the track of Greene's advance;and all this in the brief compass of six days. Yet, of these movements, which merited and received the particular thanks of Congress, we are without any data in our records. The complimentary resolution of Congress fixes the battle at Parker's ferry on the 31st August.
