When Greene saw that King George was likely to force the Americans to fight, he joined the militia and went to Boston to buy a musket, a very unusual thing for a man in Quaker dress to do. He hid the gun in his wagon. There he watched General Gage drilling British soldiers. He persuaded one of them to go with him to drill his company of minutemen. [Illustration: GREENE CONCEALING THE MUSKET IN HIS WAGON] [Sidenote: =News from Lexington sends Greene to Boston=] When the stirring news from Lexington reached him, Greene was among the first to start for Boston, and there Washington found him when he arrived to take command of the army. Greene was made one of Washington's generals, and followed his great commander till Washington sent him to the South to win back that part of the country from Cornwallis. He found only a small army in North Carolina, but he knew the southern men would fight if they had a chance, for the backwoodsmen had just killed or captured one thousand British soldiers at Kings Mountain. [Illustration: SCENE OF THE CAMPAIGNS IN THE SOUTH] [Sidenote: =Men who helped Greene in the South=] Besides, he had some of the bravest and ablest leaders in America to help him, among them Daniel Morgan, Francis Marion, William Washington (a cousin of General Washington), Henry Lee (called "Light Horse Harry"), and Thomas Sumter. [Sidenote: =Greene divides his army=] Greene divided his army into two parts. He took one thousand men and marched into northeastern South Carolina, where Marion and Lee, with small bands of cavalry, stole upon the British outposts. In broad daylight they charged pellmell into Georgetown, captured the officer in command there, and got safely away before the British were over their fright. [Illustration: MORGAN'S ESCAPE FROM THE INDIANS] [Sidenote: =Morgan goes to northwestern South Carolina=] Greene sent General Morgan and Colonel William Washington with nine hundred men into northwestern South Carolina to threaten some British posts, and to encourage the patriots in the mountains. Very shortly after this, Washington and his cavalry swooped down on a party of British soldiers and captured two hundred fifty of them. [Sidenote: =Tarleton sent to capture him=] Cornwallis was now thoroughly roused, and resolved to put an end to such events. He therefore ordered his favorite cavalry officer, Colonel Tarleton, to take eleven hundred picked soldiers and capture Morgan and his men. =97. General Morgan.= But Morgan was not the kind of man to be caught napping. When a young man, he had fought the French and Indians on the Virginia frontier. [Sidenote: =Morgan's training=] He was at Braddock's defeat. He had once knocked a British officer down for striking him. In an Indian fight he had been shot through the neck and thought himself dying, but, to escape being scalped, locked his arms tightly around his horse's neck, while the horse ran wildly through the woods.