No portion of the infant colonies suffered more from the rude and unsparing hand of war than did the South, and especially the Carolinas. The storm of desolation fell with double fury on those devoted sections of our country, not only from the foreign invaders, seeking to strike down the germ of our liberties, but also from the intestine foes with which she was cursed. This latter kind of warfare was the more to be dreaded, as it fell alike on the old and the young—the blooming youth and the blushing maiden. No condition was permitted to escape. Gray hairs were nothing in the estimation of those fiends in human shape, called Tories. Children were taken from a weeping mother and consigned to a lingering death; beauty was torn from the bridal altar, and innocence from the house of prayer; all the kind and holy feelings of the human heart were given to the winds, and the family hearth, and even the household circle were often made the scene of a brutal death. Such were some of the dangers and difficulties our fathers had to encounter in the struggle for Independence. A beautiful day, in the spring of 1781, was drawing to a close. The day had been warm, but now the genial breeze of night, so peculiarly pleasing in southern climates, had sprung up. Dim twilight had taken the place of day, the song of the night-bird was beginning to be heard in the wood, the deep-green foliage of the pines looked still deeper in the fast increasing shadows of night, and one by one the stars took their places in the sky. Silence still and deep rested all around; and naught was heard save the occasional hoot of the solitary owl far in the sombre depths of the forest that shaded both sides of the road, (if such the dimly marked path might be called,) which led through this section of the wood. The ground was covered with a dense growth of pines and other trees, interlaced with wild vines and smaller shrubbery, so that their shade, even in daylight, excluded from the eye every thing that was removed a few paces from the road-side, but now, as the darkness came down, all was a blank. Suddenly the stillness of the scene was broken by a slight noise, and a solitary horseman emerged from the cover of the wood into the opening. When he had gained the road, he checked his horse, and carefully examined the vicinity, as if to satisfy himself of the safeness of his position, as well as to mark the locality of the spot. This caution seemed to proceed as much from a settled habit of watchfulness, common in days of peril, as from a sense of personal danger. In appearance the stranger seemed not to have arrived at the full age of manhood. He was clad in a hunting-frock of blue domestic, common in those days among the inhabitants of the Southern States. The style and finish of the dress, however, bespoke more than usual attention to the fitness of the articles. Around his waist was girded a broad leather belt, embellished in front with a massive buckle, and