General Horatio Gates was sent by the Congress to defend the south against the British. But General Gates was not a great or brave commander. He was defeated by Cornwallis at Camden, South Carolina. He lost two thousand men, and the rest of his soldiers were scattered. Because of this terrible defeat--the worst in the whole War for Independence--the southern people were deeply discouraged. What was to be done? In the south there were many Tories, as the people were called who believed that those who fought against England for liberty were rebels. Besides fighting in the British campaigns, the southern Tories went about in bands, shooting and injuring all the “rebels” they [Illustration: GENERAL MARION, THE CAROLINA “SWAMP FOX.”] could. So the southern patriots gathered together in small companies to defend their families from the British and the Tories, and to prevent the British from capturing the whole southern country before Washington could send down a better general and another army. During the months after the defeat at Camden, the fight was carried on in what was called guerrilla warfare--_guerrilla_ being Spanish for “little war.” Small bands of Americans hid in the woods and swamps, and when they caught the British off guard, suddenly pounced upon them, taking or rescuing prisoners. The greatest leader of this kind of warfare on the American side was General Marion. These southern soldiers had very poor weapons. Most of their guns were the kind used in shooting birds, and were loaded with shot instead of bullets. For swords they had wooden-handled saws with the teeth ground down to a smooth edge. They had but little to eat--often only potatoes, which they could bake in the ashes of their campfires. Their horses, however, were the finest and fastest in all that country. Although these men had to deny themselves food and clothing, their horses were well fed and groomed, for often the masters’ lives depended on the fleetness of their steeds. And the horses sometimes acted as if they understood and enjoyed the terrible game of life and death their masters were playing. Some of the bravest men in the south, seeing no other way to save or to serve their country, came and offered themselves to General Marion, to fight under the greatest hardships and risks in the most dangerous adventures. Among these was the famous Sergeant Jasper, who was one of the first to risk his life for the flag. Nine British ships-of-war attacked a fort in Charleston Harbor. They shot away the staff on which the American flag was flying; but Jasper jumped out, caught the banner before it touched the ground, and climbed up and nailed it in place, while the guns were aimed at him as well as at the starry ensign.