A look of hope beamed on Greene's face as he heard these words. With a spirit like this in the women of the country, he felt that no man should despair. Rising with a sudden impulse, he walked to where a portrait of George III. hung over the fireplace, remaining from the old ante-war time. He turned the face of this to the wall and wrote these words on the back: "Hide thy face, George, and blush." It is said that this portrait was still hanging in the same place not many years ago, with Greene's writing yet legible upon it, and possibly it may be there still. As for Mrs. Steele, she had proved herself a patriot woman, of the type of Mrs. Motte, who furnished Marion with arrows for the burning of her own house when it was occupied by a party of British soldiers whom he could not dislodge. And they two were far from alone in the list of patriot women in the South. The incident in General Greene's career above given has become famous. And connected with it is the skilful military movement by which he restored the American cause in the South, which had been nearly lost by the disastrous defeat of General Gates. This celebrated example of strategy has often been described, but is worth telling again. Lord Cornwallis, the most active of the British commanders in the war of American Independence, had brought South Carolina and Georgia under his control, and was marching north with the expectation of soon bringing North Carolina into subjection, and following up his success with the conquest of Virginia. This accomplished, he would have the whole South subdued. But in some respects he reckoned without his host. He had now such men as Greene and Morgan in his front, Marion and Sumter in his rear, and his task was not likely to prove an easy one. As for Morgan, he sent the rough-rider Tarleton to deal with him, fancying that the noted rifleman, who had won undying fame in the North, would now meet fate in the face, and perhaps be captured, with all his men. But Morgan had a word to say about that, as was proved on the 17th of January, 1781, when he met Tarleton at the Cowpens, a place about five miles south of the North Carolina line. Tarleton had the strongest and best appointed force, and Morgan, many of whose men were untried militia, seemed in imminent danger, especially when the men of the Maryland line began to retreat, and the British, thinking the day their own, pressed upon them with exultant shouts. But to their surprise the bold Marylanders suddenly halted, turned, and greeted their pursuers with a destructive volley. At the same time the Virginia riflemen, who had been posted on the wings, closed in on both flanks of the British and poured a shower of bullets into their ranks. The British were stunned by this abrupt change in the situation, and when the Maryland line charged upon them with levelled bayonets they broke and fled in dismay.