No doubt, Colonel Brown enjoyed this scene more thoroughly than he did the tame and commonplace spectacle of strangling Captain Ashby and his companions. Before raising the siege, Elijah Clarke paroled the officers and men whom he had captured,--fifty-six men, all told. This fact is mentioned to show that the Georgia militia had not then begun those acts of retaliation which have attracted the notice of historians. They had had, as we know, abundant provocation; but after the horrible crimes perpetrated by Brown reached their ears, they threw off all restraint. Self-preservation is the first law of nature, and the men who acted with Elijah Clarke thought that the best way to preserve the lives of themselves and their families was to destroy the Tories as fast as they caught them. The fact is chronicled by Colonel Jones, and it is worth noting, that the officers and men paroled by Clarke, in utter disregard of their obligations, took up their arms as soon as the Americans had departed. The probability is that they were driven to this by the commands of Brown. It is well known, that, as soon as Clarke and his men had retreated, Colonel Brown sent detachments of troops in all directions, with orders to arrest all persons who had taken part in the siege, or who had sympathized with the efforts of the Americans to recapture Augusta. Under this sweeping order, men of all ages and conditions were dragged from their homes and thrown into prison. Those who were suspected of taking part in the siege, or of belonging to Clarke's command, were seized and hanged out of hand. Old men, no longer able to bear arms, were imprisoned for welcoming the return of members of their families who had fought on the American side. One instance out of many that might be cited was the arrest of the father of Captains Samuel and James Alexander. In the seventy-eighth year of his age, this old man was arrested at his home, tied to the tail of a cart, and dragged forty miles in two days. When caught leaning against the cart to rest his feeble limbs, he was whipped by the driver. It was at this time that in the region round about Augusta the hopes of the patriots grew very faint. The women and children assembled, and begged Elijah Clarke to take them out of the country; and in response to the appeals of these defenseless ones, he undertook the movement that culminated in the glorious victory of Kings Mountain. [Illustration: Old man whipped at the tail of a cart 111] The winter of 1780 was the darkest hour of the Revolution in Upper Georgia. There was no trade. Farming was at a low ebb. The schoolhouses were closed. Many of the patriots had carried off their families. Many had gone with Elijah Clarke to Kentucky. The patriots had betaken themselves to South Carolina, though the services they rendered there have been slurred over by the historians of that State.