At this juncture, Cornwallis was the most conspicuous figure in the British Army in America. Already “the pride and delight” of Lord George Germain, his successes vindicated the opinion which that minister entertained of his military talents, and he was now designed by the Cabinet to supersede Clinton as commander-in-chief—being considered “the one man on whom rested the hopes of the ministry for the successful termination of the war.” Proud of this favoritism on the part of the Cabinet and conscious of the hopes and expectations of the King, Cornwallis began preparations for his northward march. Success had elated him. He believed he would swing from victory unto victory until he had brought all of the people south of the Delaware again under the dominion of the crown. He began the work of subjugation by inaugurating a reign of terror not excelled in point of barbarity in the annals of civilized warfare. After his victory at Camden, he erected a gibbet, and began the summary and indiscriminate execution of those among his prisoners who had formerly received their parole. He gave stringent orders to his subordinates to imprison all who refused to enter the British Army and thus became the instrument of their own subjection. The confiscation of property and the destruction of life assumed hideous forms. “South Carolina,” says Bancroft, “was writhing under the insolence of an army in which every soldier was licensed to pillage, and every officer outlawed peaceful citizens at will.” The gold and silver plate and other valuables divided amongst the victors at the fall of Charleston amounted in value to a million and a half dollars, the dividend of a major-general alone being four thousand guineas. Cold-blooded assassinations by men holding the King’s commission, often in the presence of the wives and children of the helpless victims, were frequent. No engagements by capitulation were respected. Woodsmen in their rude cabins were suddenly surrounded and put to death, not because they were in arms against the King, but because they were not in arms for him. The tomahawking in June, 1777, of poor Jane McRae by one of the two Indians in the British service who were escorting her under British protection from Fort Edward, New York, to her expectant betrothed in the British lines, and who quarreled over the reward promised for her safe arrival, found a fitting complement three years later in South Carolina when Colonel Tarleton, of His Majesty’s service, personally beat the wife of a general officer of the Continental army because of his activity in the cause of his country. Equalling this villainy, Lord Rawdon, one of Cornwallis’ commanders on the Santee, who had found great difficulty in forcing his Irish Regiment to fight against the American patriots, issued an order dated July 1, 1780, in which he said: “I will give the inhabitants ten guineas for any deserter belonging to the volunteers of Ireland and five guineas only if