There is no good reason why I should go into details concerning the siege and capture of Charleston, because they are well known to everybody; but I have used the facts as a starting-point of what may prove to be a story such as can be told to lads who shall live after I have gone out of this world. It seems no more than proper to do so, for it was while the British shot and shell were screaming over our heads as we aided in the defence as boys might, that Gabriel Marion, brother of that General Marion whom the minions of the king dubbed “Swamp Fox,” determined to profit by the example which the lads in the eastern States had set us, and once the time should be ripe, band the lads of South Carolina together under the name of Minute Boys. Many a time, as Gabriel and I staggered here and there under the burden of ammunition for our elders, who had permitted that we take part in the defence to the extent of supplying the different guns with powder and ball,--and so small was our store that we were forced now and again to carry it an exceeding long distance,--many a time, as I have said, while we were thus engaged Gabriel and I turned the matter over in our minds, vowing that as soon as the king’s hirelings had been beaten back, as we had no doubt soon would be the case, the Minute Boys of South Carolina should come into existence as an organization distinct from the regular army. Warm friends were Gabriel and I, with never a difference between us save when, owing to the fact that my name was Rufus and my hair all too vividly red for my own pleasure, he would persist in calling me William Rufus, giving me the name of that king who was known as “The Red,” and it vexed me sorely at times, because, although not responsible for my personal appearance, the shock of red hair with which nature had endowed me was so conspicuous as to call forth comment from all who saw it for the first time. It was as if he called me “carrot-top,” when he tacked on to my name Rufus, that of William, because the youngest schoolboy knows that William Rufus’s hair showed out so conspicuous that his soldiers were as prone to follow it into battle, when perchance a lock was exposed beneath his helmet, as they were to rally around his flag. However, the color of my hair, and what Gabriel Marion might say in sport regarding it, has nothing to do with that which I propose to set down, save that it will serve to show now and again why I lost control of my temper on being greeted by the name of a king. Gabriel Marion lived with his brother, Francis, who was made lieutenant-colonel at Savannah the year previous to the siege, in St. John’s Parish, but at the time when Clinton appeared off Edisto Inlet, the colonel was ordered to Charleston, and with him came Gabriel who took up his abode in my home, for it was in that fair city I had been born.