The year 1780 brought still worse fortune, for early in the year Clinton came again from New York and made a second attack on Charleston. In May he captured the city and all Lincoln's army, with four hundred cannon. Clinton then returned to New York, leaving Cornwallis in command with five thousand men. The British, possessing Savannah and Charleston with the river connections, held the key to the whole of Georgia and South Carolina. They could obtain all their supplies by water, and so did not need to rely upon the country for support. =220. The Bitter and Cruel Warfare in the South.=--The patriots did not now have a body of soldiers in the south large enough to call an army. The entire region was open to British plunder. Bands of soldiers roamed through the country, plundering, burning, and killing without restraint. No mercy was shown to patriots. A squad of soldier bandits once came to the home of Thomas Sumter, the famous patriot officer, turned his wife and children out of doors and burned the house. Sumter was a bold and energetic fighter in the wild warfare of the south. He was a tall and powerful man and of a very stern make-up. He lived to be ninety-nine years of age--the last surviving general of the Revolution. "But for Sumter and Marion," said Cornwallis, "South Carolina would be at peace." There now remained in South Carolina but one battalion of patriot soldiers. These were about four hundred in number under Colonel Buford, then in the northwestern part of the state. Clinton sent against him a force of seven hundred regulars and Tories under Colonel Tarleton, an active but base and cruel man. Tarleton surrounded the patriots and demanded their surrender. While Buford was quietly discussing the matter, his soldiers resting at ease under the protection of a flag of truce, Tarleton treacherously arranged his men for an attack. Suddenly the flag of truce was taken down, and instantly the British cavalry rushed from all sides upon Buford's men and killed one hundred and thirteen and wounded one hundred and fifty. Even the boys were nerved to deeds of valor. A schoolboy named Andrew Jackson, thirteen years old, who had seen the dead of the Buford massacre, and helped care for the wounded, and whose own brother had been killed by the British, was himself captured. While under guard, a pompous British officer came up to him and cried out:-- "Here, boy! clean my boots!" "No, sir! clean your own boots. I am a prisoner of war and entitled to better treatment." Down came the officer's sword, aiming at the boy's head. Warding off the blow with his arm, he received a wound, the marks of which he carried to his grave. This boy grew up to become the seventh president of the United States!