Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 16.djvu/13

 Heroes of the old Camden District, S. (7. 7

Hence their meeting-houses were often burnt or destroyed. One of them in Charleston was converted into a horse stable, and in the Waxhaws their minister was insulted and his house and books burnt, and war was declared against all Bibles which contained the Scotch version of the Psalms. "Great," says this writer, "were the obliga tions of the American cause to the licentiousness and folly of the British commander."

It was amongst these people that on the 2gth May, 1780, Tarleton burst like a summer's storm into the Waxhaws settlement and mas- sacred there Bufort's force, which was on its way from Virginia to assist Governor Rutledge in raising the siege of Charleston. Too late to help Charleston they came but to their own destruction. One hundred and thirteen were killed and one hundred and fifty wounded. The wounded were abandoned to the care of the people in the neighbor- hood, and the old Waxhaws meeting-house was converted into a hos- pital. There Esther Gaston, then only eighteen years of age, and her sister Martha day and night tenderly nursed the wounded,* and there too Mrs. Jackson, the mother of Andrew Jackson, ministered to their comforts and necessities, and there for many days Andrew Jackson and his brother, Robert, first saw what war was.f

Then came Lord Rawdon from Camden and encamped with a large body on the north side of the Waxhaws creek, demanding of every one a formal promise to take no further part in the war. Mrs. Jack- son and the boys, and the Crawfords, and a majority of their neigh- bors abandoned their homes rather than enter into a covenant so abhorrent to their feelings.

The war of the Revolution was now transferred to this section of the State. Let us recall some of its stirring scenes in this neighbor- hood.

General Richard Winn, in whose honor this town is named, was then a major. He had served in General Richardson's expedition against the Tories the year before, and had distinguished himself under Thompson on Sullivan's Island on the famous 28th June, 1776, when Moultrie repulsed the British fleet off Charleston harbor. Colonel William Bratton, of York, was his associate, friend and adviser in all his measures opposed to the British forces. Both John McLure, of Chester, and Bratton and Winn concerted and con- ducted an attack in June, 1780, upon a large body of Loyalists at

t Parton's Life of Jackson, p. 70.
 * Howe's History of the Presbyterian Church, p. 537, note.