Page:The Partisan (revised).djvu/111

 distances between the Wassamasah and Dorchester roads; then striking to the left, he passed over an untravelled surface of country, broken with frequent swamps, and crowded with luxuriant undergrowth. In a few hours, however, he had gone over the ground almost unseen, and certainly unobstructed. Davis was his guide in this quarter, and he could not have had a better. The discarded lover had given sufficient earnest of his truth and valour, in the courage and perfect coolness of his conduct in the preceding struggle; and he now led the party with all the caution of the veteran, and all the confidence of a thorough-bred soldier.

The road, like all in that country, was low and miry; and the path taken for greater security, being little travelled, was still more troubled with natural obstructions. They reached the desired point at length, which was the Goose Creek Bridge; then leaving it to the left, they once more departed from the beaten track, aud [sic] throwing themselves directly across the country, were, after a few hours, again upon the Dorchester road, and some two or three miles below the garrison. They covered themselves in the close forest by Archdale Hall, and Singleton then proceeded to inspect the road. To his great satisfaction, he saw that the wagons had not yet made their appearance, and must be still below them. Cheered with this conviction, he despatched scouts to bring him intelligence, and then proceeded to arrange an ambush for the entrapping of the looked-for detachment.

The road, at the spot chosen for this purpose, was narrow&mdash;but a single track, and that raised into a causeway from a ditch on either side, at that time filled with water, and presenting natural advantages for the forming of an ambush. The woods, growing close and thickly, formed a natural defile, of which Singleton, with the eye of experience, soon availed himself. He divided his little force into two equal bodies; and giving the command of one of them to Davis, placed him upon the right of the road in the route from Charleston, while he himself occupied the left. The former division lying in covert some fifty yards below, was ready, in the event of a struggle between the baggage guard and Singleton's troop&mdash;to which it was to be left&mdash;to secure the precious charge which the guard had undertaken to defend, and at the same time