Page:The Partisan (revised).djvu/27

 Thus much is necessary, in a general point of view, to the better comprehension of the narrative which follows. The reader will duly note the situation of the colony of South Carolina; and when we add, that the existing condition of things throughout the Union was only not so bad, and the promise of future fortune but little more favourable, all has been said necessary to his proper comprehension of the discouraging circumstances under which the partisan warfare of the South began. With this reference, we shall be better able to appreciate that deliberate valour, that unyielding patriotism, which, in a few spirits, defying danger and above the sense of privation, could keep alive the sacred fires of liberty in the thick swamps and dense and gloomy forests of Carolina—asking nothing, yielding nothing, and only leaving the field the better to re-enter it for the combat. Let us now proceed to the commencement of our proper narrative.