Chap. XXVIII.} 1782. July 11. |
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that it was sound policy to forget and forgive, laws
were passed banishing the active friends of the British government, and confiscating their estates.
The Americans could not recover the city of Charleston by arms.
The British, under the command of the just and humane General Leslie, gave up every hope of subjugating the state; and Wayne, who was ‘satiate of this horrid trade of blood,’ and would rather spare one poor savage than destroy twenty, and Greene, who longed for the repose of domestic life, strove to reconcile the Carolina patriots to the loyalists.
The complaints of Greene respecting the wants of his army were incessant and just.
In January, he wrote: ‘Our men are almost naked for want of overalls and shirts, and the greater part of the army barefoot.’
In March, he repeated the same tale: ‘We have three hundred men without arms; twice that number so naked as to be unfit for any duty but in cases of desperation.
Not a rag of clothing has arrived to us this winter.
In this situation men and officers without pay cannot be kept in temper long.’
Moreover the legislature of South Carolina prohibited the impressing of provisions from the people, and yet neglected to furnish the troops with necessary food.
The summer passed with no military events beyond skirmishes.
In repelling with an inferior force a party of the British sent to Combahee Ferry to collect provisions, Laurens, then but twenty-seven years old, received a mortal wound.
‘He had not a fault that I could discover,’ said Washington, ‘unless ’
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