Untitled - the Digital Library of Georgia

GEORGIA AND GEORGIANS 293
the country on horseback and on foot, committing all sorts of outrages, robbing the
people, burning houses, throwing old men into prison, insulting women, hanging
every patriot soldier they could lay hands upon, sometimes even murdering children,
and showing no mercy to any one who favored the American cause. In,; no other
state were the Tories so wicked and cruel as in Georgia. They were even worse
than the savage Indians, whom they employed to help them.
The worst of these Georgia Tories was a man by the name of Thomas Brown.
He had always been a Tory; and in the early days of the Revolution, he had made
himself so obnoxious to the patriotic people of Augusta, where he lived, that one
day a crowd of men dragged him. out of his office, and, stripping him to the waist,
poured over his naked body a pot of soft tar, and then over the tar emptied a pillow
case full of feathers, which stuck to the tar arid made poor Brown look like a "big,
ugly, frizzled chicken. Thus tarred and feathered, they seated him in an open wagon
drawn by three mules, and hauled him about the streets of Augusta, while a great
crowd followed with hoots and jeers. After parading him for an hour or two they
turned him loose with the warning that if he did not leave town within twenty-four
hours they would kill him. For quite a while Brown kept his negro servant busy
washing the tar and feathers from his body; then he put on his clothes, and, raising
his right hand toward heaven, he took a solemn oath that he would be avenged for
this great shame and outrage. He left; but many months afterwards he came back,
and how well he kept his oath is a story written in blood!
It was when Georgia fell into the hands of the British tha.t Brown came back,
and soon he became the chief leader of the Tories in the state. He was a well
educated, intelligent man, and possessed military skill, so that he was made a colonel
in the English army, and was placed in command of Augusta, his old home. The
force under him was composed of about half and half of Tories and Indians. His
opportunity had now come. All of the Patriots of fighting age had left Augusta and
were in the American army. Brown confiscated their property, threw their old gray-
haired fathers and grandfathers into prison, expelled their helpless wives and children
from home, and drove them 200 miles away into North Carolina. The sufferings
along the journey were awful. Some of them died from exposure and exhaustion,
and many were made invalids for life by the hardships endured on the dreadful
march.
In September, 1780, Gen. Elijah Clarke, with a small army of patriots, undertook
to recapture Augusta. He succeeded in driving Brown's army out of the city, and
they took refuge in a large building just outside of the town known as the White
House. Brown had the doors and windows barricaded and bored holes in the walls,
through which his marksmen, with long-range rifles, held the Americans at bay.
The building was completely surrounded by the patriots, but General Clarke had
no cannon with, which he could batter down the house, so he had to depend upon
starving out the Tories. For four days and nights he held them besieged, till
provisions were nearly exhausted, and every drop of water was gone. In one of the
large upper rooms of the house lay forty poor, wounded Tories, with no medicines
and no bandages or salves for their wounds and not a drop of water to appease
their feverish thirst. Even in the American camp their shrieks of agony and their
wild cries for "water! water! " could be plainly heard. Brown himself was severely
wounded, shot through both thighs, and was suffering dreadfully; but he never gave •
up. He had himself carried round from room to room in an arm-chair to direct
and encourage his men, who were nearly crazed with exhaustion. General Clarke
sent a flag of truce to the unsubdued officer and begged him in the name of humanity
to surrender, but he positively refused. He was as brave and heroic as he was bad
and cruel.
At last, on the morning of the fifth, day, the relief for which Brown had been
looking came. Colonel Cruger, with a large detachment of British regulars, sud
denly appeared on the other side of the river, in response to a secret message which
Brown had sent to him, on the day he left Augusta. General Clarke, knowing that
he could not contend against this large force, withdrew his army and quickly re
treated. He left behind him thirty wounded Americans who were unable to march,
supposing, of course, that they would be treated as prisoners of war. He knew not
then the cruel heart of Thomas Brown, though he afterwards learned to know it
well.