The conference was long and animated.

At the end of it, an order was given to direct the march back to Lynch's Creek (the route to North Carolina), and no sooner was it given than a bitter groan might have been heard along the whole line.
A bitter cup had now been mingled for the people of Williamsburg and Pedee, and they were doomed to drain it to the dregs, but in the end it proved a salutary medicine." The evil here deplored was the temporary abandonment, for the first time, of this particular section of country.

Hitherto, the enemy had never appeared in their neighborhood with such a force as enabled them to overrun it without fear of opposition.

Now, they were destined to suffer from those tender mercies of British and Tories, which had written their chronicles in blood and flame, wherever their footsteps had gone before.

Bitter, indeed, was the medicine, to whom its taste was new.