But Sir Henry does not seem to have been impatient for his laurels.

He was willing that they should mature gradually, and he sat down to a regular and formal investment.
It was an error of the Carolinians, under such circumstances, to risk the fortunes of the State, and the greater part of its regular military strength, in a besieged town; a still greater to do so in defiance of such difficulties as attended the defence.

The policy which determined the resolution was a concession to the citizens, in spite of all military opinion.

The city might have been yielded to the enemy, and the State preserved, or, which was the same thing, the troops.

The loss of four thousand men from the ranks of active warfare, was the great and substantial loss, the true source, in fact, of most of the miseries and crimes by which the very bowels of the country were subsequently torn and distracted.
It was the great good fortune of the State that Francis Marion was not among those who fell into captivity in the fall of Charleston.