Stedman
himself made several campaigns, with long intervals of illness, before
he came any nearer to the enemy than to burn a deserted village or
destroy a rice-field. Sometimes they left the Charon and the Cerberus
moored by grape-vines to the pine-trees, and made expeditions into the
woods single file. Our ensign, true to himself, gives the minutest
schedule of the order of march, and the oddest little diagram of
manikins with cocked hats, and blacker manikins bearing burdens. First,
negroes with bill-hooks to clear the way; then the van-guard; then the
main body, interspersed with negroes bearing boxes of ball-cartridges;
then the rear-guard, with many more negroes, bearing camp-equipage,
provisions, and new rum, surnamed "kill-devil," and appropriately
followed by a sort of palanquin for the disabled. Thus arrayed, they
marched valorously forth into the woods, to some given point; then they
turned, marched back to the boats, then rowed back to camp, and
straightaway went into the hospital. Immediately upon this, the coast
being clear. Baron and his rebels marched out again and proceeded to
business.
In the course of years, these Maroons had acquired their own peculiar
tactics. They built stockaded fortresses on marshy islands, accessible
by fords which they alone could traverse.
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