



Produced by Annie R. McGuire








[Illustration: HARPER'S YOUNG PEOPLE]

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VOL. II.--NO. 86. PUBLISHED BY HARPER & BROTHERS, NEW YORK. PRICE FOUR
CENTS.

Tuesday, June 21, 1881. Copyright, 1881, by HARPER & BROTHERS. $1.50 per
Year, in Advance.

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[Illustration: THE ARREST OF EMILY GEIGER.]

THE FAIR MESSENGER.

BY BENSON J. LOSSING.


On a warm, hazy day in January, 1849, I was at Orangeburg, South
Carolina, eighty miles west of Charleston. My purpose was to visit the
battle-ground of Eutaw Springs, on the right bank of the Santee River,
forty miles distant. I hired a horse and gig for the journey. The steed
was fleet, and the road was level and smooth most of the way. It lay
through cultivated fields and dark pine forests, and across dry swamps
wherein the Spanish moss hung like trailing banners from the live-oak
and cypress trees.

At sunset I had travelled thirty miles. I lodged at the house of a
planter not far from Vance's Ferry, on the Santee, where I passed the
evening with an intelligent and venerable woman (Mrs. Buxton)
eighty-four years of age. She was a maiden of seventeen when the armies
of Greene and Rawdon made lively times in the region of the Upper
Santee, Catawba, Saluda, and Broad rivers. She knew Marion, and Sumter,
and Horry, and other less famous partisans, who were frequently at her
father's home, on the verge of a swamp not far from the High Hills of
Santee.

"We were Whigs," she said, "but the Tories were so thick and cruel
around us, when Rawdon was at Camden, that father had to pretend he was
a King's man to save his life and property. Oh, those were terrible
times, when one was not sure on going to bed that the house would not be
burned before morning."

"Did you witness any exciting scenes yourself?" I inquired.

"Yes, many. One in particular so stirred my young blood that I actually
resolved to put on brother Ben's clothes, take our old fowling-piece,
join the Swamp Fox, as the British called Marion, and fight for freedom
to call my soul my own."

"What was the event?" I asked.

"You have read, maybe," said Mrs. Buxton, "how Lord Rawdon, after
chasing General Greene far toward the Saluda, suddenly turned back,
abandoned Fort Ninety-Six, and retreated toward Charleston. Well, Greene
sent Harry Lee, with his light-horse, to get in front of Rawdon before
he should reach the ferry on the Congaree at Granby. He was anxious to
call Marion and Sumter to the same point to help Lee. Sumter was then
encamped a dozen miles south of our home."

The venerable woman's dark brown eyes sparkled with emotion as she
proceeded with the story. She said her cousin, on Greene's staff at the
time, told her that when the General called for a volunteer messenger to
carry a letter to Sumter, not one of the soldiers offered to undertake
the perilous task, for the way was swarming with Tories. Greene was
perplexed. Brave and pretty Emily Geiger, the young daughter of a German
planter in Fairfield District, had just arrived at head-quarters with
important information for the General. She rode a spirited horse with
the ease and grace of a dragoon. Emily saw the hesitation of the
soldiers, and Greene's anxiety. Earnestly but modestly she said to the
General, "May I carry the letter?"

Greene was astonished. He was unwilling to expose her to the dangers
which he knew awaited a messenger, for the Tories were vigilant.

"They won't hurt a young girl, I am sure; and I know the way," said
Emily.

Greene's want was great, and he accepted the proffer of important
service, but with many misgivings. Fearing Emily might lose the letter
on the way, he informed her of its contents, that she might deliver the
message orally. She mounted her fleet horse, and with the General's
blessing, and cheered by the admiring officers, she rode off on a brisk
gallop. She crossed the Wateree River at the Camden ferry, and pressed
on toward the High Hills of Santee.

Emily was riding at a rapid pace through an open, dry swamp, at noonday,
when one of three Tory scouts