On one occasion, Horry had three men wounded near Georgetown.

A surgeon of the Tories was then a prisoner in his ranks, yet he positively refused to dress the wounds, and suffered a fine youth named Kolb, to bleed to death before his eyes, from a slight injury upon the wrist .-- "Will you deliver me the sword or not, Major------ ?" was the answer which Marion made to this suggestion.
"I will not!" was the reply of the offender.

"At these words," says Horry in the MS.

before us, "I could forbear no longer, and said with great warmth, 'By G--d, sir, did I command this brigade, as you do, I would hang them both up in half an hour!' Marion sternly replied,--'This is none of your business, sir: they are both before me!--Sergeant of the guard, bring me a file of men with loaded arms and fixed bayonets!'-- 'I was silent!' adds Horry: 'all our field officers in camp were present, and when the second refusal of the sword was given, they all put their hands to their swords in readiness to draw.

My own sword was already drawn!'" In the regular service, and with officers accustomed to, and bred up in, the severe and stern sense of authority which is usually thought necessary to a proper discipline, the refractory offender would most probably have been hewn down in the moment of his disobedience.