Daniel McGirth was a notorious Tory of Georgia. Born in South Carolina, he was an ignorant, uneducated man, but a good woodsman and as active and lithe as a panther. He was a fine horseman and a splendid shot.

   He was among the first to take up arms in the American cause, joining a little band of Georgia Patriots that so bravely resisted the invasion of the British from Florida.

   He brought with him from South Carolina a thoroughbred horse of which he was very proud - an iron gray mare with a snow white blaze in her forehead. He called her Gray Goose.

   A captain in the American army took a great fancy to the animal and tried to buy her from McGirth, offering him a large price. But McGirth refused to part with her.

   This angered the captain who, out of spite, mistreated McGirth in petty ways. McGirth was so irritated that one day he insulted the officer and raised his arm to strike him, but some one intervened and stopped the blow.

   To strike a superior officer is a grave crime in the army, so McGirth was tried by court martial and sentenced to receive ten lashes with a cowhide on his bare back three days in succession. The first whipping was administered and he was put in the guard house to await his second humiliation.

   About twilight, through his prison bars he spied Gray Goose, hitched to a tree not far away. He gave a low peculiar whistle and Gray Goose, recognizing the signal, raised her beautiful head and uttered an affectionate whinny in response. This was more than he could stand.

   With a broken trowel he found in his cell, and with his bare hands, he tore the masonry from around the prison bars, pulled one out and squeezed through the narrow crack. As he sprang on Gray Goose, the guards called to him to halt, but he only shook his fist at them, yelled a dreadful curse, and dashed away in the darkness, heedless of the musket balls that whistled about his head.

   His whole nature seemed perverted by the bad treatment which he had received. He deserted to the enemy and to the end of the war fought ferociously against the Americans.

   He was made a colonel in the British army and was put at the head of a powerful Tory band which for months was the scourge of the state. From the Florida line to Elbert County and over into South Carolina his name was a terror to the people. He was twice wounded but was never taken prisoner.

   After the war he went to Florida, now owned by the Spaniards. For some offense or crime there he was arrested and thrown into prison in the old fort of St Augustine.

   After five years imprisonment he was released so weak and broken in health that he could barely drag himself back to his wife in their rude country home in Sumter District, South Carolina There he soon died in peace and now lies buried.