Francis Marion
Francis Marion (circa 1732 - February 26 or February 27, 1795) was a lieutenant colonel in the Continental Army and later Brigadier General in the South Carolina Militia during the American Revolutionary War. He became known as the "Swamp Fox" for his ability to use decoy and ambush tactics to disrupt enemy communications, capture supplies, and free prisoners.
Marion's family was of Huguenot ancestry. They settled at Winyah, near Georgetown, South Carolina where Marion was born. He spoke fluently in French as well as English. In 1759 he moved to Pond Bluff plantation near Eutaw Springs, in St. John's Parish, Berkeley County, South Carolina. In 1761 he served as a lieutenant under William Moultrie in a campaign against the Cherokees.
Marion is considered one of the fathers of modern guerilla warfare, and is credited in the lineage of the United States Army Rangers.
Service during the Revolution
In 1775 he was a member of the South Carolina Provincial Congress; and on June 21 was commissioned captain in the 2nd South Carolina Regiment under William Moultrie, with whom he served in June 1776 in the defense of Fort Sullivan and Fort Moultrie), in Charleston harbor.
In September 1776 the Continental Congress commissioned Marion as a lieutenant-colonel. In the autumn of 1779 he took part in the siege of Savannah, and early in 1780, under Gen. Benjamin Lincoln, was engaged in drilling militia.
Marion escaped capture at the fall of Charleston on May 12, 1780, because he had broken an ankle in an accident, and had removed from the city to recuperate.
After the capture of Charleston, and the defeats of Gen. Isaac Huger Moncks Corner and Lt. Col. Abraham Buford at the Waxhaw massacre (near the North Carolina line, in what is now Lancaster County), Marion organized a small troop, which at first consisted of between 20 and 70 men—the only force then opposing the British in the state. At this point he was still nearly crippled from the slowly healing broken ankle.
He joined General Horatio Gates just before the Battle of Camden but Gates had no confidence in him and sent him (mostly to get rid of him) to take command of the Williamsburg Militia in the Pee Dee area and asked him to undertake scouting missions, and to impede the expected flight of the British after their battle. Marion thus missed the Battle of Camden, but was able to intercept and recapture 150 Maryland prisoners, and about a score of their British guard who had been enroute from the battle to Charleston. The freed northern prisoners, thinking the war to be hopeless, refused to join or aid him and they deserted.
However, with his militia troops for almost all the remainder of the war, he showed himself a singularly able leader of irregulars. Unlike the Continental troops, Marion's Men, as the militia was called, served without pay or promise of pay, supplied their own horses, arms, and often even food. All of Marion's supplies that were not obtained locally were captured from the British or from Tory forces.
He rarely committed to frontal warfare, but repeatedly surprised larger bodies of Loyalists or British regulars with quick surprise attacks and equally quick removal from the field. After the surrender of Charleston, the British garrisoned South Carolina with help from local Tories, except for Williamsburg (the present Pee Dee), which they were never able to hold. The British made one attempt to garrison Williamsburg at Willtown, but were driven out by Marion at the Battle of Mingo Cree.
The British especially hated Marion and made repeated efforts to neutralize his force, but Marion's intelligence was excellent and the British intelligence poor, due to the loyalty of the populace of the Williamsburg area.
Col. Banastre Tarleton, sent out to capture him, despaired of finding the "old swamp fox," who eluded him by following swamp paths. Tarletont and Marion were sharply contrasted in the popular mind, with Tarleton hated because he had burned and destroyed homes and supplies, whereas Marion's Men, when they requisitioned supplies (or destroyed them to keep them out of British hands) gave receipts for them. After the war many of these receipts were redeemed by the new state government.
After Marion showed his ability at guerrilla warfare, making himself a serious problem for the British, Governor John Rutledge (in exile in North Carolina) made him a brigadier-general of state troops.
When Gen. Nathanael Greene took command in the south, Marion and Lieutenant Colonel Henry Lee were ordered in January 1781 to attack Georgetown, but they were unsuccessful. In April, however, they took Fort Watson and in May Fort Motte, and they succeeded in breaking communications between the British posts in the Carolinas. On August 31 Marion rescued a small American force hemmed in by Major C. Fraser with 500 British; and for this he received the thanks of Congress. He commanded the right wing under General Greene at Eutaw Springs.
In 1782, during his absence as State Senator at Jacksonborough, his brigade deteriorated, and there was a conspiracy to turn him over to the British. In June of the same year he put down a Loyalist uprising on the banks of the Pee Dee River; and in August he left his brigade and returned to his plantation.
He served several terms in the South Carolina State Senate, and in 1784, in recognition of his services, was made commander of Fort Johnson, practically a courtesy title with a salary of $500 per annum. He died on his estate in 1795.
Popular culture
The Hollywood movie The Patriot (2000) is based loosely on his biography. The protagonist "Col. Benjamin Martin," played by Mel Gibson, was an amalgam of Gen. Marion, Gen. Andrew Pickens, Col. Thomas Sumter and Col. Daniel Morgan of Virginia.
A television version of Marion's exploits, a 1950s Walt Disney series called The Swamp Fox, was a less-successful follow up to Disney's Davy Crockett series. As with Crockett, it featured the lead actor (Leslie Nielsen) singing the show's theme song.
See also
- List of places named for Francis Marion
- Francis Marion University, a public institution of higher education in South Carolina, was named after the Swamp Fox.
- Early history of Williamsburg, South Carolina
External links
- The Online Books Page: Texts about Francis Marion
- Francis Marion National Forest
- Francis Marion University
- Mel Gibson's latest hero: a rapist who hunted Indians for fun The Guardian, June 15, 2000
- A comment defending Marion at The National Review
References
- This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.
{{cite encyclopedia}}: Missing or empty|title=(help) - Simms, W.G., The Life of Francis Marion, New York, 1833.
- Busick, Sean R. A Sober Desire for History: William Gilmore Simms as Historian., 2005. ISBN 1570035652.
- Boddie, William Willis, History of Williamsburg, Columbia, 1923 xxxxx
