Brig. Gen. Francis Marion (Continental army) "The Swamp Fox" )

Francis "The Swamp Fox" Marion was born in St. John's Parish, Berkeley County, South Carolina in 1732, and died on 27 Feb 1795 at his brother's plantation on Belle Island (Belle Island Plantation Cemetery], Saint Stephen Berkeley County, South Carolina.

He was a military officer who served in the American Revolutionary War. Acting with Continental Army and South Carolina militia commissions, he was a persistent adversary of the British in their occupation of South Carolina in 1780 and 1781, even after the Continental Army was driven out of the state in the Battle of Camden.

Due to his irregular methods of warfare, he is considered one of the fathers of modern guerrilla warfare, and is credited in the lineage of the United States Army Rangers.

Parents: Gabriel Marion and Esther Cordes.

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The Old Cheraw were honored Patriots and Raiders serving in the American Revolutionary War under General General Francis Marion “The Swamp Fox” as well as the war of 1812 - Source TexasCherokee.net

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https://www.scencyclopedia.org/sce/entries/marion-francis/

Soldier. Marion, of Huguenot descent, was born in St. John’s Berkeley Parish, the youngest of six children born to Gabriel Marion and Esther Cordes. A planter, Marion in 1773 built his home, Pond Bluff, about four miles south of Eutaw Springs, a site now beneath the waters of Lake Marion. He commenced his military career in the parish militia in 1756 and joined the campaigns against the Cherokees (1759–1761), rising to the rank of first lieutenant. Having served in local offices, he was elected in 1775 to the First Provincial Congress. Commissioned a captain in the state’s Second Regiment in June, he participated in the capture of Fort Johnson in September. As a major, Marion distinguished himself at the Battle of Sullivan’s Island (June 1776), after which he was commissioned a lieutenant colonel in the Continental army. Marion commanded the Second Regiment at the disastrous Franco-American attack on Savannah in autumn 1779. Away on sick leave due to an accident, he eluded capture when Charleston fell to the British in May 1780. Escaping to North Carolina, he and a small party linked up with Horatio Gates’s army preparing for an invasion of South Carolina. Detailed to destroy enemy communication lines, Marion was not present for Gates’s defeat at Camden in August.

With a militia commission as brigadier general, Marion organized a partisan force in the Pee Dee region. Between August and December 1780, in an otherwise dismal period for America, Marion gained national recognition for his actions at Great Savannah (August 20), Blue Savannah (September 4), Black Mingo (September 29), Tearcoat Swamp (October 26), Georgetown (November 15), and Halfway Swamp (December 12–13). While some counts place the number of “Marion’s Men” at more than two thousand, his band generally consisted of considerably fewer than that and included Continentals. Marion’s nickname, the “Swamp Fox,” reportedly came from the infamous British officer Banastre Tarleton, who, unable to snare Marion, called him a “damned old fox” and swore that “the devil himself could not catch him.” Marion’s small-scale hit-and-run tactics disrupted supply lines, intercepted communications, and hampered the enemy considerably. In December 1780 he established a camp on Snow’s Island between the Pee Dee and Lynches Rivers and Clark’s Creek. Conditions improved by the spring of 1781, when Marion became a vital part of General Nathanael Greene’s combined operations in South Carolina. In 1781 Marion’s troops participated in the battles at Fort Watson (April 23), Fort Motte (May 12), Quinby Bridge (July 17), Parker’s Ferry (August 13), and Eutaw Springs (September 8). His numerous command problems included Greene’s distrust of the militia, his need for Marion’s essential horses, an ongoing conflict over rank and command with General Thomas Sumter, and a feud between his subordinates Peter Horry and Hezekiah Maham. This latter feud came to a head while Marion was serving as a senator in the General Assembly at Jacksonborough and resulted in a defeat at the hands of the British at Wambaw Bridge in February 1782. Returning to command, Marion’s brigade saw its last engagement at Wadboo Creek in the summer of 1782. Throughout the war, which in South Carolina was a brutally vicious civil conflict, Marion was said to be “humain and Mercifull” but was also known as a severe disciplinarian. Although small in stature, with knees and ankles “badly formed,” Marion inspired great loyalty in his ill-clothed, ill-fed, and ill-equipped band.

After the war a penniless Marion, whose plantation had been ruined, was awarded a gold medal, a full Continental colonelcy, and command of Fort Johnson in Charleston harbor. He served in the S.C. Senate in 1783–1786, 1791, and 1792–1794 and was elected to the 1790 state constitutional convention. He continued as a brigadier general in the militia until his retirement in 1794. His finances improved when he married his cousin Mary Esther Videau on April 20, 1786. The union produced no children, but in less than a decade Marion’s fortune grew dramatically. Near the end of his life he owned upward of eighteen hundred acres and seventy-three slaves. He died at Pond Bluff on February 27, 1795, and was buried in the family plot at Belle Isle in St. Stephen’s Parish. His tomb escaped flooding by the Santee-Cooper project and serves today as a humble monument to the Swamp Fox. His comrade Peter Horry attempted to write a history of Marion’s brigade, but it was hopelessly mangled by Mason Locke “Parson” Weems, the first of many to take enormous liberties with Marion’s legend.

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Gravestone

Francis Marion is buried at Belle Isle Plantation Cemetery, Berkeley County, South Carolina.

The bronze plaque on his grave stone reads:

Sacred to the Memory of GENL. FRANCIS MARION Who departed his life, on the 26th of February, 1795, IN THE SIXTY-THIRD YEAR OF HIS AGE. Deeply regretted by all his fellow citizens, HISTORY will record his worth, and rising generations embalm his memory, as one of the most distinguished PATRIOTS AND HEROES OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION which elevated his native Country TO HONOR AND INDEPENDENCE, AND Secured to her the blessings of LIBERTY AND PEACE. This tribute of veneration and gratitude is erected in commemoration of the noble and disinterested virtues of the CITIZEN; and the gallant exploits of the SOLDIER; Who lived without fear, and died without reproach.

Links

• Francis Marion
• A Sketch of the Life of Brig. Gen. Francis Marion, by William Dobein James
• Francis "The Swamp Fox" Marion
• For more information on "The Swamp Fox" read Swamp Fox - The life and campaigns of GENERAL FRANCIS MARION by Robert D. Bass, © 1959, published by Sandlapper Publishing Co., Inc., Orangeburg, South Carolina.

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Francis Marion (c. 1732 – February 26, 1795) was a military officer who served in the American Revolutionary War. Acting with Continental Army and South Carolina militia commissions, he was a persistent adversary of the British in their occupation of South Carolina in 1780 and 1781, even after the Continental Army was driven out of the state in the Battle of Camden.

Due to his irregular methods of warfare, he is considered one of the fathers of modern guerrilla warfare, and is credited in the lineage of the United States Army Rangers.

Contents

• 1 Family and early life
• 2 French and Indian War
• 3 Service during the Revolution
• 4 Legends and modern opinions about Marion
• 5 Landmarks

         o 5.1 Gravestone

• 6 See also
• 7 Notes
• 8 References
• 9 External links

Family and early life

His grandparents were Benjamin and Judith Baluet Marion of French Huguenot origin,[2] and Anthony and Esther Baluet Cordes. His parents Gabriel and Esther had six children: Esther, Isaac, Gabriel, Benjamin, Job and Francis.

The family settled at Winyah, near Georgetown, South Carolina.[citation needed] Probably in 1732, Francis Marion was born on their plantation in Berkeley County, South Carolina.[1] When he was aged five or six, his family moved to a plantation in St. George, a parish on Winyah Bay.[citation needed] Apparently, they wanted to be near the English school in Georgetown. In 1759 he moved to Pond Bluff plantation near Eutaw Springs, in St. John's Parish, Berkeley County, South Carolina.[citation needed]

When Francis was 15 he signed on as the sixth crewman of a schooner heading for the West Indies. As they were returning, a whale rammed the schooner and caused a plank to come loose.[citation needed] The captain and crew escaped in a boat, but the schooner sank so quickly that they were unable to take any food or water. After six days under the tropical sun, two crewmen died of thirst and exposure. The following day the surviving crew reached shore.

French and Indian War

[link to] Further information: Great Britain in the Seven Years War

Marion began his military career shortly before his 25th birthday. On January 1, 1757, Francis and his brother Job were recruited by Captain John Postell to serve in the French and Indian War and to drive the Cherokee Indians away from the border. In 1761 Marion served as a lieutenant under Captain William Moultrie in a campaign against the Cherokee.

Service during the Revolution

In 1775 he was a member of the South Carolina Provincial Congress. On June 21, 1775, Marion 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 was not captured when Charleston fell on May 12, 1780, because he had broken an ankle in an accident and had left the city to recuperate.

After the loss in Charleston, the defeats of General Isaac Huger at Moncks Corner and Lieutenant Colonel Abraham Buford at the Waxhaw massacre (near the North Carolina border, in what is now Lancaster County), Marion organized a small unit, which at first consisted of between 20 and 70 men and was the only force then opposing the British Army in the state. At this point, Marion was still nearly crippled from the slowly-healing ankle.

Marion joined Major 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. Gates asked him to undertake scouting missions and to impede the expected flight of the British after the battle. Marion thus missed the battle, but was able to intercept and recapture 150 Maryland prisoners, plus about 20 of their British guards, who had been en route from the battle to Charleston. The freed prisoners, thinking the war was already lost, refused to join Marion and deserted.

Marion showed himself to be a singularly able leader of irregular militiamen. Unlike the Continental troops, Marion's Men, as they were known, served without pay, supplied their own horses, arms and often their food.[citation needed]

Marion rarely committed his men to frontal warfare, but repeatedly surprised larger bodies of Loyalists or British regulars with quick surprise attacks and equally quick withdrawal 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 Mingo Creek.

The British especially hated Marion and made repeated efforts to neutralize his force, but Marion's intelligence gathering was excellent and that of the British was poor, due to the overwhelming Patriot loyalty of the populace in the Williamsburg area.

Colonel Banastre Tarleton was sent to capture or kill Marion in November 1780; he despaired of finding the "old swamp fox", who eluded him by travelling along swamp paths. It was Tarlton who gave Marion his "Nom de Guerre."[citation needed]
General Marion Inviting a British Officer to Share His Meal by John Blake White; his slave Oscar Marion kneels at the left of the group.

Once Marion had shown his ability at guerrilla warfare, making himself a serious nuisance to the British, Gov. John Rutledge (in exile in North Carolina) commissioned him a brigadier general of state troops.

When Major General Nathanael Greene took command in the South, Marion and Lieutenant Colonel Henry Lee were ordered in January 1781 to attack Georgetown but were unsuccessful. In April they took Fort Watson and in May they captured Fort Motte, and succeeded in breaking communications between the British posts in the Carolinas. On August 31 Marion rescued a small American force trapped by 500 British soldiers, under the leadership of Major C. Fraser. For this action he received the thanks of the Continental Congress. Marion commanded the right wing under General Greene at the Battle of Eutaw Springs.

In 1782 during his absence as state senator at Jacksonborough, his brigade grew disheartened and there was reportedly a conspiracy to turn him over to the British. But in June of that year, he put down a Loyalist uprising on the banks of the Pee Dee River. In August he left his brigade and returned to his plantation.

After the war, Marion married his cousin, Mary Esther Videau.[3] His nephew Theodore had hinted to his uncle that it was time to get married. His relatives and friends informed him that Mary always listened with glowing cheeks and sparkling eyes when anyone began reciting the exploits of the Swamp Fox. Marion was in love earlier with Mary Esther Simons but she refused his proposal and married Jack Holmes.[4][verification needed]

Marion served several terms in the South Carolina State Senate. In 1784, in recognition of his services, he was made commander of Fort Johnson, South Carolina, practically a courtesy title with a salary of $500 per annum. He was originally supposed to receive 500 English pounds a year, but economy-frightened politicians reduced his payment to 500 Continental dollars.[citation needed] He died on his estate in 1795, at the age of 63.

Legends and modern opinions about Marion

The public memory of Francis Marion has been shaped in large part by the first biography about him, "The Life of General Francis Marion"[5] written by M. L. Weems (also known as Parson Weems, 1756–1825) based on the memoirs of South Carolina officer Peter Horry.[1] The New York Times has described Weems as one of the "early hagiographers" of American literature "who elevated the Swamp Fox, Francis Marion, into the American pantheon".[6] Weems is known for having invented the apocryphal "cherry tree" anecdote about George Washington and "Marion's life received similar embellishment", as Amy Crawford wrote in Smithsonian Magazine in 2007.[1]

Francis Marion was one of the influences for the main character in the 2000 movie The Patriot, which according to Crawford "exaggerated the Swamp Fox legend for a whole new generation".[1] The contrast between film's depiction of Martin "as a family man and hero who single-handedly defeats countless hostile Brits" and the real-life Marion was one of the "egregious oversights" that TIME magazine cited when listing "The Patriot" as number one of its "Top 10 historically misleading films" in 2011.[7] In the film, the fictional character Benjamin Martin (Mel Gibson) describes violence he committed in the French and Indian War.

Around the time of The Patriot's release, comments in the British press challenged the American notion of Francis Marion as a hero. In the Evening Standard, British author Neil Norman called Francis Marion,

a thoroughly unpleasant dude who was, basically, a terrorist.[8]

British historian Christopher Hibbert described Marion as

   ... very active in the persecution of the Cherokee Indians and not at all the sort of chap who should be celebrated as a hero. The truth is that people like Marion committed atrocities as bad, if not worse, than those perpetrated by the British. [9]

Hibbert also stated that Francis Marion had

a reputation as a racist who hunted Indians for sport and regularly raped his female slaves.[10]

In a commentary published in the National Review, conservative talk radio host Michael Graham rejected criticisms like Hibbert's as an attempt to rewrite history:

Was Francis Marion a slave owner? Was he a determined and dangerous warrior? Did he commit acts in an 18th-century war that we would consider atrocious in the current world of peace and political correctness? As another great American film hero might say: "You damn right."
That's what made him a hero, 200 years ago and today.[10]

Michael Graham also refers to what he describes as "the unchallenged work of South Carolina's premier historian Dr. Walter Edgar, who pointed out in his 1998 'South Carolina: A History' that Marion's partisans were "a ragged band of both black and white volunteers."

British historian Hugh Bicheno has compared Gen. Marion with British officers Tarleton and Maj. James Wemyss; referring to the British officers as well as Marion said: “...they all tortured prisoners, hanged fence-sitters, abused parole and flags of truce, and shot their own men when they failed to live up to the harsh standards they set.” [11]

According to Crawford, the biographies by historians William Gilmore Simms (“The Life of Francis Marion”) and Hugh Rankin can be regarded as accurate.[1] The introduction to the 2007 edition of Simms' book (originally published in 1844) was written by Sean Busick, a professor of American history at Athens State University in Alabama, who says that based on the facts, "Marion deserves to be remembered as one of the heroes of the War for Independence." [1]

“Francis Marion was a man of his times: he owned slaves, and he fought in a brutal campaign against the Cherokee Indians...Marion's experience in the French and Indian War prepared him for more admirable service." [1]

In the 1835 novel Horse-Shoe Robinson by John Pendleton Kennedy, a historical romance set against the background of the Southern campaigns in the American revolution, Marion appears and interacts with the fictional characters. In the book he is depicted as decisive, enterprising and valiant.

Landmarks

Main article: List of places named for Francis Marion

The Francis Marion National Forest near Charleston, South Carolina, is named after Marion, as is the historic Francis Marion Hotel in downtown Charleston. Numerous other locations across the country are named after Marion. The city of Marion, Iowa, is named after Francis, where an annual Swamp Fox Festival and parade are held each summer. Marion County, South Carolina and its county seat, the City of Marion, are named for Marion. The city features a statue of General Marion in the town square, and has a museum which includes many artifacts related to Francis Marion; the Marion High School mascot is the Swamp Fox. Francis Marion University is located nearby in Florence County, South Carolina.

In Washington, D.C., Marion Park is one the four "major" or large parks in the Capitol Hill Parks constellation. The park is bounded by 4th & 6th Streets and at the intersection of E Street and South Carolina Avenue in southeast Washington, D.C.[12]

The municipalities of Marion in Indiana, North Carolina, Massachusetts, Virginia, Illinois, Alabama and Pennsylvania are named for Francis Marion. Marion County, Indiana (of which the city of Indianapolis is a part), is named for the general, as are Marion Counties in Alabama, Arkansas, Kentucky, Mississippi, Ohio, West Virginia, Florida, Iowa, Illinois, and Tennessee. The junior military college Marion Military Institute in Marion, Alabama has an organization called Swamp Fox which is attributed to Francis Marion. Marion County, Oregon, is named for Francis Marion and the marionberry is named after the county. The South Carolina Air National Guard, located about 12 miles east of Columbia in Eastover, South Carolina, boasts the title "Home of the Swamp Fox" and has an image of the face of a fox painted on the body of their F-16 Fighter Jets.

In 1850, the painter William Tylee Ranny (1813–1857) produced Marion Crossing the Pee Dee, based on events following the battle of Camden in the American Revolution. The picture, displayed at the Amon Carter Museum, depicts Marion standing and talking with a subordinate on the back row of a small boat, Marion being second from the left.[13]

In 2006 the United States House of Representatives approved a monument to Francis Marion, to be built in Washington, D.C. sometime in 2007–08. The bill died in the Senate and was reintroduced in January 2007. The Brigadier General Francis Marion Memorial Act of 2007 passed the House of Representatives in March 2007, and the Senate in April 2008. The bill was packaged into the omnibus Consolidated Natural Resources Act of 2008, which passed both houses and was enacted in May 2008.

Gravestone

Francis Marion is buried at Belle Isle Plantation Cemetery, Berkeley County, South Carolina.

The bronze plaque on his grave stone reads:[14]
Sacred to the Memory

of GEN. FRANCIS MARION Who departed his life, on the 26th of February, 1795, IN THE SIXTY-THIRD YEAR OF HIS AGE Deeply regretted by all his fellow citizens HISTORY will record his worth, and rising generations embalm his memory, as one of the most distinguished PATRIOTS AND HEROES OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION which elevated his native Country TO HONOR AND INDEPENDENCE, AND Secured to her the blessings of LIBERTY AND PEACE This tribute of veneration and gratitude is erected in commemoration of the noble and disinterested virtues of the CITIZEN; and the gallant exploits of the SOLDIER; Who lived without fear, and died without reproach

See also

   * List of places named for Francis Marion

   * Early history of Williamsburg, South Carolina

   * Oscar Marion, slave of Francis Marion and Revolutionary War soldier

   * The Swamp Fox (TV series), a 1950s television series produced by Walt Disney and starring Leslie Nielsen, this TV series inspired the 1960 Parker Brothers board game by the same name.

   * The Patriot, whose lead character was partly based on Marion

Notes

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h The Swamp Fox, By Amy Crawford, Smithsonian Magazine, Smithsonian.com, July 01, 2007, http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history-archaeology/fox.html

  2. ^ Xavier Eyma, Les Trente-Quatre Étoiles de l'Union Américaine, Bruxelles, Leipzig [etc.] A. Lacroix, Verboeckhoven et cie. 1862, p. 44.

  3. ^ "Banner Description". Berkeley County Government. Archived from the original on October 7, 2006. http://web.archive.org/web/20061007204247/http://www.co.berkeley.sc.... Retrieved 2006-10-23. 

  4. ^ The Simons folder at the SC Historical Society, Letters of James SIMONS, probably a letter from Harrier Hyrne Simons to Mary Simons (Mrs. Horatio Allen)

  5. ^ M. L. Weems: The Life of General Francis Marion Online text at Project Gutenberg

  6. ^ Delbanco, Andrew (July 4, 1999). "Bookend; Life, Literature and the Pursuit of Happiness". The New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/1999/07/04/books/bookend-life-literature-and.... 

  7. ^ Kayla Webley: Top 10 Historically Misleading Films, 1. The Patriot, 2000 TIME.com, January 26, 2011

  8. ^ Neil Norman: Mel's vendetta against England. Evening Standard online, June 20, 2000

  9. ^ Mel Gibson's latest hero: a rapist who hunted Indians for fun The Guardian; United Kingdom June 15, 2000

 10. ^ a b Guest Comment

 11. ^ Rebels and Redcoats, Hugh Bicheno, Harper Collins, 2004, London p. 189.

 12. ^ National Park Service - Marion Park: http://www.nps.gov/cahi/historyculture/cahi_marion.htm

 13. ^ Exhibit at the Amon Carter Museum in Fort Worth, Texas

 14. ^ [1]

References

   *  Chisholm, Hugh, ed (1911). "Marion, Francis". Encyclopædia Britannica (Eleventh ed.). Cambridge University Press. 

   * Bass, Robert D. Swamp Fox. 1959.

   * Boddie, William Willis. History of Williamsburg. Columbia, SC: State Co., 1923.

   * Boddie, William Willis. Marion's Men: A List of Twenty-Five Hundred. Charleston, SC: Heisser Print Co., 1938.

   * Boddie, William Willis. Traditions of the Swamp Fox: William W. Boddie's Francis Marion. Spartanburg, SC: Reprint Co. 2000.

   * Busick, Sean R. A Sober Desire for History: William Gilmore Simms as Historian. 2005. ISBN 1-57003-565-2.

   * Simms, W.G. The Life of Francis Marion. New York, 1833.

   * Myers, Jonathan. Swamp Fox: Birth of a Legend. Ambition Studios, 2004.

External links

   * The Swamp Fox, Smithsonian.com

   * The Online Books Page: Texts about Francis Marion

   * Burial place of Francis Marion at Find A Grave

Source: Downloaded May 2011 from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_Marion

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