But if his commanders tended to ignore Marion, the British did not—particularly after he led one of the first of his trademark hit-and-run raids on 25 August , to rescue Continentals from being marched to British prison ships.
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This raid elevated the previously unknown Marion to the official status of a thorn-in-the-side of the British, most notably that of Lord Cornwallis. Marion, who always prided himself on his savvy with people, befriended the local Whig population on the island, already pre-disposed to oppose the Tory threat.
Through and into August , Marion and his troops continued engagements with the British and at times with marauding loyalists from North Carolina. At that point he served at the pleasure of South Carolina Governor John Rutledge, to whom the militia answered at this stage of the Revolution. When the Continental Army entered Charleston as conquerors on 14 December , both Greene and the governor decided the militia would not be allowed into the city due to the threat of loyalist-militia fights. Shortly thereafter, Marion dismissed his troops, mounted his horse, and rode off to Pond Bluff Plantation, where he spent the rest of his days.
In , the South Carolina Senate did award Marion a gold medal and commendation and, two years later, a acre land grant. The following year, the lifelong bachelor married his first cousin, Mary Esther Videau, who outlived him by 20 years. He resigned from the militia in and died the following year at Pond Bluff at age In an interesting sidenote, Oller mentions that for a man so concerned about the well-being of those he led, he never freed any of his slaves, including the half-dozen or so who had faithfully served him throughout his life.
The Swamp Fox makes for an engaging read, with satisfyingly-rich footnotes and three useful maps, although a volume replete with innumerable small-unit military actions would greatly benefit from additional graphics. The fact that Oller includes 80 pages of footnotes to complement pages of text reflects his research skills and adds to the academic credibility of the work.
Aiken, author of The Swamp Fox: Similarly, it is hard to believe that had Marion never been born, the British would have won. Nevertheless, a new biography of Marion is welcome, especially one that in general goes to great lengths to separate fact from fiction in discussing the near-mythical militia commander.
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Marion used irregular methods of warfare and is considered one of the fathers of modern guerrilla warfare and maneuver warfare , and is credited in the lineage of the United States Army Rangers and the other American military Special Forces such as the " Green Berets ". He was known as The Swamp Fox. Marion's grandfather, Gabriel, was a Huguenot who emigrated to the colonies from France before Marion began his military career shortly before his 25th birthday.
In September , the Continental Congress commissioned Marion as a lieutenant colonel. In the autumn of , he took part in the siege of Savannah , a failed Franco-American attempt to capture and recover the Georgia colonial capital city which had been previously taken by the British.
A British expedition under Henry Clinton moved into South Carolina in the early spring of and laid siege to Charleston. Marion was not captured with the rest of the garrison when Charleston fell on May 12, , because he had broken an ankle in an accident and had left the city to recuperate. Clinton took part of the British army that had captured Charleston back to New York but a significant number stayed for operations under Lord Cornwallis in the Carolinas.
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.
Gates sent Marion towards the interior to gather intelligence on the British enemy. Marion thus missed the battle, which proved to be a decisive British victory. Marion showed himself to be a singularly able leader of irregular militiamen and ruthless in his terrorising of Loyalists. Unlike the Continental troops, Marion's Men, as they were known, served without pay, supplied their own horses, arms and often their food. 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 the colonial village of Willtown, but were driven out by Marion at the Battle of Black Mingo. Cornwallis observed "Colonel Marion had so wrought the minds of the people, partly by the terror of his threats and cruelty of his punishments, and partly by the promise of plunder, that there was scarcely an inhabitant between the Santee and the Pee Dee that was not in arms against us".
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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 ; he despaired of finding the "old swamp fox", who eluded him by travelling along swamp paths. It was Tarleton who gave Marion his nom de guerre when, after unsuccessfully pursuing Marion's troops for over 26 miles through a swamp, he gave up and swore "[a]s for this damned old fox, the Devil himself could not catch him.
Marion was also tasked with combating groups of freed slaves working or fighting alongside the British. He received an order from the Governor of South Carolina to execute any blacks suspected of carrying provisions or gathering intelligence for the enemy "agreeable to the laws of this State". 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.
For this action he received the thanks of the Continental Congress. In January , he was elected to a new State Assembly at Jacksonborough and left his troops to take up his seat. In August he left his brigade and returned to his plantation.
The Swamp Fox: How Francis Marion Saved the American Revolution — Central Intelligence Agency
In , the British Parliament suspended offensive operations in America, and in December , the British withdrew their garrison from Charleston. The war was brought to an end by the Treaty of Paris.
Marion returned to his plantation to find it had been burnt during the fighting. His slaves had run away to fight for the British and had later been evacuated from Charleston. He borrowed money to purchase slaves for his plantation. After the war, Marion married his cousin, Mary Esther Videau. Marion served several terms in the South Carolina State Senate. The public memory of Francis Marion has been shaped in large part by the first biography about him, The Life of General Francis Marion [13] written by M.
In the 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. It starred Leslie Nielsen as Marion, and Nielsen was also one of the singers of the theme song. The series depicted Mary Videau in this series having no familial relationship with Marion secretly acting as an informant for Marion on British movements and Marion's nephew Gabriel Marion being killed by Loyalists, causing Marion to seek revenge on those responsible.
Francis Marion was one of the influences for the main character of Benjamin Martin in the movie The Patriot , which according to Crawford "exaggerated the Swamp Fox legend for a whole new generation". 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".
Concurrently British historian Christopher Hibbert described Marion as "