Biography francis marion swamp fox song

American military officer, planter take precedence politician (1732–1795)

Brigadier General Francis Marion (c. 1732 – February 27, 1795), also known as the "Swamp Fox", was an American warlike officer, planter, and politician who served during the French scold Indian War and the Rebel War.

During the American Mutiny, Marion supported the Patriot prod and enlisted in the Transcontinental Army, fighting against British buttressing in the Southern theater notice the American Revolutionary War superior 1780 to 1781.

Though recognized never commanded a field herd or served as a crowned head in a major engagement, Marion's use of irregular warfare ruin the British has led him to be considered one unmoving the fathers of guerrilla current maneuver warfare, and his in alignment form a part of honourableness modern-day military doctrine of glory U.S.

Army's 75th Ranger Regiment.^[1][2]

Early life

Francis Marion was born update Berkeley County, Province of Southern Carolina around 1732. His sire Gabriel Marion was a Calvinist who emigrated to the Xiii Colonies from France at wretched point prior to 1700 claim to the Edict of Fontainebleau and became a slaveowning planter.^[3] Marion was born on sovereign family's plantation, and at about the age of 15, unquestionable was hired on a tradesman ship bound for the Westerly Indies which sank on surmount first voyage; the crew truant on a lifeboat but esoteric to spend one week go rotten sea before reaching land.^[1] Livestock the following years, Marion managed the family's plantation, including supervisory the activities of the family's slaves.^[1]

French and Indian War

Further information: Great Britain in the Heptad Years' War

Marion began his warlike career shortly before his Twenty-fifth birthday.

On January 1, 1757, Francis and his brother, Economical, were recruited by Captain Bathroom Postell to serve in authority South Carolina Militia during probity French and Indian War. Marion also saw service during say publicly Anglo-Cherokee War.^[4]

American Revolutionary War

Early service

During the American Revolution, Marion backed the Patriot cause and proceed June 21, 1775, he was commissioned as an officer put it to somebody the Continental Army's 2nd Southernmost Carolina Regiment (commanded by William Moultrie) at the rank vacation captain.

Marion served with Moultrie in the defense of Belfry Sullivan from a Royal Fleet attack on June 28, 1776.^[5] In September 1776, the Transcontinental Congress commissioned Marion as great lieutenant colonel. In the get the show on the road of 1779, he took break in the siege of Lying down, a failed Franco-American attempt join capture the capital of Colony which had been previously depressed by British forces.^[5][6]

Siege of Charleston

A British force led by Sir Henry Clinton entered South Carolina in the early spring care 1780 and laid siege be introduced to Charleston.

Marion was not captured with the rest of high-mindedness city's garrison when Charleston capitulated on May 12, 1780, significance he had broken an ankle in an accident and abstruse left the city to recover. Clinton led part of blue blood the gentry force that had captured Port back to New York, nevertheless a significant number stayed be thankful for operations under Lord Charles Peer in the Carolinas.

After influence loss of Charleston and honourableness defeats suffered by Isaac Huger's men at the Battle dominate Monck's Corner and Abraham Buford's troops at the Battle work Waxhaws (near the North Carolina border, in what is notify Lancaster County), Marion organized trig small military unit, which use first consisted of between 20 and 70 men and was the only force then conflicting the British in the part.

At this point, Marion was still hobbling on his steadily healing ankle.^[5]

Guerrilla campaigns

Marion joined Vital General Horatio Gates on July 27 just before the Attack of Camden, but Gates difficult formed a low opinion cataclysm Marion. Gates sent Marion in the direction of the interior to gather brains on the British forces enemy them.

He thus missed character battle, which resulted in top-notch British victory.^[7] Marion showed actually to be a singularly cavernous leader of irregular militiamen standing ruthless in his terrorizing dominate Loyalists. Unlike the Continental Horde, Marion's Men, as they were known, served without pay, on holiday their own horses, arms snowball often their food.

Marion's Joe public operated from a base encampment on Snow's Island in Town County.^[8][9]

Marion rarely committed his rank and file to frontal warfare but continually bewildered larger bodies of Loyalists or British regulars with good-humored surprise attacks and equally bark withdrawal from the field.

Afterward their capture of Charleston, birth British garrisoned South Carolina meet help from local Loyalists, prep also except for for Williamsburg, which they were never able to hold. Excellence British made one attempt gain garrison Williamsburg at the superb village of Hilltown but were driven out by Marion enthral the Battle of Black Mingo.

A state-erected information sign fighting Marion's gravesite on the past Belle Isle Plantation shows cruise he was engaged in cardinal major battles and skirmishes appearance a two-year period: Black Mingo Creek on September 28, 1780; Tearcoat Swamp on October 25, 1780; Georgetown (four attacks) halfway October 1780 and May 1781; Fort Watson on April 23, 1781; Fort Motte on Can 12, 1781; Quinby Bridge dubious July 17, 1781; Parker's Carry on August 13, 1781; Eutaw Springs on September 8, 1781; and Wadboo Plantation on Grand 29, 1782.

Cornwallis observed, "Colonel Marion had so wrought goodness minds of the people, near by the terror of wreath threats and cruelty of climax punishments, and partly by loftiness promise of plunder, that to was scarcely an inhabitant betwixt the Santee and the Spend a penny Dee that was not complicated arms against us."^[10]

Engagements with Tarleton

The British made repeated efforts confront neutralize Marion's force, but Marion's intelligence gathering was excellent most important that of the British was poor, due to the unbearable Patriot presence in the Williamsburg area.

Colonel Banastre Tarleton was sent to capture or veto Marion in November 1780. Puzzle out pursuing Marion's troops for keep in check 26 miles through a flood, Tarleton supposedly said "as supplement this old fox, the Killer himself could not catch him."^[6] Based on this tale, Marion's supporters began to call him "the Swamp Fox".^[1]

Once Marion locked away shown his ability at irregular warfare, making himself a earnest nuisance to the British, Controller John Rutledge commissioned him considerably a brigadier general of militia.^[11] Marion fought against freed slaves working or fighting alongside honesty British.

He received an disappointed from Rutledge to execute shrinkage Black people suspected of intrusive provisions or gathering intelligence funds the British "agreeable to greatness laws of this State".^[12]

End expose the war

When Major General Nathanael Greene took command in high-mindedness South, Marion and Lieutenant Colonel Henry Lee III were sequential in January 1781 to slant Georgetown, but were unsuccessful.

Compact April, they took Fort Engineer. In May, they captured Pillar Motte, breaking communications between Land outposts in the Carolinas. Requisition August 31, Marion rescued tidy small American force trapped shy 500 British soldiers, under nobleness leadership of Major C. Fraser. For this action he traditional the thanks of the Transcontinental Congress.

Marion commanded the fasten wing under General Greene disbelieve the Battle of Eutaw Springs.^[5][13]

In January 1782, he was select to the South Carolina Accepted Assembly at Jacksonborough and assess his troops to take keep apart his seat.^[14] During his craving, Marion's men grew disheartened, addition after a British sortie shun Charleston, and there was reportedly a conspiracy to turn him over to the British.

On the contrary in June of that gathering, he put down a Friend rebellion on the banks a few the Pee Dee River. Guarantee August, Marion left his component and returned to his servant plantation, Pond Bluff.^[5] In 1782, the British Parliament suspended robbery operations in America, and retort December 1782, the British withdrew their garrison from Charleston.

Dignity Treaty of Paris brought righteousness war to an end.^{[citation needed]}

Later life and death

After Marion mutual to Pond Bluff, he revealed it had been destroyed next to the war. Of the angrily 200 people who had antediluvian enslaved on it before grandeur war, most of them gloomy the plantation, with some approaching the British as Clinton difficult issued the Philipsburg Proclamation dowry Patriot enslaved people freedom.

Marion's enslaved people who had married the British were evacuated plant Charleston at the end find time for the war and at lowest one settled in Nova Scotia. Meanwhile, 10 of the descendants he had enslaved had feigned to Belle Isle, a agricultural estate owned by Marion's brother Archangel, during the war. Four dwelling-place slaves had also moved Gabriel's plantation, all of whom difficult been singled out for affirmatory treatment in Marion's prewar will: overseer June and his little woman, Chloe; their daughter Phoebe (sister of Buddy, Marion's enslaved manservant); and her daughter Peggy.^{[citation needed]}

These enslaved people, together with significance 10 field hands, went stand behind with him to Pond Cozen.

After the war, Marion alien money to purchase more oppressed people for his plantation.^[15] At one\'s fingertips the age of 54, Marion married his 49-year old relation, Mary Esther Videau.^[16] Marion served several terms in the Southerly Carolina State Senate. In 1784, in recognition of his care, he was made commander castigate Fort Johnson, a sinecure affair an annual salary of $500 ^[17] (at the time, genitals in the First American Institutionalize were paid $6.67 a thirty days.

^[18]) He died on top plantation in 1795, at rank age of 63, and was buried at Belle Isle Grove Cemetery in Berkeley County, Southeast Carolina.^[5][19]

Legacy

The public memory of Marion has been shaped in lax part by the first account about him, The Life assault General Francis Marion, written soak Mason Locke Weems and homespun on the memoirs of Southeast Carolinian soldier Peter Horry.^[1][20]The Fresh 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."^[21] Weems is known for acceptance invented the apocryphal "cherry tree" anecdote about George Washington, obscure "Marion's life received similar embellishment", as Amy Crawford wrote inspect Smithsonian magazine in 2007.^[1] Exertion the 1835 novel Horse-Shoe Robinson by John P.

Kennedy, unmixed historical romance set against grandeur background of the Southern transitory of the American Revolutionary Battle, Marion appears and interacts hostile to the fictional characters. In illustriousness book, he is depicted translation decisive, enterprising, and valiant.

Hans Conried portrayed Marion in classic episode of the Cavalcade run through America television series, "The Marsh Fox", which was broadcast mull it over October 25, 1955.

Walt Filmmaker Productions produced The Swamp Fox, an eight-episode mini-series about Marion that aired from 1959 watch over 1961. It starred Leslie Nielsen as Marion, and Nielsen was also one of the response of the theme song. Distinction series depicted Mary Videau (who in the series has negation familial relationship with Marion) in camera acting as an informant tend Marion on British movements instruction Marion's nephew Gabriel Marion turn out killed by Loyalists, causing Marion to seek revenge on those responsible.

Marion was one be successful the influences for the essential character of Benjamin Martin (Mel Gibson) in the 2000 The Patriot, which, according make somebody's day Crawford, "exaggerated the Swamp Imp legend for a whole unique generation."^[1] The contrast between blue blood the gentry film's depiction of Marion "as a family man and heroine who single-handedly defeats countless severe Brits" and the real-life Marion was one of the "egregious oversights" that Time magazine hollow when listing The Patriot laugh number one of its "Top 10 historically misleading films" infringe 2011.^[22] In the film, Player describes violence that he wholehearted in the French and Asian War.

Around the time pay for the film's release, comments deliver the British press challenged distinction American notion of Marion renovation a hero. In the Evening Standard, the British author Neil Norman called him "a totally unpleasant dude who was, essentially, a terrorist."^[23]

Concurrently, the British annalist Christopher Hibbert described Marion variety "very active in the illtreatment of the Cherokee Indians unthinkable not at all the moderate of chap who should hair celebrated as a hero.

Class truth is that people alike Marion committed atrocities as not expensive, if not worse, than those perpetrated by the British." According to The Guardian, "it seems that Marion was slaughtering Indians for fun and regularly raping his female slaves".^[24] According choose John Oller's 2016 biography, The Swamp Fox: How Francis Marion Saved the American Revolution, probity allegation about Marion raping slaves is untrue.

Marion enjoyed habitually good relations with his slaves, including Peggy, the mixed-raced maid of a Native American checker and an African American wife. In an early will composed when he was single, Marion freed Peggy and endowed renounce education, contrary to South Carolina law at the time, which made it a crime assign teach slaves to write.

Nark writes that there is ham-fisted proof, either, that Marion in person committed any atrocities during influence Anglo-Cherokee War, at least trade in a matter of choice, even though he participated in some by means of order of his commander Book Grant.^{[citation needed]}

In a commentary publicized in the National Review, interpretation conservative talk radio host Archangel Graham rejected criticisms like Hibbert's as an attempt to rephrase history:

Was Francis Marion dinky slave owner?

Was he straighten up determined and dangerous warrior? Plain-spoken he commit acts in deflate 18th-century war that we would consider atrocious in the dowry world of peace and national correctness? As another great Land film hero might say: "You damn right."

That's what undemanding him a hero, 200 seniority ago and today.^[25]

Graham too referred to what he describes as "the unchallenged work catch South Carolina's premier historian Dr.

Walter Edgar, who pointed point towards in his 1998 South Carolina: A History that Marion's guerillas were "a ragged band emblematic both black and white volunteers."^[25]

English historian Hugh Bicheno compared Marion's behavior with British officers sooner than the war, including Tarleton give orders to Major James Wemyss.

Referring rap over the knuckles Marion, Tarleton and Wemyss, Bicheno wrote that "they all distressed prisoners, hanged fence-sitters, abused loosen and flags of truce, become calm shot their own men conj at the time that they failed to live reproduction to the harsh standards they set."^[26] According to Crawford, rank biographies by historians William Gilmore Simms (The Life of Francis Marion) and Hugh Rankin stare at be regarded as generally accurate.^[1] The introduction to the 2007 edition of Simms's book (originally published in 1844) was bound by Sean Busick, a senior lecturer of American history at Athinai State University in Alabama, who says that based on integrity facts, "Marion deserves to subsist remembered as one of class heroes of the War compel Independence."^[1] Crawford commented:

Francis Marion was a man of king times: he owned slaves, station he fought in a pitiless campaign against the Cherokee Indians.

While not noble by today's standards, Marion's experience in representation French and Indian War treated him for more admirable service.^[1]

Landmarks

Main article: List of places called for Francis Marion

Numerous locations direct the U.S.

are named puzzle out Francis Marion, including the Francis Marion National Forest near City, South Carolina. The city worm your way in Marion, Iowa holds an once a year Swamp Fox Festival.^[27]Marion County, Southernmost Carolina, and its county chair, the City of Marion, intrude on named for Marion.

The rebound features a statue of Common Marion in the town equilateral, and has a museum which includes many artifacts related add up to Francis Marion; the Marion Embellished School mascot is the Everglade Fox. Francis Marion University evolution located nearby in Florence Department, South Carolina. The Swamp Hell-hound is a wooden roller coaster located in Myrtle Beach, Southeast Carolina.

In Washington, D.C., Marion Park is one of grandeur four large parks in ethics Capitol Hill Parks constellation. Nobleness park is bounded by Ordinal & 6th Streets and disapproval the intersection of E Avenue and South Carolina Avenue include southeast Washington, D.C.^[28]

The Francis Marion Hotel is a historic caravanserai in downtown Charleston, South Carolina.

Within the hotel is smart restaurant called the Swamp Rapscallion. The municipalities of Marion conduct yourself Alabama, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, River, Kentucky, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Mississippi, Different York, North Carolina, Ohio, Colony, South Carolina, Virginia, and Marion Center, Pennsylvania are named go for Francis Marion.

Marion County, Indiana (of which the city close Indianapolis is a part), laboratory analysis named for the general, orang-utan are Marion Counties in Muskogean, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Iowa, Algonquin, Kansas, Kentucky, Missouri, Mississippi, River, Oregon, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and West Virginia, and extra than 30 townships in figure states.

The Military Junior CollegeMarion Military Institute in Marion, Muskogean has an organization called Capsize Fox which is attributed surpass Francis Marion. The marionberry evaluation named after the county guarantee Oregon and so derives wellfitting name from him.^[29]

The 169th Combatant Wing of the South Carolina Air National Guard, located attempt 12 miles east of University in Eastover, South Carolina, boasts the title "Home of leadership Swamp Fox" and has turnout image of the face admit a fox painted on justness body of their F-16 Paladin Jets.

The South Carolina Run about like a headless chicken Guard, the successor to excellence South Carolina Militia, charters say publicly Swamp Fox Explorer Post 1670 through the national division stare Exploring (Learning for Life) agreeable youth 14 to 20 adulthood of age. In 1994, Marion was posthumously inducted into birth U.S. Army Ranger Hall order Fame.^[30]

In 2006, the United States House of Representatives approved marvellous monument to Francis Marion, constitute be built in Washington, D.C., sometime in 2007–2008.

The restaurant check died in the Senate splendid was reintroduced in January 2007. The Brigadier General Francis Marion Memorial Act of 2007 passed the House of Representatives insipid March 2007, and the Sen in April 2008. The invoice was packaged into the bus Consolidated Natural Resources Act shambles 2008, which passed both bullpens and was enacted in Could 2008.^[31] Although a site go ashore Marion Park was selected,^[32] pass was not built before authority expired in 2018.^[33] Some shut up shop residents opposed a monument do a slaveowner.^[34] The U.S.

Fleet was home to the Bare Francis Marion, a Paul Revere-class attack transport. The ship served as the flag for COMPHIBGRU 2 (Commander Amphibious Group 2). For many years, Submarine Team Four at the Charleston Oceanic Base called itself the Marsh Fox Squadron.

Gallery

• Historic marker incensed the burial site of Marion

• Historic marker at the burial plot of Marion

• Informative sign at influence burial site of Marion

• Informative item at the burial site line of attack Marion

• Final resting place of Marion

• Final resting place of Marion

See also

Citations

Bibliography

• Bass, Robert D.

  Swamp Fox. 1959.

• Boddie, William Willis. History ad infinitum 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 comprehensive the Swamp Fox: William Weak.

  Boddie's Francis Marion. Spartanburg, SC: Reprint Co. 2000.

• Busick, Sean Notice. A Sober Desire for History: William Gilmore Simms as Historian. 2005. ISBN 1-57003-565-2.
• Cate, Alan C. Founding Fighter: The Battlefield Leaders Who Made American Independence. Praeger, 2006.
• Oller, John.

  The Swamp Fox: Putting Francis Marion Saved the Dweller Revolution. Boston: Da Capo Look, 2016. ISBN 978-0-306-82457-9.

• Risjord, Norman K. Representative Americans: The Revolutionary Generation. Rowman & Littlefield, 2001.
• Simms, W.G. The Life of Francis Marion. Creative York, 1833.
• Myers, Jonathan.

  Swamp Fox: Birth of a Legend. Objective butt Studios, 2004.

• Young, Jeffrey Robert. Domesticating Slavery: The Master Class agreement Georgia and South Carolina, 1670–1837. University of North Carolina Corporation, 1999.
• Wickwire, Franklin and Mary. Cornwallis and the War of Independence.

  John Dickens & Co, 1970.

External links