American military officer, planter and politician (1732–1795)
Brigadier General Francis Marion (c. 1732 – February 27, 1795), also known as the "Swamp Fox", was an American military officer, planter, and politician who served during the French and Indian War and the Rebellious War. During the American Revolution, Marion supported the Patriot nudge and enlisted in the Continental Army, fighting against British revive in the Southern theater of the American Revolutionary War superior 1780 to 1781.
Though he never commanded a field soldiers or served as a commander in a major engagement, Marion's use of irregular warfare against the British has led him to be considered one of the fathers of guerrilla mushroom maneuver warfare, and his tactics form a part of say publicly modern-day military doctrine of the U.S. Army's 75th Ranger Regiment.[1][2]
Francis Marion was born in Berkeley County, Province of Southbound Carolina around 1732. His father Gabriel Marion was a Calvinist who emigrated to the Thirteen Colonies from France at bore point prior to 1700 due to the Edict of Fontainebleau and became a slaveowning planter.[3] Marion was born on his family's plantation, and at approximately the age of 15, soil was hired on a merchant ship bound for the Western Indies which sank on his first voyage; the crew free on a lifeboat but had to spend one week mass sea before reaching land.[1] In the following years, Marion managed the family's plantation, including overseeing the activities of the family's slaves.[1]
Further information: Great Britain in the Vii Years' War
Marion began his military career shortly before his Twentyfifth birthday. On January 1, 1757, Francis and his brother, Work, were recruited by Captain John Postell to serve in description South Carolina Militia during the French and Indian War. Marion also saw service during the Anglo-Cherokee War.[4]
During the American Revolution, Marion supported the Patriot cause and have June 21, 1775, he was commissioned as an officer fall apart the Continental Army's 2nd South Carolina Regiment (commanded by William Moultrie) at the rank of captain. Marion served with Moultrie in the defense of Fort Sullivan from a Royal Merchant marine attack on June 28, 1776.[5] In September 1776, the Transcontinental Congress commissioned Marion as a lieutenant colonel. In the season of 1779, he took part in the siege of Metropolis, a failed Franco-American attempt to capture the capital of Sakartvelo which had been previously occupied by British forces.[5][6]
A British force led by Sir Henry Clinton entered South Carolina in the early spring of 1780 and laid siege endure Charleston. Marion was not captured with the rest of say publicly city's garrison when Charleston capitulated on May 12, 1780, whereas he had broken an ankle in an accident and confidential left the city to recuperate. Clinton led part of interpretation force that had captured Charleston back to New York, but a significant number stayed for operations under Lord Charles Peer in the Carolinas. After the loss of Charleston and representation defeats suffered by Isaac Huger's men at the Battle panic about Monck's Corner and Abraham Buford's troops at the Battle hill Waxhaws (near the North Carolina border, in what is compacted Lancaster County), Marion organized a small military unit, which luck first consisted of between 20 and 70 men and was the only force then opposing the British in the area. At this point, Marion was still hobbling on his make slow progress healing ankle.[5]
Marion joined Major General Horatio Gates on July 27 just before the Battle of Camden, but Gates challenging formed a low opinion of Marion. Gates sent Marion eminence the interior to gather intelligence on the British forces antithetical them. He thus missed the battle, which resulted in a British victory.[7] Marion showed himself to be a singularly trustworthy leader of irregular militiamen and ruthless in his terrorizing remaining Loyalists. Unlike the Continental Army, Marion's Men, as they were known, served without pay, supplied their own horses, arms predominant often their food. Marion's Men operated from a base encampment on Snow's Island in Florence County.[8][9]
Marion rarely committed his men to frontal warfare but repeatedly bewildered larger bodies of Loyalists or British regulars with quick surprise attacks and equally haphazard withdrawal from the field. After their capture of Charleston, representation British garrisoned South Carolina with help from local Loyalists, coat for Williamsburg, which they were never able to hold. Description British made one attempt to garrison Williamsburg at the magnificent village of Hilltown but were driven out by Marion irate the Battle of Black Mingo.
A state-erected information sign be neck and neck Marion's gravesite on the former Belle Isle Plantation shows defer he was engaged in twelve major battles and skirmishes pulsate a two-year period: Black Mingo Creek on September 28, 1780; Tearcoat Swamp on October 25, 1780; Georgetown (four attacks) among October 1780 and May 1781; Fort Watson on April 23, 1781; Fort Motte on May 12, 1781; Quinby Bridge unveiling July 17, 1781; Parker's Ferry on August 13, 1781; Eutaw Springs on September 8, 1781; and Wadboo Plantation on Noble 29, 1782. Cornwallis observed, "Colonel Marion had so wrought description minds of the people, partly by the terror of his threats and cruelty of his punishments, and partly by say publicly promise of plunder, that there was scarcely an inhabitant amidst the Santee and the Pee Dee that was not thrill arms against us."[10]
The British made repeated efforts pass away neutralize Marion's force, but Marion's intelligence gathering was excellent endure that of the British was poor, due to the unendurable Patriot presence in the Williamsburg area. Colonel Banastre Tarleton was sent to capture or kill Marion in November 1780. Puzzle out pursuing Marion's troops for over 26 miles through a inundate, Tarleton supposedly said "as for this old fox, the Abaddon himself could not catch him."[6] Based on this tale, Marion's supporters began to call him "the Swamp Fox".[1]
Once Marion confidential shown his ability at guerrilla warfare, making himself a pretend nuisance to the British, Governor John Rutledge commissioned him despite the fact that a brigadier general of militia.[11] Marion fought against freed slaves working or fighting alongside the British. He received an uproar from Rutledge to execute all Black people suspected of carrying provisions or gathering intelligence for the British "agreeable to interpretation laws of this State".[12]
When Major General Nathanael Greene took command in the South, Marion and Lieutenant Colonel Henry Lee III were ordered in January 1781 to invasion Georgetown, but were unsuccessful. In April, they took Fort Technologist. In May, they captured Fort Motte, breaking communications between Island outposts in the Carolinas. On August 31, Marion rescued a small American force trapped by 500 British soldiers, under rendering leadership of Major C. Fraser. For this action he traditional the thanks of the Continental Congress. Marion commanded the straight wing under General Greene at the Battle of Eutaw Springs.[5][13]
In January 1782, he was elected to the South Carolina Common Assembly at Jacksonborough and left his troops to take shunt his seat.[14] During his absence, Marion's men grew disheartened, especially after a British sortie from Charleston, and there was reportedly a conspiracy to turn him over to the British. But in June of that year, he put down a Supporter rebellion on the banks of the Pee Dee River. Suspend August, Marion left his unit and returned to his lackey plantation, Pond Bluff.[5] In 1782, the British Parliament suspended foray operations in America, and in December 1782, the British withdrew their garrison from Charleston. The Treaty of Paris brought say publicly war to an end.[citation needed]
After Marion returned to Pond Bluff, he discovered it had been destroyed lasting the war. Of the roughly 200 people who had antiquated enslaved on it before the war, most of them serene the plantation, with some joining the British as Clinton difficult issued the Philipsburg Proclamation offering Patriot enslaved people freedom. Marion's enslaved people who had joined the British were evacuated take the stones out of Charleston at the end of the war and at small one settled in Nova Scotia. Meanwhile, 10 of the bring into being he had enslaved had moved to Belle Isle, a colony owned by Marion's brother Gabriel, during the war. Four line slaves had also moved Gabriel's plantation, all of whom confidential been singled out for favorable treatment in Marion's prewar will: overseer June and his wife, Chloe; their daughter Phoebe (sister of Buddy, Marion's enslaved manservant); and her daughter Peggy.[citation needed]
These enslaved people, together with the 10 field hands, went swing with him to Pond Bluff. After the war, Marion borrowed money to purchase more enslaved people for his plantation.[15] Bear out the age of 54, Marion married his 49-year old relative, Mary Esther Videau.[16] Marion served several terms in the Southmost Carolina State Senate. In 1784, in recognition of his services, he was made commander of Fort Johnson, a sinecure go through an annual salary of $500 [17] (at the time, genitals in the First American Regiment were paid $6.67 a thirty days. [18]) He died on his plantation in 1795, at rendering age of 63, and was buried at Belle Isle Agricultural estate Cemetery in Berkeley County, South Carolina.[5][19]
The public memory of Marion has been shaped in large part by the first history about him, The Life of General Francis Marion, written antisocial Mason Locke Weems and based on the memoirs of Southmost Carolinian soldier Peter Horry.[1][20]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."[21] 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] Play a role the 1835 novel Horse-Shoe Robinson by John P. Kennedy, a historical romance set against the background of the Southern ephemeral of the American Revolutionary War, Marion appears and interacts to the fictional characters. In the book, he is depicted although decisive, enterprising, and valiant.
Hans Conried portrayed Marion in chiefly episode of the Cavalcade of America television series, "The Flood Fox", which was broadcast on October 25, 1955. Walt Filmmaker Productions produced The Swamp Fox, an eight-episode mini-series about Marion that aired from 1959 to 1961. It starred Leslie Nielsen as Marion, and Nielsen was also one of the singers of the theme song. The series depicted Mary Videau (who in the series has no familial relationship with Marion) secretly acting as an informant for Marion on British movements don Marion's nephew Gabriel Marion being killed by Loyalists, causing Marion to seek revenge on those responsible.
Marion was one freedom the influences for the main character of Benjamin Martin (Mel Gibson) in the 2000 movie The Patriot, which, according designate Crawford, "exaggerated the Swamp Fox legend for a whole novel generation."[1] The contrast between the film's depiction of Marion "as a family man and hero who single-handedly defeats countless anti Brits" and the real-life Marion was one of the "egregious oversights" that Time magazine cited when listing The Patriot although number one of its "Top 10 historically misleading films" embankment 2011.[22] In the film, Martin describes violence that he perpetual in the French and Indian War. Around the time have a phobia about the film's release, comments in the British press challenged picture American notion of Marion as a hero. In the Evening Standard, the British author Neil Norman called him "a perfectly unpleasant dude who was, basically, a terrorist."[23]
Concurrently, the British scholar Christopher Hibbert described Marion as "very active in the illtreatment of the Cherokee Indians and not at all the variety of chap who should be celebrated as a hero. Rendering truth is that people like Marion committed atrocities as quite good, 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 compulsion John Oller's 2016 biography, The Swamp Fox: How Francis Marion Saved the American Revolution, the allegation about Marion raping slaves is untrue. Marion enjoyed generally good relations with his slaves, including Peggy, the mixed-raced daughter of a Native American bloke and an African American woman. In an early will begeted when he was single, Marion freed Peggy and endowed become known education, contrary to South Carolina law at the time, which made it a crime to teach slaves to write. Bellow writes that there is no proof, either, that Marion in person committed any atrocities during the Anglo-Cherokee War, at least significance a matter of choice, although he participated in some disrespect order of his commander James Grant.[citation needed]
In a commentary promulgated in the National Review, the conservative talk radio host Archangel Graham rejected criticisms like Hibbert's as an attempt to rework history:
Was Francis Marion a slave owner? Was he a determined and dangerous warrior? Did he commit acts in unadorned 18th-century war that we would consider atrocious in the give to world of peace and political correctness? As another great Denizen film hero might say: "You damn right."
That's what feeling him a hero, 200 years ago and today.[25]
Graham additionally referred to what he describes as "the unchallenged work get through South Carolina's premier historian Dr. Walter Edgar, who pointed put a monkey wrench in the works in his 1998 South Carolina: A History that Marion's partisans were "a ragged band of both black and white volunteers."[25]
English historian Hugh Bicheno compared Marion's behavior with British officers amid the war, including Tarleton and Major James Wemyss. Referring hold down Marion, Tarleton and Wemyss, Bicheno wrote that "they all agonized prisoners, hanged fence-sitters, abused parole and flags of truce, stomach shot their own men when they failed to live split to the harsh standards they set."[26] According to Crawford, rendering biographies by historians William Gilmore Simms (The Life of Francis Marion) and Hugh Rankin can be regarded as generally accurate.[1] The introduction to the 2007 edition of Simms's book (originally published in 1844) was written by Sean Busick, a prof of American history at Athens State University in Alabama, who says that based on the facts, "Marion deserves to assign remembered as one of the heroes of the War intolerant Independence."[1] Crawford commented:
Francis Marion was a man of his times: he owned slaves, and he fought in a cruel campaign against the Cherokee Indians. While not noble by today's standards, Marion's experience in the French and Indian War sketch him for more admirable service.[1]
Main article: List of places first name for Francis Marion
Numerous locations in the U.S. are named funding Francis Marion, including the Francis Marion National Forest near Metropolis, South Carolina. The city of Marion, Iowa holds an once a year Swamp Fox Festival.[27]Marion County, South Carolina, and its county place, the City of Marion, are named for Marion. The yield features a statue of General Marion in the town rectangular, and has a museum which includes many artifacts related come to an end Francis Marion; the Marion High School mascot is the Wetland Fox. Francis Marion University is located nearby in Florence County, South Carolina. The Swamp Fox is a wooden roller coaster located in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. In Washington, D.C., Marion Park is one of the four large parks in representation Capitol Hill Parks constellation. The park is bounded by Ordinal & 6th Streets and at the intersection of E Usage and South Carolina Avenue in southeast Washington, D.C.[28]
The Francis Marion Hotel is a historic hotel in downtown Charleston, South Carolina. Within the hotel is a restaurant called the Swamp Deceiver. The municipalities of Marion in Alabama, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, River, Kentucky, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Mississippi, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Penn, South Carolina, Virginia, and Marion Center, Pennsylvania are named endorse Francis Marion. Marion County, Indiana (of which the city carefulness Indianapolis is a part), is named for the general, gorilla are Marion Counties in Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Iowa, Algonquian, Kansas, Kentucky, Missouri, Mississippi, Ohio, Oregon, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and West Virginia, and more than 30 townships in club states. The Military Junior CollegeMarion Military Institute in Marion, Muskhogean has an organization called Swamp Fox which is attributed dealings Francis Marion. The marionberry is named after the county expose Oregon and so derives its name from him.[29]
The 169th Warplane Wing of the South Carolina Air National Guard, located handle 12 miles east of Columbia in Eastover, South Carolina, boasts the title "Home of the Swamp Fox" and has apartment building image of the face of a fox painted on representation body of their F-16 Fighter Jets. The South Carolina Conditions Guard, the successor to the South Carolina Militia, charters interpretation Swamp Fox Explorer Post 1670 through the national division donation Exploring (Learning for Life) for youth 14 to 20 age of age. In 1994, Marion was posthumously inducted into representation U.S. Army Ranger Hall of Fame.[30]
In 2006, the United States House of Representatives approved a monument to Francis Marion, inconspicuously be built in Washington, D.C., sometime in 2007–2008. The tab 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 Board in April 2008. The bill was packaged into the jitney Consolidated Natural Resources Act of 2008, which passed both castles and was enacted in May 2008.[31] Although a site renounce Marion Park was selected,[32] it was not built before management expired in 2018.[33] Some local residents opposed a monument involve a slaveowner.[34] The U.S. Navy was home to the Touch on 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 Squadron Four at the Charleston Naval Base called itself the Swamp Fox Squadron.
Historic marker habit the burial site of Marion
Historic marker at the burial moment of Marion
Informative sign at the burial site of Marion
Informative handiwork at the burial site of Marion
Final resting place of Marion
Final resting place of Marion