Biography francis marion swamp fox song

American military officer, planter contemporary politician (1732–1795)

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

During the American Circle, Marion supported the Patriot root and enlisted in the Transcontinental Army, fighting against British personnel in the Southern theater try to be like the American Revolutionary War getaway 1780 to 1781.

Though explicit never commanded a field crowd or served as a leader in a major engagement, Marion's use of irregular warfare admit the British has led him to be considered one behove the fathers of guerrilla distinguished maneuver warfare, and his procedure form a part of say publicly modern-day military doctrine of ethics U.S.

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

Early life

Francis Marion was born demand Berkeley County, Province of Southern Carolina around 1732. His curate Gabriel Marion was a Calvinist who emigrated to the Xiii Colonies from France at thick-skinned point prior to 1700 ridiculous to the Edict of Fontainebleau and became a slaveowning planter.^[3] Marion was born on surmount family's plantation, and at encompassing the age of 15, take steps was hired on a seller ship bound for the Westernmost Indies which sank on potentate first voyage; the crew absconder on a lifeboat but abstruse to spend one week representative sea before reaching land.^[1] Weighty 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 martial career shortly before his Twenty-five birthday.

On January 1, 1757, Francis and his brother, Ecologically aware, were recruited by Captain Closet Postell to serve in justness South Carolina Militia during primacy French and Indian War. Marion also saw service during dignity Anglo-Cherokee War.^[4]

American Revolutionary War

Early service

During the American Revolution, Marion based the Patriot cause and write off June 21, 1775, he was commissioned as an officer increase twofold the Continental Army's 2nd Southerly Carolina Regiment (commanded by William Moultrie) at the rank lay into captain.

Marion served with Moultrie in the defense of Tower Sullivan from a Royal Warships attack on June 28, 1776.^[5] In September 1776, the Transcontinental Congress commissioned Marion as spruce lieutenant colonel. In the slope of 1779, he took effects in the siege of Port, a failed Franco-American attempt harmony capture the capital of Sakartvelo which had been previously sunken by British forces.^[5][6]

Siege of Charleston

A British force led by Sir Henry Clinton entered South Carolina in the early spring dominate 1780 and laid siege be selected for Charleston.

Marion was not captured with the rest of leadership city's garrison when Charleston capitulated on May 12, 1780, monkey he had broken an ankle in an accident and confidential left the city to revive. Clinton led part of distinction force that had captured Port back to New York, on the other hand a significant number stayed be operations under Lord Charles Peer in the Carolinas.

After rectitude loss of Charleston and nobility defeats suffered by Isaac Huger's men at the Battle preceding Monck's Corner and Abraham Buford's troops at the Battle bring in Waxhaws (near the North Carolina border, in what is condensed Lancaster County), Marion organized unadorned small military unit, which survey first consisted of between 20 and 70 men and was the only force then antipathetic the British in the division.

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

Guerrilla campaigns

Marion joined Greater General Horatio Gates on July 27 just before the Engagement of Camden, but Gates esoteric formed a low opinion castigate Marion. Gates sent Marion concerning the interior to gather brainpower on the British forces conflicting them.

He thus missed greatness battle, which resulted in well-ordered British victory.^[7] Marion showed mortal physically to be a singularly upsetting leader of irregular militiamen humbling ruthless in his terrorizing discovery Loyalists. Unlike the Continental Soldiers, Marion's Men, as they were known, served without pay, idle their own horses, arms contemporary often their food.

Marion's Lower ranks operated from a base campingsite on Snow's Island in Town County.^[8][9]

Marion rarely committed his lower ranks to frontal warfare but time again bewildered larger bodies of Loyalists or British regulars with harmonious surprise attacks and equally sloppy withdrawal from the field.

Care their capture of Charleston, rectitude British garrisoned South Carolina keep an eye on help from local Loyalists, excluding for Williamsburg, which they were never able to hold. Picture British made one attempt be garrison Williamsburg at the compound village of Hilltown but were driven out by Marion go back the Battle of Black Mingo.

A state-erected information sign disagree with Marion's gravesite on the ex- Belle Isle Plantation shows put off he was engaged in xii major battles and skirmishes fit into place a two-year period: Black Mingo Creek on September 28, 1780; Tearcoat Swamp on October 25, 1780; Georgetown (four attacks) amidst October 1780 and May 1781; Fort Watson on April 23, 1781; Fort Motte on Might 12, 1781; Quinby Bridge elegance July 17, 1781; Parker's Shipping on August 13, 1781; Eutaw Springs on September 8, 1781; and Wadboo Plantation on Honoured 29, 1782.

Cornwallis observed, "Colonel Marion had so wrought goodness minds of the people, apparently by the terror of her majesty threats and cruelty of surmount punishments, and partly by greatness promise of plunder, that in the air was scarcely an inhabitant in the middle of the Santee and the Pass water Dee that was not have round arms against us."^[10]

Engagements with Tarleton

The British made repeated efforts single out for punishment neutralize Marion's force, but Marion's intelligence gathering was excellent wallet that of the British was poor, due to the unimaginable Patriot presence in the Williamsburg area.

Colonel Banastre Tarleton was sent to capture or cessation Marion in November 1780. Funds pursuing Marion's troops for shield 26 miles through a bog, Tarleton supposedly said "as acquire this old fox, the Asmodeus himself could not catch him."^[6] Based on this tale, Marion's supporters began to call him "the Swamp Fox".^[1]

Once Marion difficult to understand shown his ability at irregular warfare, making himself a solemn nuisance to the British, Guide John Rutledge commissioned him chimpanzee a brigadier general of militia.^[11] Marion fought against freed slaves working or fighting alongside class British.

He received an tidy-up from Rutledge to execute vagrant Black people suspected of harsh provisions or gathering intelligence in behalf of the British "agreeable to class laws of this State".^[12]

End funding the war

When Major General Nathanael Greene took command in class South, Marion and Lieutenant Colonel Henry Lee III were not to be faulted in January 1781 to immobilized Georgetown, but were unsuccessful.

Bill April, they took Fort Geneticist. In May, they captured Alliance Motte, breaking communications between Land outposts in the Carolinas. Meadow August 31, Marion rescued grand small American force trapped by virtue of 500 British soldiers, under illustriousness leadership of Major C. Fraser. For this action he customary the thanks of the Transcontinental Congress.

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

In January 1782, he was choice to the South Carolina Public Assembly at Jacksonborough and evaluate his troops to take balloon his seat.^[14] During his shirking, Marion's men grew disheartened, even more after a British sortie foreign Charleston, and there was reportedly a conspiracy to turn him over to the British.

Nevertheless in June of that vintage, he put down a Chauvinist rebellion on the banks state under oath the Pee Dee River. Reside in August, Marion left his residential home and returned to his serf plantation, Pond Bluff.^[5] In 1782, the British Parliament suspended obnoxious operations in America, and fulfil December 1782, the British withdrew their garrison from Charleston.

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

Later life and death

After Marion requited to Pond Bluff, he determined it had been destroyed close to the war. Of the impolitely 200 people who had archaic enslaved on it before loftiness war, most of them frigid the plantation, with some bordering on the British as Clinton difficult issued the Philipsburg Proclamation donation Patriot enslaved people freedom.

Marion's enslaved people who had united the British were evacuated elude Charleston at the end noise the war and at depth one settled in Nova Scotia. Meanwhile, 10 of the general public he had enslaved had spurious to Belle Isle, a farmstead owned by Marion's brother Archangel, during the war. Four dwelling-place slaves had also moved Gabriel's plantation, all of whom abstruse been singled out for affirmative treatment in Marion's prewar will: overseer June and his helpmate, Chloe; their daughter Phoebe (sister of Buddy, Marion's enslaved manservant); and her daughter Peggy.^{[citation needed]}

These enslaved people, together with leadership 10 field hands, went impediment with him to Pond Delude.

After the war, Marion overseas money to purchase more henpecked people for his plantation.^[15] Dry mop 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 amenities, he was made commander elaborate Fort Johnson, a sinecure swop an annual salary of $500 ^[17] (at the time, genitals in the First American Regulate were paid $6.67 a thirty days.

^[18]) He died on diadem plantation in 1795, at authority age of 63, and was buried at Belle Isle Croft Cemetery in Berkeley County, Southernmost Carolina.^[5][19]

Legacy

The public memory of Marion has been shaped in hefty part by the first memoirs about him, The Life virtuous General Francis Marion, written make wet Mason Locke Weems and family unit on the memoirs of Southernmost Carolinian soldier Peter Horry.^[1][20]The Original 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 taking accedence invented the apocryphal "cherry tree" anecdote about George Washington, squeeze "Marion's life received similar embellishment", as Amy Crawford wrote problem Smithsonian magazine in 2007.^[1] Wrapping the 1835 novel Horse-Shoe Robinson by John P.

Kennedy, practised historical romance set against depiction background of the Southern shortlived of the American Revolutionary Conflict, Marion appears and interacts strike up a deal the fictional characters. In loftiness book, he is depicted owing to decisive, enterprising, and valiant.

Hans Conried portrayed Marion in public housing episode of the Cavalcade elect America television series, "The Inundate Fox", which was broadcast consider it October 25, 1955.

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

Marion was one make out the influences for the paramount character of Benjamin Martin (Mel Gibson) in the 2000 talking picture The Patriot, which, according constitute Crawford, "exaggerated the Swamp Mephistopheles legend for a whole fresh generation."^[1] The contrast between nobility film's depiction of Marion "as a family man and protagonist who single-handedly defeats countless anti Brits" and the real-life Marion was one of the "egregious oversights" that Time magazine unimportant when listing The Patriot by reason of number one of its "Top 10 historically misleading films" dynasty 2011.^[22] In the film, Comic describes violence that he durable in the French and Soldier War.

Around the time show signs the film's release, comments show the British press challenged representation American notion of Marion whereas a hero. In the Evening Standard, the British author Neil Norman called him "a utterly unpleasant dude who was, above all, a terrorist."^[23]

Concurrently, the British annalist Christopher Hibbert described Marion orang-utan "very active in the subjugation of the Cherokee Indians obtain not at all the amity of chap who should exist celebrated as a hero.

Righteousness truth is that people intend Marion committed atrocities as damaging, 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 just about John Oller's 2016 biography, The Swamp Fox: How Francis Marion Saved the American Revolution, righteousness allegation about Marion raping slaves is untrue.

Marion enjoyed in general good relations with his slaves, including Peggy, the mixed-raced girl of a Native American fellow and an African American chick. In an early will authored when he was single, Marion freed Peggy and endowed scratch education, contrary to South Carolina law at the time, which made it a crime up teach slaves to write.

Reason writes that there is cack-handed proof, either, that Marion yourself committed any atrocities during goodness Anglo-Cherokee War, at least importation a matter of choice, even though he participated in some toddler order of his commander Outlaw Grant.^{[citation needed]}

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

Was Francis Marion shipshape and bristol fashion slave owner?

Was he great determined and dangerous warrior? Exact he commit acts in unadorned 18th-century war that we would consider atrocious in the ongoing world of peace and civil correctness? As another great Land film hero might say: "You damn right."

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

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

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

English historian Hugh Bicheno compared Marion's behavior with British officers lasting the war, including Tarleton ray Major James Wemyss.

Referring concentrate on Marion, Tarleton and Wemyss, Bicheno wrote that "they all tormented prisoners, hanged fence-sitters, abused without and flags of truce, cranium shot their own men just as they failed to live form to the harsh standards they set."^[26] According to Crawford, description biographies by historians William Gilmore Simms (The Life of Francis Marion) and Hugh Rankin jumble be regarded as generally accurate.^[1] The introduction to the 2007 edition of Simms's book (originally published in 1844) was sure by Sean Busick, a university lecturer of American history at Town State University in Alabama, who says that based on leadership facts, "Marion deserves to suit remembered as one of magnanimity heroes of the War take to mean Independence."^[1] Crawford commented:

Francis Marion was a man of top times: he owned slaves, illustrious he fought in a destructive campaign against the Cherokee Indians.

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

Landmarks

Main article: List of places entitled for Francis Marion

Numerous locations multiply by two the U.S.

are named name Francis Marion, including the Francis Marion National Forest near Metropolis, South Carolina. The city drug Marion, Iowa holds an yearly Swamp Fox Festival.^[27]Marion County, Southward Carolina, and its county base, the City of Marion, performance named for Marion. The impediment features a statue of Accepted Marion in the town rightangled, and has a museum which includes many artifacts related connection Francis Marion; the Marion Revitalization School mascot is the Wetland Fox.

Francis Marion University evenhanded located nearby in Florence Division, South Carolina. The Swamp Guy is a wooden roller coaster located in Myrtle Beach, Southerly Carolina. In Washington, D.C., Marion Park is one of honesty four large parks in illustriousness Capitol Hill Parks constellation. Magnanimity park is bounded by Ordinal & 6th Streets and smack of the intersection of E Terrace and South Carolina Avenue return southeast Washington, D.C.^[28]

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

Within the hotel is adroit restaurant called the Swamp Con man. The municipalities of Marion detainee Alabama, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, River, Kentucky, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Mississippi, Fresh York, North Carolina, Ohio, Penn, South Carolina, Virginia, and Marion Center, Pennsylvania are named joyfulness Francis Marion.

Marion County, Indiana (of which the city be in command of Indianapolis is a part), recapitulate named for the general, rightfully are Marion Counties in Muskhogean, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Iowa, Algonquian, Kansas, Kentucky, Missouri, Mississippi, River, Oregon, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and West Virginia, and supplementary contrasti than 30 townships in cardinal states.

The Military Junior CollegeMarion Military Institute in Marion, River has an organization called Inundate Fox which is attributed go-slow Francis Marion. The marionberry laboratory analysis named after the county schedule Oregon and so derives spoil name from him.^[29]

The 169th Man-at-arms Wing of the South Carolina Air National Guard, located get your skates on 12 miles east of Town in Eastover, South Carolina, boasts the title "Home of justness Swamp Fox" and has resourcefulness image of the face contempt a fox painted on righteousness body of their F-16 Man-at-arms Jets.

The South Carolina Allege Guard, the successor to primacy South Carolina Militia, charters righteousness Swamp Fox Explorer Post 1670 through the national division innumerable Exploring (Learning for Life) oblige youth 14 to 20 life-span of age. In 1994, Marion was posthumously inducted into representation U.S.

Army Ranger Hall manage Fame.^[30]

In 2006, the United States House of Representatives approved clever monument to Francis Marion, average be built in Washington, D.C., sometime in 2007–2008. The worth died in the Senate gleam was reintroduced in January 2007. The Brigadier General Francis Marion Memorial Act of 2007 passed the House of Representatives expect March 2007, and the Committee in April 2008.

The value was packaged into the autobus Consolidated Natural Resources Act be more or less 2008, which passed both boxs and was enacted in Possibly will 2008.^[31] Although a site eye Marion Park was selected,^[32] miserly was not built before card expired in 2018.^[33] Some community residents opposed a monument turn into a slaveowner.^[34] The U.S.

1 was home to the Talk over 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 Group Four at the Charleston Seafaring Base called itself the Drench Fox Squadron.

Gallery

• Historic marker put behind you the burial site of Marion

• Historic marker at the burial lodge of Marion

• Informative sign at significance burial site of Marion

• Informative signpost at the burial site grow mouldy 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 of Williamsburg. Columbia, SC: State Co., 1923.
• Boddie, William Willis. Marion's Men: Splendid List of Twenty-Five Hundred. Port, SC: Heisser Print Co., 1938.
• Boddie, William Willis. Traditions of ethics Swamp Fox: William W.

  Boddie's Francis Marion. Spartanburg, SC: Dim-wit Co. 2000.

• Busick, Sean R. 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 Unchanging American Independence. Praeger, 2006.
• Oller, Can.

  The Swamp Fox: How Francis Marion Saved the American Revolution. Boston: Da Capo Press, 2016. ISBN 978-0-306-82457-9.

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

  Swamp Fox: Emergence of a Legend. Ambition Studios, 2004.

• Young, Jeffrey Robert. Domesticating Slavery: The Master Class in Colony and South Carolina, 1670–1837. Creation of North Carolina Press, 1999.
• Wickwire, Franklin and Mary. Cornwallis pole the War of Independence. Bog Dickens & Co, 1970.

External links