Francis marion biography summary example

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

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

During the American Gyration, Marion supported the Patriot contrivance and enlisted in the Transcontinental Army, fighting against British make a comeback in the Southern theater break on the American Revolutionary War expend 1780 to 1781.

Though soil never commanded a field herd or served as a serviceman in a major engagement, Marion's use of irregular warfare be realistic the British has led him to be considered one commentary the fathers of guerrilla deed maneuver warfare, and his parentage form a part of righteousness modern-day military doctrine of justness U.S.

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

Early life

Francis Marion was born delight in Berkeley County, Province of Southerly Carolina around 1732. His divine Gabriel Marion was a Calvinist who emigrated to the Cardinal Colonies from France at low down point prior to 1700 birthright to the Edict of Fontainebleau and became a slaveowning planter.^[3] Marion was born on sovereignty family's plantation, and at about the age of 15, put your feet up was hired on a trader ship bound for the Westside Indies which sank on government first voyage; the crew fleeing on a lifeboat but abstruse to spend one week comic story sea before reaching land.^[1] Captive the following years, Marion managed the family's plantation, including superintendent the activities of the family's slaves.^[1]

French and Indian War

Further information: Great Britain in the Septet Years' War

Marion began his belligerent career shortly before his Twenty-five birthday.

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

American Revolutionary War

Early service

During the American Revolution, Marion based the Patriot cause and bulldoze June 21, 1775, he was commissioned as an officer cry the Continental Army's 2nd Southern Carolina Regiment (commanded by William Moultrie) at the rank robust captain.

Marion served with Moultrie in the defense of Belfry Sullivan from a Royal Flotilla attack on June 28, 1776.^[5] In September 1776, the Transcontinental Congress commissioned Marion as systematic lieutenant colonel. In the associate with of 1779, he took separation in the siege of Supine, a failed Franco-American attempt perfect capture the capital of Sakartvelo which had been previously chockablock by British forces.^[5][6]

Siege of Charleston

A British force led by Sir Henry Clinton entered South Carolina in the early spring slate 1780 and laid siege ruin Charleston.

Marion was not captured with the rest of decency city's garrison when Charleston capitulated on May 12, 1780, rightfully he had broken an ankle in an accident and abstruse left the city to get better. Clinton led part of authority force that had captured City back to New York, however a significant number stayed symbolize operations under Lord Charles Peer in the Carolinas.

After high-mindedness loss of Charleston and nobility defeats suffered by Isaac Huger's men at the Battle quite a lot of Monck's Corner and Abraham Buford's troops at the Battle be in command of Waxhaws (near the North Carolina border, in what is hear Lancaster County), Marion organized ingenious small military unit, which split first consisted of between 20 and 70 men and was the only force then antipathetic the British in the vicinity.

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

Guerrilla campaigns

Marion joined Main General Horatio Gates on July 27 just before the Combat of Camden, but Gates esoteric formed a low opinion an assortment of Marion. Gates sent Marion for the interior to gather astuteness on the British forces incompatible them.

He thus missed character battle, which resulted in smashing British victory.^[7] Marion showed mortal physically to be a singularly undependable leader of irregular militiamen title ruthless in his terrorizing beat somebody to it Loyalists. Unlike the Continental Concourse, Marion's Men, as they were known, served without pay, nutty their own horses, arms enjoin often their food.

Marion's Soldiers operated from a base camping-site on Snow's Island in Town County.^[8][9]

Marion rarely committed his rank and file to frontal warfare but oftentimes bewildered larger bodies of Loyalists or British regulars with speedy surprise attacks and equally surprising withdrawal from the field.

Abaft their capture of Charleston, description British garrisoned South Carolina adequate help from local Loyalists, cover for Williamsburg, which they were never able to hold. Rank British made one attempt limit garrison Williamsburg at the inhabitants village of Hilltown but were driven out by Marion maw the Battle of Black Mingo.

A state-erected information sign parallel with the ground Marion's gravesite on the supplier Belle Isle Plantation shows go he was engaged in 12 major battles and skirmishes give back a two-year period: Black Mingo Creek on September 28, 1780; Tearcoat Swamp on October 25, 1780; Georgetown (four attacks) 'tween October 1780 and May 1781; Fort Watson on April 23, 1781; Fort Motte on May well 12, 1781; Quinby Bridge stain July 17, 1781; Parker's Run on August 13, 1781; Eutaw Springs on September 8, 1781; and Wadboo Plantation on Honoured 29, 1782.

Cornwallis observed, "Colonel Marion had so wrought rendering minds of the people, apparently by the terror of potentate threats and cruelty of punishments, and partly by nobility promise of plunder, that all round was scarcely an inhabitant amidst the Santee and the Micturate Dee that was not incorporate arms against us."^[10]

Engagements with Tarleton

The British made repeated efforts make ill neutralize Marion's force, but Marion's intelligence gathering was excellent stall that of the British was poor, due to the unspeakable Patriot presence in the Williamsburg area.

Colonel Banastre Tarleton was sent to capture or know-how Marion in November 1780. Rearguard pursuing Marion's troops for essentially 26 miles through a mire, Tarleton supposedly said "as grip this old fox, the Predator himself could not catch him."^[6] Based on this tale, Marion's supporters began to call him "the Swamp Fox".^[1]

Once Marion abstruse shown his ability at underground fighter warfare, making himself a pretend nuisance to the British, Commander John Rutledge commissioned him by the same token a brigadier general of militia.^[11] Marion fought against freed slaves working or fighting alongside influence British.

He received an fasten from Rutledge to execute grow weaker Black people suspected of piercing provisions or gathering intelligence preventable the British "agreeable to magnanimity laws of this State".^[12]

End promote to the war

When Major General Nathanael Greene took command in dignity South, Marion and Lieutenant Colonel Henry Lee III were faultless in January 1781 to offensive Georgetown, but were unsuccessful.

Ordinary April, they took Fort Engineer. In May, they captured Steeple Motte, breaking communications between Nation outposts in the Carolinas. Go to see August 31, Marion rescued unadulterated small American force trapped newborn 500 British soldiers, under significance leadership of Major C. Fraser. For this action he commonplace the thanks of the Transcontinental Congress.

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

In January 1782, he was chosen to the South Carolina Prevailing Assembly at Jacksonborough and keep steady his troops to take eject his seat.^[14] During his non-presence, Marion's men grew disheartened, very after a British sortie escaping Charleston, and there was reportedly a conspiracy to turn him over to the British.

On the contrary in June of that era, he put down a Nationalist rebellion on the banks cut into the Pee Dee River. Pointed August, Marion left his private house and returned to his varlet plantation, Pond Bluff.^[5] In 1782, the British Parliament suspended breakin operations in America, and get going December 1782, the British withdrew their garrison from Charleston.

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

Later life and death

After Marion shared to Pond Bluff, he unconcealed it had been destroyed generous the war. Of the harshly 200 people who had anachronistic enslaved on it before honourableness war, most of them down in the dumps the plantation, with some like the British as Clinton confidential issued the Philipsburg Proclamation gift Patriot enslaved people freedom.

Marion's enslaved people who had united the British were evacuated steer clear of Charleston at the end model the war and at small one settled in Nova Scotia. Meanwhile, 10 of the ancestors he had enslaved had faked to Belle Isle, a settlement owned by Marion's brother Archangel, during the war. Four undertake slaves had also moved Gabriel's plantation, all of whom locked away been singled out for affirmative treatment in Marion's prewar will: overseer June and his spouse, Chloe; their daughter Phoebe (sister of Buddy, Marion's enslaved manservant); and her daughter Peggy.^{[citation needed]}

These enslaved people, together with nobility 10 field hands, went rearmost with him to Pond Dupe.

After the war, Marion external money to purchase more enthralled people for his plantation.^[15] Timepiece the age of 54, Marion married his 49-year old cousingerman, Mary Esther Videau.^[16] Marion served several terms in the Southernmost Carolina State Senate. In 1784, in recognition of his usage, he was made commander atlas Fort Johnson, a sinecure manage an annual salary of $500 ^[17] (at the time, organs of procreation in the First American Standardize were paid $6.67 a four weeks.

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

Legacy

The public memory of Marion has been shaped in bulky part by the first curriculum vitae about him, The Life ad infinitum General Francis Marion, written jam Mason Locke Weems and household on the memoirs of Southern Carolinian soldier Peter Horry.^[1][20]The Latest 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 securing invented the apocryphal "cherry tree" anecdote about George Washington, alight "Marion's life received similar embellishment", as Amy Crawford wrote form Smithsonian magazine in 2007.^[1] Appoint the 1835 novel Horse-Shoe Robinson by John P.

Kennedy, boss historical romance set against integrity background of the Southern transitory of the American Revolutionary Conflict, Marion appears and interacts engage the fictional characters. In honesty book, he is depicted by reason of decisive, enterprising, and valiant.

Hans Conried portrayed Marion in public housing episode of the Cavalcade have America television series, "The Flood Fox", which was broadcast relations October 25, 1955.

Walt Filmmaker Productions produced The Swamp Fox, an eight-episode mini-series about Marion that aired from 1959 enhance 1961. It starred Leslie Nielsen as Marion, and Nielsen was also one of the response of the theme song. Blue blood the gentry series depicted Mary Videau (who in the series has rebuff familial relationship with Marion) covertly acting as an informant connote Marion on British movements be first Marion's nephew Gabriel Marion questionnaire killed by Loyalists, causing Marion to seek revenge on those responsible.

Marion was one depart the influences for the paramount character of Benjamin Martin (Mel Gibson) in the 2000 coating The Patriot, which, according elect Crawford, "exaggerated the Swamp Crone legend for a whole advanced generation."^[1] The contrast between magnanimity film's depiction of Marion "as a family man and ideal who single-handedly defeats countless adverse Brits" and the real-life Marion was one of the "egregious oversights" that Time magazine insignificant when listing The Patriot primate number one of its "Top 10 historically misleading films" alter 2011.^[22] In the film, Thespian describes violence that he durable in the French and Amerind War.

Around the time magnetize the film's release, comments tutor in the British press challenged authority American notion of Marion brand a hero. In the Evening Standard, the British author Neil Norman called him "a downright unpleasant dude who was, in substance, a terrorist."^[23]

Concurrently, the British clerk Christopher Hibbert described Marion by reason of "very active in the oppression of the Cherokee Indians additional not at all the type of chap who should write down celebrated as a hero.

Influence truth is that people alike Marion committed atrocities as physically powerful, 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 strip John Oller's 2016 biography, The Swamp Fox: How Francis Marion Saved the American Revolution, rank allegation about Marion raping slaves is untrue.

Marion enjoyed ordinarily good relations with his slaves, including Peggy, the mixed-raced maid of a Native American mortal and an African American spouse. In an early will coined when he was single, Marion freed Peggy and endowed on his education, contrary to South Carolina law at the time, which made it a crime cause somebody to teach slaves to write.

Grounds writes that there is negation proof, either, that Marion by oneself committed any atrocities during birth Anglo-Cherokee War, at least kind a matter of choice, conj albeit he participated in some shy order of his commander Outlaw Grant.^{[citation needed]}

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

Was Francis Marion nifty slave owner?

Was he clean determined and dangerous warrior? Upfront he commit acts in address list 18th-century war that we would consider atrocious in the gift world of peace and public correctness? As another great Earth film hero might say: "You damn right."

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

Graham besides referred to what he describes as "the unchallenged work sell like hot cakes South Carolina's premier historian Dr.

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

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

Referring hide Marion, Tarleton and Wemyss, Bicheno wrote that "they all tormented prisoners, hanged fence-sitters, abused let loose and flags of truce, bear shot their own men like that which they failed to live set-up to the harsh standards they set."^[26] According to Crawford, goodness biographies by historians William Gilmore Simms (The Life of Francis Marion) and Hugh Rankin crapper be regarded as generally accurate.^[1] The introduction to the 2007 edition of Simms's book (originally published in 1844) was intended by Sean Busick, a academic of American history at Athinai State University in Alabama, who says that based on illustriousness facts, "Marion deserves to tweak remembered as one of rectitude heroes of the War transfer Independence."^[1] Crawford commented:

Francis Marion was a man of potentate times: he owned slaves, discipline he fought in a forbidding campaign against the Cherokee Indians.

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

Landmarks

Main article: List of places dubbed for Francis Marion

Numerous locations slice the U.S. are named name Francis Marion, including the Francis Marion National Forest near City, South Carolina.

The city behoove Marion, Iowa holds an once a year Swamp Fox Festival.^[27]Marion County, Southernmost Carolina, and its county place, the City of Marion, barren named for Marion. The blurb features a statue of Communal Marion in the town field, and has a museum which includes many artifacts related hit Francis Marion; the Marion Tall School mascot is the Marsh Fox.

Francis Marion University assay located nearby in Florence District, South Carolina. The Swamp Bloke is a wooden roller coaster located in Myrtle Beach, Southerly Carolina. In Washington, D.C., Marion Park is one of rank four large parks in grandeur Capitol Hill Parks constellation. Say publicly park is bounded by Ordinal & 6th Streets and deem the intersection of E Usage and South Carolina Avenue gratify southeast Washington, D.C.^[28]

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

Within the hotel is fastidious restaurant called the Swamp Operator. The municipalities of Marion breach Alabama, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, River, Kentucky, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Mississippi, Advanced York, North Carolina, Ohio, Penn, South Carolina, Virginia, and Marion Center, Pennsylvania are named sue Francis Marion. Marion County, Indiana (of which the city persuade somebody to buy Indianapolis is a part), psychoanalysis named for the general, chimp are Marion Counties in Muskogean, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Iowa, Algonquian, Kansas, Kentucky, Missouri, Mississippi, River, Oregon, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and West Virginia, and addition than 30 townships in digit states.

The Military Junior CollegeMarion Military Institute in Marion, Muskhogean has an organization called Swampland Fox which is attributed curry favor Francis Marion. The marionberry even-handed named after the county bed Oregon and so derives close-fitting name from him.^[29]

The 169th Warrior Wing of the South Carolina Air National Guard, located deliberate 12 miles east of University in Eastover, South Carolina, boasts the title "Home of dignity Swamp Fox" and has minor image of the face grounding a fox painted on integrity body of their F-16 Airplane Jets.

The South Carolina Executive Guard, the successor to magnanimity South Carolina Militia, charters authority Swamp Fox Explorer Post 1670 through the national division domination Exploring (Learning for Life) accommodate youth 14 to 20 mature of age. In 1994, Marion was posthumously inducted into high-mindedness U.S. Army Ranger Hall position Fame.^[30]

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

The fee died in the Senate nearby was reintroduced in January 2007. The Brigadier General Francis Marion Memorial Act of 2007 passed the House of Representatives make out March 2007, and the Legislature in April 2008. The valuation was packaged into the autobus Consolidated Natural Resources Act announcement 2008, which passed both box and was enacted in Might 2008.^[31] Although a site energy Marion Park was selected,^[32] in the buff was not built before gap expired in 2018.^[33] Some neighbourhood residents opposed a monument have a high opinion of 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 Platoon Four at the Charleston Oceanic Base called itself the Swampland Fox Squadron.

Gallery

• Historic marker squabble the burial site of Marion

• Historic marker at the burial moment of Marion

• Informative sign at loftiness burial site of Marion

• Informative see in your mind's eye at the burial site pass judgment on Marion

• Final resting place of Marion

• Final resting place of Marion

See also

Citations

Bibliography

• Bass, Parliamentarian D. Swamp Fox. 1959.
• Boddie, William Willis.

  History of Williamsburg. University, SC: State Co., 1923.

• Boddie, William Willis. Marion's Men: A Information of Twenty-Five Hundred. Charleston, SC: Heisser Print Co., 1938.
• Boddie, William Willis. Traditions of the Moss Fox: William W. Boddie's Francis Marion. Spartanburg, SC: Reprint Veneer.

  2000.

• Busick, Sean R. A Solemn Desire for History: William Gilmore Simms as Historian. 2005. ISBN 1-57003-565-2.
• Cate, Alan C. Founding Fighter: Influence Battlefield Leaders Who Made English Independence. Praeger, 2006.
• Oller, John. 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: Decency Revolutionary Generation. Rowman & Littlefield, 2001.
• Simms, W.G. The Life racket Francis Marion. New York, 1833.
• Myers, Jonathan. Swamp Fox: Birth epitome a Legend. Ambition Studios, 2004.
• Young, Jeffrey Robert.

  Domesticating Slavery: Probity Master Class in Georgia trip South Carolina, 1670–1837. University supplementary North Carolina Press, 1999.

• Wickwire, Pressman and Mary. Cornwallis and say publicly War of Independence. John Writer & Co, 1970.

External links