The Swamp Fox

by John Oller

44“whipped . . . regiment”: O’Kelley, Unwaried Patience, 291.

  44thirty-nine to one hundred: Harry M. Ward, George Washington’s Enforcers: Policing the Continental Army (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 2006), 160; Frierson, “Discipline by the Lash,” 8.

  44the British army . . . was much harder: Buchanan, 158.

  44men comb their hair . . . “clean and neat”: O’Kelley, Unwaried Patience, 277, 287.

  44“long hairs gather much filth” . . . regimental barber . . . dressed on the spot: Ibid., 284.

  44“more like wild savages than soldiers”: Ibid.

  44“filthy custom . . . vile practices”: Ibid., 283.

  44“genteel dinner” . . . in their barracks: Ibid., 207.

  45“obliged to take notice . . . attentive to their men”: Ibid., 111, 172–173.

  45“Whenever any part . . . entirely”: Ibid., 277.

  45“read, Wright & arithmitick”: Ibid., 295.

  45The chosen instructor: Ibid., 97, 109, 131 (Howell Simmons).

  45offered bounties . . . petty criminals: Edgar, Partisans and Redcoats, 43; O’Kelley, Unwaried Patience, 345.

  45less than half strength: “Francis Marion’s Regimental Muster Roll, 1778,” Thomas Cooper Library, University of South Carolina, Rare Books and Special Collections, 2013, library.sc.edu/spcoll/marion/fmarion.html.

  45“lieutenant colonel commandant”: Bass, Swamp Fox, 22; O’Kelley, Unwaried Patience, 344, 350, 672n904. In 1782 his commandant commission was backdated to September 1776. “The Francis Marion Congressional Military Commission,” Francis Marion University, October 29, 2008, www.fmarion.edu/rogerslibrary/fmcommissiontext.htm.

  45his four brothers had died: Yeadon 1, no. 4 (June 1845): 413, 418–419, 421, 425.

  45role of guardian . . . US representative: Ibid., 418, 426; Boddie, Traditions, 42, 260, 269–270; Karen MacNutt, “Gen. and Mrs. Marion, Families of the Revolution,” address at 7th Francis Marion/Swamp Fox Symposium, Manning, SC, October 17, 2009, DVD; “Robert Marion (1766–1811),” Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, bioguide.congress.gov/scripts/biodisplay.pl?index=M000130.

  46The fall of Savannah . . . pillaging homes: John C. Cavanaugh, “American Military Leadership in the Southern Campaign: Benjamin Lincoln,” in Higgins, Revolutionary War in the South, 105–111; Edgar, Partisans and Redcoats, 44–47; Rankin, 29–32; Parker, 112; James Haw, John and Edward Rutledge of South Carolina (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1997), 126–127; Gregory D. Massey, John Laurens and the American Revolution (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 2000), 136–140.

  47John Laurens . . . “blown up . . . huzzas”: David Duncan Wallace, The Life of Henry Laurens, with a Sketch of the Life of Lieutenant-Colonel John Laurens (New York: G. P. Putnam’s, 1915), 448–450; Massey, John Laurens, 140–143.

  47“much disgusted . . . impolitic step”: Massey, John Laurens, 140.

  47General Lincoln . . . retake Savannah . . . Jasper, too, was cut down: Cavanaugh, “Benjamin Lincoln,” 118–119; Swisher, Southern Back Country, 90–105; Rankin, 34–39; O’Kelley, Unwaried Patience, 470–473.

  49“the ditch . . . their dead”: O’Kelley, Unwaried Patience, 473.

  49Colonel Laurens . . . Count Pulaski: Ibid.; Massey, John Laurens, 147–148.

  49Franco-American forces . . . British casualties: O’Kelley, Unwaried Patience, 474; Swisher, Southern Back Country, 106–107.

  49pleaded with d’Estaing: Cavanaugh, “Benjamin Lincoln,” 119; Haw, John and Edward Rutledge, 129.

  50plantation in Sheldon . . . minor skirmishing . . . kept armed blacks: Rankin, 39–42; O’Kelley, Unwaried Patience, 479–486; Piecuch, Three Peoples, 169–171.

  50“When you see me . . . singular”: FM to Lincoln, January 26, 1780, South Carolina Historical Society, Charleston.

  50Marion remained . . . returned to Charleston: Rankin, 40, 43; Benjamin Lincoln to FM, January 31, 1780 (Gibbes, 9–10).

  50Bacon’s Bridge . . . no rum: Carl P. Borick, A Gallant Defense: The Siege of Charleston, 1780 (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 2003), 67–68, 87; O’Kelley, Unwaried Patience, 497–500.

  50back in command . . . Rural militia: Rankin, 44; Haw, John and Edward Rutledge, 131–132; Cavanaugh, “Benjamin Lincoln,” 121; Fraser, Patriots, 117–119; Borick, A Gallant Defense, 56–59, 66–67.

  51attended an officers’ party: Bass, Swamp Fox, 29; Buchanan, 151–152. Some sources say his ankle was sprained or dislocated rather than broken.

  51on April 12 . . . Marion was gone . . . as was Governor Rutledge: Borick, A Gallant Defense, 138–142; Sherman, Calendar, 134.

  51Peter Horry: Rankin, 40–41; Peter Horry, “Journal,” ed. A. S. Salley, SCHGM 38, no. 2 (April 1937): 49–53; Rogers, History of Georgetown County, 146.

  51Lincoln considered . . . was not strong enough: Cavanaugh, “Benjamin Lincoln,” 126; Buchanan, 49, 66.

  51Tarleton’s cavalry . . . managed to escape: Gordon, Battlefield History, 82–83; Buchanan, 61–62; Cavanaugh, “Benjamin Lincoln,” 126.

  52Lenud’s Ferry . . . Elias Ball: Scott A. Miskimon, “Anthony Walton White, a Revolutionary Dragoon,” in Piecuch, Cavalry, 120–126, 240n37; [Elizabeth Anne Poyas], Our Forefathers: Their Homes and Their Churches (Charleston, SC, 1860), 169–170; Edward Ball, Slaves in the Family (1998; repr., New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2014), 8–9, 15.

  52“open the gates for the enemy”: Cavanaugh, “Benjamin Lincoln,” 126.

  CHAPTER 6: BIRTH OF A PARTISAN

  54On August 23 . . . Murray’s Ferry: FM to Horatio Gates, August 29, 1780, Sparks Collection, Harvard; Cornwallis to Germain, September 19, 1780 (CSR15:279–280).

  54Tory deserter . . . best-trained . . . Sumter’s abandoned plantation: Aiken, 107; Pancake, This Destructive War, 49; Parker, 166, 412; Cornwallis to Germain, September 19, 1780 (CSR15:279–280). The exact location of Sumter’s plantation remains uncertain. Steven D. Smith, with Tamara S. Wilson and James B. Legg, contributors, The Search for Francis Marion: Archaeological Survey of 15 Camps and Battlefields Associated with Francis Marion (Columbia: University of South Carolina, South Carolina Institute of Archaeology and Anthropology, July 2008), 18–22.

  54guarded by sixty . . . a few Tory militia troops: FM to Horatio Gates, August 29, 1780, Sparks Collection, Harvard; Cornwallis to Germain, September 19, 1780 (CSR15:279).

  54nProvincials . . . British had more Americans: A. S. Salley, ed., SCHGM 2, no. 1 (January 1901): 248n.

  55Marion had seventy: FM to Gates, August 29, 1780, Sparks Collection, Harvard. Horry put Marion’s force at 30 and the enemy guard at 90, whereas Cornwallis reported that Marion had 150 to 200 militia to only 36 or 38 prisoner guards. Weems, 116; Cornwallis to John Harris Cruger, August 27, 1780 (CP2:172); Cornwallis to Clinton, August 29, 1780 (CP2:41–42); Cornwallis to Germain, September 19, 1780 (CSR15:279). Throughout the Revolution each side tended to overstate the size of the enemy and understate its own force, particularly when it lost a battle.

  55He roused his men . . . victory, though small, was complete: Aiken, 34–35, 107–109; FM to PH, August 27, 1780 (Gibbes, 11–12); FM to Gates, August 29, 1780, Sparks Collection, Harvard; FM to Gates, September 15, 1780 (CSR14:617); Cornwallis to Clinton, August 29, 1780 (CP2:41–42); Cornwallis to Germain, September 19, 1780 (CSR15:280).

  55the freed prisoners . . . about 60, went to North Carolina: Rankin, 66; James Read to Jethro Sumner, September 12, 1780 (CSR14:771); Cornwallis to Cruger, August 27, 1780 (CP2:172); Cornwallis to Germain, September 19, 1780 (CSR15:280); Cornwallis to Clinton, August 29, 1780 (CP2:42); FM to Gates, August 29, 1780, Sparks Collection, Harvard; Otho Williams to Gov. Thomas Sim Lee, October 12, 1780, Calendar of Otho Holland Williams Papers, 1744–1839, MS 908, Maryland Historical Society; John Rutledge to South Carolina Delegates, September 20, 1780, in “Letters of John Rutledge,” annotated by Joseph W. Barnwell, SCHGM 17, no. 4 (October 1916): 139.

  56General Gates . . . made his own report . . . Patri
ot newspapers: Bass, Swamp Fox, 46–47.

  56“a Colonel Marion”: Cornwallis to Clinton, August 29, 1780 (CP2:41).

  56“I am afraid . . . the whole of it”: Wemyss to Cornwallis, September 3, 1780 (CP2:213).

  56“disaffection” . . . Santee was so great: Cornwallis to Clinton, August 29, 1780 (CP2:41).

  56“disarm . . . the plantation”: Cornwallis to Wemyss, August 28, 1780 (CP2:208) (emphasis added).

  57“I have ordered . . . of the country”: Cornwallis to Cruger, August 18, 1780 (CP2:19) (first emphasis in text added).

  57attended Eton academy, a rough place: Franklin B. Wickwire and Mary Wickwire, Cornwallis: The American Adventure (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1970), 22–23.

  57“I have myself . . . the enemy”: Cornwallis to Clinton, August 29, 1780 (CP2:41) (emphasis added).

  57“put an end . . . South Carolina”: Cornwallis to Clinton, June 30, 1780 (CP1:161).

  CHAPTER 7: HITTING AND RUNNING

  58After the victory . . . numbered just over fifty: FM to PH, August 27, 1780 (Gibbes, 11–12); FM to Gates, August 29, 1780, Sparks Collection, Harvard; FM to Gates, September 15, 1780 (CSR14:616–618).

  59On August 29 . . . dispirited the Whigs: FM to Gates, August 29, 1780, Sparks Collection, Harvard; FM to Gates, September 15, 1780 (CSR14:616).

  59Wemyss was about to embark . . . expected Wemyss to recruit: Saberton, CP2:26; Wemyss to Cornwallis, August 28, 1780 (CP2:209–210).

  59Major Micajah Ganey: Bass, Swamp Fox, 48; Micajah Ganey to FM, September 8, 1781 (Gibbes, 135–136); O’Kelley, Unwaried Patience, 505; Lorenzo Sabine, Biographical Sketches of Loyalists of the American Revolution: With an Historical Essay (Boston, 1864), 1:458. His name is also frequently given as Gainey.

  59Captain Jesse Barefield: Bass, Swamp Fox, 48–49; O’Kelley, Unwaried Patience, 193, 505, 651n606; William Barfield Sr., “Twelve Generations of Barfields from Jon (‘The Immigrant’) Barfield,” Rootsweb.com, November 12, 2004, under “Generation #4,” archiver.rootsweb.ancestry.com/th/read/NCBLADEN/2004–11/1100288804; Alexander Gregg, History of the Old Cheraws . . . and Sketches of Individuals (New York, 1867), 334, 337–338. His name is also frequently given as Barfield.

  59“which is all I could get”: FM to Gates, September 15, 1780 (CSR14:617).

  59several brothers persuaded him: Loftis R. Munnerlyn Pension, S18136. Munnerlyn made his pension application more than fifty years after the event, when he was in his eighties. He initially stated that Marion and thirty men rescued his parents from their home after it was “unroofed” by the Tories. In a second declaration four years after the original one he stated that his father was freed in the skirmish at Blue Savannah after he and his brothers told Marion they were determined to rescue him whether Marion helped them or not. Munnerlyn also claimed Marion agreed to attack with sixty men against five hundred Tories, which further undermines the plausibility of his account.

  60told no one . . . feathers in their hats: Bass, Swamp Fox, 49.

  60came upon an advance foraging party . . . escaped into the swamps: FM to Gates, September 15, 1780 (CSR14:617); James, 26; Francis Davis Pension, S8290; Rankin, 70–72. Most sources state that Ganey was with the advance party and that Major John James singled him out for pursuit. If the advance was merely a foraging party, as the Davis pension states, then Ganey probably was not with it.

  60Blue Savannah . . . bluish color: Parker, 322–323, 499n405 (citing address by Jo Church Dickerson). The engagement is believed to have taken place on the east side of present-day South Carolina Highway 41 about a quarter-mile south of its intersection with US 501. Parker, 322; Smith, The Search for Francis Marion, 27–29.

  60nmany inland South Carolina “bays”: James, 47n14; “Carolina Bays,” South Carolina Department of Natural Resources, 2014, www.dnr.sc.gov/wildlife/wetlands/carolinabays.html.

  60William Dobein James . . . an ambush: James, 26. See also Rankin, 71; Bass, Swamp Fox, 50–51; Aiken, 111–113. Some historians have read James to say that due to illness, he was absent for the entire early part of Marion’s partisan campaign. In fact, he joined Marion’s brigade at Witherspoon’s Ferry in mid-August and was still with Marion at the Great White Marsh in North Carolina on September 24, when Marion returned to South Carolina and James stayed behind after taking sick there. James, 5, 26, 31; Rankin, 75–76, 83. Even if James was not at Blue Savannah, his father, Major John James, was there.

  61“directly attacked . . . put them to flight”: FM to Gates, September 15, 1780 (CSR14:617). The fact that Marion reported no Tories being killed suggests that there was no ambush, at least not in the manner described by James. John C. Parker Jr., email to the author, April 18, 2015. However, it seems unlikely that Marion would have plunged fifty-three men against two hundred in a headlong assault, especially at that early stage of his partisan campaign, when the loss of his brigade would have been disastrous for the patriot cause. He might have done so if he caught the enemy completely off guard, but James describes the Tories as being in formation, and Marion reported that they were on the march toward him. Like most of his cursory battle reports, Marion’s letter to Gates probably omitted some details of the skirmish. Complicating matters, one pension application states it was Ganey’s Tories, lying in ambush, who surprised and fired upon Marion’s men in the second skirmish before retreating to the swamp. Francis Davis Pension, S8290.

  61fled into a swamp: FM to Gates, September 15, 1780 (CSR14:617); James, 26; Francis Davis Pension, S8290.

  61shouted curses and insults: Bass, Swamp Fox, 51.

  61“impassable . . . to all but Tories”: FM to Gates, September 15, 1780 (CSR14:617).

  61four wounded . . . sixty new volunteers: Ibid.; George McCall Pension, R6598; Smith, “Archaeological Perspectives,” 154.

  61While at Britton’s Neck . . . retreating to North Carolina: FM to Gates, September 15, 1780 (CSR14:617); Rankin, 74–76; James, 31; Bass, Swamp Fox, 54; Sherman, Calendar, 252–254; South-Carolina and American General Gazette (Charleston), September 20, 1780.

  62Ami’s Mill . . . dumped the two field pieces: Sherman, Calendar, 254 and n1271; James, 31.

  62“until I hear . . . doing something”: FM to Gates, September 15, 1780 (CSR14:618).

  63Wemyss . . . pursued Marion: Wemyss to Cornwallis, September 20, 1780 (CP2:214–215); Bass, Gamecock, 89; Henry W. Harrington to Gates, September 17, 1780 (CSR14:624–625).

  63burned the . . . “sedition shop”: James, 43.

  63himself a Presbyterian: Marg Baskin, Oatmeal for the Foxhounds: Banastre Tarleton and the British Legion, “Friends, Comrades, and Enemies: James Wemyss (1748–1833),” n30, January 2, 2011, home.golden.net/~marg/bansite/friends/wemyss.html.

  63put the torch to several: James, 31–32, 43; Parker, 189–190, 229, 324.

  63nWemyss supposedly locked: James, 43.

  63hanged Adam Cusack . . . John Brockinton: James, 32; FM to Gates, October 4, 1780 (CSR14:666); Wemyss to Cornwallis, September 20, 1780 (CP2:215 and n12); Gregg, Old Cheraws, 303; Parker, 189, 223; Baskin, “James Wemyss,” n41; Neil O. Myers, Myers and Neighbors of Jeffries Creek, SC (Aiken, SC: Lulu.com, 2007), 69–72.

  63Dr. James Wilson: Parker, 189; Bass, Swamp Fox, 58.

  63“by birth . . . a Mohawk”: Weems, 128.

  63cut a path of destruction: James, 31; Parker, 229, 435.

  63fifty houses . . . “mostly”: Wemyss to Cornwallis, September 20, 1780 (CP2:215).

  63destroy blacksmith shops . . . cows and sheep: James, 31–32, 43; Parker, 229; Buchanan, 185.

  63“I never could come up with them” . . . boasted: Wemyss to Cornwallis, September 20, 1780 (CP2:214–215).

  64“not so agreeable”: Cornwallis to Wemyss, September 26, 1780 (CP2:216).

  64“It is impossible . . . disaffection of this country”: Wemyss to Cornwallis, September 20, 1780 (CP2:215).

  64Tory militia, without support . . . were too weak: Wemyss to Cornwallis, September 30, 1780 (CP2:217).

  64“burning houses .
. . severe manner”: Ibid.

  64Moses Murphy . . . Maurice Murphy: Parker, 324; Gregg, Old Cheraws, 71–72, 246, 298, 303; O’Kelley, Unwaried Patience, 525, 532, 698n1376; Beverly White, “Malachi Murphy,” Rootsweb.com, November 17, 2000, archiver.rootsweb.ancestry.com/th/read/MURPHY/2000–11/0974502591.

  64“ungovernable passion . . . strong drink”: Gregg, Old Cheraws, 354.

  64had stolen Micajah Ganey’s horses: Micajah Ganey to FM, September 8, 1781 (Gibbes, 136).

  64Murphy had also shot . . . his own cousin: Valentine Van Zee, “Gibson Family of Pee Dee, SC,” Rootsweb.com, under “A-11, Gideon Gibson,” freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~valvz/gibson_of_pee_dee.html; Gregg, Old Cheraws, 354.

  64“I am sorry . . . women and children”: FM to Gates, October 4, 1780 (CSR14:666).

  64Marion wrote apologetically . . . John Ervin: FM to Gates, October 15, 1780 (CSR14:622). Some sources identify the miscreant as Colonel Hugh Ervin Sr., a senior militia officer of advanced age who, at least nominally, was Marion’s second-in-command. Hugh Ervin Sr. was John Ervin’s uncle and father-in-law. Rankin, 89, 148; Smith, “Archaeological Perspectives,” 96, 158–159; Ervin, “Entries,” 222. I agree with Jim Piecuch that John Ervin, who was younger and spent more time in the field than his father-in-law, is likely the person referred to in Marion’s letter to Gates. Piecuch, Three Peoples, 230. Unlike Piecuch, however, I do not read the letter to say that John Ervin had defected to the British and was burning Whigs’ homes. In the letter Marion is lamenting the burning of Tory properties by men associated with his brigade.

  64“will be the greatest hurt to our interest”: FM to Gates, October 15, 1780 (CSR14:622).

  65Ervin left the brigade . . . would return: Ibid.; O’Kelley, Unwaried Patience, 534, 699n1405.

  65Murphy . . . Later promoted . . . keeping them occupied: O’Kelley, Unwaried Patience, 525, 532; Sherman, Calendar, 65; Gregg, Old Cheraws, 374.

  65Cornwallis defended any brutalities: Cornwallis to Germain, August 21, 1780 (CP2:14); Cornwallis to Smallwood, November 17, 1780 (CP3:401–402).

  65“I have always . . . horrors of war”: Cornwallis to Clinton, December 4, 1780 (CP3:28).