The Swamp Fox

by John Oller

  89threaten Georgetown: Aiken, 185–186.

  89“no joke to us”: Balfour to Cornwallis, November 17, 1780 (CP3:85).

  89“I do not think . . . joining him”: Cornwallis to Balfour, November 22, 1780 (CP3:87).

  89“We have lost . . . was as quiet”: Cornwallis to Balfour, November 25, 1780 (CP3:89).

  CHAPTER 11: “I MUST DRIVE MARION OUT OF THAT COUNTRY”

  90angling for a promotion . . . commissioned Sumter: Sherman, Calendar, 276, 278.

  90“our greatest plague in this country”: Cornwallis to Tarleton, November 23, 1780, in Tarleton, Campaigns, 203.

  91Wemyss asked Cornwallis . . . hugged its neck: Buchanan, 249–251; Lumpkin, 108–109; Bass, Gamecock, 96–99; Cornwallis to Tarleton, November 9, 1780 (CP3:335); Cornwallis to Balfour, November 10, 1780 (ibid., 68); Cornwallis to Clinton, December 3, 1780 (ibid., 25); Baskin, “James Wemyss.”

  91Sumter was bragging: Bass, Gamecock, 101.

  92three to four hundred . . . beat back a bayonet charge: Buchanan, 251–257; Sherman, Calendar, 314–319; Lumpkin, 114; Wickwire and Wickwire, Cornwallis, 224–225; Bass, Gamecock, 102–107.

  92Marion wrote to General Gates: FM to Gates, November 21, 1780 (CSR14:746).

  92“invalids” . . . redoubtable Jesse Barefield . . . got away: Ibid.; O’Kelley, Unwaried Patience, 506–507; Rankin, 117–119; FM to William Harrington, November 17, 1780, in Gregg, Old Cheraws, 343–344; Parker, 233–234.

  93shot . . . point blank: James, 36; Parker, 234.

  93Gabriel Marion . . . made out a will: Last Will and Testament of Gabriel Marion, October 21, 1780, Ancestry.com.

  93mourned young Gabriel’s death: James, 36.

  93“Our loss . . . three wounded”: FM to Gates, November 21, 1780 (CSR14:746).

  93put a bullet . . . reprimanded: Weems, 142–143; James Jenkins, Experience, Labours, and Sufferings of Rev. James Jenkins, of the South Carolina Conference (Spartanburg, SC: 1842), 23–24.

  94“do anything effectual” . . . in need of a surgeon: FM to Gates, November 21, 1780 (CSR14:746–747).

  94“Many of my people . . . support”: Ibid., 746.

  94“I seldom have . . . will be the same”: FM to Gates, November 22, 1780, in Bass, Swamp Fox, 98.

  94Major Robert McLeroth . . . became worried . . . they had gone home: Ibid.

  94about four hundred . . . Sumter’s plantation: Rankin, 124.

  95did not vent . . . lacked enterprise: James, 55; Saberton, CP3:77n31.

  95“I think the sooner . . . some accident to him”: Balfour to Cornwallis, November 29, 1780 (CP3:98).

  95Turnbull . . . was granted leave: Sherman, Calendar, 311.

  95“I trust . . . cuts deep”: Cornwallis to Rawdon, December 3, 1780 (CP3:191).

  95Marion remained in hiding: Bass, Swamp Fox, 104; Smith, “Archaeological Perspectives,” 164–165, 168.

  95marauding band . . . if left unchecked: Rawdon to Cornwallis, December 5, 1780 (CP3:196); Bass, Swamp Fox, 105–106; Lambert, South Carolina Loyalists, 115, 200; “Memorial of Captain John Harrison Loyalist Claims—Public Records Office, London, England,” transcribed by Houston Tracy Jr., The Harrison Genealogy Repository, Rootsweb.com, February 15, 2000, freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~harrisonrep/harrbios/captjohnharrisonSC.html. Another Harrison brother (or possibly their father), Robert, had been killed on October 14, 1780. Clark, Loyalists in the Southern Campaign, 1:101; Bass, “South Carolina Rangers,” 69.

  95Samuel Tynes . . . had escaped . . . time on their hands: FM to Gates, December 6, 1780, Horatio Gates Papers, microfilm reel 13:67, Thomas Cooper Library, University of South Carolina; Coffin to Rawdon, November 23, 1780 (CP3:170); Bass, Swamp Fox, 101, 105–107.

  96dispatched Peter Horry . . . Tories deserted . . . “exceedingly frightened”: Bass, Swamp Fox, 106–107; Rawdon to Cornwallis, December 8, 1780 (CP3:200) (quotation).

  96two hundred raw recruits . . . preparing to invade: Tarleton, Campaigns, 212; Sherman, Calendar, 326; Bass, Swamp Fox, 100; Rutledge, “Account,” December 8, 1780, SCHGM 18, no. 2 (April 1917): 60.

  96“too formidable . . . better than militia”: Balfour to Cornwallis, December 4, 1780 (CP3:104).

  96the plan was . . . would meet them: Balfour to Cornwallis, December 11, 1780 (CP3:111); Bass, Swamp Fox, 103, 107.

  96swelled to about three hundred: James, 53–54. Estimates of the opposing forces range from 300 to 700 for Marion, and 270 to 500 for McLeroth, depending on whether his 200 troops under escort are included. Sherman, Calendar, 333; FM to NG, December 22, 1780 (NGP6:605); Rawdon to Cornwallis, December 13, 15, 1780 (CP3:209–210, 214); Coffin to Rawdon, December 13, 1780 (CP3:211). The 700 figure for Marion would represent an unprecedented increase in his brigade in such a short time and is likely exaggerated. Rawdon reported to Cornwallis on December 2 that Marion’s force was 300 and expressed disbelief at a later report that placed the number at 500. Rawdon to Cornwallis, December 2, 13, 1780 (CP3:190, 209–210). Another British report placed Marion’s force, as of December 29, at 300 to 400. Filinghauzen, January 2, 1781 (CP3:419). On November 20 John Rutledge reported Marion with “perhaps 300” in the Kingston area. Rutledge to South Carolina Delegates, November 20, 1780, SCHGM 17, no. 4 (October 1917): 143. James is probably correct that both forces were somewhere between three and four hundred.

  96Around December 13 . . . Halfway Swamp: James, 54. Halfway Swamp is located about a mile south of present-day Rimini, South Carolina, on either side of Highway 76. The actual date of the action is uncertain.

  97nmodern rules of warfare: Protocol Additional to the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949, and relating to the Protection of Victims of International Armed Conflicts (Protocol I, 8 June 1977), Article 43 (definition of combatants). Article 53 of the Geneva Convention Relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War, of 12 August 1949, states that “any destruction by the occupying power of real or personal property belonging . . . to private persons . . . is prohibited, except where such destruction is rendered absolutely necessary by military operations.”

  At the time of the Revolution both the British and American Articles of War forbade any waste or malicious destruction of enemy civilian property other than by order of the commander in chief. A hostile power could destroy civilian property only if it gained some military advantage, weakened the enemy, or punished the enemy for an egregious violation of international law. John Loran Kiel Jr., “War Crimes in the American Revolution: Examining the Conduct of Lt. Col. Banastre Tarleton and the British Legion During the Southern Campaigns of 1780–1781,” Military Law Review 213 (Fall 2012): 44, 50–51.

  97best marksmen square off . . . “fifty yards” . . . both sides retired: James, 54–55.

  98“skirmaged”: FM to NG, December 22, 1780 (NGP6:605). Marion probably meant “skirmished,” to convey an actual if small battle, but another intriguing possibility exists. The word “scrymmage,” an alteration of “skyrmissh,” meant “to fight with a sword, fence.” Ernest Klein, A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language (Amsterdam: Elsevier Pub. Co., 1967), 2:1403, 1454. Could Marion have coyly signaled that the engagement involved a mere “scrimmage,” that is, a pretend fight, like a fencing match?

  98from Gavin Witherspoon: James, 5, 54.

  98stalling for time . . . fleeing the infected premises: James, 55; Rankin, 132–133.

  98130 infantry: FM to NG, December 22, 1780 (NGP6:605).

  99McLeroth and Coffin headed safely off: Sherman, Calendar, 333.

  99Rawdon . . . granted his request: Rawdon to Cornwallis, December 16, 1780 (CP3:215).

  99“mild and equitable behavior”: Rawdon to Cornwallis, December 18, 1780 (CP3:217).

  99“the most humane . . . British army”: James, 55.

  99“I must drive . . . to effect it”: Rawdon to Cornwallis, December 15, 1780 (CP3:214).

  99“disposed of”: Cornwallis to Rawdon, December 17, 1780 (CP3:215).

  CHAPTER 12: “I HAVE NOT T
HE HONOR OF YOUR ACQUAINTANCE”

  100lingered about . . . Benbow’s Ferry: FM to NG, December 22, 1780 (NGP6:605–606 and n4); Rawdon to Cornwallis, December 19, 1780 (CP3:218).

  100Nathanael Greene: Gerald M. Carbone, Nathanael Greene: A Biography of the American Revolution (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008), 5–6, 11, 16, 19–21, 25, 32, 40–46, 53–56, 72–79, 94–96; Buchanan, 260–264, 269–271, 273–274; Terry Golway, Washington’s General: Nathanael Greene and the Triumph of the American Revolution (2005; repr., New York: Owl Books, 2006), 39, 176–177.

  101mid-October . . . December 2: Buchanan, 275; Showman, (NGP6:xvi–xvii).

  101Greene found: Buchanan, 288; Carbone, Nathanael Greene, 153–154; NG to Ezekiel Cornell, December 29, 1780 (NGP7:21).

  101“I have not the honor . . . in our favor”: NG to FM, December 4, 1780 (NGP6:519–520).

  102“the garnish . . . partisan strokes . . . contest for states”: NG to Sumter, January 8, 1781 (NGP7:74–75).

  102pillage and plunder: Ibid., 75.

  102“like the locusts . . . every green thing”: NG to Joseph Reed, January 9, 1781 (NGP7:85).

  102“of no more use . . . in the moon”: NG to Ezekiel Cornell, December 29, 1780 (NGP7:21).

  102Sumter . . . took umbrage: Bass, Gamecock, 120.

  102“good harmony . . . to either”: O’Kelley, Unwaried Patience, 431.

  103“not of the least service”: FM to Benjamin Lincoln, December 23, 1779, Massachusetts Historical Society, Boston.

  103“diffidence”: FM to NG, December 22, 1780 (NGP6:605).

  103“any soldier . . . white or black”: O’Kelley, Unwaried Patience, 566.

  103“Ammunition I am told . . . for which we contend!”: NG to FM, December 4, 1780 (NGP6:520).

  103“Spies are the eyes . . . necessary in this business”: Ibid.

  104“endeavor to procure . . . several passes”: FM to NG, December 22, 1780 (NGP6:605).

  10480 Hessians . . . if he had a hundred: Ibid.

  105established the Snow’s Island . . . main hideout: James, 36–37; Bass, Swamp Fox, 104–105; Simms, 105; Weems, 189; Parker, 230; Smith, “Archaeological Perspectives,” 165–166, 168–169; FM to NG, December 28, 1780 (NGP7:13 and n2).

  105poisonous vapors: Swager, The Valiant Died, 66–67.

  105northern tip . . . vines: James, 37; Bass, Swamp Fox, 104; Smith, “Archaeological Perspectives,” 64, 283; Smith, introduction to Boddie, Traditions, xix.

  105felled trees . . . redoubt, at Dunham’s Bluff: James, 38; Bass, Swamp Fox, 105; Smith, “Archaeological Perspectives,” 170–173, 259–262, 279–281, 283, 317–318.

  105recent archaeological findings: Smith “Archaeological Perspectives,” 257–295, 373. As Smith points out, the discovery of artifacts at Dunham’s Bluff consistent with a militia site as well as other historical evidence suggests that Marion’s principal camp may have been at Dunham’s Bluff and not on Snow’s Island itself, where no physical evidence of a militia camp has been found. Smith, “Archaeological Perspectives,” 257–263, 284–286. But Smith notes that “an equally good argument can be made using the historic records that Marion’s main depot was at the northern end of Snow’s Island” (ibid., 283). A number of contemporaneous records referred to Marion’s camp as being “on” Snow’s Island. Royal Gazette (Charleston), March 31–April 4, 1781; Balfour to John Saunders, April 2, 1781, Saunders Papers, UNB.

  It is possible that Snow’s Island was a catch-all term for various camps within the same general area. But in absence of definitive proof, it seems to this author that Marion had at least one camp and probably his main camp for some time on Snow’s Island itself. Dunham’s Bluff may have been the main camp at times or an adjunct camp that kept in close communication with the island camp across the river.

  105“The swamp was his moat . . . the Rhine”: Simms, 109.

  105sweet potato dinner . . . “But surely, general . . . our usual allowance”: Garden, Anecdotes (1822), 22. See also Simms, 114–117; Weems, 153–156; Benson J. Lossing, “Francis Marion,” Harpers Monthly 17, no. 98 (July 1858): 159.

  106attempts to substantiate it: One writer points to a pension application by a member of Marion’s brigade who claims that the dinner was actually a breakfast and that he was the one who cooked it. Nell Weaver Davies, “New Facts About an Old Story,” Carologue 15, no. 4 (Winter 1999): 16, 20; Samuel Weaver Pension, W8993. A descendant of John Brockinton, the noted Tory from Black Mingo, claims that it was Brockinton, in the process of switching his allegiance to the patriot side, who invited Marion to the dinner and cooked it himself. James P. Truluck Jr., “The Legacy of Two Grandfathers,” Carologue (Autumn 1989): 8.

  106painting by . . . John Blake White: “General Marion Inviting a British Officer to Share His Meal,” United States Senate, Art and History, www.senate.gov/artandhistory/art/artifact/Painting_33_00002.htm. White (1781–1859), a neighbor of Marion, was fourteen at Marion’s death. He made several paintings of the same scene over a number of years, beginning as early as 1810. Davies, “New Facts,” 16.

  106Oscar (or “Buddy”): Sue Anne Pressley Montes, “Post-Revolutionary Recognition,” Washington Post, December 16, 2006; Yeadon 1, no. 1 (March 1845): 219; Joseph Johnson, Traditions and Reminiscences, 280–281. At the time of his recognition in 2006 Oscar/Buddy was assumed to be the African American kneeling behind the small table and roasting the sweet potatoes. Another researcher, however, maintains that the kneeling slave in the painting, clearly a field hand, is not Marion’s body servant and that the real Buddy, as more befitting a personal valet, is the better-dressed African American man standing behind Marion and attending to him. MacNutt, “Images of Francis Marion.”

  106“personal assistant . . . oarsman”: Tina C. Jones, “Patriot Slave,” American Legion, July 1, 2008, www.legion.org/magazine/1562/patriot-slave.

  106played the fiddle: FM to M. T. Watson, February 22, 1785, Theodorus Bailey Myers Collection, New York Public Library.

  106nMore likely . . . Georgetown: “A Yankee View, 1843,” in South Carolina: The Grand Tour, 1780–1865, ed. Thomas D. Clark (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1973), 210; Jesse Olney, A History of the United States, on a New Plan (New Haven, CT: 1836), 165; Weems, 147–156.

  106nhad abundant supplies: James, 37; Smith, “Archaeological Perspectives,” 62, 80, 277, 363.

  106dominated by Whigs . . . furnished Marion’s partisans: Smith, “Archaeological Perspectives,” 14, 54, 223–224, 366.

  106women and slaves . . . carrying salt: Rogers, History of Georgetown County, 133–134.

  107“generous stewards . . . safety and plenty”: Weems, 189.

  107declined to plunder them: O’Kelley, Unwaried Patience, 529; Jacobsen, “Conduct of the Partisan War,” 63.

  107“Some other damages . . . restrained”: FM to James Cordes, February 1, 1781, South Carolina Dept. of Archives and History.

  107offered the citizens security: Smith, “Archaeological Perspectives,” 223–224, 366.

  107Tories’ own backyard: James, 37.

  107150 bushels of salt: Ibid., 39, 109; FM to NG, January 1, 1781 (NGP7:36); Rankin, 147.

  107applied by later guerrilla leaders: Mao Tse-tung, “Guerilla Warfare,” in US Marine Corps, Mao Tse-tung on Guerrilla Warfare, Fleet Marine Force Reference Publication 12–18 (Washington, DC, 1989), 43–44, 86, 104; Smith, “Archaeological Perspectives,” 2, 11–13, 35–37.

  107US Army military doctrine: US Army, Field Manual 3–24: Insurgencies and Countering Insurgencies (Washington, DC, May 13, 2014). See also US Army, Field Manual 21–31: Guerilla Warfare and Special Forces Operations (Washington, DC, September 29, 1961), chap. 2.

  107crude lean-to huts: Bass, Swamp Fox, 104.

  107British seized the plantations . . . “high time . . . such an enemy”: Pennsylvania Packet, January 2, 1781; Preliminary Sketch, September 16, 1780 (CP2:323–324); Balfour to John Cruden, November 20, 1780 (CP3:443); Lambert, South Carolina Loyalists, 235–237; Rebecca N
athan Brannon, “Reconciling the Revolution: Resolving Conflict and Rebuilding Community in the Wake of Civil War in South Carolina, 1775–1860” (PhD diss., University of Michigan, 2007), 81–82, deep blue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/handle/2027.42/57715/brannonr_1.pdf.

  108Rutledge commissioned Marion: Rutledge to South Carolina Delegates, December 30, 1780, SCHGM 18, no. 2 (April 1917): 63.

  108bloody year: Edgar, Partisans and Redcoats, 137.

  CHAPTER 13: “TWO VERY ENTERPRISING OFFICERS”

  109“a party of negroes”: NG to FM, January 16, 1781 (NGP7:131).

  109“taking care . . . best spared”: FM to John Postell, January 19, 1781 (James, 109).

  109sent up . . . more fertile forage area: FM to NG, January 20, 1781 (NGP7:165); Carbone, Nathanael Greene, 158–159.

  109continued to press Marion: NG to FM, January 4, 1781 (NGP7:47).

  109split his . . . army . . . needed to defeat Greene: Buchanan, 292–295; Carbone, Nathanael Greene, 156–157; Gordon, Battlefield History, 126–127; Wickwire and Wickwire, Cornwallis, 248–256.

  110first militia leader . . . regular reports: George W. Kyte, “Francis Marion as an Intelligence Officer,” SCHM 77, no. 4 (October 1976): 217–218; FM to NG, December 27, 28, 1780 (NGP7:6, 13 and n1); FM to NG, January 1, 9, 1781 (NGP7:36, 86).

  110He promised to keep: FM to NG, December 28, 1780 (NGP7:13).

  110“every particular respecting the enemy”: FM to NG, January 4, 1781 (NGP7:49).

  110director of intelligence: Simms, 124; Kyte, “Marion as an Intelligence Officer,” 215–226.

  110sending Peter Horry: FM to NG, January 9, 14, 1781 (NGP7:86, 121); Bass, Swamp Fox, 128–130.

  110“were clever . . . honor”: NG to FM, January 22, 1781 (NGP7:168).

  110“The war here . . . a capital nature”: NG to Joseph Reed, May 4, 1781 (NGP8:200).

  111learned its topography . . . unfordable when flooded: Buchanan, 129–130, 288–289, 310–311; Carbone, Nathanael Greene, 153; Wickwire and Wickwire, Cornwallis, 253.

  111Greene repeatedly requested: NG to FM, January 4, 16, 22, 1781 (NGP7:47, 130–131, 168); NG to FM, April 27, May 4, 1781 (NGP8:161, 198–199).