|
Dromo's Den
|
|
[Up] [Dromo's Den] Francis Marion Biography MARION, Francis (1732–95). An American soldier. He was born at Winyah, near Georgetown, S. C., in which neighborhood his grandfather, a Huguenot refugee, had settled soon after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685. In 1759 he removed to Pond Bluff, near Eutaw. In 1775 he represented St. John's Parish, Berkeley County, in the Provincial Congress, which adopted the Bill of Rights, and voted to raise forces after the battle of Lexington. He was commissioned a captain in Colonel Moultrie's regiment June 21 and took part in the occupation of Fort Johnson, which caused the flight of the royal Governor, Lord William Campbell. After his promotion to major, in 1776, he was stationed at the unfinished Fort Sullivan (afterward called Fort Moultrie), in Charleston harbor. He showed great coolness during Sir Peter Parker's bombardment, June 28, 1776, and was made lieutenant colonel in the regular service. For a time he was in command of Fort Moultrie, and then took part in the unsuccessful attack of D'Estaing and Lincoln on Savannah in 1779. When the British captured Charleston in 1780 and began to overrun the State, Marion fled to North Carolina, where he met General Gates, who received him coldly. Soon he was asked to command four companies of irregular cavalry, which had been raised around Williamsburg, S. C., and in August, 1780, Governor Rutledge gave him a commission as brigadier general of State troops. His irregular force was ill-equipped and ill-fed, yet Marion demonstrated himself the greatest of partisan leaders, in spite of many obstacles and disadvantages. After the defeat of Gates at Camden and of Sumter at Fishing Creek, this was for a time the only American force of any strength in the State. The men furnished their own equipment and came and went almost at will, as it was necessary to protect their families from the Tories and to plant their crops. The first important action was on Aug. 2, 1780, at Nelson's Ferry, where two companies of British regulars were routed and 150 Continental soldiers taken at Camden were recaptured. Marion's men caused much trouble to Cornwallis by intercepting communications, capturing foraging and scouting parties, and intimidating the Tories. Major Wemyss and Colonel Tarleton were especially instructed to take him. For a time Marion was forced to retreat towards North Carolina, but in 1781 he established himself at the confluence of Lynch's Creek and the Pedee River, in a swampy forest known as Snow's Island. He took Fort Watson in conjunction with Col. Henry Lee, captured Fort Motte and Georgetown, fought at Quinby's Bridge and Parker's Ferry and at Eutaw Springs. The force was not disbanded until after the British evacuation, in December, 1782. In June, 1782, Marion put down a Loyalist uprising on the banks of the Pedee River, and in August he left his brigade and returned to his plantation. Marion was elected to the General Assembly in 1782 and was publicly thanked by that body in 1783. As he had been impoverished by the war, the sinecure of commandant of Fort Johnson was created for him with a salary of £500 per annum. After his marriage to a wealthy woman, Mary Videau, he represented St. John's in the State Senate and in the Constitutional Convention of 1790. The New International Encyclopaedia, Vol. XV (New York: Dodd, Mead & Co., 1920) 96. |