Marion, Francis

Marion, Francis (1732–1795), the “Swamp Fox,” Revolutionary War partisan leader.Marion looked frail and unmilitary, but he served brilliantly as a provincial lieutenant in the Cherokee War (1761), as a major defending Sullivan's Island (1776), and as a regimental commander in comte d’Estaing's attack on Savannah (1779). Escaping the British siege of Charleston in May 1780, he raised a partisan militia to oppose the occupation of his native South Carolina. His first operation (20 August) became his trademark: surprise night attack on a larger British‐loyalist force and then a skillful withdrawal. In this case he liberated 147 American prisoners. In December he became a brigadier general, commanding the militia of eastern South Carolina. He followed directives from theater commander Nathanael Greene but opposed cooperation with fellow partisan Thomas Sumter, whom he considered a plunderer.

Marion's perseverance, leadership, and cunning kept his force alive and earned him the sobriquet, the “Swamp Fox.” The partisans denied the British a secure base, terrorized the loyalists, decimated their militia, and forced British regulars to become constables instead of concentrating against Greene's army. During 1781, Marion's brigade fought twenty‐five engagements, captured Fort Watson, Fort Motte, and Georgetown, and led Greene's attack at Eutaw Springs. In the postwar period, Marion campaigned in the state assembly to restore former loyalists to society.
[See also Revolutionary War: Military and Diplomatic Course.]

Bibliography

Hugh F. Rankin , Francis Marion: The Swamp Fox, 1973.
Clyde R. Ferguson , Functions of the Partisan Militia in the South During the American Revolution: An Interpretation, in W. Robert Higgins, ed., The Revolutionary War in the South: Power, Conflict, and Leadership, 1979.

Louis D. F. Frasché