Horry, Peter

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Horry, Peter

HORRY, PETER. (1747–1815). American officer, South Carolina. A captain in the Second South Carolina Regiment on 17 June 1775, he was promoted to major on 16 September 1776. Promoted to lieutenant colonel of the Fifth South Carolina militia regiment in 1779, he lost his command when the state consolidated its militia in 1780. After Horatio Gates's defeat at Camden, Horry joined Marion's Brigade, becoming colonel of a regiment of light dragoons. In 1783 he was made brigadier general of the Sixth Brigade of the South Carolina militia, a position he held until 1806. He is remembered mainly for his unhappy collaboration with Parson Weems on the biography of Francis Marion, in which Weems altered much of the material Horry supplied to produce a work of myth rather than history.

SEE ALSO Georgetown, South Carolina (15 November 1780); Horry, Hugh; Marion's Brigade; Weems, Mason Locke Parson.

                              revised by Michael Bellesiles