The life of Francis Marion

Front matter

THE LIFE

FRANCIS MARION.

W. GILMORE SIMMS,

CHAPTER I. PAGE Introduction — The Huguenots in South Carolina, 1 CHAPTER n

The Marion Family — Birth of Francis Marion — His Youth — Shipwreck, 24

CHAPTER HI.

Marion a Farmer — Volunteers in the Cherokee Campaign, 32

CHAPTER IV.

Cherokee War continues — Marion leads the Forlorn Hope at the Battle of Etchoee, 44

CHAPTER V.

Marion is returned for the Provincial Congress from St. John's, Berkeley — Made Captain in the Second Regiment — Fort Johnson taken — Battle of Fort Moultrie, 53

CHAPTER VI.

From the Battle of Fort Moultrie to that of Savannah — Anecdote of Jasper — His Death, 76

CHAPTER VII.

From the Battle of Savannah to the Defeat of Gates at Camden, 92

CHAPTER VIII.

Organization of Marion's Brigade — Surprise of Tories under Gainey — Defeat of Barfield — Capture of British Guard with Prisoners at Nelson's Ferry, 113

IV CONTENTS.

CHAPTER IX. PAOK Marion retreats before a superior Force — Defeats the Tories at Black Mingo — Surprises and disperses the Force of Colonel Tynes at Tarcote — Is pursued by Tarleton, 130

CHAPTER X.

Marion attempts Georgetown — Horry defeats Merritt — Moultrie defeated by Barfield — Gabriel Marion taken by the Tories and murdered — Marion retires to Snow's Island, 154

CHAPTER XL Marion's Camp at Snow's Island — The Character of his Warfare — Of his Men — Anecdotes of Conyersand Horry — He feasts a British Officer on Potatoes — Quells a Mutiny, 16S

CHAPTER XII.

General Greene assumes Command of the Southern Army — His Correspondence with Marion — Condition of the Country — Marion and Lee surprise Georgetown — Col Horry defeats Gainey — Marion pursues Mcllraith — Proposed Pitched Battle betwixt Picked Men, 186

CHAPTER XIIL Watson and Doyle pursue Marion — He baffles and harasses them — Pursues Doyle — His" Despondency and final Resolution, 214

CHAPTER XIV.

Marion renews his Pursuit of Doyle — Confronts Watson — Is joined by Col. Lee— Invests and takes Fort Watson — Fort

Motte taken — Anecdote of Horry and Marion, 225

CHAPTER XV.

Correspondence of Marion and Greene — Anecdote of Colonel Snipes — Marion takes Georgetown — Attempt of Sumter and Marion on Col. Coates — Battle of Quinby Bridge, 240

CHAPTER XVL Marion moves secretly to Pon-Pon — Rescues Col. Harden — Defeats Major Frazier at Parker's Ferry — ^Joins the main Army under Greene — Battle of Eutaw, 262

CONTENTS. V

CHAPTER XVII. PAGE Retreat of the British from Eutaw — Pursuit of them by Marion and Lee— Close of the Year, 277

CHAPTER XVIII. ]\Iarion summoned to the Camp of Greene — Defeats the British Horse at St. Thomas — Leaves his Command to Horry, and takes his Seat in the Assembly at Jacksonborough, as Senator from St. John's, Berkeley — Proceedings of the Assembly — Confiscation Act — Dispute between Cols. Mayham and Horry — The Brigade of Marion surprised, during his absence, by a Detachment from Charleston — Marion's Encounter with the British Horse — Conspiracy in the Camp of Greene, 288

CHAPTER XIX.

Marion summoned with his Force to that of Greene — Insurrection of the Loyalists on the Pedee — Marches against them — Subdues them — Treats with Gainey — Fanning — Protects the Tory, Butler, from his Men^ — Returns to the Country between the Santee and the Cooper — Moves to protect Georgetown from the British Fleet — Defeats the British Cavalry under Major Frazier, 310

CHAPTER XX.

The British propose Terms of Pacification — Rejected by the Civil Authorities — They penetrate the Combahee with their Fleet — Death of Col. Laurens — Anecdote of Marion — Death of Wilmot — The British evacuate Charleston — Marion separates from his Brigade at Watboo — His military Genius, 324

CHAPTER XXL

Marion retires to his Farm, w^hichhe finds in Ruins — Is returned to the Senate from St. John — His Course on the Confiscation Act — Anecdotes — Is made Commandant at Fort Johnson — His Marriage — A Member of the State Convention in 1794— Withdraws from Public Life— His Death, 333

NOTE.

Tn preparing this biognphy, the following works have been consulted :

1. A Sketch of the Life of Brig. Gen. Francis Maiion, and a History of his Brigade, &c. By Wm. Dobein James, A. M. Charleston, S. C. 1821.

2. The Life of Gen. Francis Marion, &c. By Brig. Gen. P. Horry,

and M. L. Weems. Philadelphia. 1S33.

3. A MS. Memoir of the Life of Brig. Gen. P. Horry. By Himself.

4. Sketches of the Life and Correspondence of Nathanael Greene, &c. By William Johnson. Charleston. 1822.

5. Memoirs of the American Revolution, &c. By WilUam Moul-

trie. New York. 1802.

6. Anecdotes of the Revolutionary War in America (1st and 2d

series). By Alex. Garden. 1822 and 1828.

7. Memoirs of the War in the Southern Department of the United

States. By Henry Lee, &c. Philadelphia. 1812.

8. Memoirs of the American Revolution, &c., as relating to the State

of South Carolina, &c. By John Drayton, LL.D. Charleston,

9. The History of South Carolina, &c. By David Ramsay. Charles-

10. The History of Georgia, &c. By Capt. Hugh M'Call. Savan-

11. A History of the Campaigns of 1780 and 1781, in the Southern

Provinces of North America. By Lieut. Col. Tarleton, Commandant of the late British Legion. London. 1797.

12. Strictures on Lieut. Col. Tarleton's History, &c. By Roderick

Mackenzie, late Lieutenant in the 71st Regiment, &c. London

1787. ^ . . „

13. History of the Revolution of South Carolina from a Bntisn Pro

vince to an Independent State. By David Ramsay, M. D. Trenton. 1785.

14. An Historical Account of the Rise and Progress of the Colonies of South Carolina and Georgia. (Hewatt.) London. 1779.

IT). A New Voyage to Carolina, &c. By John Lawson, Gerf.. Surveyor-Generalof North Carolina. London. 1709.

16. The History of the Rise, Progress, and Establishment of the

Independence of the United States of America, &c. By William Gordon, D. D. New York. 17S9. . ^ , ^ . *u

17. Five volumes of MS. Letters from distmguished officers of the

Revolution in the South. From the Collection of Gen. Peter Horry, in the possession of Dr. R. W. Gibbes,of S. Carolina.

Preface

The facts, in the life of Francis Marion, are far less generally extended in our country than his fame. The present is an attempt (o supply this deficiency, and to justify, by the array of authentic particulars, the high position which has been assigned him among the master-workers in our revolutionary struggle. The task has been a difficult, but I trust not entirely an unsuccessful one. Our southern chronicles are meagre and unsatisfactory. South Carolina was too long in the occupation of the British — too long subject to the ravages of civil and foreign war, to have preserved many of those minor lecords which concern only the renown of individuals, and are unnecessary to the comprehension of great events; and the vague tributes of unquestioning tradition are not adequate authorities for the biographer, whose laws are perhaps even more strict than those which govern the historian. Numerous volumes, some private manuscripts, and much unpublished correspondence, to which reference has been more particularly made in the appendix, have been consulted in the preparation of this narrative. The various histories of Carolina and Georgia have also been made use of. Minor facts have been gathered from the lips of living witnesses. Of the two works devoted especially to our subject, that by the Rev. Mr. Weems is most generally known — a deliglitful book for the young. The author seems not to have contemplated any less credulous readers.

PREFACE.

and its general character is such as naturally to inspire us witn frequent doubts of its statements. Mr. Weems had rather loose notions of the privileges of the biographer ; though, in reality, he has transgressed much less in his Life of Marion than is generally supposed. But the untamed, and sometimes extravagant exuberance of his style might well subject his narrative to suspicion. Of the " Sketch" by the Hon. Judge James, we are more secure, though, as a literary performance, it is quite as devoid of merit as pretension. Besides, the narrative is not thorough. It dwells somewhat too minutely upon one class of facts, to the neglect or the exclusion of every other. I have made both of these works tributary to my own whenever this was possible

Woodland, S C, May 25. 1844.

THE LIFE

FRAICIS MARION,

CHAPTER I

Introduction. — The Huguenots in South Carolina.

The name of Francis Marion is identified, in the history of South Carolina, his parent state, with all that is pleasing and exciting in romance. He is, par excellence, the famous partizan of that region. While Sumter stands conspicuous for bold daring, fearless intrepidity and always resolute behavior ; while Lee takes eminent rank as a gallant Captain of Cavalry, the eye and the wing of the southern liberating army under Greene ; Marion is proverbially the great master of strategem ; the wily fox of the swamps — never to be caught, never to be followed, — ^yet always at hand, with unconjectured promptness, at the moment when he is least feared and is least to be expected. His pre-eminence in this peculiar and most difficult of all kinds of warfare, is not to be disputed. In his native region he has no competitor, and it is scarcely possible to compute the vast influence which he possessed and exercised over the minds and feelings of the people of Carolina, simply through his own resources, at a period most adverse to their fortunes, and when the cause of their liberties, everywhere combat : yet the concurrent testimony of all who have written, declare, in ^^eneral terms, his great services : and the very exaggeration of the popular estimate is a partial proof of the renown for which it speaks. In this respect, his reputation is like that of all other heroes of romantic history. It is a people's history, written in their hearts, rather than in their books ; which their books could not write — which would lose all its golden glow, if subjected to the cold details of the phlegmatic chronicles. The tradition, however swelling, still testifies to that large ir.erit which must have been its basis, by reason of which the name of the hero was selected from all others for such peculiar honors ; and though these exaggerations suggest a thousand difficulties in the way of sober history, they yet serve to increase the desire, as well as the necessity, for some such performance.

The family of Marion came from France. They migrated to South Carolina somewhere about the year 1690, within thirty years after the first British settlement of the province. They belonged, in the parent country, to that sect of religious dissenters which bore the name of Huguenots ; and were among those who fled from the cruel persecutions which, in the beginning of the reign of Louis XIV., followed close upon the re-admission of the Jesuits into France. The edict of Nantz, which had been issued under the auspices of Henri IV., and by which the Huguenots had been guarantied, with some slight qualifications, the securities of the citizen, almost in the same degree with the Catholic inhabitants, had, under the weak and tyrannous sway of the former monarch, proved totally inedequate to their protection. Long before its formal revocation, the unmeasured and inhuman persecutions to which they were subjected, drove thousands of them into voluntary banishment. The subsequent decree of Louis, by which even the nominal securities of the Huguenots were withdrawn, increased the number of the exiles, and completed the sentence of separation from all those ties which bind the son to the soil. The neighboring Protestant countries received the fugitives, the number and condition of whom may be estimated by the simple fact, not commonly known, that England alone possessed " eleven regiments composed entirely of these unhappy refugees, besides others enrolled among the troops of the line. There were in London twenty French churches supported by Government ; about three thousand refugees were maintained by public subscription ; many received grants from the crown ; and a great number lived by their own industry.* Some of the nobility were naturalized and obtained high rank ; among others, Ruvigny, son of the Marquis, was made Earl of Galway, and Schomberg received the dignity of Duke."t

America, the nev/ world, was naturally a land of refuge, and soon received her share of these unhappy fugitives. The transition was easy from England to her colonies. Every facility was afforded them for transportation, and the wise pohcy which encouraged their settlement in the new countries was amply rewarded by the results. Altogether, the Huguenots were a much better sort of people than those who usually constituted the mass of European emigrants. The very desperation of their circumstances was

t Browning: History of the Huguenots. London: Whittaker and Co. 1840. pp. 256. Of the Refugees from France, Hume says, " near fifty thousand passed over into England ;" and Voltaire writes that " one of the suburbs of London was entirely peopled with French workers of silk." 2 a proof of their virtues. They were a people of principle, for they had suffered everything for conscience sake. They were a people of pure habits, for it was because of their religion that they suffered banishment. In little patriarchal groups of sixty, seventy, or eighty families, they made their way to different parts of America ; and with the conscious poverty of their own members, were generally received with open arms by those whom they found in possession of the soil. The English, as they beheld the dependent and destitute condition of the fugitives, forgot, for a season, their usual national animosities ; and assigning ample tracts of land for their occupation, beheld them, without displeasure, settling down in exclusive colonies, in which they sought to maintain, as far as possible, the pious habits and customs of the mother country. One of these communities, comprising from seventy to eighty families, found their way to the banks of the Santee in South Carolina.* From this point they gradually spread themselves out so as to embrace, in partial settlements, the spacious tract of country stretching to the Winyah, on the one hand, and the sources of Cooper River on the other ; extending upward into the interior, following the course of the Santee nearly to the point where it loses its identity in receiving the descending streams of the Wateree and Congaree. These settlers were generally poor. They had been despoiled of all their goods by the persecutions which had driven them into exile. This, indeed, had been one of the favorite modes by which this result had been effected. Doubtless, also, it had been, among the subordinates of the crown, one of the chief motives of the persecution. It was a frequent promise of his Jesuit advisers, to the vain and bigoted Louis, that the here-

* Dalcho, in his Church History, says, " upwards of one hundred families."

tics should be brought into the fold of the Church without a drop of bloodshed ; and, until the formal revocation of the edict of Nantz, by which the Huguenots were put without the pale and protection of the laws, spoliation was one of the means, with others, by which to avoid this ue cessity. These alternatives, however, were of a kind not greatly to lessen the cruelties of the persecutor or the sufferings of the victim. It does not fall within our province to detail them. It is enough that one of the first and most obvious measures by which to keep their promise to the king, was to dispossess the proscribed subjects of their worldly goods and chattels. By this measure a two-fold object was secured. While the heretic was made to suffer, the faithful were sure of their reward. It was a principle faithfully kept in view ; and the refugees brought with them into exile, little beyond the liberties and the virtues for which they had endured so much. But these were possessions, as their subsequent history has shown, beyond all price.

Our humble community along the Santee had suffered the worst privations of their times and people. But, beyond the necessity of hard labor, they had little to de - plore, at the outset, in their new condition. They had been schooled sufficiently by misfortune to have acquired humihty. They observed, accordingly, in their new relations, a policy equally prudent and sagacious. More flexible in their habits than the English, they conciliated the latter by deference ; and, soothing the unruly passions of the Indians — the Santee and Sewee tribes, who were still in considerable numbers in their immediate neighborhood — they won them to alliance by kindness and forbearance. From the latter, indeed, they learned their best lessons for the cultivation of the soil. That, upon which they found themselves, lay in the unbroken forest- The high lands which they first undertook to clear, as less stubborn, were most sterile ; and, by a very natural mistake, our Frenchmen adopted the modes and objects of European culture ; the grains, the fruits and the vegetables, as well as the implements, to which they had been accustomed. The Indians came to their succor, taught them the cultivation of maize, and assisted them in the preparation of their lands ; in return for lessons thought equally valuable by the savages, to whom they taught, along with gentler habits and morals, a better taste for music and the dance ! To subdue the forest, of itself, to European hands, implied labors not unlike those of Hercules.

But the refugees, though a gentle race, were men of soul and strength, capable of great sacrifices, and protracted self-denial. Accommodating themselves with a patient courage to the necessities before them, they cheerfully undertook and accomplished their tasks. We have more than one lively picture among the early chroniclers of the distress and hardship which they were compelled to encounter at the first. But, in this particular, there was nothing peculiar in their situation. It differed in no respect from that which fell to the lot of all the early colonists m America. The toil of felling trees, over whose heavy boughs and knotty arms the winters of centuries had passed; the constant danger from noxious reptiles and beasts of prey, which, coiled in the bush or crouching in the brake, lurked day and night, in waiting for the incautious victim ; and, most insidious and fatal enemy of all, the malaria of the swamp, of the rank and affluent soil, for the first time laid open to the sun ; these are all only the ordinary evils which encountered in America, at the very threshold, the advances of European civilisation. That the Huguenots should meet these toils and dangers with the sinews and the hearts of men, was to be expected from their past experience and history. They had endured too many and too superior evils in the old world, to be discouraged by, or to shrink from, any of those which hung upon their progress in the new. Like the hardy Briton, whom, under the circumstances, we may readily suppose them to have emulated, they addressed themselves, with little murmuring, to the tasks before them. We have, at the hands of one of their number, — a lady born and raised in affluence at home, — a lively and touching picture of the sufferings and duties, which, in Carolina, at that period, neither sex nor age was permitted to escape. " After our arrival," she writes, ^'we suffered every kind of evil. In about eighteen months our elder brother, unaccustomed to the hard labor we were obliged to undergo, died of a fever. Since leaving France, we had experienced every kind of affliction, disease, pestilence, famine, poverty and hard labor ! I have been for six months together without tasting bread, working the ground like a slave ; and I have even passed three or four years without always having it when I wanted it. I should never have done were I to attempt to detail to you all our adventures."*

We may safely conclude that there was no exaggeration in this picture. The lot of all the refugees seems to have been very equally severe. Men and women, old and young, strove together in the most menial and laborious occupations. But, as courage and virtue usually go hand in hand with industry, the three are apt to triumph together. Such was the history in the case of the Carolina Huguenots. If the labor and the suffering were great, the fruits were prosperity. They were more. Honors, distinction, a goodly

* The narrative of Mrs. Judith Manigault, wife of Peter Manigault, as quoted by Ramsay. — Hist. S. C. Vol. I. p., 4. For a graphic detail of the usual difficulties and dangers attending the escape of the Huguenots from France, at the period of migration, see the first portion of this letter.

2* name, and the love of those around them, have blessed their posterity, many of vv^hom rank with the noblest citizens that were ever reared in America. In a few years after their first settlement, their forest homes were crowned with a degree of comfort, which is described as very far superior to that in the usual enjoyment of the British colonists. They were a more docile and tractable race ; not so restless, nor— though this may seem difficult to understand to those who consider their past history — so impatient of foreign control. Of their condition in Carolina, we have a brief but pleasing picture from the hands of John Lawson, then surveyor-general of the province of North Carohna.* This gentleman, in 1701, just eleven years after its settlement, made a progress through that portion of the Huguenot colony which lay immediately along the Santee. The passages which describe his approach to the country which they occupied, the hospitable reception which they gave him, the comforts they enjoyed, the gentleness of their habits, the simplicity of their lives, and their solicitude in behalf of strangers, are necessary to furnish the moral of those fortunes, the beginning of which was so severe and perilous. " There are," says he, " about seventy families seated on this river, who live as decently and happily as any planters in these southward parts of Jimerica. The French being a temperate^ industrious people^ some of them bringing very little of effects, yet^ by their endeavors and mutual assistance among themselves (which is highly to be commended),

* Law.son's " Journal of a Thousand Miles' Travel among the Indians, from South to North Carolina," is a work equally rare and interesting. This unfortunate man fell a victim to his official duties. He was confounded, by the savages, with the government which he represented, and sacrificed to their fury, under the charge of depriving them, by his surveys, of their land. He was made captive with the Baron de Graffenreid. The latter escaped, but Lawson was subjected to the fire-torture.

have outstript our English^ who brought with them larger for^ tunesj though (as it seems) less endeavor to manage their talent to the best advantage. 'Tis admirable to see what time

and industry will (with God's blessing) effect," &c

. . . . " We lay all that night at Mons. Eugee^s (Huger), and the next morning set out farther, to go the remainder of our voyage by land. At ten o'clock we passed over a narrow, deep swamp, having left the three Indian men and one woman, that had piloted the canoe from Ashley river, having hired a Sewee Indian, a tall, lusty fellow, who carried a pack of our clothes, of great weight. Notwithstanding his burden, we had much ado to keep pace with him. At noon we came up with several French plantations. Meeting with several creeks by the way, the French were very officious in assisting us with their small dories to pass over these waters : whom we met coming from their church, being all of them very clean and decent in their apparel; their homes and plantations suitable in neatness and contrivance. They are all of the same opinion with the church of Geneva,* there being no difference among them concerning the punctilios o£ their Christian faith ; which union hath propagated a happy and delightful concord in all other matters throughout the whole neighborhood ; living amongst themselves as one tribe or kindred, every one making it his business to be assistant to the wants of his countrymen, preserving his estate and reputation with the same exactness and concern as he does his own : all seeming to share in the misfortunes, and rejoice at the advance and rise of their brethren. Lawson fitly

♦ " The inhabitants [of St. James, otherwise French Santee] petitioned the Assembly, in 1706, to have their settlement made a parish; and, at the same time, expressed their desire of being: united to the Church of England, whose doctrines and discipline they professed highly to esteem. The Assembly passed an act, April 9, 1706, to erect the French settlement of Santee into a parish." — Dalcho's Historical Account^ ch. ix., p. 295.

concludes his account of the settlers upon the Santee, by describing them as " a very kind, loving, and affable people" — a character vrhich it has been the happy solicitude of their descendants to maintain to the present day.*

A more delightful picture than this of Mr. Lawson, could not well be dravi^n by the social perfectionist. The rational beauty of the voluntary system could not find a happier illustration ; and, duly impressed with its loveliness, we shall cease to wonder at the instances of excellence, equally frequent and admirable, which rose up among this little group of exiles, to the good fortune of the country which gave them shelter, and in attestation of their own virtues. But this happy result was due entirely to their training. It would be wonderful, indeed, if such an education, toil and watch, patient endurance of sickness and suffering, sustained only by sympathy with one another and a humble reliance upon divine mercy, should not produce many perfect characters — men like Francis Marion, the beautiful symmetry of whose moral structure leaves us nothing to regret in the analysis of his life. Uncompromising in the cause of truth, stern in the prosecution of his duties, hardy and fearless as the soldier, he was yet, in peace, equally gentle and compassionate, pleased to be merciful, glad and ready to forgive, sweetly patient of mood, and distinguished throughout by such prominent virtues, that, while always sure of the affections of followers and comrades, he was not less secure in the unforced confidence of his enemies, among whom his integrity and mercy were proverbial. By their fruits, indeed, shall we know this community, the

* See " A new Voyage to Carolina, containing the exact description and natural history of that country, &c. ; and a journey of a thousand miles, travelled through several nations of Indians. By John Lawson, Gent., Surveyor-General of North Carolina. London, 1709."

history of which furnishes as hne a commentary upon the benefit of good social training for the young — example and precept happily keeping concert with the ordinary necessities and performances of life, the one supported by the manliest courage, the other guided by the noblest principle — as any upon record.*

When our traveller turned his back upon this " kind, loving, and affable people," to pursue his journey into

* It is one of the qualifications of the delight which the historian feels while engaged in the details of those grateful episodes which frequently reward his progress through musty chronicles, to find himself suddenly arrested in his narrative by some of those rude interruptions by which violence and injustice disfigure so frequently, in the march of history, the beauty of its portraits. One of these occurs to us in this connection. Our Huguenot settlers on the Santee were not long suffered to pursue a career of unbroken prosperity. The very fact that they prospered — that, in the language of Mr. Lawson, " they outstript our English," when placed in like circumstances — that they were no longer desolate and dependent, and had grown vigorous, and perhaps wanton, in the smiles of fortune — was quite enough to re-awaken in the bosoms of " our English" the ancient national grudge upon which they had so often fed before. The prejudices and hostilities which had prevailed for centuries between their respective nations, constituted no small part of the moral stock which the latter had brought with them into the wilderness. This feeling was farther heightened, at least maintained, by the fact that France and England had contrived to continue their old warfare in the New World ; and, while French emissaries were busy in the back parts of the colony, stimulating the Creeks and Cherokees to hostility, it was perhaps natural enough that the English, whose frontiers were continually ravaged in consequence, should find it easy to confound the " parley-vous" their enemies, with those, their neighbors, who spoke the same unpopular language. It is not improbable, on the other hand, that the Huguenot settlers were a little too exclusive, a little tot tenacious of their peculiar habits, manners, and language. They did not suffer themselves to assimilate with their neighbors ; but, maintaining the policy by which they had colonized in a body, had been a little too anxious to preserve themselves as a singular and separate people. In this respect they were not unlike the English puritans, in whom and their descendants, this passion for homogeneousness has always been thought a sort of merit.