Francis Marion was born in Berkeley County, South Carolina c. 1732. At the age of 15, Francis hired on a merchant ship bound for the West Indies.  The ship sank on his first voyage.  After this seafaring experience, Marion returned to Berkley County and ran the family’s plantation.

In 1757, Francis was recruited to serve in the militia during the French and Indian War.

During the American Revolution, Marion supported the Patriots and in June 1775, he was commissioned as an officer (Captain) in the Continental Army’s 2nd South Carolina Regiment.  In 1776, the Continental Congress commissioned Marion as a lieutenant colonel.

The British forces, under Henry Clinton, entered South Carolina in the early spring of 1780 and laid siege to Charleston. Lord Charles Cornwallis then took command of the Carolinas.  Marion organized a small unit, which at first consisted of between 20 and 70 men.  This was the only unit opposing the British in the region.  Marion joined Major General Horatio Gates on July 27 just before the Battle of Camden.

Marion showed himself successful in leading militia and ruthless in his terrorizing of Loyalists.  Marion’s Men, as they were known, served without pay, supplied their own horses, arms and often their food. They were based on Snow’s Island in Florence County.  They rarely engaged in frontal warfare, but were very successful using quick surprise attacks and equally quick withdrawal from the field. Cornwallis claimed that, “Colonel Marion had so wrought the minds of the people, partly by the terror of his threats and cruelty of his punishments, and partly by the promise of plunder, that there was scarcely an inhabitant between the Santee and the Pee Dee that was not in arms against us.”

The British repeatedly tried to eliminate Marion’s force, but his intelligence gathering was excellent and that of the British was poor.  Colonel Banastre Tarleton was then sent to capture or kill Marion in November 1780. After pursuing Marion for more than 25 miles through a swamp, Tarleton supposedly said “as for this old fox, the Devil himself could not catch him.”

Because Marion was so successful at guerrilla warfare, having made himself a serious irritant to the British, Governor Rutledge commissioned him as a brigadier general of militia.

In 1780, Major General Nathanael Greene took command in the South.  In April, Henry Lee’s troops, along with Marion’s forces, took Fort Watson. In May, they captured Fort Motte.  On August 31, Marion rescued a small American force trapped by 500 British soldiers, under the leadership of Major C. Fraser.  For this action he received the thanks of the Continental Congress.

Marion commanded the right wing under General Greene at the Battle of Eutaw Springs.

In 1782, the British Parliament suspended activity, and in December 1782, the British withdrew their garrison from Charleston. The Treaty of Paris brought the war to an end.

When Marion returned to his Pond Bluff Plantation, he discovered it had been totally destroyed during the war.  At the age of 54, Marion married his 49-year old cousin, Mary Esther Videau. Marion served several terms in the South Carolina State Senate.

In 1784, in recognition of his services, he was made commander of Fort Johnson and given an annual salary of $500.   He died on his plantation in 1795, at the age of 63, and was buried at his brother’s Belle Isle Plantation Cemetery in Berkeley County, South Carolina.

Sources:

Swamp Fox, R. Bass, 1959
The Swamp Fox of the Revolution S. Holbrook, 1959.
The Life of Francis Marion, WG Simms, 1833/1846.
Wikipedia