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With the Swamp Fox; a story of General Marion's young spies

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James Otis

With the Swamp Fox; a story of General Marion's young spies

language ( May 28, 2010)
This illustrated children's book was published in 1899.

From Wikipedia:

Francis Marion (c. 1732 – February 26, 1795) was a military officer who served in the American Revolutionary War. Acting with Continental Army and South Carolina militia commissions, he was a persistent adversary of the British in their occupation of South Carolina in 1780 and 1781, even after the Continental Army was driven out of the state in the Battle of Camden.

Due to his irregular methods of warfare, he is considered one of the fathers of modern guerrilla warfare, and is credited in the lineage of the United States Army Rangers.


Service during the Revolution:

In 1775 he was a member of the South Carolina Provincial Congress. On June 21, 1775, Marion was commissioned captain in the 2nd South Carolina Regiment under William Moultrie, with whom he served in June 1776 in the defense of Fort Sullivan and Fort Moultrie, in Charleston harbor.

In September 1776 the Continental Congress commissioned Marion as a lieutenant colonel. In the autumn of 1779 he took part in the siege of Savannah, and early in 1780, under Gen. Benjamin Lincoln, was engaged in drilling militia.

Marion was not captured when Charleston fell on May 12, 1780, because he had broken an ankle in an accident and had left the city to recuperate.

The British especially hated Marion and made repeated efforts to neutralize his force, but Marion's intelligence gathering was excellent and that of the British was poor, due to the overwhelming Patriot loyalty of the populace in the Williamsburg area.
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Excerpt from Chapter I:

CHAPTER I.

MY UNCLE, THE MAJOR.

He who sets himself down to write of his
own deeds in order that future generations
may know exactly what part he bore in
freeing the colonies from the burdens put
upon them by a wicked king, must have
some other excuse, or reason, than that of
self-glorification.

Some such idea as set down above has
been in my mind from the moment Percy
Sumter meaning my brother urged that
I make a record of what we did while serv-
ing under General Francis Marion, that
ardent patriot and true soldier, who was
willing to make of himself a cripple rather
than indulge in strong drink.

I question if there be in the Carolinas
any one who does not know full well the
story of that night in Charleston, when,
the door being locked upon him in order
that he might be forced to drink, General
Marion then only a colonel leaped from
the window, thereby dislocating his ankle,
rather than indulge in a carousal which to
him was unseemly and ungentlemanly.

This is but a lame beginning to what it
is intended I shall tell regarding those
days when we two lads, Percy and myself,
did, as it has pleased many to say, the
work of men in the struggle against foreign
rule ; yet however crude it may appear to
those better versed in the use of the pen,
it is the best I can do. My brother and
myself went into General Marion's camp
before our fourteenth birthday, and since
that time have studied the art of warfare
instead of letters, which fact is due to the
troublous times rather than our own in-
clination, for my desire ever was ito im-
prove my mind until I should be at least
on equal terms with those lads who were
more favored as to country.
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Another book about General Marion is: Thw Swamp Fox by
John Frost

Pages
330

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