RAIDER HISTORY

The South Carolina State Guard Raider Platoon traces its linage back to Brigadier General Francis Marion and his men. It is his spirit of dedication, cunning and courage that fills and inspires every member of the Raider Platoon.

Francis Marion (February 26, 1732–February 27, 1795) was a lieutenant colonel in the Continental Army and later brigadier general in the South Carolina Militia during the American Revolutionary War. He became known as the "Swamp Fox" because of his cunning and because he set up his base of operations in swampy areas. His use of guerrilla tactics helped set in motion the decline of open battles in the Revolutionary War and later conflicts. Early records indicate that he was a sailor before the Revolutionary War.

Marion's family was of Huguenot ancestry. His parents were Gabriel Marion and Esther Cordes Marion, both first-generation Carolinians. Francis was the last born of six children and was a puny child. Peter Horry, who served under Marion in the American Revolution, joked, "I have it from good authority, that this great soldier, at his birth, was not larger than a New England lobster, and might easily enough have been put into a quart pot." Proving that it is not the size of a man, but the size of his heart that counts.

Marion began his military career shortly before his 25th birthday. On January 1, 1757, Francis and his brother Gabriel were recruited by Captain John Postell for the French and Indian War to drive the Cherokee away from the border. In 1761, Marion served as a lieutenant under Captain William Moultrie in a campaign against the Cherokee.
 

Service During the Revolution

In 1775, he was a member of the South Carolina Provincial Congress, and on June 21, 1775 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 escaped capture when Charleston fell on May 12, 1780, because he had broken an ankle in an accident and had left the city to recuperate.

After the loss of Charleston, the defeats of Gen. Isaac Huger at Moncks Corner and Lt. Col. Abraham Buford at the Waxhaw massacre (near the North Carolina border, in what is now Lancaster County), Marion organized a small troop, which at first consisted of between 20 and 70 men—the only force then opposing the British Army in the state. At this point, he was still nearly crippled from the slowly-healing ankle.

He joined General Horatio Gates just before the Battle of Camden, but Gates had no confidence in him and sent him (mostly to get rid of him) to take command of the Williamsburg Militia in the Pee Dee area and asked him to undertake scouting missions and impede the expected flight of the British after the battle. Marion thus missed the battle, but was able to intercept and recapture 150 Maryland prisoners, plus about twenty of their British guards, who had been en route from the battle to Charleston. The freed prisoners, thinking the war already lost, refused to join Marion and deserted.

However, with his militiamen, Marion showed himself to be a singularly able leader of irregulars. Unlike the Continental troops, Marion's Men, as they were known, served without pay, supplied their own horses, arms, and often their food. All of Marion's supplies that were not obtained locally were captured from the British or Loyalist ("Tory") forces.

Marion rarely committed his men to frontal warfare, but repeatedly surprised larger bodies of Loyalists or British regulars with quick surprise attacks and equally quick withdrawal from the field. After the surrender of Charleston, the British garrisoned South Carolina with help from local Tories, except for Williamsburg (the present Pee Dee), which they were never able to hold. The British made one attempt to garrison Williamsburg at Willtown, but were driven out by Marion at the Mingo Creek.

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.

In November of 1780, Marion earned the nickname he's remembered by today. British Lieutenant Colonel Banastre Tarleton, informed of Marion's whereabouts by an escaped prisoner, chased the American militia for seven hours, covering some 26 miles. Marion escaped into a swamp, and Tarleton gave up, cursing, "As for this damned old fox, the Devil himself could not catch him." The story got around, and soon the locals—who loathed the British occupation—were cheering the Swamp Fox.

Once Marion had shown his ability at guerrilla warfare, making himself a serious nuisance to the British, Governor John Rutledge (in exile in North Carolina) commissioned him a brigadier-general of state troops.

When Gen. Nathanael Greene took command in the south, Marion and Lieutenant Colonel Henry Lee were ordered in January 1781 to attack Georgetown, but were unsuccessful. In April, however, they took Fort Watson and in May, Fort Motte, and succeeded in breaking communications between the British posts in the Carolinas. On August 31, Marion rescued a small American force trapped by Major C. Fraser with 500 British. For this, he received the thanks of the Continental Congress. Marion commanded the right wing under General Greene at the Battle of Eutaw Springs.

In June 1782, he put down a Loyalist uprising on the banks of the Pee Dee River. In August, he left his brigade and returned to his plantation.

Marion is considered one of the fathers of modern guerrilla warfare, and is credited in the lineage of the United States Army Rangers. His citation inducting him into the Ranger Hall of Fame reads as follows:

Brigadier General Francis Marion is inducted into the Ranger Hall of Fame for his distinguished service as a Ranger leader during both the French and Indian War and the American Revolution. During the French and Indian War, he fought against hostile Cherokee Indians who were making raids on frontier settlements in South Carolina. He and his men adopted many tactics used by the Indians and used them to their advantage. In the American Revolution, Brigadier General Marion directed Ranger-type operations against the British throughout the southern colonies. Marion's men conducted raids on British encampments and ambushes on their supply lines. The South Carolinians once captured a British prisoner of war camp freeing 150 Colonial survivors of the Battle of Camden. It was during this time that Brigadier General Marion earned the nickname the "Swamp Fox" because of his ability to use the cover and concealment of the swamps to strike British and Loyalist forces at will. The operations conducted by Francis Marion were key in preventing the British from securing the southern colonies. Brigadier General Marion brought great credit upon himself, the state of South Carolina and the United States Army. His actions and outstanding service to the United States of America truly exemplify what it means to be a Ranger.

Marion served several terms in the South Carolina State Senate, and in 1784, in recognition of his services, was made commander of Fort Johnson, with a salary of $500 per annum. He was originally supposed to receive 500 English pounds a year, but economy-frightened politicians reduced his payment to 500 Continental dollars.

He died on his estate in 1795. He is buried at Belle Isle Plantation Cemetery, Berkeley County, South Carolina.

In 2006 the U.S. House of Representatives approved a monument to Francis Marion, to be built in Washington, D.C. sometime in 2007–08. The Brigadier General Francis Marion Memorial Act of 2007 passed the US House of Representatives in March of 2007, and has emerged from the Energy Committee in the US Senate with a favorable opinion. The bill, H.R. 497, has been placed on the General Calendar and waits for a Senate vote and a Presidential signature to become law.