Swamp Fox History

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General Francis Marion

Known as "The Swamp Fox", was a Revolutionary officer from Berkeley County, South Carolina. Even though he was a commissioned officer in the South Carolina Second Regiment, he also led a band of irregular fighters in the back and low country swamps of South Carolina fighting the British troops under Lord Cornwallis. He is generally credited as the Father of Guerilla Warfare, and is recognized as such at various War Colleges. The British Command sent several officers after Marion, one of whom was the famous Colonial Banastre Tarleton who reportedly exclaimed after several unsuccessful capture attempts, "as to this damn old fox, the devil himself could not catch him."

The name "The Swamp Fox" stuck. A man of diminutive stature, General Marion was a lifelong citizen-soldier and planter, living on his plantation, Pond Bluff, which now lies under Lake Marion in Central South Carolina. He fought as a lieutenant in the French and Indian War in the 1750's, The Cherokee Campaign of 1760, as a captain at the Battle of Sullivan's Island on June 28, 1776, and as a lieutenant colonel at the Battle of Savannah on October 9, 1779. General Marion is now and has always been a National Hero, second only to George Washington in popularity in the century following the Revolutionary War. A feature length motion picture The Patriot, which starred Mel Gibson, is based on the life "The Swamp Fox".