Rebecca Dunahoe has collected stories about Francis Marion, the Swamp Fox of the American Revolution, all her life. Front-porch stories heard in her youth, spent a few miles from Marion's Snow's Island hideout, sparked an interest that remains alive today. Through the years she archived those stories in boxes, painstakingly finding at least three sources to back up each of them, always intending to put them into a book when she got old. Last year, she says, she realized, "I'm 89 years old. I don't think I'd better wait any longer." Francis Marion, The Swamp Fox of Snow's Island was published in October 2017. Last week, Becky Dunahoe talked a little about her research and signed copies of the book at the Kingstree branch of the Williamsburg County Library at an event co-sponsored by The Friends of the Library and the Williamsburgh Historical Society.
Rebecca Dunahoe at the Williamsburg County Library on April 17.
It's hard for us caught up in the electronic world of 2018 to imagine that people we study in history classes actually walked or rode their horses through the same streets we ride on today. But Gen. Francis Marion, Major John James, British Col. Banastre Tarleton, and General George Lord Cornwallis, knew intimately the area we now call home.
When Francis Marion took command of the militias in this area on August 17, 1780, there is no doubt that many of our ancestors were among the members of the Williamsburgh, or Kingstree, regiment, which became the nucleus of Marion's Brigade. You can find a detailed discussion of the evolution of Marion's Men in this area in a Francis Marion Symposium presentation by J.D. Lewis.
A marker on W. Academy Street in Kingstree commemorates the Battle of Kingstree
fought in the vicinity on August 27, 1780.
Ten days after Marion took command, he sent Major John James on a reconnaissance mission to the King's Tree to determine the strength of British Major James Wemyss' troops, who were burning a path of destruction through the district. Although James' orders were to count troops, he could not resist engaging Wemyss in a rear-action skirmish just north of town. Wemyss' 300 men greatly outnumbered James' 150, but James moved quickly, killing or wounding 15 of Wemyss' troops and capturing another 15 before disappearing into the night. James lost 30 of his own troops, but he was able to give Marion enough information for the general to decide the British troops were too strong for him to engage them at that time.
A kiosk placed in Kellahan Park by the Francis Marion Trail Commission
explains Major James' methods of gathering intelligence.
In March 2012, the Williamsburgh Historical Society sponsored a
re-enactment of the Battle of Kingstree at the park.
On October 24, 1780, Marion spent some time in Kingstree on his way to engage the British at Tearcoat Swamp in Clarendon County. Later that year, from December 6-10, he was again at the King's Tree.
According to J.D. Lewis, on December 29, 1780, Cornet Thomas Merritt and a small group of the Queen's Rangers sacked the town of Kingstree, then quickly returned to Georgetown with no casualties. Although General Marion tried to capture Merritt once he heard of the raid, he did not succeed.
Just below Kingstree, at the Lower Bridge over Black River, Marion and his troops engaged the British for the final time in Williamsburg County in a battle that has over the last few years gained in significance in the eyes of revolutionary war historians. In the early days of March 1781, Marion and British Lt. Col. John Watson engaged in several battles. On March 14, it became evident to Marion that Watson was trying to lead him astray so that British troops could reach Kingstree, while other British troops raided Marion's Snow's Island hideout. Marion sent John James and 30 of McCottry's Riflemen ahead of the main body of his troops to ford the river near the bridge and dismantle the bridge by tearing up the boards and burning the stringers.
In March 2010, Robert. C. Barrett, at that time Director of the Francis Marion Trail Commission,
unveiled the Battle of the Lower Bridge historic marker as it was re-erected and re-dedicated.
It had been temporarily removed from its site on SC-377 while a new bridge was built.
At the rededication ceremony, the Williamsburgh Historical Society sponsored
a re-enactment of the Battle of the Lower Bridge.
The riflemen then waited until Watson's men attempted to ford the river. McCottry's sharpshooters easily picked them off, as well as the men manning the two cannons the British had set up to cover their attempt to ford the river. The battle turned into a rout with the British fleeing down the road to a nearby plantation, where Marion's men continued to harass them. Watson was widely quoted as saying, "I have never seen such shooting in my life." There are no casualty figures for this battle. Tradition says the British dumped their dead, which were numerous, into the river at Robinson's Hole, one of three, deep, rock-lined holes in Black River between the Lower Bridge and the Main Street bridge in Kingstree.
According to old newspaper accounts, South Carolina furnished more men, more money and had more battles fought on its soil than any other colony in the American Revolution, and Francis Marion was one of the war's most popular participants. Many are the stories and poems written about him. William Cullen Bryant's Song of Marion's Men begins:
Our band is few, but true and tried,
Our leader frank and bold;
The British soldier trembles
When Marion's name is told...
Recently I found in an 1859 newspaper another poem, titled The Deeds of Marion's Men. Its author was identified only as J.G.C. The second stanza reads:
In the gloomiest strife of our country's life,
When her dawning was darkened by night;
When tyrants were found on her holiest ground,
And her friends were scattered in flight;
When the best of her children, unarmed and unfed,
Were hunted through cavern and glen–
The red ranks of Albion trembled with dread
At the deeds of Marion's men.
I've often thought that with all the stories, legends, and poetry surrounding Francis Marion and his exploits, someone more talented than I could pull them all together into a glorious outdoor drama that surely would rival The Lost Colony and Unto These Hills.
Becky Dunahoe speaks to the group gathered at the Williamsburg County Library April 17.
Francis Marion married late in life and had no children. However, descendants of his siblings were quick to point out their blood connection to the general. The great-grandmother of Julia Ward Howe, who wrote the lyrics to Battle Hymn of the Republic, was Marion's sister. Howe is quoted as saying at a meeting she attended on a blustery afternoon when she was well into her 80s, "General Marion was known in his generation as The Swamp Fox, and when I succeed in eluding the care of my guardians, children and grandchildren, and coming to a meeting like this, I think I may be said to have inherited some of his characteristics."
Last week, Becky Dunahoe smiled as she said, "You know, he (Francis Marion) won the war!" Many modern historians now believe that Marion's contributions to winning the war were considerably greater than once thought. Robert D. Bass notes in his book on the Swamp Fox, that from August 15, 1780, until September 8, 1781, Marion and his men alone held eastern South Carolina from the British. Had the British not had to fight these battles, they could have concentrated their military power in other areas, making it harder for the rag-tag American troops to win the war.
Becky Dunahoe signs a book for Harriet McIntosh as Teon Singletary looks on.
All photos by Linda Brown
And we should not ever forget that those who came before us in our little part of the world here in Kingstree also played their roles and played them well in helping the Swamp Fox outfox the British and in laying the groundwork for a republic that has now stood for 242 years.
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