

CHAPTEE V 



FRANCIS MAEION 



I 

 VERY war has its conspicuous leaders, and de- 

 tionlry Hero IH ^^lops lierocs liitherto unknown to fame. The 

 ' war of the American Revolution produced one of 

 the most dashing and daring of these heroic and romantic 

 personages in the South Carolina Huguenot, Francis 

 Marion. His story reads like historical romance, how- 

 ever soberly and truthfully it is told. He may be called 

 the Garibaldi of America. His name became a terror to 

 the British. They knew that when he was about, it 

 would be the unexpected that would happen. By the 

 very recklessness of his attacks, by the risks he ran, by 

 the sheer audacity of his movements, he astounded and 

 defeated the enemy time after time, unless his name 

 possessed something of the quality of magic. What gal- 

 lant "Phil " Sheridan was in our Civil War, Marion was 

 in the Revolution. And Francis Marion was the grand- 

 son of a French refugee from Languedoc, who found his 

 way, with the Manigaults and Laureuses and Hugers, to 

 Grandson of a South CaroHua. Of thirteen children of this staunch 

 RefCgee Hugucuot, the cldcst was the father of Francis, who was 



to become an American general. 



Born at Winyaw in 1733, at sixteen the boy decided on 

 a seafaring life, but on his first voyage to the West Indies 

 was shipwrecked, and was one of the three of the crew 

 rescued after being six days in an open boat. This dis- 

 aster and his mother's entreaties induced him to quit the 

 sea. A life of adventure had irresistible attractions for 

 him, and when the Indians became troublesome he found 

 his opportunity. In 1759 he went as volunteer in his 



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