04AUG1781 – The Hanging of Col. Issac Haynes (Age 35) Who Was Beloved by the People

In my last post regarding the American Revolution, specifically the actions in and around South Carolina that Brig. Gen. Francis Marion was heavily and sacrificially involved with, I eluded to the backstory around the British hanging of a beloved 35 year old, probably as an example towards intimidating the colony’s inhabitants.

Issac Haynes was a popular planter and patriot military officer who during the summer of 1780, after Charlestown’s fall to the British, was traveling from his plantation to Charlestown to obtain a doctor and medical supplies for his very ill wife and children. The British would not allow him to pass through their lines back home without swearing an oath of allegiance.

With the early 1781 successes of the militia in South Carolina, the British sought to enlist Issac in the Loyalist militia. At the same time, patriot militia groups were also hoping Issac would join them as Francis Marion had been told another 200 men would follow this beloved planter. Eventually, Marion himself issued a commission which made Issac a Lt. Col. in the South Carolina militia. After some reluctance on the part of Issac, he relented and joined the cause.

In early July 1781, Issac led the militia near Charlestown to capture former patriot leader Andrew Williamson who took British protection a year prior. British leadership at Charlestown countered by sending Thomas Fraser with 90 cavalry to retrieve Williamson and took Issac Haynes prisoner. The British served justice in a way that tyrants do by not allowing Issac any counsel and was unable to call any witnesses. He found himself sentenced to death.

This news caused such an uproar in Charlestown among the ladies their and even some high-society Loyalists that the British decided to stand firm and united in this decision. Balfour, Rawdon and even Charlestown police chief Charles Fraser (brother to Thomas) all concurred. Haynes had countered to the charge of switch allegiance was due to the lack of British protection in the countryside from the Whig groups which was the exchange for his taking this oath.

While there was logic to this argument, the British were not ready to have hundreds of others seeking justice due to the British inability to honor their end of this agreement. The British decided, in a Banastre Tarleton way, to make an example out of Issac Haynes.

So on 04AUG1781, after a farewell session with his family, he was paraded through the streets of Charlestown past crowds who were moved to tears to the gallows. He took control of this even in a firm and serene way, proceeded to pull the cap over his own eyes, shook hands with the three gentlemen who would oversee his children’s care and himself gave the signal to move the cart to let him hang.

The firestorm ensued and emotions ran high, not just in Charlestown, or in the colony of South Carolina, but even overseas as well as even the British Parliament considered a motion to condemn Rawdon in this decision. The Southern Region Continental leader Greene stressed restraint (was Marion an influence here?) as the cycle of violence would result in revenge hangings across the colony.

This event had its blow-back, causing a potent rallying cry for southern patriots to be created. While there were other men closer to Charleston who quit the field thinking they were next, those away from the last British stronghold were more fervent in their cause.

Gen. Nathanael Greene soon orders Marion to attack British lines of
communication around Charleston. From his base on the Santee, Marion departed with his 200 men and picked up another 150 with the destination being south of Charleston on the Ashepoo River called the Horseshoe. The forces opposite his was a Hessian led force of over 500 men (180 Hessians, 150 British Redcoats, 130 Tory Loyalists and 80 dragoons under Fraser). This was essentially a foraging party that were transporting rice back to Charleston.

On 27AUG1781, Marion attempted an ambush at Godfrey’s Savannah. Lt. Col. Ernst Leopold von Borck was in charge of this British contingent, Maj. Thomas Fraser was the real target of this effort, but in the end he has to abort his plan. There were multiple failures to follow his orders as it was pretty apparent with the enemy’s two field pieces (none for the patriot militia), this would not end well.

On 31AUG1781 at Parker’s Ferry Marion finally gets his battle with Lt. Col. Ernst Leopold von Borck. The British on 29AUG1781 had moved to Isaac Hayne’s Plantation where Issac was just buried and Brig. Gen. Marion had followed this force again and sets up his camp only five miles away. Marion conceals his men in a swamp beside the causeway and directs Col. William Harden’s men o move back 100 yards from the ambush line so they can be used as reserves. Maj. Samuel Cooper and sixty swordsmen are told to attack the rear of the enemy after the ambush is initiated. They then wait for an opportunity.

Lt. Col. Ernst Leopold von Borck leaves Hayne’s Plantation in mid-afternoon with his infantry and has placed his two pieces of artillery in front of the column while Maj. Thomas Fraser and his mounted SC Royalists are in the rear of the column. It is almost dark on the 31st when they stumble into a firefight between Marion’s men and handful of Loyalist that have just discovered them.

Lt., Col. von Borck orders Maj. Fraser to drive off the Patriots so he sends Lt. Stephen Jarvis charging forward while he places his three other divisions on the road, and also to the left and right of the road.

Brig. Gen. Marion’s mounted men charge Lt. Jarvis, who reverses course quickly. Maj. Fraser believes that these are Col. William Harden’s men and
orders his cavalry in full gallop to intercept them.

Marion now has the enemy right where he wants them. He signals his hidden men, and instantly Maj. Fraser’s horsemen are surrounded. At a distance of 40 yards, the Patriots open up with buckshot and the dragoons go down.

Maj. Fraser rallies his men and tries to charge, but the Patriots deliver a second volley, and then a third volley. There is no way for Maj. Fraser to attack in the swamp so he has to withdraw down the causeway down the full length of the ambush. Maj. Fraser is badly bruised when his horse is killed and the rest of his cavalry rides over him as he lies in the road.

The patriots militia continue to occupy the causeway for three more hours until Marion sees British infantry with a field piece coming their way. His riflemen fire upon the field piece wounding and killing many accompanying it. Brig. Gen. Marion could have easily slaughtered
more of the SC Royalists with his rifles, but he is low on ammunition and his men have also not eaten in 24 hours, so he has them all just slip away
into the swamp.

Brig. Gen. Francis Marion reports that 20 Loyalist dragoons and 23 horses are dead on the spot. Brig. Gen. Francis Marion loses one man killed.
Col. William Stafford loses three wounded. The British evacuate the area and move back to Charlestown and Brig. Gen. Marion sends a party after them and they find 40 dead horses on the road. He then returns “home” to the Santee with his prisoners.

Mission accomplished! August 1781 has concluded with a further tighening around Charleston to keep the British foraging parties more heavily armed. Issac Haynes’ hanging motivates the true patriots to stay the course and drive the British Empire out of the colony of South Carolina.

-SF1

21JUL1861 – 1st Bull Run/1st Battle Manassas Battlefield “Spring Hill Farm”

Spring Hill Farm main home after 21JUL1861

Tucked in the Virginia farmland only 30 miles west of Washington DC was the Spring Hill Farm (today called Henry Hill), a generally neglected land containing an orchard and a small garden, that was home to Judith Henry.

Judith was 84 years old and bedridden, on this farm that had been in the Henry family since before the American Revolution. Along with Judith was her daughter Ellen and a hired teenage slave Lucy Griffith. It was common practice for owners of large tracts of lands with many slaves to hire out some of their slaves to others in the vicinity.

The context can be summed up as a spurned spouse turned abuser on the former partner who desired to leave the marriage that both had entered voluntary into back in 1781 and again in 1787. There were official reasons (should the courts be considered) and unofficial reasons for the separation with the intention of divorce.

It was just a few months before in the spring of 1861 that Virginia and North Carolina had voted to stay in the Union. If the Republicans had opted for a peaceful negotiations with the seven states that had seceded, this battle would not have been necessary.

A further enlightenment is necessary to understand that Lincoln was not patient when it came to the seven states that had seceded, as pointed out by John V. Denson in a 2006 article:

… on April 4, 1861, before the start of the war on April 12, the Secession Convention in Virginia, which had convened in February of 1861, sent a delegate to visit President Lincoln in the White House to discuss the results of the action recently taken in Virginia. When the State of Virginia originally voted on its ratification ordinance approving the U.S. Constitution, it contained a specific clause protecting their right to secede in the future. The delegate was Colonel John B. Baldwin, who was a strong opponent of secession by Virginia, although he recognized the right. His message communicated privately to the president on April 4, was that the convention had voted not to secede if President Lincoln would issue a written pledge to refrain from the use of force in order to get the seceded states back into the Union. President Lincoln told Colonel Baldwin that it was four days too late now to take that action. Unknown to all except a few insiders of the administration, meaning that members of the Congress did not know, the president had already issued secret orders on April 1, to send a fleet of ships to Fort Sumter in order to provoke the South into firing the first shot in order to start the war.

President Lincoln had been in office less than a month before aggressively deciding to opt for the “nuclear” option. This is the same man that had said the following in the late 1840s:

“…Any people anywhere, being inclined and having the power, have the right to rise up, and shake off the existing government, and form a new one that suits them better ..”

In addition to this, President Lincoln indicated that his primary concern was for the “Union” to be preserved, like a forever marriage.

This dovetails into what Lincoln said during the 04APR1861 visit:

Lincoln stated that he could not wait until the seceded states decided what to do and added:

“But what am I to do in the meantime with those men at Montgomery? Am I to let them go on?”

Baldwin replied:

“Yes sir, until they can be peaceably brought back.”

Lincoln then replied:

“And open Charleston, etc., as ports of entry, with their ten percent tariff . . .” (as opposed to the much higher forty percent Federal tariff). “What then would become of my tariff?”

So with a naval forces on its way to Charleston (Fort Sumter) and Pensacola (Fort Pickens) to instigate a first shot, Lincoln basically said “his way or the highway”.

The less known story of Fort Pickens included a Lieutenant Slemmer, like Major Anderson, who felt his position on the mainland, as well as that at nearby Fort McRee and the Pensacola Navy Yard, would be difficult to defend in the event of a full-scale attack, and he moved his troops and thirty sailors from the Navy Yard to the stronger, and then unoccupied, Fort Pickens on Santa Rosa Island in Pensacola Bay.

You may recall that Major Anderson also moved his troops from Fort Moultrie (on the mainland) to an uncompleted and unoccupied Fort Sumter under the cover of night just after Christmas 1860. This was AFTER a gentleman’s agreement had been made that indicated that all forces in Charleston Harbor, both Union and Confederate, would honor the status quo to allow peace negotiations to take place instead of hostilities.

On 15JAN1861, Colonel Chase went to Fort Pickens, a facility he had helped design and build while a captain in the U. S. Army Corps of Engineers, and made an unsuccessful demand for the fort’s surrender. A few days later, General Scott gave confidential orders that a contingent of Regular Army troops under the command of Captain Israel Vogdes of the First Artillery Regiment, a former professor of mathematics at West Point, be sent to Fort Pickens aboard the twenty-one gun sloop of war “U. S. S. Brooklyn”

On 04MAR1861 Lincoln was sworn into office and on 12MAR1861 secret orders were sent to Captain Vogdes by General Scott and Navy Secretary Gideon Wells that his troops were to be immediately put ashore at Fort Pickens. This action was actually carried out on 11APR1861 the day BEFORE Fort Sumter was fired upon by the Confederates.

President Lincoln in no way entertained anything but a war answer to the legal secession of seven states. His actions after Fort Sumter, where no deaths occurred during the bombardment, mandated a continued war footing.

While two men were killed manning the cannon during the 14APR1861 ceremony (see below), many, many more would follow, almost 750,000!

The terms of surrender allowed Anderson to perform a 100-gun salute before he and his men evacuated the fort the next day. The salute began at 2:00 P.M. on April 14, but was cut short to 50 guns after an accidental explosion killed one of the gunners, Pvt. Daniel Hough, and mortally wounded another.

On 15APR1861, President Lincoln called up 75,000 volunteers from the remaining states for 90-day service. This knee-jerk reaction caused a re-vote for secession in four more states including Virginia on 17APR1861 where Judith Henry lived.

The president of the United States asking the Virginia commonwealth to provide 2,340 troops to potentially march on South Carolina? Virginia says NO, South Carolinians are their ‘brothers’. Virginia will not take up arms against South Carolina, and Virginia knew South Carolina would not invade Virginia!

President Lincoln refused to call Congress into secession until 04JUL1861 to allow the military ramp-up to continue unimpeded so that Congress had little to decide but to back Lincoln’s war on the south-land.

Union forces numbering over 35,000 under Union General McDowell proceeded to invade Virginia from the area around Washington DC. Also joining the event were spectators who came out the 30 miles to watch these armies battle each other while having a picnic.

Confederate forces of 20,000 under General P.G.T. Beauregard from Richmond, VA combined with 12,000 under General Joseph E. Johnston who withdrew from the Shenandoah Valley unnoticed, boarded trains and arrived near Bull Run on 21JUL1861:

Union artillery assumed that the Spring Hill farmhouse was vacant and fired on that structure in an effort to disperse Confederate sharpshooters:

The 84 year old Judith Henry is the first (and definitely not the last) civilian casualty of this war. She is buried out in front of her house.

The peak of the battle occurred at 3pm as the Confederate reserves helped turn the tide sending the Union forces and civilian onlookers scurrying back to Washington DC.

Bull Run Battle App – First Manassas – July 21, 1861

General Bernard Bee (CSA) made an observation of how General Thomas Jackson’s troops were doing in the field and gave Jackson his new nickname, “Stonewall”:

If you ever have the opportunity to visit this battlefield 30 miles west of Washington DC, technology can guide you as you walk the grounds, even showing you where you are while on the battlefield in real time. This app is available in both the Apple and Google Play stores.

I highly recommend taking the time to explore this first major large scale military engagement in the Union’s War Against Southern Independence.

-SF1

Confederate cannon line

26AUG1794: President George Washington Decides to Send the Army Against Tax Protestors

If one follows “History.com” (not recommended), one finds the following:

On August 26, 1794, President George Washington writes to Henry “Light Horse Harry” Lee, Virginia’s governor and a former general, regarding the Whiskey Rebellion, an insurrection that was the first great test of Washington’s authority as president of the United States. In the letter, Washington declared that he had no choice but to act to subdue the “insurgents,” fearing they would otherwise “shake the government to its foundation.”

If one prefers their history to match what you heard all your life, with George Washington chopping down a cherry tree, then the above clip probably sounds good to your ears.

If you prefer the truth, then “Mises.com”, “LewRockwell.com” and Murray Rothbard are better educators, but hang on.

If you are curious about the Whiskey Rebellion, you can start here:

The Official View of the Whiskey Rebellion is that four counties of western Pennsylvania refused to pay an excise tax on whiskey that had been levied by proposal of the Secretary of Treasury Alexander Hamilton in the Spring of 1791, as part of his excise tax proposal for federal assumption of the public debts of the several states.

Western Pennsylvanians failed to pay the tax, this view says, until protests, demonstrations, and some roughing up of tax collectors in western Pennsylvania caused President Washington to call up a 13,000-man army in the summer and fall of 1794 to suppress the insurrection. A localized but dramatic challenge to federal tax-levying authority had been met and defeated. The forces of federal law and order were safe.

Pretty sure this is what you may have been taught, but you were lied to. Murray, who wrote this in the periodical ‘Free Market’ in September 1994:

This Official View turns out to be dead wrong. In the first place, we must realize the depth of hatred of Americans for what was called “internal taxation” (in contrast to an “external tax” such as a tariff). Internal taxes meant that the hated tax man would be in your face and on your property, searching, examining your records and your life, and looting and destroying.

Why was THIS type of tax hated? (a type we are faced with all the time these days in “the land of the free”)  Hang on for some history to help understand the mindset of the American people in the 1790s:

  • Americans ..  had inherited hatred of the excise tax from the British opposition; for two centuries, excise taxes in Britain, in particular the hated tax on cider, had provoked riots and demonstrations upholding the slogan, “liberty, property, and no excise!”
  • The most hated tax imposed by the British had been the Stamp Tax of 1765, on all internal documents and transactions; if the British had kept this detested tax, the American Revolution would have occurred a decade earlier, and enjoyed far greater support than it eventually received.

In summary, “.. To the average American, the federal government’s assumption of the power to impose excise taxes did not look very different from the levies of the British crown…” just 15 years prior!

It seems that this rebellion (as well as the appearance of an “insurrection” from this new president’s view, with borrowed glasses from his associate Alexander Hamilton) was much more wide spread than just some counties in Pennsylvania:

The main distortion of the Official View of the Whiskey Rebellion was its alleged confinement to four counties of western Pennsylvania. From recent research, we now know that no one paid the tax on whiskey throughout the American “back-country”: that is, the frontier areas of Maryland, Virginia, North and South Carolina, Georgia, and the entire state of Kentucky.

Why Western PA then? Turns out that this was the ONLY region where wealthy officials willingly tried to collect these taxes. Other more southern areas consisted of a more principled and honorable type that refused to enforce an immoral law.

There were two attributes of this tax that really p*ssed the common folk off, and one had to do with the whiskey itself and the other had to do with who really benefited from Alexander Hamilton’s tax:

  • The whiskey tax was particularly hated in the back-country because whiskey production and distilling were widespread; whiskey was not only a home product for most farmers, it was often used as a money, as a medium of exchange for transactions.
  • … in keeping with Hamilton’s program, the tax bore more heavily on the smaller distilleries. As a result, many large distilleries supported the tax as a means of crippling their smaller and more numerous competitors.

The truth is, in 99% of the area where this tax was ignored, it was non-violent. Only the 13,000 troops (more troops that were ever assembled in one place in the American Revolution) under George Washington (traveling in his carriage), but actually led by Alexander Hamilton, might start something:

Rather than the whiskey tax rebellion being localized and swiftly put down, the true story turns out to be very different. The entire American back-country was gripped by a non-violent, civil disobedient refusal to pay the hated tax on whiskey. No local juries could be found to convict tax delinquents. The Whiskey Rebellion was actually widespread and successful, for it eventually forced the federal government to repeal the excise tax.

Since the tax rate was $0.06 – 0.18 per gallon or $5 per year from the “producer”:

  • the retail price of whisky in the West was about half what it was in the East, the effective tax rate in the West was twice as high, computed as a percentage of the price.
  • Since the “producer” in the West were farmers who bartered with whiskey as a currency, there was no one to pass these costs on to as the large distilleries could.

The blow-back from this internal tax (verses the external tariff type) would sweep Thomas Jefferson into office who would then repeal this tax.

Not until the War of 1812 would Americans tolerate this tax once more. It was all downhill from there:

Except during the War of 1812, the federal government never again dared to impose an internal excise tax, until the North transformed the American Constitution by centralizing the nation during the War Between the States. One of the evil fruits of this war was the permanent federal “sin” tax on liquor and tobacco, to say nothing of the federal income tax, an abomination and a tyranny even more oppressive than an excise.

One only has to look at the actions of those awesome early Americans to know how far the citizens have come in this country, and yet they call it “progress”.

Not cool.

-SF1

Post War Treatment of Those Who Fight: Some Things Never Change – Reflection on 1783

Whether one thinks of all those scared by Afghanistan and Iraqi “burn pits”, or “Agent Orange” from the Vietnam War, the typical bureaucracy of government things makes the post-war treatment of those that have sacrificed much to be delayed at best, or never facilitated by these governments themselves until after they have died.

Jason Bourne:Do you even know why you’re supposed to kill me? Look at us. Look at what they make you give.
When you think on it, one gives and sacrifices in a conflict. But one rarely understands what one may be forced to give during the balance of one’s life! This is the beauty of selecting, targeting or conscripting 18-20 year olds. Conscription, when it comes again as the US Empire crumbles, will target “fresh meat” for its own use, and in the end, will discard them just as fast.
In the news lately has been a condition that has yet to be conclusively linked to the burn pit procedures practiced by the US Department of Defense, by far the largest polluter on this globe:

This is not new news, for even ten years ago, vets were calling attention to the characteristic of statism .. the ability for this “collective” to avert responsibility of the decisions of the state. As Karen Kwiatkowski shared over a decade ago:

But we can take a short lesson on statism.

When I burn waste here on the farm, I don’t always obey the county rule that restricts burning before 4 pm — I make a judgment call based on wind and weather, and go from there. But, as the county guidelines advise, I don’t burn chemicals, Styrofoam, recyclable materials, or ammo. There is a simple reason I don’t burn those things — it might be hazardous for me, my family, and my livestock, and damaging to my property. Even though I’m next door to an often malodorous chicken farm, I do care what my neighbors think and don’t wish to do harm to their property or environment either. I imagine that the soldier pictured throwing waste into the burn pit, and every other soldier at Balad behaves much the same way when disposing of garbage on his or her own property.

Why can’t we extend private property good sense to government? This is the fundamental problem — whether we are considering Congressional and Federal Reserve bailouts, partnerships, and nationalization of bad banks, uncompetitive car manufacturers, or underfunded insurance companies, or if we are trying to understand why the military pollutes at home and abroad with such impunity.

So it is with government in general, that they (unlike individuals) can:

  • mandate “service” (called conscription, which is really slavery)
  • escape prosecution for war crimes (killing of innocent people in a war area), for the wasting of thousands of people’s lives when wars are based on lies (i.e. every war the US has fought since the American Revolution)
  • escape prosecution for damaging the health of those that survive as well as the environment.

This did not start in the 21st century or the 19th/20th century, but even in the 18th century it was apparent that even the most honorable government (which most history books paint the republic of the united States of America as outlined by the Treaty of Paris in 1783) could also accomplish an incredible disservice to those that served in wartime.

Here are a few examples from 1783 and beyond for the American hero Francis Marion. While Francis and his men were not conscripted, they did feel the post-war abandonment by the very government they risked their lives to protect.

First to set the context for Francis Marion returning to civilian life:

Returning to Pond Bluff he found desolation as there were no furniture, no livestock, no clothing, no household goods, no provisions and not enough money to buy cattle and horses. Everything was overgrown and there was a lot of work to do for this 50-year old. He had some money from inheritances but he would have to go into debt to make this plantation viable. Rice growing had depleted the soil and with the British no longer a trading partner all he could do was subsistence farming. Cotton would not be introduced in the region for a few more years and so the future did not look all that good. Half of his twenty slaves had left for parts as far away as Nova Scotia. The other ten had been working his deceased brother’s plantation Belle Isle in Pineville. His pre-war overseer June and his wife Chloe and their daughter Phoebe and her daughter Peggy plus ten field hands were available.

Now the areas where the US government, after the fact, dropped the ball in being as honorable as Francis Marion himself was:

  • The November 1782 election meant that Marion had to leave Pond Bluff yet again for the January 6,1783 legislative session. Writing from there on January 18th he shared the inequalities that tainted his excitement about the future of the colony as well of the federation of states. It seems that the Rhode Islander Greene was awarded 10,000 guineas from SC toward the purchase of a SC plantation and quoted an old saying “that kissed goes by favor”. The correspondence he had with Greene stopped abruptly as the hostilities stopped in December 1782. Marion had hoped that Congress would follow through on the promise of a lifetime of half-pay for officers but it would be 50 years before that practice would finally start. He lamented that “idle spectators of war” were in charge now. Yet, he still loved his country and his principles.
  • Early in 1783 the SC legislature did vote Marion a commendation complete with a gold medal but there is doubt if that was ever delivered. In 1785 he would receive a 300 acre land grant but for unknown reasons he never applied for the 500 acre land bounty granted by Congress to Continental officers. Marion was promoted but only to full colonel and he suspected it was due in part to his leniency toward Tories as the war wound down.
  • March 1784 saw Marion received a position at Fort Johnson in Charleston Harbor of basically a port collector paying him 500 British pound sterling per year but required him to be at the fort most of the time. He was not keen on Charleston life and the upper class that emerged again there. Four years later with budget cuts this position was reduced to 20% of the previous pay so he resigned. Another legislative piece that Marion wanted no part of was protection from lawsuits due to wartime decisions and actions (like plunder). Marion was confident that his actions were proper during the whole course of the war. No lawsuits were ever filed against him.

The government did not treat Francis well at all when the war was over and this 50-something had to try and start over again.

Enter “Providence”:

  • Marion found himself with a secret admirer, a spinster and first cousin Mary Ester Videau who was in her late 40s. She had inherited a considerable fortune over the years in money and land. It was Marion’s niece Charlotte Ashby (daughter of his brother Gabriel) and her fiance Theodore Marion (son of his brother Job) that prodded uncle Francis to call on Mary. At 54, Francis and Mary married on April 20, 1786 in a double wedding that featured the two cousins that got them together. They traveled, camped and fished together while also “adopting” a son and daughter in the extended family. The son was to take Marion’s last name if he was to see his substantial inheritance at age 21 so that the Marion family name through Francis would live on, except that this adopted son would have 8 daughters and no sons.
  • Marion now focused on expanding the wealth with cattle and hogs mainly as well as rice when the economy improved. Marion could be considered upper-middle class at this point in SC. His post-war terms as state senator are unremarkable and even attended the 1788 SC ratification of the new constitution but was not present for the final vote. He was more a Federalist than a states rights guy like Thomas Sumter and Wade Hampton. He continued to command a militia brigade until 1794 when Charles Pinckney was promoted to major general (Marion and Sumter caused a deadlock in voting so the legislators opted for someone else). Marion was in poor health at that time anyway as he expressed in a letter to his grandnephew (adopted son) that a cramp in his fingers and constant pain in his head plus a fever. At 63 on February 27th 1795 he died at Pond Bluff and buried at Belle Isle. His land was worth about $500,000 in today’s money. While Francis had a will it had not been witnessed so his wife received only 1/2 the proceeds and Francis’ nieces and nephews the other 1/2. Mary ended up buying out the nieces and nephews and the adopted son inherited slaves “and their increase” upon Mary’s death in 1815. When the adopted son died in 1833 he had more than 150 slaves. No slaves were freed upon his death, but there are two things to consider with this. 1) He must have wanted to provide for Mary and allow her to free them upon her death. 2) SC law states that freed slaves have to leave the colony within 6 months or face re-enslavement which meant the breaking up of a slave family.

.. and loyal friends and those touched by his efforts for “the cause”:

  • Prior to his death, a delegation of Georgetown dignitaries traveled to Pond Bluff and presented him with a written address: “Your achievements may havenot significantly swelled the historic page .. but this is of little moment. They remain in such indelible characters upon our minds, that neither change of circumstances nor length of time can efface them .. Continue general in peace to till those acres which you have wrested from the hands of the enemy. Continue to enjoy dignity, accompanied with ease, and to lengthen out your days blessed with the consciousness of conduct unaccused of rapine or oppression, and of actions ever directed by the purest patriotism.”

Called the “Washington of the South”, the more one learns of Marion and his character, the more he inspires admiration.

Government .. not so much!

-SF1

(back from three weeks of R&R, highly recommended!)

18-31JUL1781: Marion Takes a Well Needed Break and Reflects on the Past Year

My last post on the adventures of Francis Marion written about a month ago, his militia was down to 100 men and they had just written off fellow militia leader Thomas Sumter and his tactics.

Marion goes to Cordes’s Plantation and sets up camp to break from the exhaustive mid-July battles at Quinby’s Bridge and Shubrick’s Plantations. After one year of fighting the British, much of which without direct support from the Continentals, he had to be proud of what was accomplished. These last few months in the summer of 1781 with the Continentals had its positives, but it also had its negatives.

Lt. Col. Henry Lee and his Continentals proceed to bury their dead and move to join Maj. Gen. Nathanael Greene in the High Hills of the Santee as the militia melts back to their homes in South Carolina.

Reflecting on these days later, Greene told Lafayette that the “Dog Days Campaign” had some success but admitted it was far short of what needed to be accomplished. Driving the British out of Monck’s Corner and Dorchester only lasted a few weeks before the Brits were back. On the plus side, 140 prisoners, 200 horses and ammunition were to be had.

The rift between the principled Marion and the opportunist Sumter was also widened by another of Sumter’s actions, in that 720 guineas (gold coins) were found and distributed to Sumter’s men and some of Lee’s men BUT not Marion’s.

Sumter’s men were also getting disillusioned as his 10-month enlistees were on their way home at this point, dissatisfied with Sumter’s Law.

Sumter now was desperate, and tried to plunder more by going near Georgetown and seizing slaves, horses, indigo and salt from the Tories there.  The British retaliated on 01AUG1781 by bombarding Georgetown from a warship with many innocent people caught in the crossfire. Gov. Rutledge generally favored harsh treatment of Tories BUT finally started seeing this from Marion’s point of view as that practice usually gave significant blowback.

Finally, on 05AUG1781, Rutledge signed a proclamation strictly forbidding plundering for any purpose essentially nullifying Sumter’s Law. Sumter took this personally and resigned but Greene talked him into staying on but that would old last a few months as Sumter had fought his last battle.

Just as the patriots alter their ways to ensure they were seen as leading a noble cause, respecting the innocent people’s life, families and property, the British decide once more to turn the burner up on violence. The British decide towards “making an example” of someone, in a typical bully move.

The British proceed to arrange a public hanging that took place in CharlesTown South Carolina which was still in British hands. On 04AUG1781 a 35 year old Col. Issac Haynes, a much beloved planter/patriot in the Low-country region, was hanged as an example to the people of the colony of South Carolina.

There is quite a backstory to this event that will be the subject of my next American Revolutionary post .. coming soon!

Stay tuned.

-SF1