Abe Lincoln: Can You Handle the Truth About this Man?

I love the truth. The truth sets one free!

Then you will experience for yourselves the truth, and the truth will free you. (John 8:32 The Message – paraphrase of the Bible)

You see, for some time now I have been “incensed” at the lies I have been told all my life. This started when as a young man attending a church that had a culture where everyone showed up on Sunday mornings with no smiles, with no joy, almost like a gathering of people doing their duty. The “dominie” (Dutch word for pastor, Scottish for schoolmaster) was pressed to ensure that everyone was very aware of their sins and their performance for the past week which seemed to be within the Calvinist tradition. In this environment, I opened the Bible in front of me and read from the books of the New Testament about people following Jesus who were full of joy, and hope and laughter, even in the middle of the storms of life while living in an oppressive empire!

In hindsight, it seems that there were times when I took it upon myself to dig for the truth. When given Child-craft encyclopedias as an 8 year old I read the World Book encyclopedias instead. Later in life, when studying towards a Bachelor of Science degree in Ministry and Leadership I expanded my research far beyond the text books supplied. A bit later in life, after hearing contrary thoughts to the political view of President Bush’s “War on Terror”, I looked beyond the US government/media spin and to source material on what really happened both BEFORE and after 9/11! Of course once you have doubts about the government/media story about 9/11, you go on to other events like The Gulf of Tonkin incident and Vietnam War, JFK’s assassination, Pearl Harbor’s “surprise”, sinking of the Lusitania, the sinking of the  USS Maine in Havana harbor, the events leading up to the first shot at Ft. Sumter, the War of 1812, the transition from the Articles of Confederation to the US Constitution coup d’tat and even events during and right after the American Revolution.

Looking back, I find myself “Gratefully Disillusioned”, a term that reflects satisfaction in turning over so many “sacred cows” in life, that I do feel very free to say and do what my heart encourages me towards in my everyday life. I no longer have to measure what I hear and see with a “holy narrative” that someone (government/media/religion) has propped up as “truth” to be preserved, I can in fact entertain a thought without accepting it!

So what does this all have to do with Abraham Lincoln? Everything. Of all the presidents we have had in the United States, there is none other that has received such a “holy place” in our political understanding of America than this man. His assassination in fact was the major turning point in this because before the day he died, he in fact was not well like at all both in the South and in the North or Western regions of the United States. The timing of his assassination, just before Easter, setup the political mouthpieces (including many New England clergy) to seize this moment to deify a man for political means that has lasted over 150 years. How appropriate for this man to be chosen for this USE by all political parties, for as a man he was at his core a political animal!

While there have been over 10,000 books written about Lincoln, only a minority have really unpacked his real effect, his real life and his real character. These include Edgar Lee Masters’ 1931 classic, ‘Lincoln the Man‘, a 1943 book, ‘The Deification of Lincoln‘, by historian Ira D. Cardiff and lately the books ‘Lincoln Unmasked‘ and ‘The Real Lincoln‘ by Thomas DiLorenzo.

This week, another epic truth-telling book was released, ‘Lincoln As He Really Was‘ by Charles T. Pace in which Thomas DiLorenzo writes the Forward. Some context setting quotes follow as this book may consume the balance of my Labor Day weekend!

So here are a few quotes that reflect on the character of Abraham Lincoln before his death in 1865:

Murray N. Rothbard once said about Lincoln in an (online) essay entitled “Just War”: Lincoln was a “master politician,” said Rothbard, defined as one who is a masterful “liar, conniver, and manipulator.” He makes any “master politician” or our time look amateurish by comparison.

.. about his personal life, while there is nothing inherently wrong with not going to church EXCEPT if a majority of authors on Lincoln have led many to believe that all Lincoln’s Bible references infer that he was in fact a Christian, they have led you down the wrong path. One needs to hear what those closest to Lincoln said about him:

Lincoln never joined a church, and both his law partner William Herndon and his wife Mary Todd said he was not a Christian. His White House assistant, Colonel Ward Lamon, called him “an infidel.” His close associate Judge David Davis, whom he appointed to the Supreme Court, wrote that Lincoln “had no faith, in the Christian sense of the term.” But his mother read him Bible stories as a child, and later in life he studied the Bible for political purposes – to use religious rhetoric to sway the masses to favor his political positions.

Political animals, like the ones we have in the 21st century, tend to be crude in their day-to-day life:

[Lincoln was] a “zealous party man” who honed his skills, such as they were, of personally attacking his political opponents with often over-the-top ad hominem assaults ..

None of Lincoln’s family members voted for him, nor did 20 of the 23 ministers in his hometown of Springfield, Illinois. He did not even carry his own county in the 1860 election. These are the people who knew him best.

Lincoln invited no family members to his wedding; chose not to attend his own father’s funeral; and is said to have never had a real friend.

Lincoln was a master story teller, many of which were notoriously vulgar and crude. He never passed up an opportunity to make a speech, writes Pace, as he spent years honing the skills of the master politician. He could sound like an abolitionist in front of a Massachusetts audience, and the exact opposite in Southern Illinois. His speeches were always vague and his positions hard to pin down, the hallmark of a successful politician. He viewed politics as “life itself” and was intensely partisan, routinely denouncing his political opponent as “villains.” He was a “born politician,”

By 1864, what did people think?

During his lifetime Lincoln was actually the most hated and detested of all American presidents, as documented by historian Larry Tagg in ‘The Unpopular Mr. Lincoln: The Story of America’s Most Reviled President‘. For example, on page 435 of his book Larry Tagg cites an 1864 Harpers Weekly article that compiled a list of terms that the Northern press used to describe Lincoln including “Filthy Story-Teller, Ignoramus Abe, Despot, Old Scoundrel . . . Perjurer, Liar, Robber, Thief, Swindler, Braggart, Tyrant, Buffoon, Fiend, Usurper, Butcher, Monster . . .”

After Lincoln’s April 14th, 1865 assassination:

New England pastors who had excoriated Lincoln for four years all of a sudden “rewrote their Easter sermons to include a new, exalted view of Lincoln as an American Moses, a leader out of slavery, a national savior who was not allowed to cross over into the Promised Land” himself. Senator James Grimes of Iowa boasted that the Republican Party’s deification of Lincoln “has made it impossible to speak the truth about Abraham Lincoln hereafter.”

Even 80 years later in 1943 historian Ira D. Cardiff wrote:

… that by then Americans were not even “interested . . . in the real Lincoln. They desire a supernatural Lincoln, a Lincoln with none of the faults or frailties of the common man . . . a savior, leading us to democracy and liberty – though most said readers are not interested in democracy or liberty.” Moreover, said Cardiff, “a biography of Lincoln which told the truth about him would probably have great difficulty in finding a publisher.”

Hopefully I have your attention, and if you are ready and like me have been:

.. incensed that you have been lied to all your life by the politically-controlled/politically-correct education establishment. If so, ‘Lincoln as He Really Was‘ is a must-read as a first step in your rehabilitation as an educated American citizen – or as the citizen of any other country. It will be especially helpful in allowing your children and grandchildren to have an opportunity to learn the truth about this important aspect of American history.

So now I am off to my reading nook .. take care this holiday weekend (in the United States) .. talk to y’all again next week!

-SF1

PS About the author of this book:

Apologia MY EDUCATION IN COLLEGE was scientific — mathematics, physics, chemistry, zoology; in medical school it was the study of man’s structure, his form, his gross and microscopic qualities, his function, his diseases.  There not a mention was made of Lincoln — the course of study being only a steady search for scientific truth.  The doctor, like the farmer, is, in his limited sphere, looking for reality.  In clinical experience, both in training years and in my own practice, I saw men and women who served to the best of their ability the needs of the sick.  In my mature years I finally had time to read outside my profession.  I read of America’s supreme figure: “Honest Abe.”  I learned that whatever he was, he was certainly no doctor.  He lived a different life.

There were two Lincolns — the myth and the man.

Charles T. Pace Greenville, North Carolina

Pace, Charles T.. Lincoln As He Really Was (Kindle Locations 165-172). Shotwell Publishing LLC. Kindle Edition.

08SEP1780: In Only Two Weeks of Irregular Warfare, Marion’s 150 Men are Targeted by the British

The last we heard of Marion, he had split his militia force in the face of larger British/Tory numbers into three units. Maj. James had some intel that indicated on the evening of 07SEP1780 that 400 Redcoats/Tories under Wemyss were in Kingstree only 20 miles west of Marion with orders to finish Marion off. Marion was also made aware of 200 more Redcoats coming north out of the port of George Town heading his way as well.

With the news of overwhelming forces headed their way, Marion took counsel with the militia leadership and decided to move back east and north away from this pressure. Many of the men we audibly anxious about this news as they knew their homes in the Williamsburg area would be subjected to the pillaging efforts of the British as they gave chase to the fox (Marion).

The morning of 08SEP1780, Marion had more intel about the same force he had dispersed at Blue Savannah, Gainey and his Tory militia was headed toward Marion from the east. It is at this point that Marion makes the call to release those under his command to go and give aid and comfort to their own families as well as other patriotic families in the region and left with the balance, 60 men in all, to move north. Maj. James with a small band of men were to move directly in the path of Wemyss in the Williamsburg area to do what they can to counter act the wrath of the British.

By this time, from the west, the British force under Wemyss was only two miles away and so Marion decided to address the items he had that slowed him down, two old iron artillery pieces, probably six-pounders, and dumped them in the swamp just before crossing the North Carolina border.

By 15SEP1780, Marion and his men would be safely in Great White Marsh which is in eastern North Carolina, 30 miles past the border. Francis Marion, like a fox, sensed eminent danger and pressure from all sides and safely withdrew into a swamp area that offer protection and rest for the remainder of his men. Without a direct conflict in a week, Marion reflects on his efforts in late August / early September 1780.

With two weeks of irregular warfare with NO support from the Continentals prompted Francis Marion to use this time in relative safety to write Gen. Gates and explain that he and his men would remain in North Carolina until he heard from Gates or had another opportunity.

In Marion’s absence, the British left an indelible impression on the region:

Upon his arrival in Indiantown around September 7 Wemyss burned the Presbyterian church there, calling it a “sedition shop.” (Ironically, Wemyss was himself a Presbyterian.) Over the next few days he put the torch to several more homes, including that of Major James, allegedly because James’s wife refused to provide information as to her husband’s whereabouts.

He also hanged Adam Cusack, a local ferryman, in front of his wife and children as they pleaded for his life. According to American accounts, Cusack was executed either for refusing to ferry Wemyss’s officers across a creek or because he fired a shot across the creek at a slave of Tory militia captain John Brockinton. When Dr. James Wilson tried to intercede on Cusack’s behalf, Wemyss burned his house too. …

On his march north from Kingstree to the town of Cheraw, Wemyss cut a path of destruction seventy miles long and five miles wide on both sides of the Pee Dee River, burning fifty houses and plantations along the way. He claimed that these “mostly” belonged to people who had broken their paroles or oaths of allegiance and were now in arms against the British. (He offered no justification for burning the others.) Wemyss also ordered his men to destroy blacksmith shops, looms, and mills and to shoot or bayonet any milk cows and sheep not taken by the British for themselves. The residents thus lost not only their shelter but also their means of livelihood, food, and clothing. Wemyss’s scorched-earth policy would have echoes in Sherman’s famous march through the South in the Civil War.

Oller, John. The Swamp Fox: How Francis Marion Saved the American Revolution (Kindle Locations 1093-1106). Da Capo Press. Kindle Edition.

There is a term that is used in the 21st century to describe the unintentional consequences of this kind of warfare on the civilian population, BLOWBACK. The US Empire’s CIA is well aware of what happens when these kind of tactics are used in that a majority of the population is so incensed that freedom fighters/insurgents are “birthed” at incredible rates. This is what would be the case in 18th century South Carolina, where any gains the British had after practically overrunning the whole state by the end of May 1780 would be erased by the conduct of British officers and Tory/Loyalists.

While it was tempting for the patriotic forces to mimic the British in a “tit-for-tat” move, for the most part Marion was able to control those under his command. While some junior officers did go rogue and follow the British “total war” strategy, Marion sought to distance himself from this and communicated with Gen. Gates specifically which officers had crossed that line. Unfortunately, there were few if any British officers that reined in their men like Marion did, and the civilian population in South Carolina took the brunt of this immoral use of military troops directly on families, their livelihood and their property.

-SF1

SpinDown: How Russia Does It and How the US Empire Does It

Russian Military Police – Observation Post in Syria

The process of spinning down a conflict is a lot harder than spinning it up. It seems that after years of destabilizing various areas of the world, the US has no patience for the spin-down process.

Notice how Russia patiently waited for Syria’s request for assistance, and once expectations were matched (as peers would do), the process would evolve in a strategy that maximizes stability throughout the spin-down process. This is basic project management.

Russia was aware that Syria was battling terrorism in their country starting in 2011 and was supporting Syria behind the scenes (while the US/Israel/Saudi Arabia/UK was supporting ISIS behind the scenes) for FOUR years until Assad requested direct Russian military assistance in 2015. Here we are three years later and without carpet bombing or napalm, Syria with Russia’s and Iran’s assistance have throttled back the terror impact inside Syria methodically. This is a five year plan that differs from the US approach in that Russia does not intend to stay past its welcome. This is what friends do, we don’t perpetually parent our friends for 20, 40 or 60 years or more!

The US was heavily involved in spinning up the North Korean conflict in 1950 through 1953 when a cease-fire was agreed on. The US has done nothing but exploit the situation with the North Koreans over the past 65 years. Through this process, South Korea has totally depended on the US military like welfare recipients depend on Uncle Sam, they might be grateful but they will never respect the entity/empire. All it takes is for the gravy train to end and the relationship goes south in a hurry. Does the same hold true in Japan, Germany, and Taiwan? You bet it does. It seems that the US Empire needs a strong military at all costs, because a bully doesn’t have any friends if he doesn’t have any fists! We have long ago overstayed our welcome as we are that enabler parent that will not let the kid grow up!

I was hopeful that President Trump, having accomplished a visit to North Korea in the spring of 2018 might have broken out of the dysfunctional funk that has plagued US negotiations and treaty performance (the American Indians know real well how that goes). Whether it is Trump’s inability at guiding his staff to build on his goodwill OR it is just part of the “art of negotiations”, Moon of Alabama gets to the core of the issue in this article:

Now Pompeo came to Pyongyang and asked for details about North Korea’s nuclear program and how it plans to abandon it. As far as we know he did not talk about point 1, the “establishment of new US-DPRK relations” which would include the opening of embassies and economic engagement. He did not talk about point 2, “a lasting and stable peace regime” i.e. a peace treaty. He did not talk about 3a, the “security guarantees to the DPRK”. The only item he talked about was 3b, the last item on the list.

Really? Is this the best that Team Trump can offer? I have to give it to North Korea for their part in some truth-telling to the US bully empire:

As for the issue of announcing the declaration of the end of war at an early date, it is the first process of defusing tension and establishing a lasting peace regime on the Korean peninsula, and at the same time, it constitutes a first factor in creating trust between the DPRK and the U.S. This issue was also stipulated in Panmunjom Declaration as a historical task to terminate the war status on the Korean peninsula which continues for nearly 70 years. President Trump, too, was more enthusiastic about this issue at the DPRK-U.S. summit talks.

That is mature, that is the ability to be critical of the staff that was supposed to follow through on his boss’ success while still giving the boss credit for what he started to accomplish.

Valuable agreement was reached in such a short time at the Singapore summit talks first ever in the history of the DPRK-U.S. relations. This is attributable to the fact that President Trump himself said he would move towards resolving the DPRK-U.S. relations and the issue of denuclearization of the Korean peninsula in a new way.
If both sides at the working level reneged on the new way agreed at the summit and returned to the old way, the epoch-making Singapore summit would be meaningless … We still cherish our good faith in President Trump.

The U.S. should make a serious consideration of whether the toleration of the headwind against the wills of the two top leaders would meet the aspirations and expectations of the world people as well as the interests of its country.

Wow. Has the US ever responded this way? The Golden Rule as Ron Paul would say, would go a long ways in sustaining peaceful and respectable relationships with other countries. I think there is more money to be made in war however:

Beyond this July 2018 dialog, it seems that the US Media has joined in following in the footsteps that the Trump administration left off, further criticizing of the North Koreans. I honestly think they believe that they don’t have a chance in getting their war in Syria liked they wanted and since much of the US naval fleet is in the Western Pacific anyway, why not just rattle some cages on that side of the world for a while. Sick!

Moon of Alabama in this recent article shares how the US Media / US Government Propaganda Machine is selling its fake news:

A Washington Post editorial today laments that the Singapore negotiations have given North Korea too much. It urges Trump further into the blind alley he already finds himself in:

The administration’s best hope of rescuing the situation is to return to talking with North Korea about an equitable tradeoff. To start the process of denuclearization, U.S. officials say the Kim regime must provide a complete inventory of its assets — warheads, production facilities and other nuclear infrastructure — and agree to inspections to verify it. Previous negotiations have broken down because of Pyongyang’s refusal to take this step, so a full disclosure would provide the first clear signal that Mr. Kim was serious about denuclearization. That, along with a freeze in the production of missiles and fissile materials, could justify U.S. participation in the end-of-conflict declaration the two Koreas are seeking.

This is exactly what Trump and his water carrier Pompeo are doing. They demand that North Korea bows to whatever the U.S. wishes without assuring it of a significant quid pro quo. If the U.S. can not even stick to simple agreements, like the Singapore Statement, why should North Korea believe any verbal assurance of vague steps the U.S. might take after it disarms?

The only way out of this is for the U.S. to offer and sign a peace treaty that finally brings the Korea War to an official end. There is only one alternatives to that. A return U.S. strategic maneuvers, which Defense Secretary Mattis just now announced, followed up by North Korea with new nuclear and missile tests, possibly combined in a launch towards Guam.

This is a bi-polar dysfunctional American empire that is “high” on itself, the old “American Exceptionalism” disease. Our kids and grand-kids will not benefit from this type of behavior in future generations.

If we even think about some of the more US’s recent interventions (Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, the attempt in Syria and elsewhere to lesser degrees), one has to wonder how long can this go on? Is this dysfunctional empire going to be able to “spin-down” any country where it is better off for the process of being led to “democracy”?

Unlike Russia, it seems that the US planning is only one step deep, intervene in a big way, and then let the chips fall where they may, so that in the destabilized environment Uncle Sam’s services will be needed for generations. Job security.

Uncle Sam needs an “intervention”!

-SF1

North Korea: Another Country Misunderstood? (Do You Still Listen to US Govt/Media?)

I do hope that this is what you picture when you hear “North Korea”. The darkness on the Korean peninsula is in fact the country of North Korea, and we (USA) helped.

You might think “they deserve it”, that they are “evil” (as if you believe George W. Bush when he said):

… but he also said Iraq had WMDs (of course what he didn’t say is that we GAVE Iraq these in the 1980s and expected that they were still there).

What if what you know about North Korea has been mainly a government/media spin that didn’t just start in 2017 when North Korea toyed with intercontinental ballistic missiles. It didn’t start in 2002 either when President Bush lumped them in with Iran and Iran. So what did North Korea do?

Like in my previous post about Iran, we need to go back a few years, a few decades actually to really get a big picture of how North Korea has actually behaved or misbehaved.

One year ago in this Anti-Media article, Darius Shahtahmasebi shared in part:

In the early 1950s, the U.S. bombed North Korea into complete oblivion, destroying over 8,700 factories, 5,000 schools, 1,000 hospitals, 600,000 homes, and eventually killing off perhaps 20 percent of the country’s population. As noted by the Asia Pacific Journal, the U.S. dropped so many bombs that they eventually ran out of targets to hit:

“By the fall of 1952, there were no effective targets left for US planes to hit. Every significant town, city and industrial area in North Korea had already been bombed. In the spring of 1953, the Air Force targeted irrigation dams on the Yalu River, both to destroy the North Korean rice crop and to pressure the Chinese, who would have to supply more food aid to the North. Five reservoirs were hit, flooding thousands of acres of farmland, inundating whole towns and laying waste to the essential food source for millions of North Koreans.”

While “technically” a United Nations action, the US Congress never declared war on North Korea, and yet technically, North Korea is still at war. Once a cease-fire was agreed to, North Korea faded into the “dark” (see picture at the top of this post) not unlike Cuba.

Going back even farther, you will better understand the real tragedy as Eric Margolis points out in this Lew Rockwell article:

In 1950, at the time of the Korean War, North Korea’s economy was larger than that of South Korea thanks to Japan’s colonial industrial policies. Korea’s Communists, like their allies in China, took the lead in fighting Japanese occupation. America suffered heavy casualties fighting North Korean forces.

To many Koreans, particularly young ones, North Korea is the authentic Korea while South Korea remains a well-off but politically powerless American semi-protectorate. The humiliating collapse and impeachment of South Korea’s first female president, scandal-ridden Park Geun-hye, only reinforces the South’s image as a rudderless ship in stormy seas.

Wow, so who is the “grown-up” now? South Korea with all the lights is but an obedient kid to the American Empire while North Korea attempts to almost go it alone. Its 60 warheads (only one-fourth of what Israel has) are its only asset (i.e. gun) in negotiating anything in this world these days.

The US Empire in typical fashion can’t seem to let this chapter go as the US is passionate about proving itself as the world’s policeman. Eric Margolis share from this Lew Rockwell article some tough truth about the US “mismanagement” of past “regimes” that do not want to play “ball” with the American Empire:

After Washington overthrew the rulers of Iraq and Libya, it became painfully apparent that small nations without nuclear weapons were vulnerable to US ‘regime change’ operations. The North Koreans, who are very eccentric but not stupid, rushed to accelerate their nuclear weapons and delivery systems.

Almost equally important, North Korea boasts one of the word’s biggest armies – 1,020,000 men, 88,000 crack special forces, and an trained militia of over 5 million. The North’s weapons are obsolescent; its small air forces and navy will be vaporized by US power but its troops are deeply dug into the mountainous terrain and would be fighting from prepared positions. War against North Korea would be a slow and bloody slog– even a repeat of the bloody, stalemated 1950-52 Korean War in which 39,000 Americans and at least 2.5 million Koreans died. I’ve been in the deep North Korean-dug tunnels under the Demilitarized Zone. A full division can be moved through in only 60 minutes.

Ever since being soundly beaten in Vietnam and fought to a draw in Afghanistan, the US military has preferred to attack small countries like Panama, Grenada, Somalia, Yemen, Iraq and Syria. The Pentagon is not eager to tangle with the tough North Koreans. Estimates of the cost of a US invasion of North Korea have run as high as 250,000 US casualties and tens of billions of dollars.

So now what? Why can’t we leave North and South Korea alone to resolve their differences and maybe capitalize on their similarities? Well how about pure economics, the true source of peaceful relations in the long haul as outlined in this Russia Today article:

The project to unite the Korean Peninsula with a gas pipeline has been discussed for a long time, but official talks started in 2011. The negotiations were frozen after relations between Seoul and Pyongyang deteriorated.

In March, Seoul announced that it is ready to resume the project. According to South Korea’s Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha “if the North participates in talks on Northeast Asia energy cooperation, it would serve as a catalyst that helps ease geopolitical tensions in the region.”

It is things like that that give me hope that cooler heads will prevail and that the true free market could improve the lives of some many people all around the globe. Just LEAD US Empire .. or get out of the way!

-SF1

03SEP1780 Francis Marion Receives Intel on Nearby Loyalist Militia (led by an ex-Patriot)

Blue Savannah Battle – Patriot Win

As it happened time and again in the Revolutionary War in South Carolina, many men changed sides for various reasons. Sometimes their house was burned down or horses were stolen. Other times, just the tide of war changing into the other “team’s” favor led men to leave one cause for another.

The pattern we have seen in the previous victories by Marion’s new milita force come into play once more. Intel is received on 03SEP1780 that Francis Marion keeps to himself that a larger Tory/loyalist force of 250 men lies north of them. Marion uses the element of surprise to move TOWARD the threat, a great military tactic, the next morning and engages a subset of this force under ex-Patriot Gainey who is known to be quite the hot-head.

As Marion’s 50 or so men scatter this force which emboldens Marion to quickly followup and engage the full force just three miles north. Marion then decides to quickly disengage, and retreat back to a savannah area described by J.W. Lewis and his work at his Carolana site:

He conceals his men at Blue Savannah, an open sandy area surrounded by scrub pines. Capt. Barefield leads his men right into the ambush. Col. Marion charges with 50 men, weapons firing and swords flying. Capt. Barefield’s men send one volley that hits three men, and then his men break and run. Col. Marion’s men pursue to the edge of the nearby swamp, but do not penetrate it. They know that a cornered enemy is very dangerous

Whether you count this as 3 for 3 (Nelson’s Ferry win, Kingstree win, Blue Savannah win) or 2 for 2 if you see Kingstree without Marion was only a skirmish, you should know that THIS will probably get Cornwallis’ attention. Never the less, Marion returns to his “home” in Britton’s Neck:

The next day Marion marched back to his camp at Britton’s Neck, where sixty new volunteers from Colonel Hugh Giles’s militia joined him, doubling the size of his yet small force. Two weeks earlier his name was unknown to the British, and now suddenly he was capable of operating behind Cornwallis’s lines and harassing his right (eastern) flank. It was a vexation his Lordship needed to eliminate before he could launch his planned invasion of North Carolina. The success of Marion’s hit-and-run tactics so infuriated the British high command that at least half a dozen death squads, beginning with Wemyss, were dispatched in sequence to go after him.

From: Oller, John. “The Swamp Fox: How Francis Marion Saved the American Revolution” (Kindle Locations 1063-1068). Da Capo Press. Kindle Edition.

The pressure would be on soon, but Marion keeps receiving valuable intel, this time on 07SEP1780 he hears how about 150 British regulars and Tories were burning the very homes of the men serving under Marion near Williamsburg. Marion would yet again do something that goes against military protocol, divide his smaller force into three forces:

  1. Sending Maj. James and a small group towards the British forces who were unleashing their frustration against the civilian population in the area
  2. Keeping 25 men at camp at Britton’s Neck
  3. Moving the remaining men, about 75 in all, towards Indiantown where he would meet up again with Maj. James who had even more intel to share

Once Francis Marion adds up all the numbers of British regulars and Tories that are in the area AND their mission, the North Carolina border (seen in the map above) will look real good!

-SF1