Francis Marion Research Paper Topics

Francis Marion Francis Marion was a American Revolutionary war general, known simply as the ‘Swamp Fox’, and he helped dislodge the British occupation of the South, and he was one of the most important figures in keeping the Revolution alive, at least in the South. I will refer to him as ‘Marion’ or ‘Swamp Fox’ for the duration of the essay.

Civilian Life Marion was born in modern day, Berkeley County, South Carolina, in 1732. He married Mary Esther Videau, when he was 54, after the war was over. He didn’t do very much outside of his military achievements, or better said, “Biographer Hugh Rankin described the life of Francis Marion as ‘something like a sandwich—a highly spiced center between two slabs of rather dry bread” (Crawford, 2007,

His first victory was at Charleston in 1776, when he repulsed the attack of 9 British warships. His first loss was in 1779, charging against a well fortified British and Tory position. However my favorite was when besieging a fort with no cannons, they built a tower higher than the fort to make them surrender. One important battle was the battle of Black Mingo, which taught Marion to always lay down blankets on a bridge when he was going to ambush someone. The Siege of Fort Watson was the siege where he built a tower and fired in the fort. At the siege of ‘Fort’ Motte, (a reinforced mansion), since they couldn’t build a tower here, they just decided to burn it down, and when they tried to put the fire out they shot their cannon at them, so the 175 soldiers there gave up, since they were surrounded and would be burned to the ground, and then the Americans put out the fire.

Legends

Of course, over so much time, and with such an elusive general, rumours and legends are what primarily remain to tell the life of Marion. One legend was that on a mission to exchange prisoners, a British officer was invited to have breakfast with his militia, after seeing the different types of people and their resourcefulness, he switched sides to support American independence. I think, from a logical standpoint, that this either happened and he was a spy, or is just a tall tale that was particularly well remembered.

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