by John Oller
66“a most acceptable repast . . . rather grave”: James, 31.
66“He had no uproarious humor . . . his features”: Simms, 87.
66capable of sarcasm . . . playfulness among friends: Ibid.; Alexander Garden, Anecdotes of the Revolutionary War in America, with Sketches of Character of Persons the Most Distinguished, in the Southern States, for Civil and Military Service (Charleston, SC, 1822), 28–29.
66“He was singularly . . . despondency”: Simms, 87.
66malaria . . . starting to complain: James, 5; Bass, Swamp Fox, 61–62.
CHAPTER 8: “MY LITTLE EXCURSIONS”
67Not long after . . . back to South Carolina: James, 31–32, 45.
67With his sixty men . . . Jenkins boys . . . would attack Ball’s unit: James, 31–32; Rankin, 67, 83–84.
68St. James and St. Stephens: FM to Gates, October 4, 1780 (CSR14:665).
68John Coming Ball . . . Elias Ball: Anne Simons Deas, Recollections of the Ball Family of South Carolina and the Comingtee Plantation (Summerville, SC, c. 1909), 97–101, 177–179; Ball, Slaves in the Family, 8–9; Pancake, This Destructive War, 79; Lambert, South Carolina Loyalists, 7, 113–115, 123n22.
68married Marion’s brother Job: Yeadon 1, no. 4 (June 1845): 424–425; Frye Gaillard, Lessons from the Big House, 18; Poyas, Our Forefathers, 169–170.
68Peter Gaillard: Samuel Dubose, “Address at the 17th Anniversary of the Black Oak Agricultural Society, April 27, 1858,” in Samuel Dubose and Frederick A. Porcher, A Contribution to the History of the Huguenots of South Carolina, Consisting of Pamphlets, ed. Theodore Gaillard Thomas (New York, 1887): 14–19; Frye Gaillard, Lessons from the Big House, 17–22, 25.
68John Peyre: Samuel Dubose, “Reminiscences of St. Stephens Parish, Craven County, and Notices of Her Old Homesteads,” in Dubose and Porcher, Contribution, 49, 55, 60; Poyas, Our Forefathers, 168–171.
68Captain John Brockinton: Josephine Lindsay Bass and Becky Bass Bonner, “My Southern Family, Capt. John Brockington II,” Rootsweb.com, May 29, 2005, freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~mysouthernfamily/myff/d0006/g0000046.html; Smith, introduction to Boddie, Traditions, xxx, xliiin38.
68“men of family . . . good men”: FM to Gates, October 4, 1780 (CSR14:666).
68When he heard . . . cavalry would provide support: James, 32; Rankin, 84–85; Aiken, 114–116, 278n20; Gordon, Battlefield History, 110–111.
69rarely engaged in personal combat: Aiken, 46–47; James, 99; Simms, 6.
69Ball, alerted . . . Henry Mouzon . . . never took the field again: James, 32–33; Rankin, 85–86; Aiken, 116; Smith, The Search for Francis Marion, 39–46. Whether the “Captain John James” involved at Black Mingo was John James of Lynches Lake or John James Jr. is uncertain. Boddie appears to confuse them with each other. Boddie, History of Williamsburg, 130; Boddie, Traditions, 236. Because James of the Lake was well advanced in years, John James Jr. probably was the combatant.
70relatives could have a greater impact: Buchanan, 105.
70captured all the guns . . . renamed it “Ball”: Bass, Swamp Fox, 66–67. One source states that the horse may have been owned by Elias (Wambaw) Ball. Deas, Ball Family, 98.
71Several Tories . . . joined his brigade: James, 33; Bass, Swamp Fox, 67.
71Peter Gaillard . . . enlist with Marion’s band: Dubose, “Address at the 17th Anniversary,” 16–17; Frye Gaillard, Lessons from the Big House, 25–26.
71Ball . . . refused to take the field: Bass, Swamp Fox, 71–72, 253; FM to Gates, October 15, 1780 (CSR14:622).
71John Peyre . . . off to prison: Dubose, “Reminiscences of St. Stephens Parish,” 55–56.
71“the Tories are so affrighted . . . off to Georgia”: FM to Gates, October 4, 1780 (CSR14:666).
71“I have found . . . in this province”: Cornwallis to Clinton, September 22–23, 1780 (CP2:46).
71“meet with some disaster”: Cornwallis to George Turnbull, October 2, 1780 (CP2:244).
71“Depend upon it . . . without regular troops”: Turnbull to Cornwallis, October 4, 1780 (CP2:250). Lieutenant Colonel George Turnbull, a Scotsman, was commander of the New York Volunteers, a loyalist provincial unit. Saberton, CP1:138n35.
72one-fifth: Lambert, South Carolina Loyalists, 306.
72one-third: Gray, “Observations,” 140.
72lacked the same high quality: Buchanan, 192; Sherman, Calendar, 30; Wickwire and Wickwire, Cornwallis, 185–186; Saberton, CP1:40.
72“all the leading men . . . rebel side”: Nisbet Balfour to Cornwallis, June 3 or 4, 1780, in Rogers, History of Georgetown County, 125.
72“dastardly and pusillanimous”: Cornwallis to Alexander Leslie, November 12, 1780 (CP3:40).
72lost all sympathy: Cornwallis to Cruger, November 11, 1780 (CP3:269).
72“established a decided superiority”: Gray, “Observations,” 144.
72“bold and rash . . . risk nothing”: Ibid.
72“cautious and vigilant”: Cornwallis to Tarleton, November 8, 1780 (CP3:334).
72shrewd tactics: Aiken, 27–39.
73hooves loudly rattled . . . From then on: Weems, 119.
73pension applications . . . spread blankets: William Griffis Pension, R4320; John Booth Pension (transcribed by Sam West), W25258; David Watts Pension, S18267; Thomas Hitchcock Pension, R5057. To be sure, these applications were made many years after the Revolution by men in their seventies and eighties. But they were submitted at different times (sometimes three years apart) and in different states (North and South Carolina and Georgia). They do not repeat a Weems tale, as pension applicants sometimes did, but instead contradict one. It is unlikely that all of these applications, independently saying the same thing, could all be wrong.
73“They had intelligence of our coming”: FM to Gates, October 4, 1780 (CSR14:665).
74“He had about . . . mean fella”: Ball, Slaves in the Family, 8.
74wanted to go after Wigfall . . . Presbyterian Church: FM to Gates, October 4, 1780 (CSR14:665); Bass, Swamp Fox, 62, 67.
74“so many of my followers . . . burnt out”: FM to Gates, October 4, 1780 (CSR14:665).
74Wigfall . . . declined to come out: Rankin, 90; Saberton, CP2:64n6.
74few Tory militia turned out: Wemyss to Cornwallis, September 20, 1780 (CP2:215); Cornwallis to Turnbull, September 27, 1780 (CP2:240).
74“suspicious”: Wemyss to Cornwallis, September 20, 1780 (CP2:215).
74Wemyss had left Cheraw . . . to Camden: Wemyss to Cornwallis, October 4, 1780 (CP2:219).
74while Cornwallis . . . planning to march: Cornwallis to Wemyss, October 7, 1780 (CP2:222).
74“to prevent . . . you have left”: Ibid.
74King’s Mountain . . . rest were reprieved: Gordon, Battlefield History, 112–117; Buchanan, 229–239; Piecuch, Three Peoples, 199. Another researcher has more recently estimated the rebel force at approximately 1,600 versus 1,125 loyalists under Ferguson. J. D. Lewis, “Kings Mountain: The Rest of the Story,” address at 13th Francis Marion/Swamp Fox Symposium, Manning, SC, October 24, 2015.
75“there was scarce . . . arms against us”: Cornwallis to Clinton, December 3, 1780 (CP3:24).
75Cornwallis had planned . . . would have been available: Paul David Nelson, Francis Rawdon-Hastings, Marquess of Hastings: Soldier, Peer of the Realm, Governor-General of India (Madison, NJ: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2005), 84.
75retreated back . . . feverish cold . . . Francis Rawdon: Saberton, CP1:151–152; 2:31; Wickwire and Wickwire, Cornwallis, 221.
76recalled Wemyss to Camden: John Money to Turnbull, October 12, 1780 (CP2:252).
CHAPTER 9: DEAD MAN’S HAND
77suffered many fatigues: FM to Gates, October 4, 1780 (CSR14:666).
77sixty or seventy . . . few as a dozen . . . no authority to punish: Ibid.; FM to Gates, October 15, 1780 (CSR14:622); FM to Gates, August 29, 1780, Sparks Collection, Harvard.
77“certainly pay a visit to Georgetown”: FM to Gates, October 4, 1780 (CSR14:666).
77p
robing incursion . . . immediately paroled: Bass, Gamecock, 94; FM to Gates, October 15, 1780 (CSR14:621); Aiken, 182–185.
78“This damned Georgetown business”: Jethro Sumner to Gates and enclosed intercepted British correspondence, October 9, 1780 (CSR14:679–681).
78Allen McDonald . . . ran down: James, 30, 53; Rankin, 66, 106–107; FM to Gates, October 15, 1780 (CSR14:621); James Craven Pension, R2457; William Shaw Pension, S19078; Daniel McDonald Johnson, Blood on the Marsh: The Adventures of Brigadier William Mackintosh . . . Sergeant Allen McDonald and Alexander McDonald, rev. ed. (Allendale, SC: CreateSpace, 2014), 439–440, 445–446, 559.
78“the most active persons against us”: FM to Gates, October 15, 1780 (CSR14:621).
78wished to hear . . . “scrawl . . . wild woods”: Ibid.
78lacked even paper: James, 4; FM to NG, January 1, 1781 (NGP7:36).
78continue his hostilities: Gates to FM, October 11, 1780, in Library of Congress, Thomas Jefferson Papers Series 2: Horatio Gates Letterbook Correspondence, 1780–81; Bass, Swamp Fox, 74.
78Marion’s initial thought . . . Harrison: James, 33; Lambert, South Carolina Loyalists, 115; Saberton, CP1:161n5; Robert D. Bass, “The South Carolina Rangers: A Forgotten Loyalist Regiment,” Proceedings of the South Carolina Historical Society (1977): 65–68; Murtie June Clark, Loyalists in the Southern Campaign of the Revolutionary War: Official Rolls of Loyalists Recruited from North and South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Mississippi, and Louisiana (Baltimore: Genealogical Pub. Co., 1981), 1:97–102.
79“the greatest banditti . . . country”: James, 25.
79“if possible worse . . . run home”: Wemyss to Cornwallis, September 30, 1780 (CP2:216).
79“not worth anything”: Turnbull to Cornwallis, October 4, 1780 (CP2:249).
79accused of having recently murdered: James, 25; Parker, 417; Howe, History of the Presbyterian Church, 1:482.
79“chastise” . . . militia was slow . . . lazily camped: James, 33 (quotation); Bass, Swamp Fox, 75; Rankin, 92, 103; FM to Gates, November 4, 1780 (CSR14:726). Tearcoat Swamp was also known as Tarcote or Tarcoat.
79Samuel Tynes . . . switched sides: Saberton, CP2:92n64; T. Mark James, “Genealogy of the Tynes Family,” Rootsweb.com, November 23, 2008, under “The Tynes Family of Granville, North Carolina,” freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~tmark/Tynes.html; James Fred Patin Jr., page manager, “Robert Fleming Tynes, Jr.,” March 27, 2015, www.geni.com/people/Robert-Tynes/6000000025566256975.
80“weak, well intentioned man”: Cornwallis to Frederick DePeyster, August 21, 1780 (CP2:211).
80a ripe target . . . Marion’s losses were . . . no men: James, 33; FM to Gates, November 4, 1780 (CSR14:726); Rankin, 103–104.
80Amos Gaskens . . . in his hands: James, 33; Rankin, 77, 104.
80“He seemed to be . . . non-suited him forever”: Weems, 123.
80The haul from the battle: FM to Gates, November 4, 1780 (CSR14:726).
80fought bravely for him: James, 33.
81Tynes . . . got away . . . sent the captured men: FM to Gates, November 4, 1780 (CSR14:726); Bass, Swamp Fox, 78–79.
81use both roads and waterways: Pancake, This Destructive War, 122–123; McCrady, 100–101.
81longer, more circuitous route: Bass, Swamp Fox, 79; Sherman, Calendar, 334.
81Anxious for the fate: Rawdon to Balfour, October 31, 1780 (CP2:131).
81“at an end”: Balfour to Rawdon, November 1, 1780 (CP3:61).
CHAPTER 10: THE SWAMP FOX
82Banastre Tarleton . . . theatrical group: Robert D. Bass, The Green Dragoon: The Lives of Banastre Tarleton and Mary Robinson (1957; repr., Columbia, SC: Sandlapper, 1973), 11–16, 19–20, 36–39; Holley Calmes, “Banastre Tarleton, A Biography, Part One: The Early Years,” Oatmeal for the Foxhounds: Banastre Tarleton and the British Legion, January 2, 2011, home.golden.net/~marg/bansite/btbiog.html; Holley Calmes, “Banastre Tarleton and Mary Robinson,” Madame Guillotine, October 7, 2012, madameguillotine.org.uk/2012/10/07/banastre-tarleton-and-mary-robinson.
82recommendation of Cornwallis: Wickwire and Wickwire, Cornwallis, 257.
82British Legion . . . in name only: Bass, Green Dragoon, 46–48; Lawrence E. Babits and Joshua B. Howard, “Continentals in Tarleton’s British Legion: May 1780–October 1781,” in Piecuch, Cavalry, 184–185.
82traditional cavalry . . . and dragoons: Piecuch, Cavalry, xv; Pancake, This Destructive War, 40–41; O’Kelley, Unwaried Patience, 695n1302; Showman, NGP6:xlii.
83dragoons took their name: Du Pont, “Address,” 31.
83nLike traditional dragoons . . . tended to blur: Michael C. Scoggins, “South Carolina’s Back Country Rangers in the American Revolution: ‘A Splendid Body of Men,’” in Piecuch, Cavalry, 159–161, 164–168; Pancake, This Destructive War, 40–41, 53; Sherman, Calendar, 70n274.
83Cornwallis had dispatched Tarleton . . . the Waxhaws: Gordon, Battlefield History, 86–87; Buchanan, 80–82; Lumpkin, 50; Bass, Green Dragoon, 78–81.
84“slaughter was commenced”: Banastre Tarleton, A History of the Campaigns of 1780 and 1781, in the Southern Provinces of North America (London, 1787), 30.
84“to pieces”: Tarleton to Cornwallis, May 29, 1780, in Bass, Green Dragoon, 81–82.
84casualty figures: Lumpkin, 50.
84“dreadfully mangled”: Ledstone Noland Pension, S16992.
84outright massacre: Buchanan, 84–85; Edgar, Partisans and Redcoats, 56; James, 103–106 (letter of Robert Brownfield).
84Some revisionists: Jim Piecuch, “Massacre or Myth? Banastre Tarleton at the Waxhaws, May 29, 1780,” SCAR 1, no. 2 (October 2004): 4–10. See also Rubin, “Rhetoric of Revenge,” 18–19. Another researcher has recently argued that evidence from sword and bayonet wounds at the Waxhaws supports the traditional massacre theory. C. Leon Harris, “Massacre at Waxhaws: The Evidence from Wounds,” SCAR 11, no. 2.1 (June 2016): 1–4.
84“stimulated the soldiers . . . not easily restrained”: Tarleton, Campaigns, 31.
84ncontinued to slash . . . “the most shocking manner”: Charles Stedman, The History of the Origin, Progress, and Termination of the American War (London, 1794), 2:183.
84n“give these disturbers . . . None shall they experience”: Tarleton to Cornwallis, August 5, 1780 (CP1:365).
85imploring him to gather: Bass, Swamp Fox, 79; Rankin, 110–111.
85“Mr. Marion . . . his charge”: Tarleton, Campaigns, 171.
85“I . . . get at Mr. Marion”: Cornwallis to Tarleton, November 5, 1780, in Bass, Green Dragoon, 110.
85Tarleton and his Legion . . . set out south . . . Marion . . . with two hundred men: Turnbull to Cornwallis, November 5, 1781 (CP3:136–137); Bass, Swamp Fox, 79–80; Bass, “South Carolina Rangers,” 68; Rankin, 111–112; Tarleton to Turnbull, November 5, 1780 (CP3:333); FM to Gates, November 4, 1780 (CSR14:726); FM to Gates, November 9, 1780, in PCC, Item No. 154, 2:334. Bass writes that Marion had four hundred men, but Marion’s November 9 letter records his force as being no more than two hundred. Tarleton claimed Marion had five hundred militia, which is likely an exaggeration. Tarleton, Campaigns, 172.
85Tarleton had moved down . . . four hundred and waited: FM to Gates, November 9, 1780, in PCC, Item No. 154, 2:334; Tarleton, Campaigns, 172; Tarleton to Turnbull, November 5, 1780 (CP3:333); Tarleton to Cornwallis, November 11, 1780 (CP3:337); Bass, Swamp Fox, 80–81. Bass and Rankin misidentify the widow as Mary (Cantey) Richardson. Bass, Gamecock, 99; Rankin, 112. Mary Cantey, Richardson’s first wife, died in 1767, after which he married Dorothy Sinkler. Joseph S. Ames, Six Generations of the Cantey Family of South Carolina (Charleston, SC: Walker, Evans, and Cogswell, 1910), 23–24.
86nearly took the bait . . . Richard Richardson . . . safe for the night: James, 34; FM to Gates, November 9, 1780, in PCC, Item No. 154, 2:334; Ames, Cantey Family, 45–46.
86scratching his head . . . “treacherous women”: Tarleton to Cornwallis, November 11, 1780 (CP3:337).
87Marion had already flown . . . seven-hour hu
nt: James, 34; Tarleton, Campaigns, 172; Tarleton to Cornwallis, November 11, 1780 (CP3:337).
87“the difficulties of the country”: Tarleton to Cornwallis, November 11, 1780 (CP3:337).
87abandoned the chase . . . “Come my boys . . . could not catch him”: James, 34.
87nreferred to him . . . Swamp Fox: Steven D. Smith, “Imagining the Swamp Fox: William Gilmore Simms and the National Memory of Francis Marion,” in William Gilmore Simms’s Unfinished Civil War: Consequences for a Southern Man of Letters, ed. David Moltke-Hansen (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 2013), 36–37, 39.
87at Benbow’s Ferry . . . defensive position: James, 34–35; FM to Gates, November 9, 1780, in PCC, Item No. 154, 2:334.
87tried to put a good face: Tarleton to Cornwallis, November 11, 1780 (CP3:337).
87would have caught up . . . had already ended: Tarleton, Campaigns, 172. Tarleton misdated his pursuit of Marion to November 10. His seven-hour chase began on the morning of November 8, and Cornwallis’s order to return was not sent from Winnsboro until November 9. Cornwallis to Tarleton, November 9, 1780 (CP3:335).
88“laid . . . waste”: Tarleton to Cornwallis, November 11, 1780 (CP3:337).
88“beat . . . where I was”: FM to Gates, November 9, 1780, in PCC, Item No. 154, 2:334.
88“behaved to the poor women . . . Whig nor Tory”: Ibid.
88n“there is no record . . . homeless and hungry”: Calmes, “Banastre Tarleton, Part Two: The Southern Campaign” (emphasis added). See also Marg Baskin, “Banecdotes: General Richardson’s Grave or, the Power of Myth,” Oatmeal for the Foxhounds: Banastre Tarleton and the British Legion, January 2, 2011, home.golden.net/~marg/bansite/banecdotes/85richardson.html.
88low on ammunition . . . reluctant to turn out: FM to Gates, November 9, 1780, in PCC, Item No. 154, 2:334.
88“It is not the wish . . . fire and sword”: Tarleton Proclamation, November 11, 1780 (CP3:338).
88“The country seems . . . total destruction of Mr. Marion”: Tarleton to Cornwallis, November 11, 1780 (CP3:337).
89“there was a power . . . since his expedition”: Cornwallis to Clinton, December 3, 1780 (CP3:25).