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TITLE: LIFE OF FRANCIS MARION
AUTHOR: WILLIAM JAMES
EBOOK: E02704 (O'Briens Book Cellar)

[Note on text:  Italicized words or phrases are marked by tildes (~).
Some obvious errors have been corrected.  Some spellings are modernized.
See notes at end of etext for additional explanations.]

A Sketch of the Life of BRIG. GEN. FRANCIS MARION,
and A History of his Brigade,
From its Rise in June, 1780, until Disbanded in December, 1782;
With Descriptions of Characters and Scenes, not heretofore published.

  --------

Containing also,
An Appendix, with Copies of Letters which passed between
several of the Leading Characters of that Day;
Principally From Gen. Greene to Gen. Marion.

  ========
By William Dobein James, A.M.
During that Period one of Marion's Militia.
At Present one of the Associate Judges in Equity, South Carolina.
  ========

~Quae contentio, divina et humana cuncta perniscuit, eoque vecordiae
processit uti civilibus studiis bellum finem faceret.~  -- Sall.

District of South-Carolina.

---------
| L. S. |      BE IT REMEMBERED, that on the fifth day of April,
---------    Anno Domini, one thousand eight hundred and twenty-one, and in
the forty-fifth year of the Independence of the United States of America,
the Honourable WILLIAM DOBEIN JAMES, deposited in this office
the title of a book, the right whereof he claims as author and proprietor,
in the words following, TO WIT:

"A Sketch of the life of Brigadier General FRANCIS MARION,
and a history of his Brigade from its rise in June, 1780,
until disbanded in December, 1782; with descriptions of characters and scenes
not heretofore published. --  Containing also an appendix,
with copies of letters which passed between several of the leading characters
of that day, principally from Gen. Greene to Gen. Marion.
By William Dobein James, A.M. during that period one of Marion's militia --
at present one of the Associate Judges in Equity, South-Carolina."

In conformity to the act of Congress of the United States, entitled,
"An Act for the encouragement of learning by securing the copies of maps,
charts and books to the authors and proprietors of such copies
during the times therein mentioned," and also an act entitled, "An Act
supplementary to an act, entitled, `An act for the encouragement of learning,
by securing the copies of maps, charts and books, to the authors
and proprietors of such copies, during the times therein mentioned,'
and extending the benefits thereof to the arts of designing,
engraving and etching historical and other prints."

JAMES JERVEY,
Clerk of the District of South-Carolina.

Preface.

During the siege of Charleston, in May, 1780, the grammar school at Salem,
on Black river, where I had been placed by my father, Major JOHN JAMES,
broke up; and I was compelled to abandon my school boy studies,
and become a militia man, at the age of fifteen.  At that time of life
it was a great loss; but still I was so fortunate as to have General MARION
as my commander, and my much honoured father, who was a sincere christian,
as my adviser and protector.  I do not intend to write
a history of my own life; but it was thus, that I became in a great measure
an eye witness of the scenes hereafter described; and what I did not see,
I often heard from others in whom confidence could be placed.

I felt an early inclination to record these events; but Major WEMYSS
burnt all my stock of paper, and my little classical library,
in my father's house; and, for two years and a half afterwards,
I had not the common implements of writing or of reading.
This may appear strange at present; but it is a fact, that even our general,
when sending out a patrole, would request the officer to try to get him
a quire of paper.  After the war, other active pursuits prevented me
from indulging my inclination; and the public attention, being long fixed
upon the bloody wars and great battles in Europe, had lost all relish
for our revolutionary history, and its comparatively little conflicts.
However, when Dr. RAMSAY announced that he was about to publish
his history of South Carolina, I hastily sketched out from memory
a short history of MARION'S brigade, for him; which he inserted
in fifteen pages of his first volume.  This brings it down
no lower than the arrival of General GREENE in South Carolina.
Fortunately the events of the late war revived the national spirit,
and with that a taste for our own history; by it too,
my inclination was renewed to communicate that of MARION'S brigade.
However, I still wanted materials to confide in more certain than memory.

The last year I happened to mention my wish to Mr. RICHARD SINGELLTON,
of Colleton, son-in-law of Major JOHN POSTELL, and he obligingly
placed in my hands a bundle of original letters from General MARION
to that distinguished officer.  Not long after I heard that
the late General PETER HORRY had preserved copies of General MARION'S
correspondence with General GREENE and other officers;
and I applied to his executor, Mr. JAMES GUIGNARD, who very politely
placed five duodecimo volumes in my hands, closely written by the general.
The originals were left by General HORRY with the Rev. M. L. WEEMS,
but it appears he made no use of them in his life of MARION.
The dates and facts stated in these copies agree pretty well
with the account in the history of South Carolina by Dr. RAMSAY,
and General MOULTRIE'S memoirs of the American revolution.

I have also taken the pains to consult several of MARION'S officers and men,
who still survive.  The Hon. THOMAS WATIES gave me considerable information
respecting the first part of the general's operations,
which I did not witness; as, after MARION'S retreat to the White marsh,
I was left sick in North Carolina.  During MARION'S struggle with WATSON
I had returned, but was confined to my bed with the small pox;
and the greater part of that account was received from
Captain GAVIN WITHERSPOON, ROBERT WITHERSPOON, Esq. and others.
Respecting the affairs about Camden, General CANTEY and Dr. BROWNFIELD
gave me much information; and the present sheriff of Charleston district,
FRANCIS G. DELIESSELINE, Esq. and myself have compared notes ~generally~
on the subject.

Of all these sources of information I have availed myself;
besides having recourse to every account of the events of that period
which I had it in my power to consult.  This, I hope,
will account satisfactorily for any departures made from the statement
I furnished Dr. RAMSAY.

There are no doubt many errors in my narrative, as nothing human
is exempt from them; but it is believed there are not more than usually occur
in what is considered accurate history.  It may also need correction
in other matters, and it may not be pregnant with great events;
but still it is a kind of domestic history, which teaches
lessons of patience and patriotism, not surpassed in modern,
and seldom in ancient times.

                                             WM. DOBEIN JAMES.

Introduction.

  A view of the first settlement of the French Protestants on the Santee.
  Lawson's account of them.  The ancestors of General Marion
  emigrate among them.

The revocation of the edict of Nantz, by Lewis XIV., though highly detrimental
to France, proved beneficial to Holland, England and other European countries;
which received the protestant refugees, and encouraged their
arts and industry.  The effects of this unjust and bigoted decree,
extended themselves likewise to North America, but more particularly
to South Carolina:  About seventeen years after its first settlement,
in the year 1690, and a short time subsequently, between seventy and eighty
French families, fleeing from the bloody persecution excited against them
in their mother country, settled on the banks of the Santee.
Among these were the ancestors of General FRANCIS MARION.  These families
extended themselves at first only from the lower ferry at South Santee,
in St. James' parish, up to within a few miles of Lenud's ferry, and back
from the river into the parish of St. Dennis, called the Orange quarter.
From their first settlement, they appear to have conciliated their neighbours,
the Sewee and Santee Indians; and to have submitted to their rigorous fate
with that resignation and cheerfulness which is characteristic
of their nation. --  Many must have been the hardships endured by them
in settling upon a soil covered with woods, abounding in serpents
and beasts of prey, naturally sterile, and infested by a climate
the most insalubrious.  For a picture of their sufferings
read the language of one of them, Judith Manigault, bred a lady
in ease and affluence: --  "Since leaving France we have experienced
every kind of affliction, disease, pestilence, famine, poverty, hard labour;
I have been for six months together without tasting bread, working the ground
like a slave."  They cultivated the barren high lands, and at first naturally
attempted to raise wheat, barley and other European grains upon them,
until better taught by the Indians.  Tradition informs us,
that men and their wives worked together in felling trees,
building houses, making fences, and grubbing up their grounds,
until their settlements were formed; and afterwards continued their labours
at the whip-saw,* and in burning tar for market.  Such was their industry,
that in fourteen years after their first settlement, and according to
the first certain account of them, they were in prosperous circumstances.
In the year 1701, John Lawson, then Surveyor General of the province,
visited these enterprising people, and as there are but two copies of his
"Journal of a thousand miles travelled through several nations of Indians",
known at present to be in existence, no apology appears to be necessary
for presenting extracts of the most interesting parts of it to the reader: --

--
* Gen. Horry states, that his grandfather and grandmother commenced
  the handsome fortune they left, by working together at the whip-saw.
--

"On December 28th, 1700, I began my voyage for North Carolina,
from Charleston, in a large canoe.  At four in the afternoon, at half flood,
we passed over the breach through the marsh, leaving Sullivan's Island
on our starboard; the first place we designed for was Santee river,
on which there is a colony of French protestants, allowed and encouraged
by the lords proprietors." --  After passing through Sewee bay and up Santee,
the mouth of which was fresh, he visited the Sewees; "formerly," he says,
"a large nation, though now very much decreased, since the English
have seated their lands, and all other nations of Indians are observed
to partake of the same fate.  With hard rowing we got that night
(11th January, 1701,) to Mons. Eugee's*1* house, which stands about
fifteen miles up the river, being the first christian dwelling we met withal
in that settlement, and were very courteously received by him and his wife.
Many of the French follow a trade with the Indians, living very conveniently

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