Francis Marion

As a guerilla fighter, he had no peer in the War for Independence. As an officer in the Patriot forces of South Carolina, he provided leadership that engendered fierce personal loyalty. As a foe of the invaders, the desire for his capture or death sometimes determined the strategies of armies large and small. Though the area of his independent military operations did not exceed the Peedee, Santee, and Black River regions, his raids affected the whole theatre of the war in the Carolinas. His enemies called him “The Swamp Fox.”