Witherspoon’s Ferry: Francis M

Late in the summer of 1780, Maj. Gen. Horatio Gates led a Continental army toward South Carolina to attempt to roll back the British conquest of the province. As Gates prepared to meet the British at Camden, he sent Col. Francis Marion ~ a Continental officer who had only escaped the fall of Charleston because of a broken ankle ~ south towards the Santee River to gather the local militia forces and prevent a British retreat.<br><br>On August 17, 1780, leading a ragtag band of fewer than twenty men, &#8220;some white, some black, and all mounted, but most of them miserably equipped,&#8221; Col. Marion entered the camp of the Williamsburg Militia here at Witherspoon’s Ferry (probably at a site a few yards downstream, just ahead of you) and took command. William Dobein James, then a fifteen-year-old militiaman, recalled his first sight of Marion:<br><br><i>He was below the middle stature of men. His body was well set, but his knees and ankles were badly formed; and he still limped upon one leg. He had a countenance remarkably steady; his nose was aquiline, his chin projecting; his forehead was large and high. And his eyes black and piercing…. He was dressed in a close round-bodied crimson jacket, of a coarse texture, and wore a leather cap, part of the uniform of the second regiment, with a silver crescent in front, inscribed with the words, &#8220;Liberty or Death.&#8221;</i>