His father Gabriel Marion was a Huguenot who emigrated to the Thirteen Colonies from France at some point prior to 1700 due to the Edict of Fontainebleau and became a slaveowning planter.

[3] Marion was born on his family's plantation, and at approximately the age of 15, he was hired on a merchant ship bound for the West Indies which sank on his first voyage; the crew escaped on a lifeboat but had to spend one week at sea before reaching land.

On January 1, 1757, Francis and his brother, Job, were recruited by Captain John Postell to serve in the South Carolina Militia during the French and Indian War.

[4] During the American Revolution, Marion supported the Patriot cause and on June 21, 1775, he was commissioned as an officer in the Continental Army's 2nd South Carolina Regiment (commanded by William Moultrie) at the rank of captain.

In the autumn of 1779, he took part in the siege of Savannah, a failed Franco-American attempt to capture the capital of Georgia which had been previously occupied by British forces.

Clinton led part of the force that had captured Charleston back to New York, but a significant number stayed for operations under Lord Charles Cornwallis in the Carolinas.

[8][9] Marion rarely committed his men to frontal warfare but repeatedly bewildered larger bodies of Loyalists or British regulars with quick surprise attacks and equally sudden withdrawal from the field.

A state-erected information sign at Marion's gravesite on the former Belle Isle Plantation shows that he was engaged in twelve major battles and skirmishes in a two-year period: Black Mingo Creek on September 28, 1780; Tearcoat Swamp on October 25, 1780; Georgetown (four attacks) between October 1780 and May 1781; Fort Watson on April 23, 1781; Fort Motte on May 12, 1781; Quinby Bridge on July 17, 1781; Parker's Ferry on August 13, 1781; Eutaw Springs on September 8, 1781; and Wadboo Plantation on August 29, 1782.

[1] Once Marion had shown his ability at guerrilla warfare, making himself a serious nuisance to the British, Governor John Rutledge commissioned him as a brigadier general of militia.

He received an order from Rutledge to execute all Black people suspected of carrying provisions or gathering intelligence for the British "agreeable to the laws of this State".

[12] When Major General Nathanael Greene took command in the South, Marion and Lieutenant Colonel Henry Lee III were ordered in January 1781 to attack Georgetown, but were unsuccessful.

In 1784, in recognition of his services, he was made commander of Fort Johnson, a sinecure with an annual salary of $500 [17] (at the time, privates in the First American Regiment were paid $6.67 a month.

"[21] Weems is known for having invented the apocryphal "cherry tree" anecdote about George Washington, and "Marion's life received similar embellishment", as Amy Crawford wrote in Smithsonian magazine in 2007.

[1] In the 1835 novel Horse-Shoe Robinson by John P. Kennedy, a historical romance set against the background of the Southern theater of the American Revolutionary War, Marion appears and interacts with the fictional characters.

Marion was one of the influences for the main character of Benjamin Martin (Mel Gibson) in the 2000 movie The Patriot, which, according to Crawford, "exaggerated the Swamp Fox legend for a whole new generation.

"[23] Concurrently, the British historian Christopher Hibbert described Marion as "very active in the persecution of the Cherokee Indians and not at all the sort of chap who should be celebrated as a hero.

In an early will created when he was single, Marion freed Peggy and endowed her education, contrary to South Carolina law at the time, which made it a crime to teach slaves to write.

Oller writes that there is no proof, either, that Marion personally committed any atrocities during the Anglo-Cherokee War, at least as a matter of choice, although he participated in some by order of his commander James Grant.

[citation needed] In a commentary published in the National Review, the conservative talk radio host Michael Graham rejected criticisms like Hibbert's as an attempt to rewrite history: Was Francis Marion a slave owner?

"[25] English historian Hugh Bicheno compared Marion's behavior with British officers during the war, including Tarleton and Major James Wemyss.

Referring to Marion, Tarleton and Wemyss, Bicheno wrote that "they all tortured prisoners, hanged fence-sitters, abused parole and flags of truce, and shot their own men when they failed to live up to the harsh standards they set.

"[26] According to Crawford, the biographies by historians William Gilmore Simms (The Life of Francis Marion) and Hugh Rankin can be regarded as generally accurate.

[1] The introduction to the 2007 edition of Simms's book (originally published in 1844) was written by Sean Busick, a professor of American history at Athens State University in Alabama, who says that based on the facts, "Marion deserves to be remembered as one of the heroes of the War for Independence.