Congress had drafted, and the states had approved, the Articles of Confederation by March 1781. Church bells and guns saluted the event. "Thus
America," commented the Pennsylvania Packet, "...is growing up in war into greatness..." So were individuals. The prodigy Henry Lee, graduated at 17 from the college at Princeton and now
a heroic young lieutenant colonel, was carving a new reputation in the South. General Greene had assigned the patrician Lee to work closely with Francis Marion. This strange team, Light-Horse
Harry and the Swamp Fox, proved an inspired combination. Lee's Legion, dazzlingly plumed, could move swiftly to support those muddy men who followed the lean and swarthy Marion. This was
true guerrilla war: hit-and-run operations to wound a powerful enemy -- and to vanish before he could react. American regulars and irregulars cooperated smoothly. What with the raids of
Col. Andrew Pickens -- "the Gamecock" -- and the magnetic Col. Thomas Sumter, the moss-draped forests of South Carolina soon became sinister and uncertain for the British. Cornwallis himself
was still searching for that Utopian spot where the loyalists would help. "I erected the King's Standard," he wrote, "and invited...all loyal subjects to repair to it..." But such repairs
were rare. Soon his Lordship sadly reported that the Tories' "friendship was only passive." While the British army waned, Greene's waxed. Reinforcements arrived from Virginia. And though
most of his 4,500 men were untested militia -- less than one fourth veterans of any combat -- Greene still felt strong enough to stand his ground at Guilford Courthouse, North Carolina.
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That ground was uneven: scrabble farmland scored by a deep ravine and tangled woods. Across it, Greene disposed his troops
in three lines like Morgan's at Cowpens -- but with much more distance between them. Greatly outnumbered, Lord Cornwallis brought up some 2,000 troops about midday on a clear March 15. He
pushed against the first of Greene's three lines. It gave way. The second line held longer, but again the militia scattered. Now the third American line came up for test; crack Continentals,
they held firm. The 1st Maryland even counterattacked. Cornwallis himself entered the fray, borrowing a dragoon's horse when his own was shot, and bravely rallying his veterans. Finally,
as the battle stood in doubt, Cornwallis gave the cruel, essential order for his artillery to fire grapeshot at the Continentals -- and at his own men fighting at close quarters. The patriots
reeled backward. With one more try -- a new cavalry charge perhaps -- Greene might have won the day. Or lost his army. He avoided the risk, let well enough alone, and eased away from the
field of battle, which Cornwallis enjoyed as the victor's symbolic campsite. But of his 2,000 troops Cornwallis had lost 532 killed, wounded, or missing -- and with them, his power to take
the offensive. General Sir Henry Clinton commented grimly that Cornwallis's action at Guilford Courthouse and afterward caused "the ruin of a fine army and the ultimate loss of an opulent
and important province." But Cornwallis believed that "Until Virginia is in a manner subdued our hold of the Carolinas must be difficult if not precarious." So, with his 1,500 survivors,
Cornwallis moved to the Old Dominion, leaving the able young Lord Rawdon with a precarious hold in the Carolinas. Greene let Cornwallis go, then set about freeing South Carolina and Georgia.
Marion's swamp fighters joined Harry Lee's Horsemen to grab outposts like Fort Watson with its 120 royalist defenders -- a lonely small stockade on an ancient Indian mound. Now Greene gathered
his forces upon a field with uncomfortable memories. He would try to retake Camden, Britain's strongest point outside Charleston. We could understand Green's spirit when we visited the site,
for like Greene, we came in the surging month of April. Plums and dogwood were in full flower. He must have felt as optimistic as the season, But Lord Rawdon had already heard of Green's
approach. Instead of waiting for a siege, he hastily prepared an army for the offensive, arming every man he could find, even musicians and drummers. ("You mean drummer boys?" asked Rob
in some shock. "They tried to shoot us Americans?") They did not merely try. Rawdon's force surprised General Greene while he sipped his breakfast coffee on Hobkirk's Hill. The battle was
hard, but the British drove Greene off. Again he had exacted a high price for real estate. Discouraged but determined, Greene wrote the story of his campaign: "We fight, get beat, rise and
fight again." While Greene lay low near Camden, Lee's Legion thundered south through hackberry thickets to meet Francis Marion's guerrillas and take Fort Motte, a fine plantation house where
the British were entrenched. Now Rebecca Motte encouraged Marion and Lee to burn her home if necessary to get the British out. With "a smile of complacency" she furnished the fire arrows
to ignite the roof. The 150 British surrendered, the patriots put out the fire, and Mrs. Motte entertained both the British officers and their captors at her own dinner table. Henry Lee
was amazed at her "ease, vivacity, and good sense." The British soon pulled back all the way to Charleston.
As the spring of 1781 turned to summer, eyes moved toward Virginia, where Lafayette -- "not strong enough even to get beaten," as he joked -- was playing tag with Cornwallis.
by Bart McDowell from The National Geographic Society
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"The British soldier trembles when Marion's name is told" ........... Bryant
The following is a List of the names of twenty five hundred of Marion's MEN, the location of proof of service of each man is after his name. A few of the men listed furnished supplies for
Marion's army, but the descendants of every one named is entitled to membership in the several societies based on service in the War of the Revolution. Marion's MEN equipped themselves by
capture from the enemy, supported and sustained themselves from their plantations and were neither paid nor promised payment. This List has been complied by selecting the names one by one
from authorities everywhere recognized as acceptably reliable and unquestionable. With these untrained pioneer backwoodsmen, Francis Marion took from the British, the Peedee section of South
Carolina, one-third of the state, and, while they were making frantic efforts to capture him, held it against them for nearly a year before any other American force succeeded in holding
an acre of territory in the State against them for a single day. After the fall of Charles Town, May 12, 1780, and the complete collapse of the very few South Carolinians who actually desired
separation from England. Almost every other man in the State was happy Marion's labors in the Peedee country saved South Carolina and Georgia for Independence and the American Union. His
services from 1780 to 1783 make the most dramatic and colorful chapter in American history. The half of his story has never yet been told. Several years after the War of the Revolution,
all of Marion's MEN who submitted claims for services were paid. A copy of each indent by which paid was made on the stub and these stubs were bound in books named for the letters in the
alphabet, the stubs and indents numbered. Most of the names in this List were taken from the stubs of those old Pay Indents, the letter showing the book and the figures, the number of the
indent. Hence (X65) means in the List that proof of payment to the men may be found in Pay Indent X, at number 65. (DeS) refers to De Saussure's List of South Carolina Officers in the War
of the Revolution, as published in the Charleston Year Book for 1893, the number is the page on which the name may be found. (Weems) refers to Weems' Life of Marion, the number, the page:
(James), to James Life of Marion; (Simms), to Simms' Life of Marion; (Gregg), to Bishop Gregg's History of the Old Cheraws; (Bod), to Boddie's History of Williamsburg; (Gee), to the Gee
Family, an excellent history and genealogy of that family recently complied (1938) by W. J. Fletcher; and (Kinfolks); to the extraordinary genealogy of Harllee and allied families by Col.
William C. Harllee, Marine Corps, retired. Kinfolks contains sketches of a great many of Marion's MEN named in this list.
Links Related to General Francis "Swamp Fox" Marion
• A compilation by Deidre G.
• A compilation by Ronald W. Mc Granahan
•
• The Life of Gen. Francis Marion
by M. L. Weems
• Find a Grave
• Greenwood School District 50 Sites to Explore
Francis Marion University was founded in response to an overwhelming need for a public higher education institution in the Pee Dee region of South Carolina. The university was founded in 1970 and named in honor of Revolutionary War hero, General Francis Marion, who was nicknamed the Swamp Fox for using the South Carolina terrain to out-fox the British. However, the university can trace its history to 1957 when the University of South Carolina established a freshman center at the Florence County Library. In 1961, a permanent campus for USC-Florence was
established seven miles east of Florence on land donated by the Wallace family, the current location of FMU. By 1966, enrollment at USC-F had reached 350, and community leaders began a movement to establish a four-year institution to better meet the educational needs of the area. Following a Commission on Higher Education recommendation, Gov. Robert E. McNair signed into law an act creating Francis Marion College, effective July 1, 1970. The institution gained university status in 1992. The institution has had four presidents: Dr. Walter
Douglas Smith (1969 to 1983), Dr. Thomas C. Stanton (1983 to 1994), Dr. Lee A. Vickers (1994 to 1999), and Dr. Luther F. Carter (present).
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Copies of Military Record of William Parler Sr., his son, John Sr.,
are on file with Carrie PARLER-GIBSON.
Four Holes Park Dedicated and Opened
The Post and Courier, 15 July 1999
Cow Bill would have been tickled pink.
Doris Harley Salley, the granddaughter who compiled the family history, unveiled a historical monument to mark the location of his granddad's 18th century tavern and post office.
Haskell Parler, the great-great-grandson who spurred the creation of Four Holes Park, spoke at its dedication ceremony.
The dedication Wednesday of the park at the fork of U.S. Highway 78 and U.S. Highway 178 marked a milestone for the family of William Washington "Cow Bill" Harley, the founder of
Harleyville, and his grandfather, William Harley.
William Harley in 1796 was deeded 500 acres along the swamp. He opened a tavern and post office at the spot where a bridge crossed the swamp on a road from Charleston to Orangeburgh.
Cow Bill Harley in the mid-1800s raised cattle there and drove them to Charleston to market.
A century later, a road crew digging footings for the U.S. Highway 78 bridge unearthed a cannon from a Revolutionary War outpost at the swamp bridge - a strategic, fought-over crossing.
The cannon ended up in Summerville. Parler in 1997 said in a casual aside that he'd like to see it returned and the history of the swamp better recognized.
Dorchester County Administrator Ed Carter pushed to build the park and made the cannon its centerpiece. On Wednesday, it formally opened with fife, drums and fiddle players among
other 2nd Regiment South Carolina Line re-enactors.
"It is a very historic place, a very telling place," said keynote speaker state Sen. Glenn McConnell, who sat alongside Parler on the gazebo dais.
"On behalf of myself and all the people of Dorchester County, thank you," Parler said. "On behalf of all the descendants of the Harley family, I'm honored and proud."
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