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 eyewitness 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 patrol, 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 smallpox; 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 [Gen. Horry states, that his grandfather and grandmother commenced the handsome fortune they left, by working together 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 Traveled 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:

“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  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 for that interest. Here are about seventy families seated on this river, who live as decently and happily as any planters in these southward parts of America. The French being a temperate, industrious people, some of them bringing very little effects, yet by their endeavours and mutual assistance among themselves (which is highly commendable) have outstript our English, who brought with them larger fortunes. We lay all that night at Mons. Eugee’s,*1* and the next morning set out further to go the remainder of our voyage by land. At noon we came up with several French plantations, meeting with several creeks by the way: the French were very officious in assisting with their small dories, to pass over these waters, (whom we met coming from their church) being all of them very clean and decent in their apparel—their houses and plantations suitable in neatness and contrivance. They are all of the same opinion with the church of Geneva. Towards the afternoon we came to Mons. L’Jandro’s, where we got our dinner. We got that night to Mons. Galliar’s, who lives in a very curious contrived house, built of brick and stone, which is gotten near that place. Near here, comes in the road from Charleston and the rest of the English settlement, it being a very good way by land and not above thirty-six miles.” After this, our author gives a long description of his difficulty and danger in crossing the Santee in a small canoe, in time of a freshet. He then goes on as follows:  “We intended for Mons. Galliar’s jun. but were lost. When we got to the house we found several of the French inhabitants, who treated us very courteously; wondering about our undertaking such a voyage through a country inhabited by none but savages, and them of so different nations and tongues. After we had refreshed ourselves, we parted from a very kind, loving, affable people, who wished us a safe and prosperous voyage.” Our traveller had now arrived at the extreme boundary of the white population of South Carolina, and consequently of the United States, and this was but forty miles from Charleston. In the course of one hundred and twenty years what a change, and what a subject for reflection! But, to return to the French refugees. The same persevering industry and courteous manners which distinguished the ancestors, were handed down to their children, and are still conspicuous among their descendants of the third and fourth generations. Most of them may be classed among our useful and honourable citizens, and many have highly distinguished themselves in the state, both in civil and military affairs: but in the latter character, the subject of these memoirs, General Francis Marion, stands forth the most prominent and illustrious example. After leaving the house of Bartholomew Gaillard, jun. on the east side of Santee, Mr. Lawson saw no more settlements of the whites. He visited the Santee Indians, who, from his description of the country, must have lived about Nelson’s ferry and Scott’s lake. In passing up the river, the Indian path led over a hill, where he saw, as he says, “the most amazing prospect I had seen since I had been in Carolina. We travelled by a swamp side, which swamp, I believe to be no less than twenty miles over; the other side being, as far as I could well discern; there appearing great ridges of mountains bearing from us W.N.W. One Alp, with a top like a sugar loaf, advanced its head above the rest very considerably; the day was very serene, which gave us the advantage of seeing a long way; these mountains were clothed all over with trees, which seemed to us to be very large timbers. At the sight of this fair prospect we stayed all night; our Indian going before half an hour, provided three fat turkeys e’er we got up to him.” The prospect he describes is evidently the one seen from the Santee Hills; the old Indian path passed over a point of one of these at Captain Baker’s plantation, from which the prospect extends more than twenty miles; and the Alp, which was so conspicuous, must have been Cook’s Mount, opposite Stateburgh.—Our traveller afterwards visited the Congaree, the Wateree, and Waxhaw Indians, in South Carolina, and divers tribes in North Carolina, as far as Roanoke; and it is melancholy to think, that all of these appear to be now extinct. They treated him with their best; such as bear meat and oil, venison, turkeys, maize, cow peas, chinquepins, hickory nuts and acorns. The Kings and Queens of the different tribes always took charge of him as their guest.