Editing Francis Marion (section)

===Guerrilla campaigns===
[[Image: General Marion.jpg|thumb|'' General Marion Inviting a British Officer to Share His Meal'' by John Blake White; his slave [[Oscar Marion]] kneels at the left of the group.]]

Marion joined Major General [[Horatio Gates]] on July 27 just before the [[Battle of Camden]], but Gates had formed a low opinion of Marion. Gates sent Marion towards the interior to [[Intelligence in the American Revolutionary War|gather intelligence]] on the British forces opposing them. He thus missed the battle, which resulted in a British victory.<ref name="John">{{cite book|last1=Buchanan|first1=John|title=The Road to Guilford Courthouse|date=1997|publisher=John Wiley & Sons|location=New York|isbn=9780471327165|page=155}}</ref> Marion showed himself to be a singularly able leader of [[Irregular military|irregular]] militiamen and ruthless in his terrorizing of [[Loyalist (American Revolution)|Loyalists]]. Unlike the Continental Army, Marion's Men, as they were known, served without pay, supplied their own horses, arms and often their food. Marion's Men operated from a base camp on [[Snow's Island]] in Florence County.<ref>Gray p. 60</ref><ref name="Academic OneFile">{{cite journal|last=Gray|first=Jefferson|title=Up from the swamp: Francis Marion turned South Carolina's Low Country into a quagmire for the British and became one of history's greatest guerrilla leaders.|journal=MHQ: The Quarterly Journal of Military History|date=Autumn 2011|volume=24|issue=1|pages=56–65}}</ref>

Marion rarely committed his men to frontal warfare but repeatedly bewildered larger bodies of Loyalists or [[British Army|British regulars]] with quick surprise attacks and equally sudden withdrawal from the field. After their capture of Charleston, the British garrisoned South Carolina with help from local Loyalists, except for Williamsburg, which they were never able to hold. The British made one attempt to garrison Williamsburg at the colonial village of Hilltown but were driven out by Marion at the [[Battle of Black Mingo]].  

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; [[Battle of Tearcoat Swamp|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. Cornwallis observed, "Colonel Marion had so wrought the minds of the people, partly by the terror of his threats and cruelty of his punishments, and partly by the promise of plunder, that there was scarcely an inhabitant between the [[Santee River|Santee]] and the [[Pee Dee River|Pee Dee]] that was not in arms against us."<ref>Wickwire pp. 190–91</ref>