General Mar-i-on was one of the best fighters in the Revolution. He was
a homely little man. He was also a very good man. Another general said,
“Mar-i-on is good all over.”
The American army had been beaten in South Car-o-li-na. Mar-i-on was
sent there to keep the British from taking the whole country.
Marion got to-geth-er a little army. His men had nothing but rough
clothes to wear. They had no guns but the old ones they had used to
shoot wild ducks and deer with.
Marion’s men wanted swords. There were no swords to be had. But Marion
sent men to take the long saws out of the saw mills. These were taken
to black-smiths. The black-smiths cut the saws into pieces. These
pieces they hammered out into long, sharp swords.
Marion had not so many men as the British. He had no cannon. He could
not build forts. He could not stay long in one place, for fear the
British should come with a strong army and take him. He and his men hid
in the dark woods. Sometimes he changed his hiding place suddenly. Even
his own friends had hard work to find him.
From the dark woods he would come out suddenly. He would attack some
party of British soldiers. When the battle was over, he would go back
to the woods again.
When the British sent a strong army to catch him, he could not be
found. But soon he would be fighting the British in some new place. He
was always playing hide and seek.
The British called him the Swamp Fox. That was because he was so hard
to catch. They could not conquer the country until they could catch
Marion. And they never could catch the Swamp Fox. At one time Marion
came out of the woods to take a little British fort. This fort was on
the top of a high mound. It was one of the mounds built a long time ago
by the Indians.
Marion put his men all round the fort, so that the men in the fort
could not get out to get water. He thought that they would have to give
up. But the men in the fort dug a well inside the fort. Then Marion had
to think of another plan.
Marion’s men went to the woods and cut down stout poles. They got a
great many poles. When night came, they laid a row of poles along-side
one another on the ground. Then they laid another row across these.
Then they laid another row on top of the last ones, and across the
other way again.
[Illustration: Marion’s Tower.]
They laid a great many rows of poles one on top of another. They
crossed them this way and that. As the night went on, the pile grew
higher. Still they handed poles to top of the pile.
Before morning came, they had built a kind of tower. It was higher than
the Indian mound.
As soon as it was light, the men on Marion’s tower began to shoot. The
British looked out. They saw a great tower with men on it. The men
could shoot down into the fort. The British could not stand it. They
had to give up. They were taken prisoners.