A quarter of a millennium ago, a “Swamp Fox” and his rag-tag group of compatriots put the lion of the British Empire on the run—and changed how wars were fought on the North American continent for a century. This Swamp Fox was Francis Marion. Marion was born in Berkeley County, South Carolina, during the 1730s. The South Carolinian, like many in the area, was the descendant of Huguenots—French Protestants forced out of their country after they lost the right to practice their religion. Although Marion’s war-fighting experience predated the American Revolution—he was a veteran of the French and Indian War—Marion earned his nickname and his notoriety for his service in the American Revolution.  After the fall of Charleston to the British in May of 1780, Marion would become a principal leader of the resistance in South Carolina. The disastrous surrender essentially left the colony in the hands of the British. In the name of reclaiming South Carolina for the Americans, Marion would pioneer a style of guerrilla warfare He galvanized and organized groups of rag-tag part-time soldiers to destroy British boats and disrupt British supply lines. Marion’s war against British and loyalist forces would play a major role in keeping the revolution alive in South Carolina. However, his irregular militia was not the most dependable fighting force. Gen. Nathanael Greene wrote in a letter that Marion and fellow South Carolinian Thomas Sumter were “brave and good officers, but the people with them just come and go as they please.” Greene, however, was tasked with reinforcing the mission to reclaim South Carolina. His arrival in late 1780 turned the tide of the war in the Americans’ favor. Marion’s forces fought alongside Henry Lee III, better known as “Light Horse Harry,” the father of future Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee. In April and May of 1781, the Swamp Fox’s militia and the Virginian patrician’s Continental Army troops carried out successful sieges on Fort Watson and Fort Motte, which hastened the withdrawal of the British from the state. At Watson, Marion’s men constructed a tower, from which they fired rifles into the fort, forcing its surrender. After the siege, Greene thanked the war-worn swamp fox for his years of service against all odds. “History affords no instance wherein an officer has kept possession of a country under so many disadvantages as you have; surrounded on every side with a superior force; hunted from every quarter with veteran troops, you have found means to elude all their attempts, and to keep alive the expiring hopes of an oppressed Militia, when all succour seems to be cut off,” the April 1781 letter read. At Fort Motte, a plantation mansion repurposed as a British fortress, Lee and Marion made use of flaming arrows to set the fort ablaze and force the British out. Lee did get permission from the owner, Rebecca Motte, to burn down the house. Motte not only assented, but, according to Lee’s memoirs, personally supplied her own bow and arrows imported from India to set on fire and burn down the house. In the final major battle of the Carolinas theater, Marion fought in September of 1781 alongside Lee at the Battel of Eutaw Spring, which occurred during the lead-up to America’s decisive victory in Yorktown, Virginia. With American independence secure, Marion returned to his plantation only to find it destroyed. Though he did not sign the Declaration of Independence, to that cause he too had pledged his life, his fortune, and his sacred honor. He died in 1795. According to the writings of his comrade William James, an epitaph placed above Marion’s gravestone read, “This tribute of veneration and gratitude is erected in commemoration of the noble and disinterested virtues of the citizen; and the gallant exploits of the soldier; Who lived without fear, and died without reproach.” When a different question of independence plunged America into a war that pitted brother against brother, both the Union and Confederacy found inspiration in Marion’s successes during the revolution. The inspiration drawn from the South Carolinian was especially felt in the south. Marion was a strong influence on John Mosby, the “gray ghost” of the Confederacy who waged a similar style of warfare to great effect against Union troops in Northern Virginia, assisting the strategy of Light Horse Harry Lee’s son Robert E. Lee. Mosby’s praise of Marion shows the swamp fox’s importance in the development of a style of guerrilla warfare that would continue into the Civil War. “I remember how I shouted when I read aloud in the nursery of the way the great partisan hid in the swamp and outwitted the British,” Mosby writes in his memoirs of reading a biography of Marion as a child. “I did not then expect that the time would ever come when I would … take part in adventures that have been compared with Marion’s.” The post The ‘Swamp Fox’ Who Put the British Lion on the Run and Changed War for a Century appeared first on The Daily Signal.

Honor Thy Father: Sunday Reflection

In our age of "love is love," "live your truth," and "don’t judge," many people, Christians included, are hesitant to speak the truth. We don’t want to upset people, make situations uncomfortable, or scare anyone, so we either dodge opportunities to speak the truth about God, or we soften biblical concepts in hopes that they will be more palatable.There’s never been a subject Christians tend to temper more than hell. “It's becoming a little more trendy now to try to dumb down the severity of God's wrath on those who reject Him,” says Rick Burgess, BlazeTV host of the biblical spiritual warfare podcast “Strange Encounters.”On this episode, Rick lays bare the truth about hell and what it means to reject God. Sometimes “even people within the faith [think] that maybe somehow what scripture says about God's judgment on the unredeemed — maybe we have it wrong. Maybe he's even going to be gracious and merciful to the unredeemed, even though they've rejected the only way to to receive God's grace and mercy,” says Rick.Others think that “maybe somehow hell isn't as bad as it sounds in the Bible. Sure, they're going to be punished, but it's not going to be an eternal punishment.”One prominent Christian figure who Rick says is “easing into this camp” is American actor, evangelist, and author Kirk Cameron.Recently, on his podcast, Cameron rejected the traditional doctrine of eternal conscious torment — the belief that hell is a place or state where those who die without salvation in Jesus Christ experience ongoing, conscious suffering and punishment forever, without end or annihilation. Kirk said that while he once accepted this doctrine as true, today he leans more toward annihilationism – the belief that the unredeemed face judgment, possibly limited suffering, and then total destruction.“It fits the character of God in my understanding more than the conscious eternal torment position, because it brings in the mercy of God together with the justice of God. It doesn't leave judgment out. It is just, but it also fits with the Old Testament picture of the fate of the wicked, which is to be destroyed. It is to die, and it is to perish, not live forever in an eternal barbecue,” Cameron said.“If conscious eternal torment is not a thing, that's actually a great relief, and I would have joy in correcting somebody who says that the reason that they're not a Christian is because of this merciless God who tortures people forever, and I could say that's not what the Bible teaches. Good news. Still not good. You don't want to go [to hell], but there is mercy even in His judgment,” he added, noting that this is what he believes “the scriptures teach.”While Rick says he has “great respect” for Cameron and believes without a doubt he’ll “spend eternity” with him in heaven, he believes Cameron has some confusion about the character of God.“It's like he prefers God to be a certain way. And I really, really think that's very shaky ground. … He doesn't want that to be true because what? That makes him think less of God?” asks Rick.When people try to soften scripture, they’re essentially believing that “God needs a PR agent” to say, "Hey, God, I really think people will get upset with you with this eternal conscious torment thing. You probably want to go with the annihilation of the soul and just kill these people because that'll make you look more merciful,” he says. “I got a real problem with that because I think that God has gone on record about his mercy and grace because of the cross.”“He's been so gracious and so merciful, He has allowed you to become fully righteous, and the sacrifice and the wrath that should have been poured out on us was now poured out on his son,” Rick says.But “if you choose to reject God's grace and mercy, then all you're going to get is his wrath and judgment, and that judgment from Him, because He's perfect, will be correct.”To hear Rick’s full breakdown, watch the episode above.Want more from Rick Burgess?To enjoy more bold talk and big laughs, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.

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