Kiss of a Traitor (58 page)

Accounts vary as to whether Mary Richardson was raped by Tarleton’s troops during the Butcher’s fated visit or merely flogged. I chose in my story to reflect the former. Rebecca Richardson (on which the character Emma is based; in
Kiss of a Traitor,
Rebecca becomes a younger sister) married John Singleton in 1774. They had five children. This influential Clarendon family thrived to produce six governors of South Carolina, the most ever elected from one family. One descendent, Governor John Peter Richardson, was the founder of the Citadel. The Richardson cemetery is indicated by a historical marker on County Road 76 west of Summerton, South Carolina. The Mall in Columbia is named in honor of Brigadier General Richardson.

Francis Marion and his men were, indeed, barred from the triumphal march of the Americans into Charles Town. However, General Nathaniel Greene, with whom Marion had an oftentimes contentious relationship, vehemently protested the civil order. Marion returned to his ravaged plantation of Pine Bluff and built a small house, which now lies beneath the waters of Lake Marion. He never received pay from the government for his services to the Continental army or the state. He continued to serve in the legislature and, in 1783, the United States Senate presented him with a gold medal “as a mark of public approbation for his great, glorious, and meritorious service.” Upon Marion’s retirement, William Dobein James, who at age fifteen had served under Marion, wrote an address honoring him:

At the present juncture when the necessity of public affairs requires the military of this state to be organized anew, to repel the attack of an enemy from whatever quarter they may be forced upon us, we, citizens of the district of Georgetown, finding you no longer at our head, have agreed to convey to you our grateful sentiments for your former numerous services. In the decline of life when the merits of the veteran are too often forgotten, we wish to remind you that yours are still fresh in the remembrance of your fellow citizens. Could it be possible for men who have served and fought under you, to be now forgetful of that general, by whose prudent conduct their lives have been saved and their families preserved from being plundered by a rapacious enemy?

We mean not to flatter you. At this time it is impossible for you to suspect it. Our present language is the language of free men expressing only sentiments of gratitude. Your achievements may not have sufficiently swelled the historic page. They were performed by those who could better wield the sword than the pen. By men whose constant dangers precluded them from the leisure, and whose necessities deprived them of the common implements of writing. But this is little moment: they remain recorded in such indelible characters upon our minds, that neither change of circumstances nor length of time can efface them.

Taught by us, our children shall hereafter point out the places and say to their children, here General Marion, posted to advantage, made a glorious stand in deference of the liberties of his country; there, on disadvantageous ground, retreated to save the lives of his fellow citizens. What could be more glorious for the general commanding free men than thus to fight, and thus to save the lives of his fellow soldiers?

Continue, General, in peace to till those acres which you once wrested from the hands of an enemy. Continue to enjoy dignity, accompanied with ease, and to lengthen out your days blessed with the consciousness of conduct unaccused of rapine or oppression, and of actions ever directed by the purest patriotism.

Marion finally married his cousin, Mary Esther Videau, in 1786. Both in their fifties at that time, they remained childless, but enjoyed each other’s company for the remainder of their lives. As Marion’s health began to fail, his old friend, Peter Horry, who had become Marion’s greatest friend and supporter, visited him once last time. Soon afterward, Marion lay on his deathbed, his wife weeping beside him. “My dear,” he told Mary Esther, “do not weep for me. I am not afraid to die, for thank God, I can lay my hand upon my heart and say that since I came to man’s estate, I have never intentionally done wrong to any man.”

Marion died at Pine Bluff on February 27, 1795. His family buried him at his brother’s plantation, Belle Isle, which today lies off Route 45 between St. Stephen’s and Holly Hill. On his grave is a slab of gray marble with these words:

Sacred to the Memory
Of

Brig. Gen. Francis Marion
who departed this life, on the 27
^th
of February, 1795,
IN THE SIXTY-THIRD YEAR OF HIS AGE;
deeply regretted by all his fellow citizens.
HISTORY

will record his worth, and rising generations embalm
his memory, as one of the most distinguished
Patriots and Heroes of the American Revolution:
which elevated his native Country
TO HONOUR AND INDEPENDENCE
AND

secured to her the blessings of
LIBERTY AND PEACE.

This tribute to 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.