Johnsonville in Florence County, South Carolina — The American South (South Atlantic)
Witherspoon’s Ferry: Francis Marion Takes Command
On August 17, 1780, leading a ragtag band of fewer than twenty men, “some white, some black, and all mounted, but most of them miserably equipped,” Col. Marion entered the camp of the Williamsburg Militia here at Witherspoon’s Ferry (probably at a site a few yards downstream, just ahead of you) and took command. William Dobein James, then a fifteen-year-old militiaman, recalled his first sight of Marion:
He was below the middle stature of men. His body was well set, but his knees and ankles were badly formed; and he still limped upon one leg. He had a countenance remarkably steady; his nose was aquiline, his chin projecting; his forehead was large and high. And his eyes black and piercing…. He was dressed in a close round-bodied crimson jacket, of a coarse texture, and wore a leather cap, part of the uniform of the second regiment, with a silver crescent in front, inscribed with the words,
Erected 2012 by Francis Marion Trail Commission of Francis Marion University.