I have never heard of Francis Marion and what a shame it has taken me this long to learn about him. What an extraordinary life and what extraordinary achievements. It's also interesting to read about someone "forgotten" for a change instead of the usual flow or here's another book about the Tudors, or the Boston Tea Party. Thank you for approving this title for me and I'm sorry it has taken me so long to read and review.

This book was actually pretty fascinating. I don't recall Francis Marion's name ever being mentioned in any history class I ever took, tho' Ethan Allen and the Green Mt. Boys were mentioned and referred to as bullies and thugs on too many occasions to count! It's always interesting to see how people look 200 plus years after the fact! Anyone interested in colonial US history will enjoy this book.

JOHN OLLER. The Swamp Fox: How Francis Marion Saved the American Revolution. Da Capo. Hardcover, 400 pages, $26.99, DaCapoPress.com.
During the American Revolution, Francis Marion led a group of Patriot partisans in guerrilla warfare against British regulars and colonial Loyalists in the South Carolina frontier. Hiding in the swamps, he earned the Swamp Fox nickname, and an updated biography has been long overdue. John Oller writes with convincing authority, although he fails when he tries to be cute: Colonial General Nathanael Greene wanted Marion’s men to supply the regulars with horses but also “to serve, in part, as cowboys – driving cattle to the army and away from the enemy. And no cowboy was ever without a good horse.” Cattle were herded by foot in the Carolinas in those days. Otter documents the savagery on both sides and shows how violent the war was in the South: 66 percent of the 1,000 Patriots killed in action and 90 percent of the 2,000 Patriots wounded in action in 1780 fell in South Carolina. Otter’s book might not replace Robert D. Bass’s Swamp Fox: The Life and Campaigns of General Francis Marion as the definitive Marion biography, but it’s a great study of a complex man in a bloody struggle.
– Johnny D. Boggs
Published in Roundup Magazine, April 2017, in Nonfiction Book Reviews, Western Writers of America, www.WesternWriters.org

A fresh take on a war hero. I've always been intrigued by Francis Marion. This book added an interesting perspective on a fascinating man.