The facts, in the life of Francis Marion, are far less generally extended in our country than his fame.

The present is an attempt to supply this deficiency, and to justify, by the array of authentic particulars, the high position which has been assigned him among the master-workers in our revolutionary history.

The task has been a difficult, but I trust not entirely an unsuccessful one.

Our southern chronicles are meagre and unsatisfactory.

South Carolina was too long in the occupation of the British--too long subject to the ravages of civil and foreign war, to have preserved many of those minor records which concern only the renown of individuals, and are unnecessary to the comprehension of great events; and the vague tributes of unquestioning tradition are not adequate authorities for the biographer, whose laws are perhaps even more strict than those which govern the historian.
Numerous volumes, some private manuscripts, and much unpublished correspondence, to which reference has been more particularly made in the appendix, have been consulted in the preparation of this narrative.
The various histories of Carolina and Georgia have also been made use of.