We have talked
about Confederate currency once before – Lucy Pickens, the first woman on
American paper money. You can check out that post here. Another interesting
story is found on a Confederate ten dollar note – that of Oscar Marion, the
slave of Francis Marion. Francis Marion, of course, was known as the Swamp Fox.
Starting in 1780, he often led small bands of men against British supply lines
and gathered intelligence for Gen. Nathaniel Greene. Marion’s men would often
hide out in the swamps of South Carolina after conducting their raids. In one
episode, an officer, wishing to discuss a prisoner of war exchange, was
blindfolded and led to Marion’s headquarters in the swamp on Snow Island. As
the meeting began, the blindfold was removed, and Marion offered the officer a
seat on a log. After the meeting, Marion asked the officer to remain for
dinner, which was a sweet potato, roasted on the fire, and served on a piece of
bark. The British office then learned that Marion and his men served without
pay. According to one Marion biographer, the British “officer was so much
impressed with what he had heard and seen, and so convinced of the impossibility
of overcoming soldiers who fought thus upon principle, and for the pure love of
liberty, that he decided to” resign his commission.[1]
In 1840, South Carolina artist John Blake White painted this very scene. There is Francis Marion, the British officer, and Oscar, Marion’s slave, cooking the sweet potatoes on the fire. This image was later cut into a plate and appeared in the center on the 1861 Confederate ten dollar note. To the image’s left is Robert M. T. Hunter, Confederate Secretary of State and later Confederate senator and to the right is a statue of Minerva, the Roman goddess of wisdom, justice, law, and victory.[2]
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General Francis Marion Inviting A British Officer to Share His Meal or The Swamp Fox |
[1] Marion,
The Swamp Fox, 149-50.
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