Marion and his command joined with General Horatio Gates just before the Battle of Camden. Gates had no faith in Marion and his men; he was sent to the PeeDee area to take command of the Williamsburg Militia. He was ordered to do whatever possible to disrupt the expected escape efforts of the British after the battle. Marion missed the battle, but he attacked the British and freed 150 prisoners from Maryland and captured 20 British troops that had been enroute from Charleston. The former prisoners assumed the war was lost and would not join Marion’s command.

Marion seldom ordered his command to engage in frontal warfare; his command was too small for that. He would repeatedly surprise much larger British commands, by attacking quickly and leaving quickly, using the swamps to hide in. After so many of these successful hit and run attacks, the British began to foster hatred against Marion and his men.

The British had almost total control over South Carolina, with the exception of the Williamsburg area (the present Pee Dee). It was the guerilla tactics of Marion that kept the British out of Williamsburg.

Marion’s ability to gather intelligence was far superior to that of the British in the Williamsburg area. Most of the citizens of Williamsburg were patriots and therefore eager to pass along information to Marion regarding British troop strength and movements.

In November, 1780, the British sent troops under the command of the young Colonel Banastre Tarleton to capture or kill Marion. Marion eluded them by hiding out in the swamps and staging his lightning quick attacks against them! In time, Tarleton tired of pursuing “the old swamp fox.”

After Marion proved his ability at guerrilla warfare, Governor John Rutledge, in exile in North Carolina, commissioned him a brigadier general in command of state troops.

When General Nathaniel Greene was placed in command of the South, Marion and Lt. Col. Henry Lee were ordered to attack Georgetown in January 1781. The attack was a failure. In April they took Fort Watson and then in May, Fort Motte. They succeeded in disrupting communications between the British forts in the Carolinas. On August 31, 1781, Marion’s command rescued a small American force that was trapped by a British force of 500. Marion commanded the right wing under General Nathaniel Greene at the Battle of Eutaw Springs.

In June, 1782, he and his men thwarted a Loyalist uprising on the banks of the Pee Dee River. In August, he left his brigade and returned home.

After the war he married Mary Esther Videau, who was a cousin. He served several terms in the South Carolina State Senate. In 1784, he was made commander of Fort Johnson.

He passed away quietly on his estate in 1795, at the age of 63 years and was buried on his brother's plantation, Belle Isle in Berkeley County, South Carolina.