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This week episode 272 chasing the Swamp Fox. We've been away from the Southern Command for the last few episodes.

We last checked in on the Southern Command in episode 268

when Patriot Militia primarily over mountain men from the frontier defeated a large group of

loyalist militia under the command of British Major Patrick Ferguson at the Battle of Kings Mountain.

After losing his loyalist fighters, the British commander in the South, General Charles

Cornwallis, pulled out of North Carolina abandoning his occupation of Charlotte to regroup in South Carolina.

Cornwallis was awaiting the arrival of reinforcements under the command of General Alexander Leslie. General Clinton had sent Leslie to conduct raids in Virginia, but after the

loss of the loyalists to Kings Mountain, Cornwallis requested that Leslie bring his 1500 men by sea to Charleston so that a larger force could make another push into North Carolina from the south.

At the time though, the Continental Army in the South was more theoretical than

threatening. The Southern Army under General Horatio Gates was almost completely

eliminated at the Battle of Camden back in August. was almost The militia, many from out of state, simply fled back to their homes and no longer existed as a fighting unit.

Gates himself abandoned the army and fled nearly 200 miles in a matter of days to Hillsborough, North Carolina.

And despite the absence of an enemy army and his front, General Cornwallis still had to spend much of

his time paying attention to his rear.

Much of that was thanks to the efforts of Colonel Francis Marion.

Even before the Battle of Camden, General Horatio Gates had sent Marion off to

harass the enemy in guerrilla fighting apart from the main army. With the

dissolution of the army after Camden, Marion was largely on his own. He wrote to Gates

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