which could chronicle the passing event, give place and date to
the brilliant sortie, the gallant struggle, the individual deed of audacity,
which, by a stroke, and at a moment, secures an undying remembrance
in the bosoms of a people. The fame of Marion rests very much upon tradition.
There is little in the books to justify the strong and exciting relish
with which the name is spoken and remembered throughout the country.
He was not a bloody warrior. His battle fields were never sanguinary.
His ardor was never of a kind to make him imprudent. He was not distinguished
for great strength of arm, or great skill in his weapon. We have no proofs
that he was ever engaged in single combat: yet the concurrent
testimony of all who have written, declare, in general terms,
his great services: and the very exaggeration of the popular estimate
is a partial proof of the renown for which it speaks. In this respect,
his reputation is like that of all other heroes of romantic history.
It is a people's history, written in their hearts, rather than in their books;
which their books could not write -- which would lose all its golden glow,
if subjected to the cold details of the phlegmatic chronicles.
The tradition, however swelling, still testifies to that large merit
which must have been its basis, by reason of which the name of the hero
was selected from all others for such peculiar honors;
and though these exaggerations suggest a thousand difficulties
in the way of sober history, they yet serve to increase the desire,
as well as the necessity, for some such performance.

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The family of Marion came from France. They emigrated to South Carolina
somewhere about the year 1685, within twenty years after the first
British settlement of the province. They belonged, in the parent country,
to that sect of religious dissenters which bore the name of Huguenots;