The Ambush at Benbow’s Ferry
circa November 1780
Find in Google Maps or use the coordinates in your own mapping app:
33.69055999999999, -80.21318One of two murals located on the side of Piggly Wiggly in Manning, this mural takes viewers back to the Ambush at Benbow's Ferry. General Francis Marion and his men were known for ambush-style attacks on traditional British forces, and this was no exception.
As one of the most elusive men in the American Revolution, General Francis Marion's evasion of British forces led by Lieutenant Colonel Banastre Tarleton was one of history's most well documented cases of "cat-and-mouse." Or "cat-and-fox," as it became known.
William Dobein James, who rode with General Francis Marion during the Southern Campaign of the American Revolution, wrote in 1821 about Lt. Col. Tarleton following Marion
“...as he (Tarleton) says ‘for seven hours, through swamps and defiles.’ In fact he pursued about twenty-five miles, when arriving at Ox Swamp, which was wide and miry, and without a road to pass it, he desisted, saying to his men, ‘Come my boys! Let us go back, and we will soon find the Gamecock, but as for this d—-d old fox the devil himself could not catch him.’...Had Tarleton proceeded with his jaded horses to Benbow’s, he would have exposed his force to such sharp shooting as he had not yet experienced, and that in a place where he could not have acted either with his artillery or cavalry.”