Maj. Gen. Henry "Light Horse Harry" Lee

Henry Lee III, called "Light Horse Harry", (29 January 1756 – 25 March 1818) was a cavalry officer in the Continental Army during the American Revolution. He was born near Dumfries, Virginia, the son of Maj. Gen. Henry Lee II of "Leesylvania" and Lucy Grymes, the "Lowland Beauty".
Lee and his younger brother Charles entered The College of New Jersey (now Princeton University) in the summer of 1770 when they were fourteen and twelve, after a ten-day journey from Virginia by stage and on horseback, along with their friend James Madison. With a view to a legal career, Lee graduated in 1773, but on the outbreak of the Revolutionary War, he joined the Continental Army. In 1776, Lee became captain of a Virginia Dragoon detachment, attached to the 1st Continental Light Dragoons. In 1778, he was promoted to major and given the command of a small irregular corps, with which he earned great reputation as a leader of light troops.
Lee came into prominence in 1779 when, as a 23-year-old major, he led the capture of the British fort at Paulus Hook, New Jersey. He later became cavalry commander in the Southern campaign under General Nathanael Greene. Lee served notably at Guilford Court House, Camden, and Eutaw Springs. He was present at Cornwallis's surrender at Yorktown, but afterwards left the army owing to ill health.
From 1786 to 1788, Lee was a delegate to the Continental Congress, and in the last-named year in the Virginia convention, he favored the adoption of the U.S. Constitution. From 1789 to 1791, he served in the General Assembly and, from 1791 to 1794, Lee was Governor of Virginia. In 1794, Lee accompanied George Washington to help suppress the "Whiskey Rebellion" in western Pennsylvania.
Henry Lee served as a major-general in the U.S. Army in 1798-1800, and from 1799 to 1801, he served in the U.S. House of Representatives. He is credited with writing the phrase used by Chief Justice John Marshall in his address to Congress on the death of Washington–"first in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen."
Lee had been at his best as a dashing cavalry officer in the Revolution– "a Rupert in battle," Woodrow Wilson called him, "a boy in counsel, highstrung, audacious, wilful, lovable, a figure for romance." He was less well fitted for civil and domestic life, and his later years were marred by financial reverses and long periods away from home. He lost heavily in land speculations and spent a year in debtor's prison when Robert E. Lee (his fifth child by his second wife) was only two. While in prison he wrote his memoirs of the Revolution. In 1812, in Baltimore, he was seriously injured while in the company of a group opposed to "Mr. Madison's War," who were under attack by an angry mob. Madison denounced the rioters as barbarians and offered Lee a commission as major-general in the army, but he was too weak to accept. Ill and impoverished, he spent his last years in the West Indies in a vain effort to regain his health.

(Source: Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Lee_III, and A Princeton Companion, by Alexander Leitch, pub. 1978, Princeton University Press)

Francis Marion (1732–1795)

Francis Marion was a Lieutenant Colonel in the Continental Army and, later, Brigadier General in the South Carolina Militia during the American Revolutionary War. He became known as the "Swamp Fox" for his ability to use decoys and ambushes to disrupt enemy communications, capture supplies, and free prisoners. His strategic use of guerrilla tactics helped set in motion the decline of open battles in the conflict. Before the Revolutionary War, he was a sailor.

Marion is considered one of the fathers of modern guerilla warfare, and is credited in the lineage of the U.S. Army Rangers.

When Charleston fell on 12 May 1780, Francis Marion escaped capture because he had broken an ankle in an accident and had left the city to recuperate. Following Gen. Isaac Huger's defeat at Moncks Corner and the Waxhaw Massacre of Col. Abraham Buford's men by British Lt. Col. Banastre Tarleton and his Green Dragoons, Marion organized a small troop, at first consisting of between 20 and 70 men—the only force then opposing the British Army in the state. At this point, he was still nearly crippled from the slowly-healing ankle.

He joined General Horatio Gates just before the Battle of Camden, but Gates sent him to take command of the Williamsburg Militia in the Pee Dee area, asking him to undertake scouting missions and impede the expected flight of the British after the battle. Marion thus missed the battle, but was able to intercept and recapture 150 Maryland prisoners, plus about twenty of their guards, who had been en route from the battle to Charleston. The freed prisoners, thinking the war already lost, refused to join Marion and deserted.

However, with his militiamen, Marion showed himself to be a singularly able leader of irregulars. Unlike the Continental troops, Marion's Men, as they were known, served without pay, supplied their own horses, arms, and, often, their own food. All supplies that were not obtained locally were captured from the Loyalist forces.

Marion rarely committed his men to frontal warfare, but repeatedly surprised larger bodies of Loyalists or British regulars with quick surprise attacks and equally quick withdrawal from the field. After the surrender of Charleston, the British garrisoned South Carolina with help from local Tories, except for Williamsburg, which they were never able to hold. The British made one attempt to garrison Williamsburg at Willtown, but were driven out by Marion at the Battle of Mingo Creek.

The British despised Marion and repeatedly tried to neutralize his force, but Marion's intelligence-gathering was given advantage by overwhelming Patriot loyalty in the Williamsburg populace.

Lt. Col. Banastre Tarleton, sent to capture Marion, despaired of finding the "old swamp fox", who eluded him by travelling along swamp paths. Tarleton and Marion were sharply contrasted in the popular mind. Tarleton was hated because he burned and destroyed homes and supplies, whereas Marion's Men, when they requisitioned supplies, or destroyed them to keep them out of British hands, gave the owners receipts for them. After the war, most of the receipts were redeemed by the new state government.

Once Francis Marion had shown his ability at guerrilla warfare, making himself a serious nuisance to the British, Gov. John Rutledge (in exile in North Carolina) commissioned him a brigadier-general of the South Carolina state troops.

When Gen. Nathanael Greene took command in the south, Marion and Lieutenant Colonel Henry "Light Horse Harry" Lee were ordered in January 1781 to attack Georgetown, but were unsuccessful. In April, however, they took Fort Watson and in May, Fort Motte, and succeeded in breaking communications between the British posts in the Carolinas. On August 31, Marion rescued a small American force trapped by Major C. Fraser with 500 British. For this, he received the thanks of the Continental Congress. Marion commanded the right wing under General Greene at the Battle of Eutaw Springs.

In 1782, during his absence as State Senator at Jacksonborough, his brigade grew disheartened and there was reportedly a conspiracy to turn him over to the British. But in June of that year, he put down a Loyalist uprising on the banks of the Pee Dee River. In August, Francis Marion left his brigade and returned to his plantation.

(Source: Wikipedia)