Marion's Crossing

Vol. 2 No. 11.1 _____ ______________________________________ _ __ November 2005 Mischief is A’Brewing: Marion’s Crossing Marion Crossing the Peede by artist William Tylee Ranney, oil on canvas (1850), hangs in the Amon Carter Museum, Fort Worth, Texas. William T. Ranney’s Masterpiece The display of the nude, which the climate permitted, and the necessities of the troops required, the service of Marion Crossing the Peede the blacks, and the half-sportsman, half-warrior character of the people engaged, suggest many by Dr. Mark Thistlethwaite picturesque combinations. In 1850 the Bulletin of the American Art-Union noted, The American Art-Union exhibited the finished painting in 1851, and Charles Burt’s engraving of it was distributed to the 14,000 Art- [William Ranney] is engaged on a large picture of Union members. Possibly songwriter Stephen C. Foster read of Marion crossing the Peede, the drawing and Ranney’s painting or knew the print, for originally he penned composition of which are praised. We always thought “Pedee,” not “Swanee” for the river in “Old Folks at Home,” which that the War of the Revolution of the South, and he copyrighted in late 1851. Foster, like Ranney, also may have been particularly the incidents in the partisan operations familiar with the Pee Dee River thought the minstrel song “Old Pee there, afforded many excellent subjects for the artist. Dee,” published in 1844. Ranney’s painting itself was later adapted 1 by Currier and Ives and appeared as a sheet-music cover illustration. The famous sweet potato incident is depicted in General In 1851 a writer for the Albion praised the work, saying: “It shows Marion in His Swamp Encampment Inviting a British an immense step forward on the part of this promising artist, being Officer to Dinner – John B. White - (1836; United States well imagined, brimful of local and personal characteristics, all Capitol). harmonizing with the general effect. It almost equals Bryant’s fine song which [also] commemorates the deeds of Marion and his band.” White executed four versions of the subject, and his work attained The reference to William Cullen Bryant’s poem—“The Song of even greater renown when in 1841 the Apollo Association (later the Marion’s Men” (1831)—is an index of the enduring and widespread American Art-Union) issued it as the organization’s first print. The popularity of the “Swamp Fox,” Francis Marion. popular journal Godey’s Lady’s Book included a print after White’s painting in its April 1845 issue. When Ranney turned to this subject Marion led a small force that employed the tactics of in1850, Marion was well established as an American hero. guerilla warfare, wreaking havoc on the British in South Carolina in the Revolutionary War. With the damage he inflicted, Marion’s Ranney’s Marion Crossing the Peede depicts a large raft or stealthiness frustrated the British tremendously; Col. Banastre flatboat (the 1852 American Art-Union catalogue refers to it as a Tarleton who vainly pursued Marion under direct orders from Lord “scow”) filled with men and horses moving slowly across the water Cornwallis, supposedly exclaimed; “Come, my boys! Let us go and a second loaded raft indistinctly moving in the middle ground. A back…as for this d—d swamp fox, the devil himself could not catch dense forest meets the river on both sides, but the river itself goes him.” The success of Marion’s motley crew depended on its deep into the background. Attention is focused on the large raft, mobility, on changing camps constantly, and on fighting at night. which teems with activity and nearly spills over with men and During the 1820s through the 1850s, many books were published animals. Four mounted figures—two officers and two in civilian recounting Marion’s life and exploits, solidifying his position in the clothes—occupy the forward part of the boat. At first glance, the pantheon of revolutionary heroes. Beginning in 1835, [William officer bathed in light who turns to speak to some men gathered by Gilmore] Simms, himself a South Carolinian, penned several novels him seems to be Marion. In fact, he is not. Francis Marion is the that treated the Revolutionary War by focusing on Marion and his other officer, the one sitting on the light reddish brown horse. men and in 1844 published a life of the Swamp Fox. Bryant’s Several factors lead to this identification. The figure is wrapped in a repeatedly published “Song of Marion’s Men” fired its audience’s mantle, indicative of authority (the slightly fallen cloak reveals part imagination with its exotic first stanza: of an epaulet). His is the only horse that someone else, an African American boy, attends, again indicating his exalted status. An Our band is few, but true and tried, elderly man mounted next to Marion points to the area toward which Our leader frank and bold; they are moving, a motif that generally recalls Daniel Boone’s First The British soldier trembles View of Kentucky, in which John Finley, who knew the territory, When Marion’s name is told. pointed it out to the hero. Finally, this mounted officer corresponds Our fortress is the good greenwood, to the descriptions of Marion in the literature of the day. For Our tent the cypress tree; instance, Simms’s Life of Francis Marion notes: “He had a We know the forest round us, countenance remarkably steady; his nose was aquiline, his chin As seamen know the sea. projecting…and his eyes black and piercing.” Simms and others also We know the walls of thorny vines, record that Marion’s horse, named Ball after the loyalist captain from In glades of reedy grass, whom Marion took it, was a sorrel. The Swamp Fox does not stand Its safe and silent islands out from the rest of the party. Within the dark morass. In an 1847 edition of Bryant’s poems, history painter Emanuel Leutze provided an illustration for “The Song of Marion’s Men.” Even earlier, another painter, John Blake White, had created a popular image of the hero: General Marion in His Swamp Encampment Inviting a British Officer to Dinner (1836; United States Capitol). Daniel Boone’s First View of Kentucky – William T. Ranney - (1849) As in Daniel Boone’s First View of Kentucky, Ranney deflates the concept of hero to present his protagonist as part of a group. Clearly, Marion is different—the aspects cited above confirm this—yet, he is “one of the boys.” In so depicting Marion, the artist emphasizes Marion’s connection to his men as historically understood, while simultaneously democratizing the hero and genrefying history painting. How different this is from the traditional ideals of history painting becomes clear when Ranney’s work is compared with 2 another contemporary image of a hero crossing a river: Leutze’s like an amphibious animal. The rest of the horses soon Washington Crossing the Delaware. learned to follow instinctively. When a canoe was not to be had, the general swam over frequently on the back of this uncommon horse. No leader, in ancient or modern times, ever passed rivers with more rapidity. Other books relate essentially the same story: “There was no waiting for pontoons or boats. Had there been there would have been no surprise.” And “Marion moved with equal secrecy and celerity.” Writers stressed the remarkableness of Marion’s crossing by pointing out that the hero could not swim. If, as James and others asserted, no leader ever passed rivers with the rapidity of Marion, why did Ranney paint a scene that appears at odds with the hit-and-run strategy of the Swamp Fox? One possible reason might lie in a link between the Ranney and the Leutze paintings. Although Leutze’s Washington Crossing the Delaware was not exhibited in this country until 1851, it received much discussion in contemporary art writing, particularly in the Washington Crossing the Delaware – Emanuel Leutze – Bulletin of the American Art-Union beginning in October 1849, and Ranney may have decided to render his crossing in a somewhat (1851) Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City. similar manner. Intentionally or not, Marion Crossing the PeDee becomes a Washington Crossing the Delaware of the South. Emanuel Leutze’s powerful composition of 1851 (based on Interestingly, and perhaps not fortuitously, William H. Webb, who an 1849 painting, which was damaged) has the grand scale purchased the Ranney painting from the American Art-Union, also traditionally associated with history painting. Measuring 12 by 18 possessed a smaller version of the Leutze painting. feet, it is four times larger than Ranney’s Marion Crossing the Peede. Although Leutze included realistic detail, the picture’s success Some might argue that another possible reason Ranney derives mainly fromits idealism. The hero there—and unlike chose to place Marion and his men in a boat is the influence of Ranney’s composition, no doubt exists as to who he is and where—is George Caleb Bingham’s images of boatmen. The Missouri artist’s rendered in great detail in an idealized situation. Washington was Jolly Flatboatmen (1846) was offered by the American Art-Union in many things, and fool was not one of them. He never would have engraved form to its members in 1847, so Ranney undoubtedly knew stood up in a boat on an ice-choked river in the middle of the night. the print, if not the painting. However, lateral positioning of the This pose makes for wonderfully dynamic and inspiring painting. Ranney picture differs markedly from the frontal compositional arrangement of the Bingham work (as in most of his depictions of The drama, idealism, and dynamism that Leutze achieved flatboatmen).

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