Martin speaks at the South Carolina General Assembly
Benjamin Martin (1732-1801) was an American politician and soldier, a veteran of the French and Indian War. Known as the "Ghost" during the American Revolutionary War, he led a colonial militia against the British Army in South Carolina. He was infamously accused of single-handedly killing a British patrol, when in fact two of his sons had aided him.
Biography[]
Hero of Fort Wilderness[]
Benjamin Martin was born in South Carolina in 1732 and served in the British colonial militia under Colonel Harry Burwell during the French and Indian War. Martin was involved in brutal frontier engagements. After a massacre of English settlers at Fort Charles, Martin and his unit pursued the French and Cherokee killers until they caught up with them at Fort Wilderness. There, Martin and his men overwhelmed and captured them only to slowly torture them to death and send their body parts to the Cherokee. This led to the fracturing of the Cherokee-French alliance. His actions left a lasting psychological impact.
For his heroism at Fort Wilderness, Martin was granted land in the South Carolina countryside near Wakefield. He settled there with his wife, Elizabeth Putnam, and their seven children: Gabriel, Thomas, Nathan, Samuel, William, Margaret, and Susan. The family led a peaceful life, supported by freed African slaves who worked the land in exchange for lodging.
On 19 February 1773, Elizabeth Martin died at the age of 35, leaving Benjamin a widower. He raised the children with the support of his African servant, Abigail. The family continued to live peacefully on their plantation until the outbreak of the American Revolutionary War in 1775.
Start of the American Revolution[]
Martin and Burwell in 1776
In 1776, Martin was summoned to the South Carolina General Assembly to vote on a levy supporting the Continental Army in its rebellion against British rule. Sceptical of the revolution, he asked fellow delegate Peter Howard why he should trade “one tyrant three thousand miles away for three thousand tyrants one mile away,” He expressed concern that elected legislatures could violate individual liberties just as easily as monarchs. He went on to claim that there were alternatives to war.
Colonel Harry Burwell, now a Continental officer, informed Martin that war had already begun with the Battle of Bunker Hill. Despite Martin’s reservations, his eldest son Gabriel joined the Continental Army without his consent.
By 1778, Charleston had fallen to the British. Gabriel, now a dispatch rider, returned home severely wounded and in need of rest. Benjamin tended to his son, as well as to several wounded soldiers from both sides of a nearby skirmish. The following morning, British Lieutenant Edward Cook arrived to retrieve his injured men and thanked Martin for his care. However, the situation escalated when Colonel William Tavington and his Green Dragoons arrived. Tavington ordered the execution of the wounded Continental soldiers, the arrest of Gabriel Martin as a "spy," and the burning of the Martin home. Martin would attempt to remind Tavington of the rules of war.
When Thomas Martin tried to intervene in Gabriel’s arrest, Tavington shot and killed him. Martin, enraged and grief-stricken, retrieved muskets from the burning home, armed two of his sons, and launched a successful ambush on Cook’s 20-man platoon to rescue Gabriel. Only one British soldier survived, later reporting the incident and referring to Martin as "the Ghost."
Raising a militia[]
Villeneuve and Martin in 1780
Martin decided to join Colonel Burwell’s forces, both to protect his family from the British and to support his son Gabriel, now a corporal in the Continental Army. Burwell told Martin that George Washington's army had been chased from Morristown by a British army of 12,000 troops, and that the Americans were a breath away from losing the war. With the American defeat at the Battle of Camden, there was no army between Charles Cornwallis' British army in the south and Washington's army in the north, and Burwell told Martin that the Americans had to hold out for at least six months, when 10,000 French Army troops would arrive in a fleet to assist the Americans. Until then, the Americans in the south faced 8,000 infantry and 600 cavalry. Martin was introduced to French Army officer Jean Villeneuve, who had been training the militia; Villeneuve held a grudge against Martin for his role in the massacre at Fort Wilderness, but they would later grow close. Martin was commissioned a Colonel by Burwell, and he was made responsible for recruiting a militia to keep Cornwallis in the south. Martin had Gabriel transferred to his command, and he sent him to recruit men in Harrisville, Pembroke, and Wakefield as he recruited men on the north side of the Santee River with Villeneuve; they would meet at the old Spanish mission at Black Swamp.
Martin and Villeneuve recruited several drunkards and militia veterans at a tavern; among these men were John Billings and Hank Rollins. Gabriel recruited several well-educated people, and the two groups would come to be spiteful of the other. Nevertheless, they proved to be an effective force once trained by Villeneuve, and Martin and Villeneuve led the militia in several ambushes against the British as they moved supplies and troops across South Carolina. At the Battle of the King's Highway, the colonials were ambushed by Tavington's Green Dragoons, leaving 22 dead, 18 wounded, and 20 captured.
To rescue the 20 captured men, Martin devised a clever ruse: he arranged a parlay with General Cornwallis and secured an agreement for a prisoner exchange. Cornwallis released all 20 Americans—only to discover that the supposed British officers he was to receive were scarecrows dressed in captured uniforms. Cornwallis decided to unleash Tavington against Martin, and Martin and his family were chased to a Gullah settlement after they burned down his sister-in-law Charlotte Selton's plantation on the Santee River. Martin oversaw his son's wedding and himself fell in love, starting a relationship with his sister-in-law.
After the wedding, Martin and his son returned to the war against the British, only to find that the British were now burning down towns accused of helping the patriots, as well as massacring their inhabitants. Martin found that his new daughter-in-law Anne Howard and her family, along with the other townspeople of Pembroke, had been killed when the British burned them alive by locking them in a church as it was razed. His son Gabriel and a group of militiamen rode to avenge the massacre by killing Tavington in an ambush at the Spanish mission, and all of the British soldiers (apart from Tavington) and all of the militiamen (including Gabriel) were killed in the ensuing battle. Benjamin cradled Gabriel as he died in his arms, and his loyalty to the cause wavered due to his grief; however, he was encouraged to rejoin the cause after taking notice of a tattered American flag that Gabriel had repaired.
Martin remained committed to the cause and fought in the Battle of Cowpens, where he lured the British into a trap by having them pursue his retreating militia into the line of fire of waiting Continental regulars. He then led a counterattack, rallying his faltering men by raising the American flag During the battle, he was heavily wounded in battle with Tavington, but he was able to impale Tavington with a bayonet and kill him. Martin would later fight at the Siege of Yorktown, where he witnessed the final defeat of the British. Afterwards, he parted with Colonel Burwell (who named his own son "Gabriel" in honor of Martin's late son) and Villeneuve, and he returned to his family. They later discovered that his former comrades were raising a new house for him; the freed slave Occam said that Gabriel had once said that the colonists would build a new world once the war ended, and opined that they could start by building the Martins a new home. Martin died in 1801 at the age of 69, having lived to see the birth of the nation he helped defend.