Another 'Swamp Fox' victory

Our nation's capital bears the name of the United States' pre-eminent Revolutionary War hero. Today, a park in our nation's capital is a major step closer to being the site of a statue of South Carolina's pre-eminent Revolutionary War hero.

Col. Francis Marion, later promoted to general, and his hardy band of backwoods guerilla fighters played a critical role in winning America's independence from the British crown. But though Washington's Marion Park was dedicated to Gen. Marion in 1887 on South Carolina Avenue, roughly four blocks from Capitol Hill, it needs considerable work to live up to its illustrious namesake.

As reported recently, John F. McCabe, a Columbia financial adviser and history scholar, has been striving for three years to rectify this slight. With the help of other volunteers and members of the S.C. congressional delegation, including 1st District Rep. Henry Brown, Mr. McCabe has advanced the cause a considerable distance.

President Bush recently signed a public lands bill that includes language authorizing development of a memorial to the "Swamp Fox" in Marion Park. The privately funded Marion Park Project next aims for approval from the National Capital Planning Commission. As Mr. McCabe put it: "We're finishing what should have been done a long, long time ago."

Robert G. Barinowski of Camden has already sculpted a model for the proposed statue, and the Palmetto Conservation Foundation (803-771-0870) is raising money for the initiative's costs, including improvements to the park.

South Carolina's role in the ultimate patriot victory was long underrated. Yet over the last few decades historians have increasingly recognized the indispensable contributions of the seemingly overmatched patriots — including Col. Marion and his raiders — who prevented the royalists from fully consolidating their capture of Charleston in 1780. That daring resistance bought Gen. George Washington precious time on another front.

That makes the Washington site of the new, improved memorial to Francis Marion particularly fitting: It's within walking distance of Capitol Hill, where our elected lawmakers exercise the self-governing liberties that he and his intrepid irregulars made possible.