Siege of Fort Motte The Siege of Fort Motte was a military operation during the American Revolutionary War . A force of Patriots led by General Francis " Swamp Fox " Marion and Lt . Colonel " Light Horse " Harry Lee set out to capture the British post at Fort Motte , strategically located at the confluence of the Congaree and Wateree Rivers . The fort was not much more than a mansion owned by Rebecca Brewton Motte , but was garrisoned by roughly 175 British soldiers under Lt . Daniel McPherson . Marion and Lee learned that Lord Rawdon was retreating towards Fort Motte in the aftermath of the Battle of Hobkirk ' s Hill . The Americans forces invested the place on May 8 and wished to capture the fort before Rawdon arrived . Two days later , Marion called for the British to surrender and McPherson refused . The next day , Colonel Lee informed Mrs . Motte that he intended to burn the mansion down to force the British out . On May 12 , 1781 , the American forces had entrenched themselves close enough to the mansion they were able to hit the roof with flaming arrows . Mrs Motte , a Patriot , not only accepted Lee ' s plan , but offered up her own set of bow and arrows . Marion ' s artillery fire added to the desperation of the British and , by one o ' clock that afternoon , Lt . McPherson surrendered the garrison to the Patriots . Background . Great Britain ' s " southern strategy " for winning the American Revolutionary War appeared in some ways to be going well after the Battle of Guilford Courthouse in March 1781 . General Lord Cornwallis had defeated General Nathanael Greene , but his army was short on supplies and had suffered significant casualties , so he decided to move to Wilmington , North Carolina to resupply and refit his troops . Greene , while he had lost the battlefield , still had his army intact . After shadowing Cornwallis for a time , he turned south , and embarked on an expedition to recover Patriot control of South Carolina and Georgia , where British and Loyalist forces were thinly distributed , and smaller outposts were subject to attack from larger forces under the command of Greene or one of the Patriot militia commanders in the area . He first ordered Colonel Henry " Light Horse Harry " Lee to continue shadowing Cornwallis so that his southward movement was screened . Once he was on his way into South Carolina , he ordered Lee to abandon Cornwallis and instead join forces with militia Colonel Francis Marion in the eastern part of the state . Lee and Marion met on April 14 , and first targeted Fort Watson , a small stockade d fort on the east side of the Santee River , which fell after a short siege . They then chased after John Watson , the fort ' s usual commander , who had led a force away from it in search of Marion , but was forced onto the defensive when Lee arrived . Lee and Marion then targeted Fort Motte , a key British supply and communication point not far from the confluence of the Congaree and Wateree Rivers . Siege . Arriving May 8 , Lee and Marion immediately surrounded the fort , which was dominated by the two - story Motte residence and garrisoned by about 140 British and Hessian regulars under Lieutenant Daniel McPherson . On the approach of the Americans they had evicted the widowed Rebecca Motte from her home , and she had taken up residence outside the fort . As the forces of Watson and Rawdon were still active and might come to relieve the siege , Marion and Lee needed a method to rapidly bring the siege to a conclusion . At Fort Watson they had constructed a tower from which the attackers could fire into the fort , but this idea was not workable under the conditions at Fort Motte . The idea was then put forward to set fire to the buildings within the defenses . Mrs . Motte , apparently sympathetic to the Patriot cause , provided the arrows that were used to ignite the roof of the house on May 12 . When the defenders tried to go onto the roof to extinguish the flames , the attackers fired on them with their six - pound gun , driving them off . The garrison surrendered shortly after , and the Americans moved quickly to put out the fires before the whole house was engulfed . Aftermath . The captured garrison was released on parole to return to Charleston . Before they left , Mrs . Motte and the American and British officers shared a meal . General Marion then proceeded to the port of Georgetown , where the British garrison fled without resisting , while Lee was ordered by General Greene to assist in recapturing Augusta , Georgia .