- Going deeper into our state's history, beyond the names that most of us are familiar with, has been an incredible part of making this show.

So much of what helped define Georgia during the revolution and the years that followed were things that happened out on the margins, literally and figuratively, and that's where both stories in this episode live, the Jasper Spring and its markers sit in the shadow of an interstate overpass on the edge of Savannah.

And the second, the Tory Pond has, for nearly 50 years, been in relative anonymity along State Road 378 in Lincoln County.

You can blink, but you'll miss it.

(dramatic classical music) His is a story that begins in South Carolina as a hero that kept the state flag in the air.

It ended after he suffered a mortal wound during the Battle of Savannah.

But in between, he's a devoted Patriot and a man who would reach legendary status for his commitment to fellow soldiers.

(screen whooshes) This is "Marked!," a series that zooms in on Georgia and its backstory one historical marker at a time.

I'm Maiya May, and I'm here at historical marker 025-48 to tell you the story of bravery and heroism and how the man who pulled it off raised a flag and rallied an army.

(dramatic classical music continues) (clock ticking) (bright music) Stories of heroism in the revolution are pretty easy to find.

They're everywhere, and a lot of those stories, as time has gone on, have faded.

Finding concrete accounts and written documents can be tough, which is why they're important to tell, to make sure they're preserved.

And this one, the story of the Jasper Spring and what happened here, is one of those.

But to know the story of the Jasper Spring, you first need to know the story of William Jasper.

- The name Jasper is on a lot of things in Georgia.

We have Jasper County.

We have the town of Jasper in Pickens County.

- And it's not just in Georgia.

Throughout the South, you'll find places peppered with the name Jasper, and it's all an homage to William Jasper, a South Carolinian.

- [Kelly] Jasper was a soldier in the American Revolution, and his story starts in South Carolina.

- [Orlando] And his story isn't the story of a big general, somebody who stood in front (soldiers rallying) and led men.

(horse grunts) He was just an ordinary soldier.

- [Kelly] And on June 28th, 1776, Jasper first makes his way into revolutionary lore at the Battle of Fort Sullivan.

- [Orlando] Now, strategically, Fort Sullivan is key to Charleston, and at this time, the British are in a full-blown assault.

- [Kelly] And the Patriots don't have nearly the firepower that the British do.

Research suggests that the British were firing about 50 shots for every one from the Patriot side.

- [Orlando] So the Patriots, they're gonna have to conserve their shots.

Not only that, they have to vigorously defend Fort Sullivan from British naval forces.

- [Kelly] And it's during all (cannons booming) this gunfire when cannonballs are just raining down on the fort (wood crashing) that the fort's flagstaff falls near the water.

(pensive music) - You've probably heard before the whole idea that everyone has a moment when their life can change, when the opportunity presents itself, and you rise to the occasion and just deliver.

This is William Jasper's moment.

- Now, when the flagstaff falls, 26-year-old William Jasper (explosions booming) climbs over the walls, goes over to the other side, gets the flag, and picks it up.

Now, Jasper gets down there and he finds some way to MacGyver this flag back onto a staff and get it up raised again.

Not only does the flag manage to fly again, amid all of this assault that the Patriots are enduring, the fort manages to be saved as well.

- [Kelly] This moment has been immortalized in a number of artist renditions, and it's also been immortalized in the witness accounts that we have of the battle from that time.

- [Orlando] "Sergeant Jasper, perceiving that the flag was shot away and had fallen without the fort, jumped from one of the embrasures, and brought it up through a heavy fire, fixed it upon a sponge-staff, and planted it upon the ramparts again.

Our flag once more waving in the air, revived the drooping spirits of our friends, and they continued looking on till night had closed the scene."

- After all that, William Jasper got his shine.

Governor Rutledge of South Carolina had given him a sword for his bravery and even offered a lieutenant's commission, but Jasper turned it down.

He said because he couldn't read or write that he didn't wanna be a burden to the more educated soldiers.

Instead, he's given what's called a roving commission.

- A roving commission means he's not tied to a regiment or a unit.

He's kind of operating independently.

And this is not uncommon during the American Revolution in the South.

Now, in Jasper's case, his job is about intelligence.

That's figuring out where the British are, how many of them there are.

- He's funneling information back to General Benjamin Lincoln, who is leading the Patriot forces at the second battle of Savannah.

During this roving commission, Jasper's in the town of Ebenezer just outside Savannah, and he meets a Mrs.

Jones, and she is absolutely distraught.

Her husband has just been captured by British forces.

- [Orlando] Now, her husband once had swore an allegiance to the British Crown, but he changed his mind, switched over to the Patriot cause, and that obviously made him a traitor in the eyes of the British.

- [Kelly] So here's Mrs.

Jones with a young child, desperate for help (Mrs.

Jones sobbing) and begs William Jasper to help get her husband free.

And Jasper is just struck with the humanity of all of this.

You have a prisoner of war, you have a wife and mother, you have the young child.

He is just pulled to all of this.

- [Maiya] A lot of what we know comes from the writings of M. L. Weems and his book, "The Life of General Francis Marion."

- [Orlando] According to the story, Jasper says to his friend, John Newton, quote, "I must rescue these poor prisoners, or die with them.

Otherwise, that woman and that child will haunt me to my grave."

- And like a lot of books about this period, the historical accuracy can be a little blurry.

And so as those prisoners are being led out of town, Jasper and his friend John Newton actually follow them, hanging back, out of sight.

(birds chirping) - [Kelly] Hiding in the woods, Jasper sees the group of prisoners.

Along them is Ms.

Jones, who is escorting her husband, and they're being led by British soldiers.

- [Orlando] Outside Savannah, there's a spring that's used by travelers for water, and this is where Jasper decides to make his move.

- [Kelly] In that moment, there's two muskets leaning against a tree, and this is when Jasper and Newton jump out of the woods, grab the muskets, and start firing upon the opposing soldiers.

Jasper and Newton then lead the entire group of prisoners across the Savannah River back into the city.

- [Orlando] Now, you can just imagine how Mrs.

Jones is feeling at this point.

She, according to what we know, calls Jasper and Newton her angel.

He has saved her husband.

She's just over the moon about it.

- That story, the bravery, the guts of William Jasper and his friend Newton, has almost become immortal in Georgia revolutionary folklore.

- When you look in the history books, William Jasper is not a name that you may actually find.

We often talk about these larger-than-life noble military figures and what they did for the revolution, but William Jasper's name is just that.

It's just a name, and there's no real legacy attached to it for most people, but when we talk about the American Revolution, stories like William Jasper's are the ones that really resonate.

I mean, you have a guy who can't read, who can't write.

He turned down a major promotion by South Carolina's Governor John Rutledge, but what he did is absolutely heroic.

He saved prisoners of war in a surprise ambush on the British, and that takes guts.

- [Orlando] Being the guy who, during the midst of battle, jumps over a wall and keeps the flag raised, that might seem minor, but it can change the course of a battle.

It helps the morale of the troops.

- After that incident at the spring, Jasper rejoined the Continental Army here in Savannah in the fall of 1779, just in time for one of the biggest moments in Georgia's revolutionary story, the Siege of Savannah and the attack at the Spring Hill redoubt.

- [Kelly] The attack at the Spring Hill redoubt was a huge event at the Siege of Savannah.

I mean, the British are way outnumbering the Patriots, but this is also when the Patriots had a big international coalition in their favor.

And that battle, for a number of reasons, did not go as planned, but that's a whole other episode.

The Patriots take a ton (horse neighs) of losses and are sadly defeated, and William Jasper was mortally wounded at the attack on Spring Hill.

- The valiant efforts of William Jasper will come to an end in Savannah at the battle that unfolded just a short distance from here.

But even as he was dying, Jasper's commitment to the fight for independence never wavered, and he made it clear in some of his final words.

- Jasper had come to terms with his death.

As he laid dying, he told General Marion, quote, "I've killed men in my time, major, but not in malice, but in what I thought was a just war in defense of my country.

And as I bear no malice against those I killed, neither do I bear any against those who have killed me.

And I heartily trust in God."

- The story of William Jasper is an exercise in the two ends of the revolution.

He raised that flag at that battle in Charleston.

And then at the second battle in Savannah, he's part of an attack that ends up as a horrific defeat and one that ultimately cost him his life.

And between those two ends, his story is one actually of valiant heroism because he's breaking prisoners of war free.

There's no shortage of stories to be told about Georgia and the revolution.

William Jasper's is just another one that jumps out at you.

It's one of those smaller, little granular events that, in aggregate, really lead up to how the Patriots were victorious.

(soft music) - Hero, soldier, patriot, they all apply, but William Jasper was also something else.

He was the cause, a walking embodiment of what we're talking about when we say the fight for American independence.

Not a decorated general, but a rank-and-file devoted fighter committed to country.

And in each of these moments was a portrait of bravery in a new America.

I'm Maiya May, and I'll see you at our next stop.

(screen whooshes) He was a key leader at one of Georgia's most important battles.

He was also a driving force in the war that took place on the Georgia frontier, and his death would make him a martyr.

(screen whooshes) This is "Marked!," a series that zooms in on Georgia and its backstory one historical marker at a time.

I'm Maiya May, and I'm here at Georgia historical marker 090-5 to tell you the story of a colonel in the remote Georgia backcountry, his death, and how it turned into a pursuit of vengeance that, according to some historians, ended not too far from here.

(dramatic classical music) (clock ticking) One of the things that makes history, and in our case, Georgia history, so interesting is sifting through what's known for sure and what's also a mix of uncertainty, a little bit of fact and a whole lot of, "It's hard to say for sure."

We've had some of that with our episode about Nancy Hart.

And ironically enough, this episode, the story of Colonel John Dooly and the Tory Pond is connected to Nancy Hart, too, and just like her, maybe even more so in this case, there's a lot of legend, maybe some myth, and plenty of uncertainty.

- To know what happened at Tory Pond, you first have to know the story of John Dooly, and if you wanna look him up, it's gonna take some work because he's not at the top of the pages in the history books.

Portraits and drawings are non-existent.

As far as we've determined, this is the only artistic interpretation of John Dooly, a 2022 painting by South Carolina artist Dale Watson.

And to help tell the story, we've also made one of our very own.

- He's one of those forgotten figures from the revolutionary era.

I'm not sure if I would call him a founder of the State of Georgia, but he was certainly involved all throughout early State of Georgia history.

- [Vanessa] He's originally a Virginian, and he moves south after his father picks up the family and heads to the Georgia backcountry.

- The backcountry was Wilkes County.

Today, it encompasses about 12, 10 counties.

Wilkes County was huge.

I mean, it stretched all the way from Augusta all the way beyond Elbert County into what became Hart and part of Madison.

It was massively huge, so I know he was from here.

He was part of the Wilkes County militia.

- By the time that Dooly is becoming an influence in the Georgia backcountry, he is with a lot of Virginians who have filtered their way down after the 1763 Proclamation Act looking for land.

- It was the ceded lands that Georgia had gotten when Wright was governor from the Muskogee and also from the Cherokee, and that was in 1773 and they just got it.

And then we had the revolution and that Georgia created Wilkes County out of it.

(tense music) - These were a group of people that the royal governor, James Wright, had no use for.

- He called those people the crackers, indicating that they were rough, they were uncouth, they didn't care about law.

They were constantly at war with the Native Americans.

- As far as James Wright was concerned, these people were breaking all kind of rules established by the British Crown.

The rules were meant to maintain peace between Indigenous Native Americans and the colonists, and John Dooly had a part in this.

But like a lot of the accounts in this era, you have to keep perspective on the words written at this time.

- Our first or second historian of Georgia, Hugh McCall, he was a major in the Revolutionary War, writes about the Revolutionary War in early Georgia, and he paints Dooly in very flattering terms.

He perpetuates the propaganda from the 1770s and 80s, and that's where most people get their information from because over the course of the 19th century and into the early 20th century, folks are just looking for, you know, brief character sketches, and whoever's writing that character sketch goes straight to the source, but that source is not terribly reliable.

- Georgia historian, Otis Ashmore, wrote of Dooly, quote- - [Dr.

Greg] "Of the many heroic men who illustrated that stormy period of the revolution in Georgia that 'tried men's souls' none deserves a more grateful remembrance by posterity than Colonel John Dooly."

- John Dooly also did a bit of flip-flopping, like a lot of people during the colonial period did.

He was a Patriot, yes, in every way possible, but that wasn't always the case.

- [Dr.

Greg] He started out as a Loyalist beginning of the war, and then was convinced to switch sides, as many people were convinced, you know, bullied, however you wanna say it.

The Revolutionary War in Georgia and South Carolina (icons popping) was a civil war from the very beginning.

- [Vanessa] Making the switch from Loyalist to Patriot isn't uncommon either.

It depends on your personal situation, your economics, your safety, all of those things.

- And in 1777, Thomas gets wrapped up in a clash with the Native Americans.

- [Dr.

Greg] John Dooly's brother, Thomas, is murdered in a skirmish with the Creek Indians.

- The fight is near the Oconee River, and it's over what some historians say are about stolen horses.

And along the river, Thomas Dooly is severely wounded and kind of abandoned by his own men, including the second-in-command who leaves Dooly to die.

- [Clay] John Dooly wanted to avenge his brother's death, and he really had it out for Native Americans, particularly the Muskogee.

- John Dooly, as I imagine any brother would, is near driven insane by this prospect of his brother dying at the hands of the Creek, and he wants to exact cold-blooded revenge.

The leaders in Georgia at the time, both moderate and fairly radical, don't really want him to pursue that path because it is going to create a situation that they may not be able to handle just yet, and so they try to prevent him from doing that.

- Later that year, Dooly manages to seize a group of Creek Indians, and before he can carry out his vengeance of Thomas's death, he's arrested.

He's tried in Savannah, and the court-martial is led by another familiar name in colonial history, Samuel Elbert.

And as a result of all of this, Dooly resigns his commission and becomes colonel of a militia in Wilkes County.

And in 1779, John Dooly goes on to lead that militia at Kettle Creek, serving alongside Andrew Pickens and Elijah Clark.

Kettle Creek was a really important battle in the revolution and in the Southern theater.

And more importantly, it was a huge victory for the Patriots.

- Dooly's work in Georgia isn't all leadership, victory, and popularity.

He made some enemies, plenty of them.

- He is arrogant.

He is ambitious.

Flexible with truth.

- Dooly also served as state's attorney.

He had a real thing for aggressively pursuing Loyalists and pushing for really strict legal punishments.

- One of the characteristics of the fighting in frontier Georgia is that the fights are smaller, they're more personal, and for men like Dooly, they can become a never-ending cycle of revenge.

- It is recrimination for recrimination.

Each side is exacting revenge for past wrongdoings, and there's not always an ideological reason behind it.

It's not patriotism versus loyalism.

It's, "You burnt my father's farm down.

Now I'm coming for you."

(fire crackling) And so Dooly finds himself as someone who's always acting the aggressor.

- And it's those recriminations and cycle of getting even that appear to be what ends Dooly's life.

(somber music) The legend is that John Dooly, in front of his wife and kids in his own home, was murdered by a band of Tories.

According to Hugh McCall's first "History of Georgia," a band of Tories under the clear direction of a man named Captain Corker break into John Dooly's log cabin home in the middle of the night.

(dark music) - He finds himself in harm's way in front of his family, and he is murdered.

Because of the successful Patriot propaganda, they are able to paint him as a martyr at the time of the revolution.

- John Dooly's death symbolizes what's going on in the rural frontier of Georgia.

He's been killed, and while the specifics are still unclear, this is a murder, and that kind of rises to a different level, even in the context of war.

- Patriot propagandists used John Dooly's death in front of his family, in front of his children.

They used the very loaded term murder in a time in which we're killing people left and right, honorably and dishonorably, including Dooly himself killing folks dishonorably and his enemies killing others dishonorably.

That's the nature of civil war.

- Like we told you at the top, what's legend and what's 100% raw truth in the Dooly story is difficult, but according to that legend, the Tories responsible for his death are marched to a nearby pond where, near the water, each of the men responsible is hanged.

- In the other part of the story that's long been told, with some of the men in this small band of Tories, (footsteps plodding) they were some of the sane men (poster rustles) that made their way to Nancy Hart's cabin.

(foreboding music) - [Clay] And the ones that did that, they paid for it (glass rattling) because they went and started messing with Nancy Hart, talked among themselves, saying what they did.

- And when you read some of the text written about John Dooly, a couple of things emerge.

He was a pretty abrasive guy.

- John Dooly is always someone who I've never thought much of, and that's 20th century, 21st century looking back 250 years, so it's hard to do that.

But you know, as you read and research more and more and more, there are people that you can admire, even if you understand who they are in whole.

And then there are people like John Dooly, who, to me, just comes across as a little bit sketchy.

I don't know if I would ever trust John Dooly if I lived in that time period.

I would go to battle with him, but I dunno if I would trust him.

He was a fighter.

He was able to avenge his brother's death.

He was able to lead Patriots to victory on the battlefield.

So he wasn't just this guy who is kind of breaking societal norms in terms of fighting in the backcountry against the Loyalists or seeking more recompense from the state government than he may have been due.

He is a guy that can bring you victory.

Not always, but nobody does.

(screen whooshes) - [Vanessa] Dooly and his death tell us a few things about the revolution, too.

This wasn't just a war (horse neighs) fought with big armies, cannons, and ships.

This was a hand-to-hand militia fight, too.

- The revolution made people do bad things to each other, like break into the home of John Dooly when he's eating in front of his family and wife and kill him.

You know, like what Nancy Hart did, hanging Loyalists when they catch him, and it's vice versa.

When the Loyalists got their hands on Patriots, they did the same kinda thing.

- And so, I imagine in every civil war throughout history, especially when it is militia groups fighting militia groups rather than the Continental Army versus the British army, initially, ideology is important, but in a civil war, there's no rhyme or reason.

It's just what it is.

- [Clay] Yeah, it was brutal up here.

It was a wide-open society.

Civilization had hardly crept up.

- John Dooly was a soldier.

He was a fighter in a bloody civil war.

And fighters in civil wars do bloody things for good or for bad in other contexts.

While we can look at John Dooly with a critical eye, there's no reason to disparage his character in toto, fully.

(soft music) - The death of John Dooly and the hanging of the men responsible is violent, and it also illustrates how this era in Georgia could often be an infinite cycle of vengeance, revenge, and the evening of scores.

The American Revolution wasn't just a world war.

Far from the coast and all the hot spots we all think of, the revolution in the backcountry was a regional conflict, too.

I'm Maiya May, and we'll see you at our next stop.

(screen whooshes) We've logged plenty of miles visiting these historical markers across our state, and our hope is that you found these select stories and these people and places as fascinating as we did, and that your understanding of Georgia's story is a little bit clearer.

I'm Maiya May.

Thanks for watching.

(dramatic classical music) (clock ticking) (dramatic classical music continues) (clock ticking) (soft enigmatic music)