In the predawn fog of February 27, 1776, battle-crazed Scots, like warrior clad berserks of old, shattered the night in a sudden roar. As many had done at Culloden, they charged with claymores (35-inch double-edged broadswords) and dirks. The Battle of Moore’s Creek Bridge, 18 miles northwest of Wilmington, North Carolina, had begun. Scot Tories, …
To call the fight there a battle would lend it a formality it did not possess. It was a clash of two armed mobs. Toward the end the fighting resembled an old-fashioned Pier 6 brawl between longshoremen and strikebreakers. Historian/Author John Buchanan The Battle of Ramsour’s Mill, also spelt Ramseur, and Ramsaur, for Derick Ramsaur, …
The Battle of Kettle Creek, February 14, 1779, was a partisan clash of arms between Loyalists and Patriot militias; approximately sixty-five miles northwest of Augusta and eight miles west of present-day Washington, Georgia. By 1778, the southern colonies of the American Revolution had become a battleground of partisan warfare. A bloody civil war had erupted …
An escape artist who slipped free of Patriot shackles a total of fourteen times, Loyalist Colonel David Fanning was a master of partisan warfare who became one of the most feared champions of the British cause. His dominance over North Carolina in 1781 led to the capture of the state capitol. This included Governor Butler …
February 24, 1781. Lt. Col. Henry “Light Horse Harry” Lee, Virginia patriot leader of cavalry and light infantry, rode before four hundred North Carolina loyalists. The militia, eager to join British Lt. General Charles Cornwallis’ army, had lined up for review. With Lee’s cavalry by his side, the Continental Army commander was enthusiastically greeted by …
We as a nation tend to picture confrontation as a battle between the forces of good and evil, righteous and immoral, virtuous and corrupt – enlightenment and the dark side. Whenever the word patriotism is mentioned, Americans immediately identify with and embrace the former. And if one were to question, or doubt such pure and …
Very little has been recorded about Benjamin ‘Daddy Ben’ Scott Mayes. He was an ‘outlandish’ (colloquial term for those born in Africa) who remained a slave until death. He made his mark on history during the American Revolution when he had accompanied his master, then Captain John Scott, to war. According to written accounts, Benjamin …