“A COMPLICATED SCENE OF DIFFICULTIES”: NORTH CAROLINA AND THE
REVOLUTIONARY SETTLEMENT, 1776-1789
Dissertation
Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for
the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate
School of The Ohio State University
By
John R. Maass, M.A.
The Ohio State University
2007
Dissertation Committee:
Approved by
John L. Brooke, Adviser
Professor Alan Gallay
Professor C. Mark Grimsley
Professor Robert M. Calhoon
_______________________
Adviser
History Graduate Program
ABSTRACT
From 1775 to 1783, North Carolina experienced significant challenges and
disorders during the course of the Revolutionary War, which profoundly shaped the
postwar rebuilding process in the state. Revolutionary North Carolinians were forced to
deal with significant problems during the war, particularly that of disaffection within the
state. Additionally, financially strapped authorities had to mobilize Continental
regiments and field an effective militia force. These were challenges the state was unable
to meet adequately during the war. British military successes after 1778 were
devastating, taxed North Carolina’s mobilization and logistical capabilities, and
intensified Tory hostilities. Moreover, the state had to adopt two invasive expedients to
wage war—impressment and the draft—which alienated much of its citizenry and added
to the prevalent chaos. The Revolutionary years left North Carolina in a state of physical,
financial, social and political disorder by 1783.
The war came to influence how Carolinians reconstructed their state throughout
the 1780s. The significant level of disaffection within the state ensured that the last few
years of the conflict and its aftermath were characterized by retribution and punishment
against the loyalists, including banishment and property confiscation. This spirit of
revenge led the state to refuse to abide by the terms of the Treaty of Paris in 1783, so that
property confiscation and prevention of British debt collection could continue unabated
ii
until 1787. The failure to abide by the terms of the treaty strongly suggests a localist
outlook, which characterized North Carolina for much of the 1780s. Most Carolinians
seem not to have regarded the federal government as necessary for their postwar
settlement, and held it in low regard. Adherence to a strong national union would mean
approval of the treaty terms and loss of the state’s financially valuable western lands.
Many Carolinians came to regard the Continental Congress, and later the Confederation
government, as weak and ineffective due to its wartime performance, and thus refused to
support North Carolina’s active allegiance to it. In fact, Carolinians ratified the Federal
Constitution in 1789, only after the state’s localist self interest was satisfied in terms of
land and loyalists.
iii
Dedicated to Molly, Eileen and Charlie
iv
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I wish to thank first and foremost my primary advisor, John L. Brooke, for his
unflagging support and enthusiasm for this project, and for the enormous amount of time
and energy he took reading drafts, offering suggestions, providing resources, and writing
letters of recommendation for much-needed financial support during the course of my
doctoral work.
I also wish to thank Robert M. Calhoon, who not only advised me during my
master’s degree work at University of North Carolina Greensboro, but provided valuable
ideas, encouragement, and financial support as a member of my dissertation committee,
and throughout my graduate work. I thank Mark Grimsley and Alan Gallay for serving
on my committee as well, and for their time, insights and advice on my final draft. Chris
Aldridge of the OSU Goldberg Program was both patient and helpful with technical
details preparing the draft, for which I am most grateful.
During my research and writing, I was fortunate to receive generous financial
support. I am indebted to the Society of the Cincinnati for awarding me their first TyreeLamb Research Fellowship in 2007; to the Ohio State University History Department for
summer research funds in 2005; and to the Ohio State University for several research and
travel grants including an Alumni Grant for Graduate Research and Scholarship, a
College of Humanities Small Research Grant, and a Council of Graduate Students Ray
v
Travel Grant. Most importantly, I am grateful for a 2007 University Presidential
Fellowship, which has been invaluable in allowing me to complete my research and
writing.
Finally, my family and friends have been unhesitatingly supportive of my efforts
to pursue graduate studies since 1999, and I could not have completed my degree without
them. I am especially thankful for the innumerable acts of kindness and generosity of
Kathleen Young, John Young, Sr., Winn Legerton, Bill Young, John Young, Jr., and
Amanda Young. But most of all, I thank my wife Molly Young Maass for taking the leap
in the dark with me.
vi
VITA
October 23, 1965…………………………Born, Long Island, NY
1987………………………………………B.A., Washington and Lee University
2002………………………………………M.A., Univ. of North Carolina Greensboro
20025-present…………………………….Graduate Associate, Ohio State University
PUBLICATIONS
Research Publication
1.
“A Spirit of Disobedience: Scotch-Irish Disaffection in the Revolutionary War,
1780-1781,” Journal of Scotch-Irish Studies, vol. 2, no. 1, (Fall 2004).
2.
"'This Dangerous Fire': Nathanael Greene, Thomas Jefferson, and the Challenge
of the Virginia Militia, 1780-1781," Proceedings of the Ohio Academy of History, 2004.
3.
“All this Poor Province Could Do: North Carolina and the Seven Years War,
1757-1762,” The North Carolina Historical Review, January 2002.
4.
“That Unhappy Affair:” Horatio Gates and the Battle of Camden. Camden, SC:
Kershaw County Historical Society, 2001.
5.
"To Disturb the Assembly: Tarleton's Charlottesville Raid and the British
Invasion of Virginia, 1781,” Virginia Cavalcade, Autumn 2000.
FIELDS OF STUDY
Major Field: Early United States History
vii
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Abstract…………………………………………………………………………………....ii
Dedication………………………………………………………………………………...iv
Acknowledgements………………………………………………………………………..v
Vita………………………………………………………………………………………vii
List of Tables……………………………………………………………………..……….x
List of Maps…………………………………………………………………….………..xii
Chapters:
Introduction………………………………………………………………………………..1
1.
“Determined to Die or Be Free”: Establishing a State…………………………...25
2.
A “Distressed and Defenseless State”: Mobilizing for War……………………..52
3.
“A Very Dismal Picture Indeed”: North Carolina’s Financial and Logistical
Challenges………………………………………………………………………..77
4.
“That Internal War”: Disaffection and the Tory Problem…………………...…137
5.
“A Feint Resemblance to a Military Force”: North Carolina’s Revolutionary
Militia…………………………………………………………...………………211
6.
“A Country on the Verge of Ruin”: Impressment and the Draft……………….278
7.
“To Wear a New Appearance”: From Chaos to Civil Order……………..…….316
8.
An “Extreme Violent Spirit”: War, Peace and the Politics of Enmity………….348
9.
“From Principles of Humanity and Virtue”: Moderation and the Revolutionary
Settlement………………………………………………………...…………….426
10.
“The Blessings of Peace”: North Carolina’s Internal Revolutionary
Settlement…………………………………………………………...………….475
11.
North Carolina and the New Nation……………………………………………528
viii
Conclusion………………………………………………………………………….…..584
Bibliography…………………………………………………………………...……….594
ix
LIST OF TABLES
Table
Page
4.1:
Vote to exonerate Whigs of wartime crimes, 1786……………………………..192
4.2:
Vote to exonerate Whigs of wartime crimes, 1779……………………………..193
8.1:
Regions and vote on banishment…….……………...………………………….389
8.2:
Disaffection and vote on banishment, 1786…………………………………….390
8.3:
Military Service and vote on banishment, 1786………………………………..391
8.4:
House vote on confiscated property, 1786……………………………………...394
10.1: Senate vote to emit paper currency, 1785………………………………………505
10.2: Military service influence on House vote to emit paper currency, 1785…….…506
10.3: Regionalism and House vote to emit paper currency, 1785……………………507
10.4: House vote to cede western lands to Congress, April 1784…………………….512
10.5: House vote and sectionalism on western lands to Congress, April 1784………513
10.6: Disaffection and House vote to rescind western land cession, Oct. 1784……...514
10.7: Sectionalism and House vote to rescind western land cession, Oct. 1784……..515
10.8: Senate vote to rescind western land cession to Congress, Oct. 1784…………..516
10.9: House bill to secure the purchase of confiscated property, 1786………………522
10.10: House resolution favoring banishment of Tories, 1786………………………...523
10.11: Military service and House vote ceding western land, 1784……………………523
x
10.12: Senate membership and military service, 1777-1789…………………………..525
10.13: House membership and military service, 1777-1789…………………………..526
11.1: Regional voting on bill to repeal laws inconsistent with Treaty of 1783………534
11.2: Disaffection and House bill to repeal laws inconsistent with Treaty, 1783…….535
11.3: Disaffection and House vote on confiscated property, 1786…………………...542
11.4: Pro-banishment vote to support state Justices, 1786…………………………...545
11.5: Regional support for Federal Constitution, 1788……………………………….551
11.6: Disaffection and support for the Constitution, 1788……………………………552
11-7: Military service and support for the Constitution, 1788………………………..553
11.8: Military service and support for the Constitution, 1789………………………..555
11.9: Disaffection and support for the Constitution, 1789……………………………556
11.10: Regional support and opposition to the Constitution, 1789…………………….557
11.11: House vote to cede western lands to the United States, 1789…………………..558
xi
LIST OF MAPS
Maps
Page
11.1
North Carolina regions………………………………………………………….582
11.2
North Carolina disaffection…………………………………………….....…….583
xii
INTRODUCTION
Between 1776 and 1782, North Carolina suffered through a brutal civil war
between pro-British Tories and American Whigs; a devastating British invasion in 1781;
hostile relations with its Native American neighbors; the occupation of its most important
seaport, and a campaign by Patriot forces under the leadership of Major General
Nathanael Greene to prevent the British from conquering the south. In many counties
across the state, the destruction from the conflict was severe in terms of homes burned,
farms destroyed, property lost or confiscated, soldiers killed, and civilians attacked.
Evidence presented in the chapters to follow shows a society and its institutions disrupted
or destroyed by the fighting, and by the state’s attempts to wage war and defend its
citizens. Yet within a few short years, at least by 1789, the state had largely been
restored to order and stability.
This study is not a traditional “campaigns and commanders” style of analysis of
the role of North Carolina and the Revolutionary War in which a strict adherence to a
chronological narrative is observed. Nor is it what military historians refer to as an
operational history, in which the movements of troops and a description of tactics makes
up an integral, perhaps primary, part of the scholarship. Rather, it is an analysis of how
the state waged war, the difficulties therein, and the process of reconstructing the ravages
1
of the struggle during the 1780s, and is also looks at how the war affected the state across
its various and different regions. This dissertation attempts to reveal how the newly
independent state progressed from chaos and devastation to peace within a remarkably
brief span of time. This process of reconstruction and state formation in North Carolina is
what historians of early America have come to call the "revolutionary settlement."1
During this time period, Carolinians were able to rebuild damaged institutions, stabilize
their unsound financial state of affairs, reduce if not eliminate their dangerous internal
foes, and resolve a host of postwar issues with the other states affiliated under the
Confederation government initiated during the war.
The first part of this study concerns the state and the war itself, from 1775 to
1783. During this period, North Carolina faced a traditional military contest between
regular armies in the field, as well as an internecine struggle between Whigs and Tories
marked by plundering, property destruction, violence and murder. This struggle was
mutually destructive, ruinous and often fatal to both sides. These concurrent conflicts
created great difficulties for military and civilian leaders in their efforts to establish
political and social legitimacy for the cause of independence through the restoration of
1
There have been a number of studies of revolutionary settlements in other states. Theses include Richard
Buel, Jr., Dear Liberty: Connecticut's Mobilization for the Revolutionary War (Middletown, CT: Wesleyan
University Press, 1980); Jerome J. Nadelhaft, The Disorders of War: the Revolution in South Carolina
(Orono, ME: University of Maine at Orono Press, 1981); Edward Countryman, A People in Revolution: the
American Revolution and Political Society in New York, 1760-1790 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University
Press, 1981); Robert M. Weir "The Last of American Freemen": Studies in the Political Culture of the
Colonial and Revolutionary South (Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 1986); Rachel N. Klein,
Unification of a Slave State: the Rise of the Planter Class in the South Carolina Backcountry, 1760-1808
(Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1990); Alan Taylor, Liberty Men and Great Proprietors:
the Revolutionary Settlement on the Maine Frontier, 1760-1820 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina
Press, 1990); James Haw, John & Edward Rutledge of South Carolina (Athens: University of Georgia
Press, 1997); and Alan Taylor The Divided Ground: Indians, Settlers and the Northern Borderland of the
American Revolution (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2006).
2
order and stability. Yet Revolutionary leaders realized that the only way to establish this
vital stability was through military victory, upon which they had to rely on the very
unstable state for men, money and materiel during the entire war.
The second part of this inquiry concerns the postwar period, through 1789.
Although the cause of American independence was ultimately successful, military victory
did not result in the immediate establishment of order and harmony in North Carolina.
The state was faced with numerous potentially divisive issues once the fighting was over:
collection of debts owed to Englishmen, the court system, currency matters, markets for
the state’s trade, and the disposition of the state’s western lands. A separatist movement
in the North Carolina’s far western counties pitted frontier settlers against eastern land
owners in a conflict reminiscent of the issues of the pre-war Regulation period. The
status of the Whigs’ former enemies—and their property—was perhaps the most
important issue to face Carolinians once the shooting ended. The state also contended
with the new Federal Constitution, which it initially declined to accept in 1788.
By analyzing a variety of sources from different social and political perspectives,
this work examines how the Revolutionary War structured the political process at the
state, county, and neighborhood levels. It examines not only the formal politics of the
legislature, and the legal transactions of the courthouse, but also the routines of post-war
life, and the informal politics of local communities. In sum, this study seeks to explain
not only how peace was restored, but also how a new state was created out of chaos, from
what had been a cluster of warring factions and interests. By looking at the transition in a
southern state from the beginning of the Revolutionary War to the adoption of the United
States Constitution, I attempt to shed light on how people ravaged by conflict and internal
3
turmoil go about bringing order and stability to their lives and society. One can also see
that violent animosities created in wartime caused “stumbling blocks” in the process of
peaceful settlement because of resentment and bitterness among the formerly warring
parties.
The initial stage of the war for North Carolina was marked by two significant
processes or events, detailed in Chapter 1. One was the establishment of state institutions
and a constitution, as the new state emerged and left its troubled colonial past behind.
From 1775 until the end of 1776, Carolinians moved from a decentralized system of
authority in which county committees tried to deal with war preparations and maintaining
order, to several broad-based provincial Congresses, the last of which met in November
1776 and adopted a new state constitution and a “Declaration of Rights.” These early
efforts at state building, however, were not marked by tranquility. North Carolina
patriots faced an implacable royal governor, bent on suppressing the American rebels at
every turn in 1775 and 1776. More importantly, this period also brought to light one of
the state’s foremost challenges of the entire revolutionary period: the widespread problem
of loyalists (or Tories) living within the state. This internal dissent, a lasting problem
even into the postwar years, was strong enough in early 1776 that Tories and state forces
clashed in open battle. Although those fighting for independence could congratulate
themselves on an initial battlefield victory, the uprising of loyalists signaled to North
Carolinians the danger of violent enemies within their midst, who as it turned out, were a
persistent menace to the stability of and order in the state.
Beyond the serious issue of internal enemies and creating the structures of a new
political state, North Carolina faced numerous difficulties in the realm of what modern
4
soldiers would call mobilization. In chapters 2 and 3, this study demonstrates that North
Carolina faced significant hurdles raising troops for its Continental Line of regulars, as
well as supplying and equipping them. Moreover, the state’s precarious financial
situation undermined these demanding logistical efforts for the entire war, and was a
consistent problem the state was never able to surmount. Everything from guns to
uniforms to provisions was either scarce or impossible to procure during the American
Revolution, and paying for these and numerous other military requirements was
persistently challenging. Recruiting for the state’s Continental battalions was never
successful, even during the first few years of the war. North Carolina’s efforts at raising
men and procuring the wherewithal to fight the war exposed a number of weighty
problems for the new state, including a poor financial condition, the inadequacy of
warlike materials, and the unwillingness to serve militarily in regular units on the part of
thousands of men. As the war progressed and demands became significantly more
pressing, these inadequacies led to great confusion and chaos within the state.
Perhaps nothing contributed to these wartime disorders more than the presence of
hostile Tories throughout the state. These disaffected citizens were men who either
opposed independence, fought the Whigs who supported the American cause in a brutal
conflict, or simply wished to be left alone by Carolina authorities and sit out the conflict.
This opposition became much more problematic once the British turned their attention to
the southern states later in the conflict. As this study shows, the disaffected element of
Carolina society posed a significant and lengthy problem for North Carolina authorities,
and greatly added to the chaos of the war. Barbarities affected thousands of Whigs and
Tories in the state, led to disorders and mayhem within society, and challenged the
5
legitimacy of the state due to its inability to effectively combat the opposition until very
late in the struggle. While earlier historians have written about disaffection in North
Carolina during the Revolutionary period, the problem was much more widespread and
of longer duration than has been previously depicted.
In order to combat British and Tory forces, rebellious Carolinians had to rely on
their state militia forces to defend its borders and quell internal dissent. Chapter 5 looks
at the state’s militia. During the Revolutionary War this institution was plagued with
numerous difficulties, perhaps more so off the field of battle than on it. With some
exceptions, militia troops were generally unreliable on the battlefield when deployed
conventionally by army commanders, especially in set-piece battles against well-trained
and armed British, Hessian, or Provincial battalions. These men were also unwilling to
serve for long periods of time, or far from their home. They resisted service when their
families were threatened, and often times were supported by their officers in doing so.
Many deserted quickly, and could not be brought to the armies’ camps in sufficient
numbers or for adequate time periods to be of much service in traditional military
campaigning. These militiamen were better suited to battling the Tories within the state
in irregular, or partisan warfare. This kind of service, however, often led to brutalities
and a type of service that could be controlled by regular military officers only with great
difficulty, and sometimes not at all. This chapter looks at the practicalities and
difficulties of waging war with this particular type of force, and how it added to the
state’s wartime woes and confusion. Militiamen engaged in an often savage conflict with
loyalists, one that contributed to the disorders of the war, as did the confused way the
state mobilized them for their tours—if in fact they could get men to serve at all. In
6
North Carolina, militia service was resisted and ineffective to a large extent because of
the prevalent localism of many Carolinians, who could only be prevailed upon to serve if
they perceived—or authorities could convince them—that their homes, families, or
communities were threatened.
As the war dragged on, and as it came close to home for North Carolinians by
early 1780, the turmoil and disorder within the state became notably more pronounced.
The pressing need for soldiers (in both Continental battalions and militia companies) and
for the materials needed to arm and supply them was so acute by the time the redcoats
invaded the south that North Carolina’s leaders had to rely much more unhesitatingly and
urgently on two expedients to avoid ruin. As Chapter 6 details, in order to get more men
in the ranks, state officials employed the draft to procure the unwilling to bear arms,
while the onerous expedient of impressment became widespread to acquire food, arms,
horses, fodder, and all sorts of other military needs. This study argues that impressment
and the draft as carried out during the war alienated a sizeable part of the citizenry and
contributed significantly to the prevalent chaos within the state during the war. That the
state was disordered by the early 1780s was obvious. All across the state, bridges, mills,
houses and barns lay in ashes, while the most important civil institutions—the state
legislature and the county courts—had often been disrupted or dispersed. While the
Whig versus Tory war raged in many locations, marauders roamed vast regions bent on
plunder or arson. In short, this war and how it was waged created confusion and
disruption on an unprecedented state-wide scale, and illuminated for all its inhabitants to
see how ineffective the state was in combating it.
7
Although the war was marked at times by trauma and brutality, by the beginning
of 1783, military hostilities had largely come to an end. No British troops remained in
the south, and for the most part the Tory threat had been subdued. Chapters 7 and 8
reveal that what faced exhausted Carolinians at that point, however, was the enormous
task of rebuilding their embryonic state, bringing order and stability to its institutions and
social fabric, and coming to some resolution regarding the Tories in the postwar years.
Surely because the character of the hostilities between Whigs and loyalists had been so
bitter, the first few postwar years were dominated by what one observer called an
“extreme violent spirit” by the Whigs against their defeated neighbors who had opposed
them during the revolutionary struggle. The state was dominated by what may be called
“the politics of enmity,” that is to say, a vindictiveness of many Carolinians toward
former Tories or the disaffected, and the expedients used to punish them. North
Carolina’s policies of revenge led to persecution of loyalists, banishment from the state,
denial of basic rights and privileges, and in a number of cases during wartime, execution
for treason or barbarities Tories committed against Whigs. In addition to these measures,
North Carolina relied most heavily on the expedient of property confiscation as a
measure not only punitive in nature, but to finance the war’s costs and to reduce its
enormous debts once the fighting had stopped. Confiscation was not universally praised
as a policy by any means. Nevertheless, the state adopted a number of provisions during
and after the war that seized the property, land and debts of those deemed loyalists, and
sold them for the benefit of the state.
And yet despite widespread support for punitive, and in some cases, vengeful
actions against the Tories in the postwar years as the state struggled to bring order and
8
stability to its citizens, other North Carolinians sought to act “from Principles of
Humanity and Virtue.” This conciliatory movement, the subject of Chapter 9, was one
based upon moderation in terms of how the disaffected should be treated. These men
believed that the path to legitimacy and an end to the bitter animosities of the war years
lay in reconciliation and leniency for all but the most “obnoxious” Tories. These men
advocated lenient measures, including an end to confiscation and banishment. Others
conceded that contrite Tories could regain their citizenship by serving in the army, while
in some cases pardons and clemency were given to loyalists by the governor or the
assembly on a case by case basis.
This tension between enmity and conciliation that came to inform postwar
Carolina politics was part of the rebuilding process of the shattered state, what can be
called the “Revolutionary Settlement,” the subject of the last two chapters. This final
chapter focuses on the physical rebuilding process, efforts to get the state’s currency
issues under control, indemnification for those Whigs who committed outrages during the
war, public relief efforts, and the establishment of civil order. These several
developments began to end the disorders caused by the war, shored up battered
institutions, and served to put the hostilities of the war years in the past, at least for those
who supported the victorious Patriots.
Yet for all of these efforts at reconstruction within its own borders, North
Carolina initially showed little inclination to become part of a broader political entity.
Many Americans emerged from the war with the heightened sense that cooperation and
unity among the states would best serve the fledgling nation in a postwar world in which
Britain was still very much regarded as a powerful enemy, and in which enormous debts
9
were still owed by the American government. North Carolina was to a large extent not so
inclined. The state guarded its western lands in order to stabilize its finances, rather than
vest ownership of them in the Confederation government. Even more importantly, many
Carolinians (thought certainly not all) were reluctant to abide by the conclusive 1783
Treaty of Paris, in that the provisions of this diplomatic accord would have prevented
further loyalist property confiscations and allowed British creditors to seek payment of
prewar debts. By refusing to accept the treaty’s terms, Carolinians allowed for the
continuance of a retributive policy. Finally, the state’s lack of interest in joining a
stronger federal union, later consolidated under the Federal Constitution, reflected not
only the insistence of a Bill of Rights, but also a powerful spirit of localism among its
inhabitants. Carolinians appear to have looked upon the Confederation as an ineffective
and weak authority, and its performance during the war certainly did nothing to disprove
this impression. Thus, it is not surprising that membership in this union held little
attraction for a number of Carolinians during most of the 1780s.
Eventually, however, North Carolina did become part of the United States late in
1789, once it ratified the new Federal Constitution, which included a Bill of Rights. By
that time, the state had already declared the Treaty of Paris to be the law of the land, and
active confiscation of property and most other penalizing measures against the Tories had
come to an end. Western land issues had been previously resolved as well, although
hostilities with Native American neighbors in what is now Tennessee remained a real and
active concern for eastern officials and frontier inhabitants beyond the 1780s. While
certainly localist perspectives held by many Carolinians did not vanish, these sentiments
appear to have waned as the decade ended. Only when the spirit of vengeance against the
10
disaffected had receded and the benefits of federal union could be seen in a new
government stronger and more beneficial than that which had handled the war so ineptly
did the settlement of the revolution in North Carolina finally occur.
‫٭٭٭٭٭‬
On the eve of war, the colony of North Carolina had several important, longstanding civil, political and military institutions, all of which were significant in shaping
the conduct of the revolutionary struggle. Politically, the primary institution within the
province was the lower house of the legislature, the House of Commons. In the decades
leading up to Revolution, this body had become powerful and influential. Often, the
House clashed with royal governors over the crown’s prerogative, financial issues, the
structure of the colonial judiciary, and a host of other issues. Royal officials ignored the
power of the house at their own risk, although some governors, such as Arthur Dobbs
who served from 1754 to 1765, maintained reasonably amicable relations with the
Assembly during their tenures. Representation in the pre-war house heavily favored the
more established eastern counties of the state at the expense of the backcountry and
frontier region, and even within this regional divide, the Albemarle sound in the colony’s
northeast section sent more delegates to the Assembly than did other coastal areas. Once
the royal government was suspended in 1775, provincial congresses temporarily took the
place of the Assembly, and were far more representative of all sections. When the
Assembly began to meet again in 1777, this time under a new state constitution, the
state’s various sections were also represented on a fairly even basis, which gave that body
even more power and influence. This was especially true due to the limited powers the
new constitution gave to the office of state governor, which was significantly restricted.
11
Thus, through years of war and of reconstruction, the representative lower house
continued to be the most influential political force within the state.2
Most Carolinians during the colonial and revolutionary period, however, had far
more contact with their local quarterly courts than they did with their provincial
legislature, which usually met annually. The county courts were made up of justices of
the peace, met at pre-arranged sessions four times per year, and had wide-ranging powers
and responsibilities. Not only were civil and lesser criminal matters heard before the
magistrates, but so too were matters of property, wills, deeds, conveyances, and other
issues regarding the sale or transfer of land and estates. The court annually appointed
local officials, including the powerful sheriff, as well as lesser notables such as road work
supervisors, grand jury members, tax collectors, and guardians for orphans. Once the war
began, the quarterly courts assumed responsibility for community safety as well, in that
they administered loyalty oaths, oversaw the confiscation of loyalist property, and
referred treason cases to higher district courts. Because these courts were comprised of
local justices of the peace from within the counties, they had enormous local influence on
Carolina inhabitants on a frequent basis, and thus remained for them the arbiter of matters
of justice, civic duty, and upholder of the revolutionary movement.3 The county court
was, without doubt, the most immediate incarnation of legal authority for Carolinians,
who relied upon it for all manner of needs, particularly during the dangerous, disruptive
2
Roger Ekirch, “Poor Carolina”: Politics and Society in Colonial North Carolina, 1729-1776 (Chapel
Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1981); Robert L Gaynard, The Emergence of North Carolina’s
Revolutionary State Government (Raleigh: N.C. Division of Archives and History, 1978); Jack P. Greene,
The Quest for Power: The Lower Houses of Assembly in the Southern Royal Colonies, 1689-1776 (Chapel
Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1963); and John R. Maass, “All this Poor Province Could Do:
North Carolina and the Seven Years War, 1757-1762,” The North Carolina Historical Review 79 (January
2002): 50-89.
3
Paul M. NcCain, The County Court in North Carolina before 1750 (Durham: Duke Univ. Press, 1954).
12
years of the war, particularly with regard to disaffection and the Tory enemies of the
state. “In a word,” as one early Twentieth-century historian of the state concluded, “they
exercised all the powers of government in matters of local interest.” Thus the court
structure reinforced the sense of community and localism within North Carolina, rather
than state or federal prominence.4
In addition to the legislature and the county courts, the other important institution
within the colony (and later, the state) was the militia. As described in Chapter 5, this
institution was more than just the military arm of North Carolina. The militia was also
intended to keep the peace, to guard against slave insurrections, to quell dissent against
those who opposed independence, and to subdue dangerous Tory threats to the
community once the war broke out. Service in this corps also signaled one’s loyalties to
the community, for all neighbors and local officials to see. The militia was an ancient
institution within the state, although by the time of America’s conflict with Great Britain,
it had become to a large extent a loosely organized, ill-equipped, and poorly trained
force.5
Despite these long-standing institutions, which seem to indicate a growing
stability or maturity of provincial North Carolina, the colony was characterized by
several political disturbances in its past, the largest of which preceded the American
Revolution by only a handful of years. Beginning in the seventeenth century, Carolinians
4
Lefler and Newsome, North Carolina: The History of a Southern State, 153, 228, 307-309; Powell, North
Carolina Through Four Centuries, 59-60, Ekirch, Poor Carolina, 52; Samuel A. Ashe, History of North
Carolina, 2 Vols. (Raleigh: Edwards and Broughton, 1908-1925), 2:6.
5
Earl M Wheeler, “The Role of the North Carolina Militia in the Beginning of the American Revolution”
(Ph.D. dissertation, Tulane University, 1969).
13
had seen a number of instances of anti-authoritarianism, some of which were quite
disruptive and violent. Many of these conflicts were political battles between legislators,
all of whom lived in the colony, and those sent to preside over them, the various
proprietary and later royal governors, whose interests were often quite different. Prior to
1729, when the colony became a royal province, several proprietary governors were
jailed, deposed or banished by the legislature, which regarded them as unwanted outside
interlopers. Factional fighting between those who supported the proprietors and those
who opposed them led to the “Culpeper Rebellion” in 1677, in which Albemarle rebels
demanded relief from onerous customs duties, dissolved the government, and sought a
“free parliament.” A subsequent uprising against a London-appointed executive occurred
in 1690, in what became known as “Gibb’s Rebellion,” which in a year died down. After
several years of capable governors and quiet times, another “rebellion” arose over
opposition among many Carolina inhabitants to the efforts to establish the Anglican
Church in their province in the first decade of the eighteenth century. Armed forces
defied the governor and other officials in their ecclesiastical efforts in what was called
“Cary’s Rebellion.” Although this armed struggle collapsed quickly, it divided and
demoralized the colony, providing the Tuscarora Indians a golden opportunity to launch
devastating attacks against the struggling colony in a bloody war that ended in 1713.6
By the 1730s, North Carolina politics was characterized by increasing difficulties
between royal officials appointed in London and bent of upholding the prerogative of the
crown and the supremacy of parliament. The issues of land sales, taxes, the boundary
6
Lefler and Newsome, North Carolina: The History of a Southern State, 32-53, 58-66.
14
dispute with South Carolina, paper currency emissions, and the provincial judicial system
provided plenty of matters over which inhabitants and crown officials could—and did—
disagree. Riots in Anson County, the Granville District, and in the backcountry erupted
in the 1750s and 1760s over taxation, rents, and abuses committed by local officials. War
also exacerbated anti-authoritarianism among the populace, such that recruiting within
the colony for service during Britain’s several imperial struggles, especially the Seven
Years’ War, was always problematic. Additionally, colonial assemblies were typically
reluctant to provide men, provisions, or money with which to wage these wars. The
opposition to the Stamp Act in 1765 and other crown attempts at collection revenue in the
aftermath of the French and Indian War also placed many Carolinians in opposition to
metropolitan authorities, who were looked upon as political intruders. No doubt the most
extensive expression of dissent and anti-authoritarianism prior to the Revolution was the
Regulator movement of the late 1760s, in which primarily backcountry inhabitants
opposed crown officials and abusive provincial authorities (especially those of the courts
or rent collectors). This large scale popular uprising against authority culminated in a
pitched battle at in which the rebels were defeated in 1771, just four years prior to the
American Revolution.7
This long history of opposition to outside influences can thus be seen as
establishing a pattern within North Carolina of reinforcing a localist outlook, whereby
British authorities were regarded as interfering with institutions and customs within the
state. It seems likely too that this anti-authoritarianism not only fueled North Carolina
7
Lefler and Newsome, North Carolina: The History of a Southern State, 149-184; Maass, “All this Poor
Province Could Do,” 50-89; William S. Powell, The War of the Regulation and the Battle of Alamance,
May 16, 1771 (Raleigh: Department of Archives and History, 1965).
15
Patriots during the war, but may also have influenced the new state’s opposition to the
Confederation Congress and joining a more structured Federal Union until 1789 as well.
As the imperial crisis of the 1770s moved from protests, provincial congresses,
and trade embargoes to actual war, North Carolina in 1775 was anything but unified.
This was true in the sense that many of its inhabitants were disaffected from the
Revolutionary cause, and remained steadfastly loyal to Great Britain—at great personal
and financial cost. The province was also divided within itself geographically, in that it
was comprised of several distinct regions, each with separate histories and interests,
which were in many ways dissimilar. While many historians have studied the province’s
past and identified an east versus west sectionalism, North Carolina can also be seen as
having several sections, the representatives of which in the legislature tended to vote with
its own concerns in mind. A brief overview of these regions will assist the reader in
noting the variations within the state and the basis for the localism which came to
characterize the outlook of so many Carolinians during and after the war years.8
The Albemarle Sound, in the province’s northeastern corner, was the first area in
what became North Carolina to be settled, in the Seventeenth Century.9 For decades,
men of this part of the province dominated North Carolina’s government, in part because
of representational imbalance in the lower house that favored the Albemarle Sound. The
center of this region was the port of Edenton, established in the late 17th century, and
incorporated in 1722. In 1728, Edenton became the first official capital of North
8
Norman Risjord makes these distinctions too, though his subdivisions are slightly different than mine.
Risjord, Chesapeake Politics, 1781-1800 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1978).
9
This region consists of the counties of Bertie, Camden, Chowan, Currituck, Gates, Hertford, Pasquotank,
Perquimans, and Tyrrell, as well as the town of Edenton.
16
Carolina, and the cultural and economic capital as well. Much of the economy was based
on naval stores, West Indies provisions, and tobacco. Situated at the western end of the
sound, this small port was a busy hub for trade and shipping, and served much of the
northern part of the colony. Not an area of extreme wealth, the region was home to many
moderate estates with slaves and acreage. In part due to the wealth and power established
there from the earliest part of North Carolina’s history, by the 1770s it was very
conservative, trade oriented area with people having lots of contacts with England and
other international ports. Many of the loyalists who left the state rather than swear
allegiance to North Carolina were from this region, and as such, Albemarle leaders had a
more tolerant attitude toward these loyalists and their treatment during and after the war.
The town was also the site of the so-called “Edenton Tea Party” in 1775, in which local
women protested Parliamentary taxation, indicative that there was a good deal of Patriot
support there. This area had a long history of resistance to British trade laws dating to the
end of the 17th century. By the outbreak of the Revolution, then, leaders of this region
were moderate to conservative, and were part of what Jackson Turner Main described as
“cosmopolitans.”10
10
Hugh T. Lefler and William S. Powell, Colonial North Carolina: A History (New York: Charles
Scribner’s Sons, 1973), 43-55, 121-124, 267-268; Roger Ekirch, “Poor Carolina”: Politics and Society in
Colonial North Carolina, 1729-1776 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1981), 38-47, 8789; Lindley S. Butler, North Carolina and the Coming of the Revolution, 1763-1776 (Raleigh, 1976);
Risjord, Chesapeake Politics, 55-59; William S. Powell, North Carolina Through Four Centuries (Chapel
Hill, 1989); Jackson Turner Main, Political Parties before the Constitution (Chapel Hill: University of
North Carolina Press, 1973), 315; Alice Mathews, Society in Revolutionary North Carolina (Raleigh: North
Carolina Dept. of Cultural Resources, Division of Archives and History, 1976), 21-22; Lefler and
Newsome, North Carolina: The History of a Southern State (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina
Press, 1959), 47, 173-179; William S. Powell, North Carolina through Four Centuries (Chapel Hill:
University of North Carolina Press, 1989), 83-84; Jackson Turner Main, The Anti-federalists: Critics of the
Constitution, 1781-1788 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1961), 33-34; Richard Leffler,
“Political Parties in North Carolina before the Constitution, 1782-1787” (Ph.D. dissertation, University of
Wisconsin-Madison, 1994), 45-67.
17
Much like the Albemarle Sound, the area along the seaboard, which might be
termed the “coastal/ports” region, was primarily commercial in nature, based upon naval
stores and tobacco.11 This area was made up of many slave plantations, as well as several
of the colony’s key ports, some of which were founded in the early part of the eighteenth
century. These included Bath, New Bern, Brunswick, Beaufort, and Wilmington. Unlike
the Albemarle region, however, these seaports were of later establishment, and the area as
a whole did not come to rival its northern neighbor for political power until the 1750s.
There were few incidents along the seaboard of Tory insurrections or risings, again unlike
the Albemarle. From a political perspective, the center of power for this region for the
later colonial period was New Bern, since the last two royal governors of North Carolina
had taken up residence there, and was home to a number of prominent loyalists by the
1770s. As revolution broke out, however, most of the anti-parliamentary agitation and
confrontations occurred in Wilmington, chief port of the Lower Cape Fear counties, an
area of large slave based plantations. Despite British attacks on and occupation of this
port town during the conflict, Patriot sentiment ran high.12
Although these two regions of coastal plantations, inland sounds, and seaports
held most of the colony’s wealth, slaves, and political power, other areas of the province
were also growing rapidly and became distinctive by 1775. The Upper Cape Fear Valley
was a section in the interior above Wilmington, and included the lands drained by that
11
This area included New Bern, Wilmington, and the counties of Beaufort, Carteret, Craven, Hyde, Jones,
Onslow, Brunswick, and New Hanover.
12
Lefler and Powell, Colonial North Carolina, 95-96; Lefler and Newsome, North Carolina: The History
of a Southern State, 55-56; Mathews, Society in Revolutionary North Carolina, 13-20; Ekirch, “Poor
Carolina,” 38-47; Risjord, Chesapeake Politics, 60-61; Leffler, “Political Parties in North Carolina before
the Constitution,” 67-76.
18
river and its tributaries.13 This section, which reached well into the central part of the
state, was in part settled by thousands of Scottish Highlanders, who had emigrated in the
three decades before the American Revolution, and for the most part were loyal to the
British Crown. In addition, many of those who had actively participated in the quashed
North Carolina Regulation (in the late 1760s and early 1770s) were residents of the
counties on the far upper reaches of the Cape Fear River system, and were alienated from
the leaders of the revolutionary movement, who had opposed them. Members of these
two groups, particularly the Scots, rose up against the Patriots early in the war, and
although their insurrection was defeated at Moore’s Creek Bridge in 1776, many
remained bitterly opposed to the cause of American independence throughout the war. In
fact, no other region of the state was the home of so much Loyalism and disaffection.14
Moving west from the more settled, ordered and prosperous eastern region of
North Carolina, travelers in the 18th century would have entered an area that can be
termed the “Old Granville” district.15 This was the state’s first “backcountry,” an area
removed from the plantations and wharfs of the Albemarle region, and the wealth and
power associated there. Much of this land had been granted to one of the original
Carolina proprietors John Lord Carteret, later the Earl of Granville, who received a grant
13
This region consisted of Bladen, Chatham, Duplin, Cumberland, Robeson, and Sampson counties.
14
Lefler and Powell, Colonial North Carolina, 95-96, 121; Marjoleine Kars, Breaking Loose Together: The
Regulator Rebellion in Pre-revolutionary North Carolina (Chapel Hill : University of North Carolina
Press, 2002); Paul David Nelson, William Tryon and the Course of Empire: A Life in British Imperial
Service (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1990); Lefler and Newsome, North Carolina: The
History of a Southern State, 77-81; William S. Powell, North Carolina through Four Centuries, 93, 105106, 146; Roger Ekirch, “Poor Carolina,” 38-47; Risjord, Chesapeake Politics, 61-63; Leffler, “Political
Parties in North Carolina before the Constitution,” 92-114.
15
This area includes the counties of Dobbs, Edgecomb, Franklin, Granville, Halifax, Johnston, Martin,
Nash, Northampton, Pitt, Wake, Warren and Wayne.
19
to these lands in 1744. By the late 1750s, irregularities were common in this area with
regard to rents and titles, to the point that angry farmers rioted at Enfield, and many
supported the regulators at the end of the next decade. This was an agricultural region.
Halifax, the main town founded in 1760, was the site of several provincial congresses in
1776. Many of the recruits for the state’s Continental regiments came from this part of
North Carolina, although several loyalist uprisings occurred here as well. By the
outbreak of the Revolution, this district was no longer a primitive backcountry, having a
much-improved transportation network, and easier access to commercial and political
centers in the state.16
By 1775, the backcountry in part overlapped the Cape Fear Valley, and was an
area in the state for the most part reaching from the Haw River past the Yadkin to the
eastern slope of the Appalachians. This region had few sizeable towns other than
Salisbury and Hillsborough, was made up of small to moderate sized farms, and was to
an extent lacked convenient governmental institutions and cost efficient means of
transportation.17 Many backcountry folks had supported the Regulation, and continued to
nurse similar grievances by 1775. The backcountry saw the most explosive growth of
any region in the state by the end of the 1750s. By 1776 there were perhaps as many as
sixty thousand people there, 40 per cent of the colony’s population. These newcomers
16
Roger Ekirch, “Poor Carolina,” 128-132; Butler, North Carolina and the Coming of the Revolution
(Raleigh: North Carolina Dept. of Cultural Resources, Division of Archives and History, 1976), 3; Lefler
and Newsome, North Carolina: The History of a Southern State, 156-157, 182-183, 218-221; Powell,
North Carolina through Four Centuries, 85-86, 93-95, 149-150; Risjord, Chesapeake Politics, 56; Robert
L. Ganyard, “North Carolina During the American Revolution: The First Phase, 1774-1777” (Ph.D.
dissertation, Duke University, 1962), 33-35; Leffler, “Political Parties in North Carolina before the
Constitution,” 77-91.
17
The backcountry includes Anson, Caswell, Guilford, Iredell, Lincoln, Mecklenburg, Moore,
Montgomery, Orange, Randolph, Richmond, Rockingham, Rowan and Surry counties.
20
were Scotch-Irish, German Protestants, and Moravians, most of whom came from
Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Virginia, primarily due to the prospects of cheap, healthy
and fertile land. Although a number of the inhabitants were disaffected and many
became active Tories, for the most part the backcountry remained in control of the
Whigs, despite Cornwallis’ destructive invasion of 1781, which culminated in the battle
of Guilford Courthouse.18
The westernmost reaches of North Carolina in 1775, its “frontier region,”
possessed few white inhabitants who were remotely settled from the rest of the province
and from each other as well.19 Despite hostilities with Native Americans in the early
1760s during the last few years of the French and Indian War, less than a decade later a
small but growing trickle of white settlers had crossed North Carolina’s mountains or
followed the Watauga, Holston, Clinch and Powell rivers down from Virginia into the
valleys of what is now eastern Tennessee. These men, women and children who settled
along the rivers of the trans-Appalachian west were squatters on Cherokee land, since by
the Proclamation of 1763, Great Britain prohibited white settlement to the west of the
Appalachian ridge.20 This restriction was largely ignored. Pressure against the
Cherokees also came from the Transylvania Company, a group of real estate speculators
18
Robert Ramsey, Carolina Cradle: Settlement of the Northwest Carolina Frontier, 1747-1762 (Chapel
Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1964), 3-73; Butler, North Carolina and the Coming of the
Revolution, 3; Lefler and Newsome, North Carolina: The History of a Southern State, 81-88, 109-110;
Powell, North Carolina through Four Centuries, 108-111, 146-159; Roger Ekirch, “Poor Carolina,” 164202; Lefler and Powell, Colonial North Carolina: A History, 96-110; Risjord, Chesapeake Politics, 63-68;
Leffler, “Political Parties in North Carolina before the Constitution,” 115-144.
19
Frontier counties include Burke, Davidson, Tennessee, Rutherford, Sullivan, Washington, Wilkes,
Greene, Hawkins, and Sumner.
20
Max Dixon, The Wataugans (Nashville: Tennessee American Revolution Bicentennial Commission,
1976), 4-11; Colin G. Calloway, The Scratch of a Pen: 1763 and the Transformation of North America
(New York: Oxford, 2006), 92-100.
21
led by Judge Richard Henderson of North Carolina, who in March 1775 procured a large
grant of land from several Cherokee leaders in what is now Kentucky and Middle
Tennessee. Despite the acquiescence of some tribal leaders in the sale, British and
provincial officials recognized these encroachments on Indian lands as having the
potential to cause trouble, and warned settlers to vacate the lands unlawfully acquired.
These demands fell on deaf ears, prompting many Cherokees and other southern Indians
to side with the British during the years leading up to open imperial conflict. Mutual
distrust led to mounting alienation between natives and newcomers by the middle of the
1770s. While more settler families appeared in the forests to “conquer” the wilderness,
those to the east became more convinced of Cherokee collusion with the British, a
volatile situation which ultimately led to hostilities on the frontier. Thus, in 1775 and
much of 1776, tensions mounted between the encroaching whites and wary Native
Americans. Due to the remoteness of the region, however, Carolina’s limited resources
were rarely devoted to a large extent on frontier hostilities.21
To a large extent, then, North Carolina was made up of several regions, each with
its own interests, characteristics, and types of inhabitants. These were not sections
marked by rigid boundaries, but by fluid borders and with a significant degree of overlap
as far as their traits and wartime experiences. Yet this regionalism did mean that
Carolinians participated in the war and were affected by it at times in substantially
21
James H. O’Donnell, Southern Indians in the American Revolution (Knoxville: University of Tennessee
Press, 1973), 12-15, James H. O’Donnell, The Cherokees of North Carolina in the American Revolution
(Raleigh: North Carolina State University Graphics, 1976), 6-9; Thomas P. Abernathy, From Frontier to
Plantation in Tennessee (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1932), 24-25: Thomas P.
Abernathy, Western Lands and the American Revolution (New York: Russell and Russell, 1959), 123-126;
Hatley, The Dividing Paths, 216-218; Leffler, “Political Parties in North Carolina before the Constitution,”
144-166.
22
different ways, notably with regard to the level of disaffection present in each section.
Hostile Tories, an unwillingness to serve militarily for extended periods far from home,
and the significant economic distress on the “home front” also contributed to the inwardlooking localism so many Carolinians demonstrated during and after the war.
Despite these variations between the regions, however, all of them were ruled by
the same framework of governance, made up of institutions the established in the colonial
period. At the top of this structure was, of course, the governor. Yet unlike the royal
executives during colonial times, who were appointed by the British government and
wielded considerable powers, the state governor of North Carolina had limited authority,
particularly with regard to military matters, and held no veto over legislation. The state
magistrate was chose by the elected Assembly, which from the outset of the post-colonial
period, was the most dominant branch of government. Although the constitution allowed
for a governor’s council after 1776, this small body was an advisory group rather than an
upper house, as it had been prior to the outbreak of the Revolution. As noted above,
however, given that not all Carolinians could vote, and that the seat of state power for
many inhabitants lay hundreds of miles away in the eastern counties, the most important
governmental institution for the vast majority of the people during the colonial period and
for years thereafter was the county court, know as the court of common pleas and quarter
sessions.
With these governmental structures in place and with considerable sectional
variations did North Carolina wage war, defend its people and resources, quell internal
dissent and emerge from the chaos and destruction of war by 1783. The reconstructive
process that followed it, one in which the damage was repaired, state institutions were
23
created or restored; and in which citizenship was defined, was part of its eventual
revolutionary settlement.
24
CHAPTER 1
“DETERMINED TO DIE OR BE FREE”: ESTABLISHING A STATE
North Carolina’s move toward rebellion and statehood was a process marked by
protest, increasing tensions between Patriots and royal officials, and eventually armed
conflict by early 1776. Numerous acts of remonstrance were produced within the colony
by the first half of the 1770s over issues related to taxation, British high-handedness, and
the rights of Americans. Matters were not helped by the zeal of the royal governor,
former army officer Josiah Martin, a staunch supporter of the Crown’s prerogative, and
unafraid to make active efforts to quell what he determined to be a rising tide of rebellion
and independence. This stance led to more aggressive demonstrations by Whigs against
Martin and his loyal supporters, including the formation of the first of several Provincial
Councils, which began meeting in October 1775, to organize Patriotic opposition to
British policies and to defend the province. These Whigs recognized that loyalists
(commonly called Tories) within the colony were a major threat from the early stages of
the war. Rising political friction led to armed conflict in February 1776 at Moore’s
Creek, a brief but important battle in which Whigs defeated their loyalist foes.1
1
Josiah Martin to Lord George Germain, 21 March 1776, K. G. Davies, ed., Documents of the American
Revolution (Colonial Office Series), 21 vols. (Dublin: Irish University Press, 1976), 12:85, 89.
25
Although many historians have erroneously characterized the period after
Moore’s Creek as a “quiet time” in North Carolina lasting until a British invasion of the
south in December 1778, through the end of the provincial period in late 1776, the state
faced many challenges including a persistent Tory threat, establishing new civil
institutions, creating a constitution, and preparing for any number of military
contingencies. This initial state of revolution and how it played out in favor of the
Patriots contributed to a persistent over-reliance on militia, rather than regulars, and may
have bred overconfidence on the part of some Carolinians in the state’s ability to
mobilize for the struggle and sustain an effective war effort. They were quickly
disabused of this notion by the spring of 1777, at the latest. It appears too that in the
war’s first year some men in the state underestimated the intensity and potential duration
of the Tory threat. As they would see, for North Carolina the Revolutionary War was
primarily a bitter contest between Whigs and Tories, of which Moore’s Creek was just a
preview. By the end of 1776, Carolinians saw their first glimpse of the problem as a
large number of people who actively opposed the cause of independence. Yet amateur
soldiers won a significant battlefield victory and eliminated—for a time—the state’s first
major threat to its existence.
Of course, scenes of disorder were very much in the future for Carolina
revolutionaries for much of the 1770s. As the political conflict with Great Britain
intensified in the first half of the decade, many North Carolinians came to recognize a
need to organize themselves for the purposes of collective action and protest against what
they deemed as threats to their liberty from the British Parliament. Carolinians had
become “alarmed and dissatisfied” by the spring of 1774, over such issues as trade
26
regulation, provincial courts, and the Crown’s attempt to forbid within the colony the
practice of “foreign attachment” of property owned by debtors who had never lived in
North Carolina—a process unknown in common law.2 Others later complained of the
“diabolical Measures of a debauched Ministry,” taking care though not to slander the
King, George III.3 Leading men in the colony began to prepare for an extra-legal
congress to consider their plight, much as those of like minds in other British mainland
provinces were doing. The meeting of the colonial assembly in March 1774 was a
contentious one, and was dissolved by Governor Martin, who complained that the
legislators had “assumed to themselves a power unconstitutional, repugnant to the Laws,
and derogatory to the honor and good faith of this Province.” The call for a congress
within North Carolina came in July 1774 from a meeting of concerned citizens in
Wilmington, primarily for the purpose of electing delegates to the upcoming Continental
Congress in Philadelphia. Over the next several weeks, counties across the colony met to
select delegates to the provincial congress and to voice protests over Parliamentary
taxation, the closing of the port of Boston, and other grievances.4 The first Provincial
Congress of North Carolina that met at New Bern in August 1774, while professing
loyalty to the crown, opposed parliamentary taxation and supported the meeting of a
general congress of all the colonies to collectively address the worsening situation in
2
Samuel Johnston to William Hooper, 5 April 1774, William L. Saunders, ed., Colonial Records of North
Carolina, 10 vols. (Raleigh: P.M. Hale, 1886), 9:968 (herein cited as NCCR); Jack P. Greene, The Quest
for Power: The Lower Houses of Assembly in the Southern Royal Colonies, 1689-1776 (Chapel Hill:
University of North Carolina Press, 1963) 420-424; Taylor, H. Braughn, “The Foreign Attachment Law
and the Coming of the Revolution in North Carolina,” North Carolina Historical Review 52 (January
1975): 20-36; “The Garnishment of a Debt in the Process of Foreign Attachment,” Columbia Law Review,
Vol. 26, No. 5 (May, 1926), 605-613.
3
Proceedings of the Safety Committee of Rowan County, 15 July 1775, NCCR, 10:92.
4
Butler, Coming of the Revolution, 48-53.
27
America. Carolinians advocated the establishment of committees of safety for each
county, and supported commercial restrictions as well.5
Governor Martin became the focus of much opposition from those subjects within
the state at odds with the British Parliament. He had a high sensitivity to encroachments
upon what he considered to be the King’s prerogative, and a tendency to issue wordy,
acrimonious proclamations to the citizenry. Additionally, by showing considerable
sympathy to the complaints of the former insurgents in the western part of the state (the
Regulators), Martin did not endear himself to numerous Carolinians who later became
Patriot leaders, many of whom had fought and suppressed these insurgents just a few
years before.6
Martin was unable to prevent a second Provincial Congress from meeting in April
1775. This body selected delegates to the Second Continental Congress, scheduled to
meet in Philadelphia in May, and expressed support for measures taken by the First
5
Jeffrey J. Crow, A Chronicle of North Carolina during the American Revolution, 1763-1789 (Raleigh:
N.C. Division of Archives and History, 1975) 15; Butler, Coming of the Revolution, 54-55; Hugh F.
Rankin, North Carolina in the American Revolution (Raleigh: North Carolina Dept. of Cultural Resources,
Division of Archives and History, 1959), 5; Broadside, North Carolina Provincial Congress, [New Bern,
N.C.: Printed by James Davis, 1775].
6
Blackwell P. Robinson, The Five Royal Governors of North Carolina, 1729-1775 (Raleigh: The Carolina
Charter Tercentenary Commission, 1963), 63-74; John W. Raimo, Biographical Directory of American
Colonial and Revolutionary Governors, 1607-1789, (Westport, CT: Meckler Books, 1980), 304; John R.
Alden, The South in the Revolution: 1763-1789, Vol. III of The History of the South (Baton Rouge:
Louisiana State University Press, 1957), 162-163; Hugh F. Rankin, The North Carolina Continentals
(Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1971), 4. The so called War of the Regulation” pitted
primarily western North Carolina farmers and laborers against the “court rings” and eastern colonial
officials over matters of representation, rent collections, land titles, graft, and other forms of corruption
among civil officials in the late 1760s, culminating in the defeat of the Regulators at the battle of Alamance
Creek in 1771. For overviews, see Kars, Breaking Loose Together; Nelson, William Tryon and the Course
of Empire; William S. Powell, The War of the Regulation and the Battle of Alamance, May 16, 1771
(Raleigh: Department of Archives and History, 1965).
28
Continental Congress, particularly with regard to cooperation with other provinces.7
More portentously, the raising of six battalions of troops was approved, in addition to two
previously authorized by the last congress. These measures show that the province had
moved beyond just protest and was readying itself for potential violent conflict.8
The confrontation between the royal authority embodied by Josiah Martin and
Whig leaders quickly escalated. After a group of Patriots led by future state governor
Abner Nash marched on the Governor’s Palace at New Bern in May 1775 to protest
Martin’s removal of cannon from the palace’s yard, Martin decided that tensions at the
capital necessitated his flight to Fort Johnston, “a little wretched place,” on the Cape Fear
River below Wilmington, which he reached on June 2.9 Subsequently he issued a
strongly worded proclamation to the rebellious colonists, condemning their actions, but
by then his influence was minimal.10
7
Robert L. Gaynard, The Emergence of North Carolina’s Revolutionary State Government (Raleigh: N.C.
Division of Archives and History, 1978) 34-37; Crow, Chronicle, 19; Joseph Seawell Jones, A Defence of
the Revolutionary History of the State of North Carolina from the Aspersions of Mr. Jefferson (Raleigh:
Turner and Hughes, 1834) 157-158. While Jones’ history is highly colored with partisanship, he does
reproduce several relevant proclamations in toto.
8
Walter Clark, ed., The State Records of North Carolina, 15 vols. (Winston: M.I. & J. C. Stewart, 18951905), 11:290-291 (herein cited as NCSR).
9
Crow, Chronicle, 21; Butler, Coming of the Revolution, 58; Robinson, The Five Royal Governors of North
Carolina, 70; Lefler and Newsome, North Carolina: The History of a Southern State, 206; Vernon O.
Stumpf, Josiah Martin: the Last Royal Governor of North Carolina (Durham, N.C.: Carolina Academic
Press for the Kellenberger Historical Foundation), 128. The fort had been partially constructed during the
French and Indian War. Martin had already sent his family to New York by ship for their own protection by
the time he fled to this fort. See Gaynard, North Carolina’s Revolutionary State Government, 38, Martin to
The Earl of Dartmouth, 30 June 1775, NCCR, 10: 41. The Virginia-born Nash served as governor for one
term, 1780-1781, and died in 1786.
10
Proclamation of Josiah Martin, 16 June 1775, New Bern, N.C., printed by James Davis, New Bern, 1775.
29
With the breakdown of Royal authority, county committees assumed the locus of
political and legal authority, but avoided calling for independence.11 This was also a
period marked by violence and robbery against known and suspected Loyalists, , and
other modes of civil disturbances, all of which constituted a direct affront to royal
authority.12
By the summer of 1775, a significant portion of the colony’s inhabitants could no
longer be reconciled with the British government. By this time, Martin’s authority was
almost totally reduced, so that on August 20, 1775, the Third Provincial Congress
convened in Hillsborough, despite the governor’s denunciation.13 This body opposed
Parliamentary taxation without consent, and called on the people to “unite in defence of
American Liberty.”14 To provide an organizing structure for the colony, the delegates
created a “Provincial Council” for the entire province, and called for the organization of
ten thousand minutemen for defense.15 The congress divided the province into six
military districts, created two regular regiments “for the safety of the Colony,” and issued
its own currency to be backed by the collection of back taxes and future poll taxes.16
11
“Resolves of Committee,” Surry County, August 1775, N.C. State Archives. There is no reliable
evidence that Mecklenburg County declared itself independent of Great Britain in early May 1775, despite
the persistence of this myth. See Crow and Tise, eds., Writing North Carolina History, 51.
12
Robinson, Five Royal Governors, 70; Rankin, North Carolina in the American Revolution, 8; Stumpf,
Josiah Martin, 136-139; Earl M. Wheeler, “The Role of the North Carolina Militia in the Beginning of the
American Revolution” (Ph.D. dissertation, Tulane University, 1969), 55-90; Gaynard, North Carolina’s
Revolutionary State Government, 44. Martin’s report of the destruction of the fort is in his letter to The
Earl of Dartmouth, 20 July 1775, NCCR, 10:108-109.
13
Robinson, Five Royal Governors, 70-71, Crow, Chronicle, 24; Connor, History of North Carolina,
1:370-380; NCCR, 10:164-220.
14
NCCR, 10:174, 202.
15
Rankin, North Carolina in the American Revolution, 8-9, NCCR, 10:208-210.
30
While preparations for the colony’s defense continued throughout the colony
during the fall, the newly formed Provincial Council began meeting in October 1775, in
Johnston County. This body devoted itself to military preparations, early signs of
opposition to their cause within the province, cooperation with other colonies, and
matters related to defending North Carolina from anticipated British moves to suppress
the rebellion.
Military action was not long in coming, though the scene of the fighting was
beyond North Carolina’s borders. North Carolina’s militia assisted Virginia’s defense of
Norfolk,17 and a campaign against South Carolina loyalists during December 1775.18 At
the same time, British forces were not idle while the colonists rebelled. In the last
months of 1775, British planners arranged an expedition of troops and warships from the
home islands to the Carolinas, a campaign that because of poor coordination and contrary
winds, led to disaster for those loyal to the King in North Carolina. The culmination of
this early campaign was a complete victory for Patriot arms at the battle of Moore’s
Creek Bridge, a small, brief action fought on 27 February 1776, a day’s march north of
Wilmington. Approximately one thousand Loyalists, primarily Scottish Highlanders
16
Crow, Chronicle, 24-25, Butler, Coming of the Revolution, 61-62; NCCR, 10:186; Wayne E. Lee,
Crowds and Soldiers in Revolutionary North Carolina: the Culture of Violence in Riot and War
(Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2001), 147. For a detailed account of the organization of the
North Carolina militia during this period see Wheeler, “The Role of the North Carolina Militia,” passim,
and E. Milton Wheeler, “Development and Organization of the North Carolina Militia.” North Carolina
Historical Review 41 (July 1964): 307-323.
17
NCCR, 10:364; David K. Wilson, The Southern Strategy: Britain’s Conquest of South Carolina and
Georgia, 1775-1780 (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 2005),5-17; The Earl of Dunmore to
the Earl of Dartmouth, 6 December 1775, Documents of the American Revolution, 12:58-59.
18
NCCR, 10: 340; Hugh F. Rankin, The North Carolina Continentals (Chapel Hill: University of North
Carolina Press, 1971), 23; Martin to the Earl of Dartmouth, 12 January 1776, NCCR, 10:408; Connor,
History of North Carolina, 382.
31
from the Cross Creek area commanded by Lt. Col. Donald McLeod, fought the Whig
militia commanded by Colonel Richard Caswell with a slightly larger number of men in
his command. The Tories were routed, many of whom were taken prisoner by Whig
forces in the days and weeks after the engagement.19
Although the battle lasted only minutes and casualties were low, this engagement
had far reaching consequences, and can be seen as a watershed in North Carolina’s
revolutionary history. The campaign and the defeat of these Loyalists highlights a
number of significant issues that recurred within the province throughout the war,
including the difficulties British and American forces faced campaigning in the southern
provinces, the British reliance on Loyalist soldiers to take the field and fight for the King,
the importance of militia in the South, and the internecine character of conflict in North
Carolina that lasted well after the fighting ended at Yorktown in 1781. The Whig victory
also showed London officials the strength of the provincial forces, and while Tory
activities were certainly not eliminated after the action, they were dampened for some
time. The familiar details of the campaign need not be retold here, but an overview of the
events that led to the fighting at Moore’s Creek and its aftermath will illustrate the
practicalities of waging war and making peace in revolutionary North Carolina.
Since the spring of 1775, the majority of the political and military actions of the
American Rebellion occurred in the northern colonies. Nevertheless, a steady stream of
letters had been reaching London from Josiah Martin, still aboard a Royal Navy ship in
19
For the operational details of the campaign see David K. Wilson, The Southern Strategy, 19-35; Stumpf,
Josiah Martin, 151-168; Hugh F. Rankin, The Moores Creek Bridge Campaign, 1776 (Conshohocken, Pa.:
Eastern National Park and Monument Association, 1986), passim; and Lord Dartmouth to Thomas Gage,
15 April 1775, Clarence E. Carter, ed., The Correspondence of General Thomas Gage, 2 vols. (New
Haven: Yale University Press, 1931), 2:193, 195.
32
the Cape Fear River, who tried to persuade the King’s cabinet ministers to adopt active
operations in the southern provinces, namely, North Carolina. In what would become an
all too familiar refrain in the years to come, Martin advised his superior, the Earl of
Dartmouth, that adequate military support from British forces would prove immeasurably
valuable when coupled with what the governor assured Dartmouth was a sizeable number
of loyal Carolinians ready to assist in the suppression of the rebellion.20 Martin wrote
optimistically to the American Secretary from Ft. Johnston of his hopes of putting down
the rebellion in the colony primarily with Carolinians still attached to the crown,
particularly in the western part of the province, “where the People are in General well
affected.”21
Although Martin pleaded for arms and men, his plan to recover the southern
colonies was clearly based upon the expectation of using North Carolina loyalists to do
so. Many British officers and government officials throughout the conflict hoped to tap
loyalist strength. In November, Martin advised Dartmouth that “I am persuaded to
believe that loyal subjects yet abound in the Western Counties of this Province,” and “it
would appear that the spirit of opposition begins to droop and decline here and that some
20
Martin to The Earl of Dartmouth, 28 August 1775, NCCR, 10:233; Martin to The Earl of Dartmouth, 30
June 1775, NCCR, 10:43, 45-46; William B. Willcox, Portrait of a General: Sir Henry Clinton in the War
of Independence (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1964) 68. Lefler and Powell suggest that the British need
for naval stores—North Carolina’s chief pre-war export—may have been the “chief explanation” for their
plans to gain control over the province so early in the conflict. Lefler and Powell, Colonial North
Carolina, 163.
21
Martin to The Earl of Dartmouth, 30 June 1775, NCCR, 10:46-47; Martin to The Earl of Dartmouth, 16
October 1775, NCCR, 10:264-278. He asked for “Ten Thousand Stand of Arms at least with proper
Accoutrements…six light brass field pieces with all their atterail, and a good store of ammunition,” with
drums, colors and other military materiel. Martin also offered to raise a regiment of regulars in North
Carolina if he would be reinstated to his previously resigned rank of lieutenant-colonel, but was not so
obliged by the cabinet. See Dartmouth to Martin, 12 July 1775, NCCR, 10:90.
33
of the foremost promoters of sedition waver and seem ready to withdraw themselves
from the combinations they have taken so much pains to form.”22 He placed particular
reliance on former Regulators of the backcountry, who “have given me the strongest
assurances of their joining the King’s standard whenever they shall be called upon,”
though few were armed.23 In late January, Martin “raised the King’s standard,” in a
proclamation in which he commanded “all His Majesty’s faithful subjects…to repair to
the Royal standard.” Men rallied to the governor’s call in early February, but
unfortunately for Martin and the Loyalists who rose, their rising was premature.24
By September 1775, crown officials were convinced that an effort should be made
to subdue the south with a reliance on the numerous Scottish Highlanders who had settled
in the Cross Creek area.25 Troops and supplies from Boston and Ireland were to
rendezvous off Cape Fear in mid-February, under the overall command of Major General
Sir Henry Clinton. These forces were to join up with those Martin would call forth
within the colony.26 Storms, logistical difficulties and “bureaucratic bungling” prevented
the fleet from departing Ireland until February, and it did not reach North Carolina until
22
Martin to The Earl of Dartmouth, 12 November 1775, NCCR, 10:321-328.
23
Martin to The Earl of Dartmouth, 12 January 1776, NCCR, 10:406; Lord Dartmouth to Thomas Gage, 3
May 1775, Correspondence of Gage, 2:196; John Drayton, Memoirs of the American Revolution as
Relating to the State of South Carolina (New York: New York Times and Arno Press, 1969) 215-218.
24
“A Proclamation by Governor Martin,” 10 January 1776, NCCR, 10:396-397.
25
Paul H. Smith, Loyalists and Redcoats: A Study in British Revolutionary Policy (Chapel Hill: University
of North Carolina Press, 1964) 18-22.
26
Piers Mackesy, The War for America, 1775-1783 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1964), 43-45;
Alden, The South in the Revolution, 197-198; Don Cook, The Long Fuse: How England Lost the American
Colonies, 1760-1785 (New York: The Atlantic Monthly Press, 1995) 245-246; Hugh F. Rankin, “The
Moore's Creek Bridge Campaign, 1776.” North Carolina Historical Review 30 (January 1953), 23-60;
Robert M. Calhoon, The Loyalists in Revolutionary America, 1760-1781 (New York: Harcourt Brace
Jovanovich, 1973) 439-447.
34
early May.27 When Clinton arrived at Cape Fear with the forces from Boston in March
1776, he learned that the ships from Ireland were not there, and more disappointingly,
that North Carolina Patriot forces had soundly defeated the loyalists, who had heeded
Martin’s premature call to arms, and suffered defeat at Moore’s Creek Bridge two weeks
earlier. Without a credible force of Carolinians loyal to the King in the field, British
prospects for success were bleak. Clinton consequently sailed off with his entire
expedition on 31 May for Charleston, South Carolina, where his efforts were also
unsuccessful.28
With Martin militarily and politically impotent after the battle, Clinton made few
hostile moves upon reaching Cape Fear in March. On 1 June, Clinton’s entire expedition
along with Governor Martin set sail for Charleston, leaving North Carolina’s loyalists
unsupported. Captured Tories from the Moore’s Creek battle, along with those who had
not embodied, were either paroled, removed from the state or persecuted to varying
degrees, suffering imprisonment, destruction of property and physical assault. For those
27
Ira D. Gruber, “Britain’s Southern Strategy,” in W. Robert Higgins, ed., The Revolutionary War in the
South: Power, Conflict, and Leadership (Dunham: Duke University Press, 1979) 208-214; Smith, Loyalists
and Redcoats, 25; Rear Admiral Sir Peter Parker to Philip Stevens, 7 March 1776, Davies, Documents, 12:
74; Stumpf, Josiah Martin, 171.
28
Wilcox, Portrait of a General, 86-93; Mackesy, The War for America, 86; Wilson, The Southern
Strategy, 32-33; Alden, The South in the Revolution, 203-206; Pennsylvania Evening Post, 26 March 1776,
p. 147-149. Several accounts of the campaign from Loyalist officers can be found in Rassie Wicker,
Miscellaneous Ancient Records of Moore County, N.C. (Moore County Historical Association, 1971), 370373, 391-394, 397, 414. A detailed account of the campaign from the Patriot side is the letter of Brig. Gen.
James Moore to Cornelius Harnett, 2 March 1776, which is given in an appendix in William D. Cooke,
comp., Revolutionary History of North Carolina in Three Lectures (Raleigh: William D. Cooke, 1853),
218-220.
35
still adhering to the British crown, relief would be a long time in coming and only
temporary at that.29
There were some important lessons to be learned from the brief skirmish at
Moore’s Creek Bridge, although Carolina leaders may not have recognized them. The
campaign had not culminated in a battle between well-equipped, trained regulars on
either side. The loyalists who embodied at the call of Governor Martin were for the most
part recently arrived settlers from Scotland required by Martin to take an oath of loyalty
to the King as a condition for receiving land grants within the province. Very few of the
men who turned out in response to Martin’s proclamation of January 1776 were
experienced soldiers, none were uniformed, and many had no weapons.30 This Tory
force was opposed by Whig North Carolinians with a comparable lack of martial
familiarity. Most were untried militia troops and minutemen from the southeastern part
of the colony. Though Col. James Moore’s 1st North Carolina Regiment of Continental
troops was involved in the campaign (but not the fighting), it had only been raised the
29
Rankin, Moores Creek Bridge Campaign, 37-42; Gruber, “Britain’s Southern Strategy,” 215; Stumpf,
Josiah Martin, 172-173; Carole Watterson Troxler, The Loyalist Experience in North Carolina (Raleigh:
North Carolina Division of Archives and History, 1975), 7.
30
Wilson, The Southern Strategy, 22-24; Rankin, Moores Creek Bridge Campaign, 8-15; Rankin, North
Carolina in the American Revolution, 12-13; Robert O. DeMond, The Loyalists in North Carolina During
the Revolution (Durham, N.C., Duke University Press, 1940) 50-51, 90-91, 93; Lee, Crowds and Soldiers
in Revolutionary North Carolina, 208-209; Lefler and Newsome, North Carolina, 212-213; Powell, North
Carolina through Four Centuries, 106-108; John Hill Wheeler, Historical Sketches of North Carolina, 2
vols., (Philadelphia, 1856; reprint Baltimore: Regional Publishing Co., 1964), 2:127; Leffler, “Political
Parties in North Carolina Before the Constitution,” 96-98; Calloway, The Scratch of a Pen, 57-59.
Immigration from Scotland to the Cape Fear Valley began in 1739 and continued to the first several weeks
of 1776.
36
previous September, was not completely equipped, and had seen no military action prior
to battle.31
That the brief creek side engagement was a clash of amateurs, with little
discipline, training or experience, may have had some long-ranging and significant
consequences for North Carolina throughout the war. The fact that a force primarily
made up of militiamen commanded by untested officers won the first battle of the conflict
may have led the province’s leaders to conclude in 1776 that the defense of North
Carolina could be entrusted to citizen soldiers of the militia, rather than expensive, hardto-equip regular forces of the Continental Line. “The success of the militia,” writes Hugh
F. Rankin, the most prominent historian of the state’s Revolutionary military history, “in
this engagement so raised the estimates of the value of the occasional soldier that North
Carolina constantly failed to fill her quota for the Continental Line throughout the
remaining period of the Revolution.”32 It also seems to have given the militia a
reputation it would not live up to. Moreover, some state leaders consequently failed to
anticipate a lengthy, difficult contest ahead, as indicated by a newspaper account of the
battle at Moore’s Creek in which the writer concluded that the victory “will effectually
put a stop to Toryism in North Carolina.” Major General Charles Lee, the Continental
commander of the Southern Department for most of 1776, concluded that easy victories
won by inexperienced troops “may be fatal to us [for] we seem now all sunk into a most
31
Robert K. Wright, The Continental Army (Washington: U.S. Army Center of Military History, U.S.
Army, 1989) 299; Rankin, Moores Creek Bridge Campaign, 16-18; Wilson, The Southern Strategy, 24-30.
Wilson erroneously implies that at this stage of the conflict North Carolina’s Continental troops were of
higher quality than militia. Some of the Whig officers (including Caswell) had military service in the
Alamance Campaign if 1771 against the Regulators, but this was a brief experience.
32
Rankin, Moores Creek Bridge Campaign, 44.
37
secure and comfortable sleep.”33 Such overconfidence proved misplaced within the year.
As will be seen in subsequent chapters, North Carolina’s efforts to provide properly
uniformed, equipped and officered Continental regiments for the common defense of the
new nation were woefully inadequate throughout the war, while the state’s legislature
preferred deploying militiamen in the face of British invasions, Tory activity, and Indian
threats. The militia’s complete victory at Moore’s Creek Bridge, without the help of
regulars, suggests one of the reasons for this proclivity.
The February campaign also illustrates in another way what war would be like for
North Carolina until 1783. The contest within the state was primarily between Whigs
and Tories. Except for the invasion of the state by Lt. General Charles, Lord Cornwallis,
which began in earnest in January 1781, and the capture and occupation of Wilmington
by British forces under Major James Craig the same year, the war within the state was
almost exclusively one in which those espousing the cause of liberty fought their loyalist
neighbors. Most of the fighting during the struggle within the state involved militia units
or irregulars, men with little military training or experience, involved in an often bitter
struggle of escalating violence. These battles were often followed by plunder, murder,
and bitter counterattacks in a cycle of retributive barbarities that ended only when the
Whig side eventually prevailed.34 Finally, the fact that a number of Tories took up arms
on the King’s behalf in the winter of 1776 was a vivid reminder to the Whigs that there
33
George F. Scheer and Hugh F. Rankin, Rebels and Redcoats (New York: New American Library, 1957),
131-132; Lee’s quote is in Wright, The Continental Army, 76; Lefler and Newsome, North Carolina, 214.
34
Gregory De Van Massey, “The British Expedition to Wilmington, January-November 1781,” North
Carolina Historical Review, 66 (October 1989): 387-411; Wilson, The Southern Strategy, 65-80; Alden,
The South in the Revolution, 232-235. See Lee, Crowds and Soldiers in Revolutionary North Carolina,
regarding the nature of violence in the state between Tories and Whigs, and the cultural norms associated
with it.
38
was a sizeable number of people spread out over a large part of North Carolina
disaffected from the American cause, whose dangerous presence was the primary threat
to the establishment of independence and the creation of peace and stability in the new
state.
Without question, the Patriot victory at Moore’s Creek Bridge had a beneficial
effect for the Whigs beginning in 1776, in that the internal loyalist threat was temporarily
reduced and Clinton’s expedition consequently sailed away at the end of May. This was
crucial, for in the weeks and months after the February contest, Carolinians worked
strenuously to turn their colony into a state, to draft a new constitution, and to mobilize
their limited resources of men and materiel for defense. Had the loyalists won a victory
at Moore’s Creek, and then combined with British forces at Cape Fear thereafter, it is
doubtful the situation would have allowed for North Carolina to set up its nascent
government and military organization successfully. While it is an exaggeration to say, as
one recent historian does, that “the battle at Moore’s Creek Bridge established the
permanent ascendancy of Patriot military and political power in North Carolina,” the
battle did gain for the Whig leaders within the province at least a temporary upper hand
over those loyal to the crown.35
The period between Moore’s Creek and the British capture of Savannah (February
1776 to December 1778) has been misleadingly described by a number of prominent
historians as a respite from the revolutionary struggle, a “peaceful” time during which the
state was able to create a new government and to engage in military preparations
35
Wilson, The Southern Strategy, 33.
39
untouched by the hand of war or disturbances from loyalists.36 The major studies on the
state’s early history make similar inaccurate assertions.37 Several military histories of the
Revolution’s southern campaigns have characterized 1776 through 1778 in the Carolinas
in the same fashion, or have omitted these years as well.38
36
As historian Ira Gruber has written, “it would be more than two and one-half years before the British
returned in force to the southern colonies,” after Clinton and Cornwallis were defeated along with the
British naval forces at Charleston in June 1776. Not until British military officials shifted their attention
once more to the South in late 1778, at Savannah, did the Carolinas and Georgia begin again to face the
threat of British troops and warships. John R. Alden writes that after Moore’s Creek, “most of the North
Carolina Tories stayed at home for four years.” He continues by stating that once Clinton’s forces were
repulsed at Charleston in 1776, “the Southern patriots, relieved of pressure at home, chiefly devoted their
military efforts to the assistance of their northern brethren until the British returned in strength to the lower
South at the close of 1778. Thereafter they were required to defend their own homes.” Gruber, “Britain’s
Southern Strategy,” 215; Alden, The South in the Revolution, 198, 227.
37
In 1929, R. D. W. Connor published a four-volume history called North Carolina: Rebuilding an Ancient
Commonwealth, in which he stated categorically that “from 1776 to 1778 the southern colonies were free
from the enemy,” implying that the only enemy the state faced was an external one. Connor, North
Carolina: Rebuilding an Ancient Commonwealth, 4 vols. (Chicago and New York: The American
Historical Society, 1929), 1:347. Lefler and Newsome’s 1973 study, North Carolina: The History of a
Southern State, concludes that after Clinton’s 1776 expedition was repulsed at Charleston, “the tide of war
had turned away from North Carolina, and during the next four years the state was free from invasion from
without and insurrection from within.” Lefler and Newsome, North Carolina: The History of a Southern
State, 215. William S. Powell has written two histories of the state. In, North Carolina: A Bicentennial
History (1977) he argues that “after the departure of Cornwallis and Clinton in the spring of 1776, North
Carolina was free of the enemy, but her troops, both Continental and militia, were active elsewhere,”
describing the period for all the southern states as “years of relative freedom from military action.”
William S. Powell, North Carolina: A Bicentennial History, 68-69. Twelve years later in an expanded
study, North Carolina through Four Centuries (1989), Powell does comment that “from 1775 until the end
of the Revolutionary War, the state was preoccupied with military affairs,” but again claims that “from
1776 to 1778 the southern states were free of the enemy.” In passing he notes that North Carolina’s
Continental regiments were active in the northern theatre through 1778 and summarizes military activity
within the state as far as a brief comment on the militia and raising regular battalions, but covers very little
else until he takes up the British campaign for Savannah in 1778. Powell, North Carolina Through Four
Centuries, 190-192. The most recent general history of the state, Milton Ready’s The Tar Heel State
(2005), also echoes the familiar tale of its predecessors. “The Whig victory over the Loyalists,” Ready
concludes, “at the Battle of Moore’s Creek in late February 1776 and the subsequent waning of support for
the king meant that for the next four years rebels would control the government of the new state.” He goes
even further by claiming that following that battle, North Carolina was “freed from the threat of an internal
Loyalist uprising and an external British invasion.” Milton Ready, The Tar Heel State: A History of North
Carolina (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 2005), 116.
38
Ronald Hoffman’s study of disaffection in the Revolutionary South (1976) almost completely ignores the
entire period from the beginning of the war until General Nathanael Greene took over the command in the
Southern Department in December 1780. Ronald Hoffman, “The ‘Disaffected’ in the Revolutionary
South,” in Alfred F. Young, The American Revolution: Explorations in the History of American Radicalism
(DeKalb: Northern Illinois University Press, 1976) 274-316. Henry Lumpkin, in From Savannah to
40
To be sure, for a time after Sir Henry Clinton’s departure from the Cape Fear
region, North Carolina did not face an imminent threat from British forces. However, the
state was confronted with significant challenges in establishing new civil institutions, a
constitution, and preparing for imminent military needs. Carolinians were also well
aware of an ominous menace to the west, from pro-British Indians including the
Cherokees and the Chickamaugas. “The country was now involved in all the hardships
and perils of war,” as one nineteenth century historian accurately described the situation,
“and these…were more than doubled by the fact that the enemies with whom the war was
waged were domestic as well as foreign.” Even more immediate, however, was the stillpresent Tory threat, which had only been cowed by defeat at Moore’s Creek, not
eradicated. The presence of a large number of inhabitants opposed to independence
within North Carolina, which one historian says may have “contained a greater number of
Loyalists in proportion to its population than did any other colony,” was a persistent
threat to Patriots until 1783. The state was the scene of numerous loyalist uprisings,
Yorktown (1981), avers that North Carolina “was never occupied by British forces,” though he does say
that after Moore’s Creek “fighting between Patriot and Loyalist continued throughout the South.” Henry
Lumpkin, From Savannah to Yorktown (New York: Paragon House, 1981), 6. Roger Ekirch concentrates
on the North Carolina backcountry in his 1985 essay on Whig authority and order in this region. Without
specifying which counties he puts in the backcountry category, he discusses the 1776 Moore’s Creek
campaign, a few incidents of disaffection in 1777, and then ignores the entire period between 1777 and the
summer of 1780. Arguably the location of the battlefield at Moore’s Creek is not in the backcountry at all.
Roger Ekirch, “Whig Authority and Public Order in Backcountry North Carolina, 1776-1783,” in Ronald
Hoffman, Thad W. Tate, and Peter J. Albert, eds., An Uncivil War: The Southern Backcountry during the
American Revolution, (Charlottesville: Published for the U.S. Capitol Historical Society by the University
Press of Virginia, 1985) 99-124. Jeffrey J. Crow, in his essay of the same year, provides more incidents of
“disorder and disaffection” in the backcountry from throughout the war, though his emphasis is on events
from 1780 to the end of the war. Jeffrey J. Crow, “Liberty Men and Loyalists: Disorder and Disaffection in
the North Carolina Backcountry,” in Hoffman, et. al., eds., An Uncivil War, 125-178. More recently David
K. Wilson has contended that “the end of Clinton’s southern expedition of 1776 marked the beginning of a
long respite from war for the American South. In fact the region was virtually ignored by the British
military for the next two and a half years.” Wilson’s study, in essence a chronicle of battle accounts,
describes no military activity at all in the South from the 1776 British attack on Charlestown to their
capture of Savannah two years later. Wilson, The Southern Strategy, 59, emphasis mine.
41
raids, and other hostile activities even before the British refocused their attention on the
South in late 1778. Thus, to ignore this period as one of military inactivity, or to describe
it as free of the enemy, as a number of historians have done, is to overlook the state’s one
constant foe for the entire war—the Tories. The absence of British regulars within its
borders until January 1781 did not mean peace reigned in North Carolina up to that time,
as subsequent chapters will clearly demonstrate.39
After Moore’s Creek, and with no imminent threat of British attack, Carolinians
in 1776 and early 1777 turned to the immediate task of building a state and a military
force, all the while keeping a watchful eye on suspected loyalists.40 In April 1776, the
fourth Provincial Congress gathered in Halifax. Besides political measures, military
concerns were a major part of this congress’ responsibilities. The delegates paroled
Tories, regulated the purchase of gunpowder and arms, appointed military officers, and
adopted numerous other defensive arrangements. The congress resolved “that the sum of
250,000 dollars shall be struck in bills of credit,” that is to say, paper money. Before
adjourning on 14 May, the assembly decreed that all “insurgents” involved in the recent
39
DeMond, The Loyalists in North Carolina, vii; Lee, Crowds and Soldiers in Revolutionary North
Carolina, 164; E. W. Caruthers, A Sketch of the Life and Character of the Rev. David Caldwell
(Greensboro: Swaim and Sherwood, 1842) 191. Wayne Lee and Hugh F. Rankin, in The North Carolina
Continentals, are the two major exceptions to the list of historians who ignore the period from March 1776
to December 1778 in North Carolina.
40
See in particular Ganyard, The Emergence of North Carolina’s State Government, 57-89; Ganyard,
“North Carolina During the American Revolution,” 287-440; Wheeler, “North Carolina Militia in
American Revolution,” 55-90; 170-221; Lefler and Newsome, North Carolina, 216-238, Powell, North
Carolina through Four Centuries, 182-192; Rankin, North Carolina in the American Revolution, 21-30;
Crow, Chronicle, 28-36; Lee, Crowds and Soldiers in Revolutionary North Carolina, 164-175; and Don
Higginbotham, ed., The Papers of James Iredell, 2 vols. (Raleigh: Division of Archives and History, 1976),
1:lxxii-lxxxiv.
42
Moore’s Creek campaign who were deemed a threat to the state were to be removed from
their settlements along with their families.41
Over the summer of 1776, the state’s Council of Safety was beset by a number of
issues, all of which remained a concern and worsened for North Carolina throughout the
war. First, the procurement of military supplies and raising troops was a labyrinth of
difficulties for state leaders due in no small part to the scarcity of materiel needed for the
defense of the state and establishing its line of Continental troops, and the need for almost
everything of a military nature. As the war progressed, martial concerns only became
more problematic, particularly as the state’s financial situation went from bad to worse by
1780.42
The second major worry for the Carolinians in 1776 was the danger of Tory
activity and general disaffection throughout the state. Although the loyalist threat would
not reach its most dangerous level until 1781, the treacherous activities and
“insurrections” of the disaffected was an ever-present concern for Whigs from the war’s
outset, and was not eradicated at Moore’s Creek. As will be discussed in Chapter 4, the
“Tory problem” was an issue that concerned North Carolina well into the 1780s and did
not end when peace was declared in 1783.
A third matter of anxiety for revolutionary North Carolina emerged on the state’s
frontiers, in the form of its perennial enemy, the Cherokees. Reports of Indian attacks on
settlers (and plans to do so) reached Carolina and Virginia leaders in the spring of 1776,
while British agents were among the Indian villages and the western white settlements.
41
The activities of this congress are recorded in the body’s journal in NCCR, 10:499-590.
42
NCCR, 10:636, 638, 640, 685.
43
These agents urged the whites to “join his Majesty’s forces as soon as they arrive at the
Cherokee nation,” where they would “find protection for themselves and families and be
free from all danger whatever.”43
After the defeat of the Loyalists at Moore’s Creek in February 1776, the first
major danger to North Carolina came from the west, in the form of Indian attacks on the
frontier, made with “the usual Circumstances of Savage Barbarity,” according to a
legislative committee. The “frequent hostilities” of the Cherokee were continuously seen
by white Carolinians as a potentially fatal threat to the stability and viability of the new
state.44 Moreover, from the viewpoint of Carolina leaders, hostilities with the Indians not
only meant potentially expensive military campaigns in remote regions of the state with
all of the accompanying logistical problems, but death and disruption to the society of
white inhabitants on the frontier and possibly in the backcountry too. Relations between
white Carolinians and Cherokee natives were characterized by mounting apprehension by
1775, due to the encroachment of white settlers on Cherokee lands, and a history of
previous hostilities well within the memories of many Carolinians.45
43
NCCR, 10:606-607, 660-661; 712-715, 895-898; O’Donnell, The Cherokees of North Carolina in the
American Revolution, 13-22; O’Donnell, Southern Indians in the American Revolution, 34-53; Rankin,
North Carolina in the American Revolution, 28; Lee, Crowds and Soldiers in Revolutionary North
Carolina, 158-163; Gaynard, “North Carolina During the American Revolution,” 341-373.
44
“Report of the Committee Appointed to Inquire into the Expediency of Having a Body of Militia
Stationed on the Frontier,” Revolutionary War Papers (Collection #2194), Southern Historical Collection,
UNC, microfilm, reel 1; R.D.W. Connor, History of North Carolina, 1:380-381, 405-407.
45
Previous conflicts with Native Americans included the French and Indian War (1754-1763) and Pontiac’s
Rebellion (1763-1766). In the former war, the backcountry of North Carolina was itself attacked, which
prompted the colony to raise men and money for troops to participate in a successful provincial expedition
against the Cherokee towns in 1761. See Tom Hatley, The Dividing Paths: Cherokees and South
Carolinians through the Era of Revolution (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993); John Oliphant,
Peace and War on the Anglo-Cherokee Frontier, 1756-63 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press,
2001); and John R. Maass, “All this Poor Province Could Do: North Carolina and the Seven Years War,
1757-1762,” The North Carolina Historical Review, 79 (January 2002): 67-72; 80-81.
44
British machinations among the Cherokees and a deep rift within the Cherokee
villages over sales of tribal lands in what is now Tennessee created tensions on North
Carolina’s western borders, so that Cherokees began to attack frontier settlements in July
1776.46 The reaction of the settlers was predictable. Virginia, Georgia and both Carolinas
launched four more or less concerted military expeditions of militia troops against the
Cherokees, during which dozens of Indian towns and fields were destroyed.47 North
Carolina sent an armed force to destroy the Cherokee “middle towns,” in what is now the
far western reaches of the state and Tennessee. Led by General Griffith Rutherford, the
commander of the state’s western military district, approximately twenty-five hundred
militia men were raised for this campaign to “put an end to this cruel unjust & wicked
Indian war.”48 The blows delivered by the unyielding militia forces that autumn were far
too heavy for their Indian adversaries to bear, although sporadic Indian attacks were not
uncommon and tensions remained high well into the spring.49 A formal peace was made
in July 1777, and despite British pressures for continued hostilities, the vanquished
46
Hatley, The Dividing Paths, 216-218; John Stuart to Lord George Germain, 23 August 1776, Davies,
Documents of the American Revolution, 12:189; James Roberts Gilmore (Edmund Kirke), The Rear-Guard
of the Revolution (New York: Appleton & Co., 1886) 104-105, 124-125. The British encouraged increased
Indian hostilities against the backcountry and frontier settlements once more in 1780, at the time of their
invasion of the Carolinas and Georgia. See David C. Hsiung, Two Worlds in the Tennessee Mountains:
Exploring the Origins of Appalachian Stereotypes (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1997) 25.
47
O’Donnell, Cherokees in the American Revolution, 18-20; Lee, Crowds and Soldiers in Revolutionary
North Carolina, 158-162; Dixon, The Wataugans, 44-51.
48
Council of Safety to General Griffith Rutherford, 21 July 1776, NCSR, 11:318-319; Council of Safety to
General Griffith Rutherford, 24 July 1776, NCSR, 11:328-329. The most detailed description of this
campaign is in Ganyard, “North Carolina During the American Revolution,” 341-373, and O’Donnell,
Southeastern Indians in the American Revolution, 47-49. See also R.D.W. Connor, North Carolina:
Rebuilding an Ancient Commonwealth, 1:320-321, and Mary Elinor Lazenby, comp., Catawba Frontier,
1775-1781: Memories of Pensioners (Washington, D.C.: M.E. Lazenby, 1950), 31, 49, 61, 73-74, 99.
49
Patrick Henry to Richard Caswell, 14 March 1777, NCSR, 11:428-429; Charles Robertson to Richard
Caswell, 27 April 1777, NCSR, 11:458-460.
45
Cherokees made major land cessions, although this did not eliminate the frontier
animosities between whites and indigenous peoples.50
Rutherford’s triumphant campaign against the Native Americans in 1776 was
about more than burning villages and crops, and driving off the enemy into the
wilderness. First, Carolina leaders recognized the dangers of fighting what in modern
parlance would be called a “two front war.” They feared the simultaneous threat of
British incursions on the Atlantic coast and Indian attacks to the west. As the Council of
Safety noted, “it was thought best to march forth a sufficient Army at once to subdue the
Indians in order that our people might in turn get some rest and be prepared to give the
necessary support to the Seaboard as we expect a visit in the Southern Colonies from the
Ministerial Troops in the Winter.”51 In this, they were quite successful. By
extinguishing the western threat for the next several years, precious resources and
soldiers could be devoted to defending the more settled, coastal part of the state from
British attacks. North Carolina authorities in the east also worked to prevent open warfare
with the Indians by seeking to prevent abuses by rapacious settlers, which could easily
trigger renewed hostilities.
Second, the fact that Rutherford could quickly raise twenty-five hundred men to
march west in what many knew would be a trying campaign in mountainous terrain
50
Hatley, The Dividing Paths, 219-226; O’Donnell, Cherokees in the American Revolution, 22-23;
O’Donnell, Southeastern Indians in the American Revolution, 55-69; Colin Calloway, The American
Revolution in Indian Country: Crisis and Diversity in Native American Communities (New York:
Cambridge University Press, 1995), 199-201; Lefler and Newsome, North Carolina, 243; R.D.W. Connor,
History of North Carolina, 1:406-407; Gilmore, The Rear-Guard of the Revolution, 142-143; Harry M.
Ward, The War for Independence and the Transformation of American Society (London: University
College Press, 1999) 197-198.
51
N.C. Council of Safety to Delegates in Congress, 9 September 1776, NCSR, 11:350; N.C. Council of
Safety to Delegates in Congress, 9 September 1776, NCSR, 11:344.
46
stands in stark contrast to the pronounced difficulties the state would face raising troops
later in the war. “The troops are well-armed and in high health & spirits,” it was reported
in August 1776. As will be subsequently discussed, the number of these frontier recruits
and their morale compared to the recruiting challenges all over the state within a few
years suggest that Carolinians proved much more willing to serve under arms in the face
of an immediate, local threat to their land, homes and families than far away for long
periods. Governors and generals would see this injurious pattern time and again as the
war dragged on.52
Finally the avoidance of simultaneous enemy threats from east and west not only
made sound military sense, but was politically crucial as well. By defeating the
Cherokees over the course of several months and forcing the natives to relinquish a large
tract of land, the new state began to establish its legitimacy. Much like the victory at
Moore’s Creek Bridge in the east, Rutherford’s success demonstrated that North Carolina
had the power to defend itself, and could crush dangers that might lead to chaos and
violence on the frontier. Victory in the mountains meant the establishment of order too,
at least for that region. Similarly, to defeat the Indians was to potentially give the Whig
government the support of frontier whites who desired lands. This was no small benefit
for a newly ascendant revolutionary government that needed to prove its viability to the
inhabitants.
While western militiamen fought Indians on the frontier, other Carolinians took
up political and military matters to the east. The first Provincial Congress to meet in
North Carolina after the Declaration of Independence convened on November 12, 1776 at
52
N.C. Council of Safety to Delegates in Congress, 9 September 1776, NCSR, 11:344.
47
Halifax, and took up a variety of pressing matters. Delegates were appointed to
represent the state in the Continental Congress in Philadelphia. Troops were raised to
assist in the defense of South Carolina, which was expecting an imminent British attack.
Numerous issues concerning military affairs and internal security consumed much of the
delegates’ time. Militia General Richard Caswell of Dobbs County, the hero of Moore’s
Creek, was unanimously elected governor of the state at the end of the Congress.53
More importantly, however, during this congress the basic framework for the new
state was created “to establish a free government under the authority of the people.”54 A
Bill of Rights of twenty-five articles was passed, and delegates also adopted the state’s
new Constitution.55 A number of important powers vested in this new government by
the assembled delegates went to the legislature, not the executive, which was to have
significant consequences for the state as it waged war, particularly in 1780 and 1781.56
While the governor “for the time being” was nominally “Captain General and
Commander in Chief of the militia,” he could only embody the militia during a recess of
the Assembly.57 The executive, chosen by the Assembly, could serve only a one year
term, and three out of six successive years, surely a reaction to the lengthy terms of royal
53
NCCR, 10:913-1003; Rankin, North Carolina in the American Revolution, 22-26; Raimo, Colonial and
Revolutionary Governors, 308; Crow, Chronicle, 62-63; Lefler and Newsome, North Carolina, 227. The
petition of the western settlers of the Washington District (including Watauga) to the Provincial Council for
annexation by the state is in NCSR, 11:708-711.
54
NCCR, 10:870a.
55
The journal of the November 1776 Provincial Congress is in NCCR, 10:913-1003; the text of the state’s
Bill of Rights and Constitution is in NCCR, 10:1003-1013. The constitution was voted upon and adopted
by the assembled delegates, not approved by the people in the form of a convention or referendum.
56
Article XIV, NCCR, 10:1008.
57
Article XVIII, NCCR, 10:1009.
48
governors.58 The new constitution further weakened the executive in that it did not allow
the governor veto power over the assembly, nor did it authorize him to “convene,
prorogue or dissolve” the legislature, a common practice in the late colonial era. As one
historian has concluded, “the war governors simply did not have adequate power to deal
effectively with the myriad military and economic problems they faced,” as will become
clear below.59
Military concerns loomed large for Carolina’s Provincial Congress that
November. Efforts to eradicate the enemy in the form of Native Americans in the
wilderness did not, of course, constitute all of the Carolinians’ early military
preparations. Men and war materiel were necessary to the east as well, for a more
conventional form of defense. The effort to embody troops for service began quite early
in the war. During the spring and summer of 1775, the Continental Congress worked to
create an army to defend America from expected British attacks. The South was also a
key concern of the Continental Congress. “It will be necessary to keep up a certain
number of Battalions in the Southern Colonies,” reported North Carolina delegate John
Penn as he attended the sessions in Philadelphia, “to be ready to prevent our enemies
from landing and penetrating into the Country.”60 In September 1775, the colony’s
government had authorized the raising of two regiments “to be raised in the Province as
58
Article XV, NCCR, 10:1008.
59
Gaynard, North Carolina’s Revolutionary War State Government, 82-83, 88.
60
John Penn to Thomas Person, 14 February 1776, Paul H. Smith, ed., Letters of Delegates to Congress,
1774-1789, 26 vols. (Washington: Library of Congress, 1976-2000), 1:349. Penn, a Virginia native, was a
signer of the Declaration of Independence and later a member of the state’s Board of War.
49
part of and on the same establishment with the Continental Army.”61 Several days later,
six more battalions were authorized, one for each of the province’s military districts.62
Responding to new directives from the Continental Congress, three more regiments were
created by the state in November 1775.63 In addition to raising regiments for Continental
service in 1776, the state also organized a system of Minute Men and militia in
September 1775, the former to be structured in such a way as to allow for quick
mobilization and movement in emergencies.64 Later, they raised three companies of light
horse,65 along with five independent companies and a battery of artillery. A tenth
regiment of Continental infantry was eventually authorized to be recruited within the
state in 1777, to consist of not less than three hundred men.66
The momentous year of 1776 drew to a close, with the last Provincial Congress
adjourned, set to meet again as a state government in April, where it would face “all those
problems that confront any state in war time.”67 The delegates, and other state and local
officials throughout North Carolina, pledged to guard “against all attempts whatsoever”
61
NCCR, 10:186-187.
62
NCCR, 10:196, NCSR, 10:290-291.
63
Powell, North Carolina through Four Centuries, 191.
64
NCCR, 10:196-201. The minuteman force was never fully implemented, and was abandoned within
months.
65
Wheeler, Historical Sketches of North Carolina, 1:80; Wright, The Continental Army, 71-72; Joseph
Hewes to Samuel Johnston, 16 May 1776, Letters of Delegates to the Continental Congress, 3:11. The
three companies of light horse were not accepted by the Continental Congress, and were too expensive to
equip, arm and maintain.
66
Powell, North Carolina through Four Centuries, 191; Wright, The Continental Army, 71-72; Thomas
Burke to Richard Caswell, 27 June 1777, Letters of Delegates to the Continental Congress, 7:257; Thomas
Burke to Richard Caswell, 5 August 1777, Letters of Delegates to the Continental Congress, 7:414.
67
Rankin, North Carolina in the American Revolution, 26.
50
by Crown or Parliament, to which they swore to “renounce, refuse and abjure any
allegiance or obedience.” Additionally they would “defend the State against all
Traiterous Conspiracies and attempts whatsoever.”68 When newly-elected Richard
Caswell repaired to New Bern to take up the executive post in that port town, it was to
the sound of tolling bells, booming cannon and cracks of musketry upon his arrival,
produced by enthusiastic Carolinians.69 The state and its governor, however, would
observe few additional joyous occasions through six more years of “repeated internal
commotions in the State, and alarms from the disaffected which [threw] the Government
into such confusion,”70 coupled with a bloody contest against the British, which required
“vigilance, readiness and vigor.”71 The seemingly insurmountable difficulties these
several years would bring, the state’s largely ineffectual efforts to overcome them, and
the chaos that consequently ensued in “this long and wasteful war” will be detailed in the
next several chapters.72
68
The quote is from “Oath of Allegiance Signed by Members of Council of State Jany. 1777,” NCSR,
11:363-364, and closely mirrors other oaths taken by North Carolina military officers, justices of the peace,
and other officials. See also NCSR, 23:999-1000.
69
Lefler and Newsome, North Carolina, 227.
70
Gov. Alexander Martin to Robert Morris, 22 June 1782, NCSR, 16:340.
71
John Penn, et. al., to Richard Caswell, 15 July 1779, NCSR, 14:156.
72
Thomas Burke to the General Assembly, 7 July 1781, Governor’s Messages, General Assembly Session
Records, June-July 1781, Box 1, N.C. State Archives.
51
CHAPTER 2
A “DISTRESSED AND DEFENSELESS STATE”: MOBILIZING FOR WAR
The state’s first General Assembly convened on 7 April 1777, at New Bern, with
Richard Caswell presiding.1 More than a year had passed since the clash at Moore’s
Creek Bridge, but the state was hardly free of military difficulties, as the delegates to the
assembly quickly learned that spring. Indeed, war with the Cherokees on the western
frontier of the state, renewed Loyalist activities, and the need for the state to raise, pay,
equip, and provide officers for its quota of Continental troops beleaguered the state
during the summer of 1776. Financial concerns began almost immediately, and remained
a serious problem long after the war. The considerable obstacles that challenged North
Carolina upon independence taxed its meager resources and disturbed the internal
stability of its society and newly created political institutions. As a result Carolinians got
their first taste of the chaos of war, and saw clearly that the unpopularity of military
service was widespread. These problems and the state’s efforts to resolve them occupied
governmental and military leaders, as well as ordinary citizens, throughout the
revolutionary period, and informed the process of a post war revolutionary settlement as
well.
1
Lefler and Newsome, North Carolina: The History of a Southern State, 228.
52
Yet despite critical shortages of money, men and materials, North Carolina
managed to meet at least some of these challenges adequately for a time. The Indians
were temporarily subdued by early 1777, the Tories posed no grave threat over the next
three years, and several battalions of regulars marched northward to join the main
American army under General George Washington, albeit poorly outfitted and never at
full strength. North Carolina realized these results in no small part due to the lack of a
significant British military threat to the southern states from early June 1776 until the last
weeks of 1778.2 However, these limited successes were atypical. Increasing financial
chaos and a largely ineffectual effort to raise, arm and equip men for active service and
militia duty added to the war-related burdens that already strained North Carolina. In
addition to outlining the state’s limited achievements mobilizing for war, an examination
of this period reveals the precarious financial condition of the state, a growing
unwillingness of Carolinians to serve the state in any military manner, and the everpresent menace of Tory violence. Although red-coated British battalions did not traverse
the state in force until 1781, North Carolina had no reprieve from troublesome military
affairs, which caused considerable disorder and expense. State Council of Safety
president Cornelius Harnett summarized the colony’s prospects in June 1776:
The great want of Fire Arms, Ammunition and other Warlike Stores,
render our situation truly alarming; an Army hourly expected to land on
our Coasts and apprehensions well founded of an immediate War with the
Southern Tribes of Indians, and a large body of people disaffected to the
American Cause residing in the very heart of our Country ready (altho’
once subdued) to make use of a more favorable opportunity to throw this
Colony into a scene of Blood and Confusion.3
2
3
Smith, Loyalists and Redcoats, 79-99.
N.C. Council of Safety to John Hancock, 24 June 1776, NCSR, 11:299; David T. Morgan, “Cornelius
Harnett: Revolutionary Leader and Delegate to the Continental Congress” North Carolina Historical
53
Matters would only get worse for “the distressed and defenseless State,” as violence and
chaos came to characterize the war.4
After Moore’s Creek, the state was faced with its second major military challenge
on its far western frontier in the form of Cherokee attacks. Stirred up by British agents
and angered by ever-increasing encroachments by land-hungry white settlers, native
Americans opened hostilities in the summer of 1776. North Carolina, in cooperation with
Virginia and South Carolina, launched an expedition against the Indians in the early
autumn. Led by Brigadier General Griffith Rutherford, this militia campaign succeeded
in destroying Indian villages and crops, and also made the Cherokee sue for peace on
terms highly favorable for Carolinians bent on obtaining more land. Strikingly, the
expedition was strongly supported by local militia companies, and even those from the
eastern backcountry, so much so that several county militia regiments were turned back
before they reached the frontier.5
Enlisting full-time soldiers was difficult as well. North Carolina’s initial creation
of ten Continental regiments and a handful of other regular units concluded the state’s
regular military establishment. Few of the regiments were ever recruited to full strength,
and all were meagerly supplied and equipped. Maintenance of these regiments was
partially the duty of the state, a weighty responsibility the government found increasingly
Review 49 (July 1972): 233. Cornelius Harnett was a leading Wilmington area merchant and planter, and
later served in the Continental Congress for three years. He died while imprisoned by the British in 1781.
4
N.C. Council of Safety to N.C. Delegates to the Continental Congress, 24 June 1776, NCSR, 11:302.
5
O’Donnell, The Cherokees of North Carolina in the American Revolution, 13-22; O’Donnell, Southern
Indians in the American Revolution, 34-53; Rankin, North Carolina in the American Revolution, 28; Lee,
Crowds and Soldiers in Revolutionary North Carolina, 158-163; Gaynard, “North Carolina During the
American Revolution: The First Phase,” 341-373.
54
difficult to meet. This was particularly true after May 1777, when the North Carolina
Line served in the north with the main Continental Army under General George
Washington, through May 1780, when these regiments surrendered to besieging British
forces at Charleston, South Carolina. Although slaves were permitted to enlist in the
state’s Continental line in return for their post-war freedom, this was very rare and never
seriously considered by state officials as a way of increasing the numbers in regular
battalions.6
The difficulties of keeping these regiments on foot seriously challenged civil and
military authorities and starkly demonstrated the lack of available resources within the
state. The incessant need to provide men, munitions and materiel for the several
Continental regiments burdened the state, to say nothing of procuring arms, ammunition
and citizens for the state’s militia, which was its primary means of quelling the loyalist
menace. Moreover, on a number of occasions beginning in 1775, the state sent details of
its militia to the relief of South Carolina, adding to the strain on already limited
resources.7 Consequently, North Carolina resorted to burdensome expedients to fulfill its
military obligations, such as impressment, issuing paper money, and the draft. These
irksome measures were angrily resented by the populace, and contributed in no small part
to the disaffection, chaotic disorders, and bitterness within the state. While the latter
years of the war saw much greater difficulties in this regard than the early stages of the
6
Rankin, The North Carolina Continentals, 90; David Schenck, North Carolina, 1780-'81, Being a History
of the Invasion of the Carolinas by the British Army under Lord Cornwallis in 1780-'81 (Raleigh: Edwards
and Broughton, 1889) 32; NCSR, 24:639.
7
James Moore to Richard Caswell, 22 January 1777, NCSR, 11:367; Lee, Crowds and Soldiers in
Revolutionary North Carolina, 151; Rankin, The North Carolina Continentals, 22-23.
55
conflict, the first inkling of trouble was apparent well before the British high command
turned their attention to the South in late 1778.
During the Moore’s Creek campaign most of the troops on active service were
militia forces, and participating Continentals were inexperienced and barely trained. The
authorization of additional regiments for regular service in the winter and spring of 1776,
forced the state to procure men for the Continental battalions, supply them with all
manner of military needs, and figure out a way to pay for them.8 It nearly ruined the
state’s finances and imposed heavy burdens on the citizenry even after the battles had
long since ended.9
Efforts to defend the state with uniformed troops began in earnest early in 1776.
From his post as a delegate to the Continental Congress from North Carolina, John Penn
wrote to Thomas Person of the Hillsborough Committee of Safety in February 1776
about preparing for the expected British forays in the South. Penn and others in
Philadelphia had gotten wind of the impending expedition, and feared a possible calamity
for the American cause. “Will it not be necessary for your Committee,” he wrote to
Person, “to do something immediately for putting the Province in a Condition to oppose
the designs of our enemies…I hope we to the southward shall act like men determined to
be free…is there any preparation for making salt petre, gunpowder or guns?” Some
supplies, including gunpowder, were procured in the north at the behest of the delegates
and shipped south. Penn worried about the inhabitants as well, urging Person to instill
8
Robert K. Wright, The Continental Army, 299-303; Powell, North Carolina through Four Centuries, 189190. Powell writes that the state had “an empty treasury, without credit, with no commerce as a basis of
credit, and with demands for resources beyond anything known in the colonial period.”
9
Thomas Burke to the General Assembly, NCSR, 16:5-19.
56
the proper spirit for defense: “For God’s sake my Good Sir, encourage our People,
animate them to dare even to die for their country.”10 Although the morale and loyalties
of the people were to an extent ambiguous, Penn need not have worried about his
province’s awareness of the need for defensive preparation. Revolutionaries in North
Carolina shared his concern about British plans, and moved to put the province in the best
possible situation they could for thwarting an attack.
Despite the rhetoric of virtue and appeals to patriotism so common in the pre-war
years, provincial leaders recognized the difficulties of placing their country on a
competent war footing. This was especially true in the realm of recruitment. On 9 April,
the Provincial Congress recommended a bounty for enlistments of 40 shillings and a £3
advance to stimulate recruiting, a tacit admission that the cause of liberty would not
necessarily inspire men to flock to the colors in sufficient numbers. These men were to be
“able bodied, fit for service, capable of marching well…young, hardy, robust men,” none
under 5’4” and without maladies, to be enlisted for two years and six months term of
service. This was surely a sign of early optimism by lawmakers, for within a few years
the armed forces of North Carolina would take almost anyone, and some for quite brief
tours of duty.11
While arming and supplying the regiments was of vital importance to those Whigs
trying to prepare for war, men in the ranks are the sine qua non of an army. Placing ten
Continental regiments on foot gave Carolinians one of their first and lasting tastes of
10
John Penn to Thomas Person, 12 February 1776, Letters of Delegates to Congress, 3:239; North
Carolina Delegates to the North Carolina Council of Safety, 10 February 1776, Letters of Delegates to
Congress, 3:220-221. A bit hypocritically, Penn never saw fit to place himself in harm’s way during the
war while he urged others to do so.
11
NCCR, 10:506, 528, 543-544.
57
military frustration, and illuminates several key elements of the state’s wartime distress: a
shortage of money, an unwillingness on the part of most men to serve in the ranks, and
disaffection from the cause of independence.
Throughout the war, the Continental Congress exerted persistent pressure on all of
the states to provide troops for the Continental Line, its regular army under the overall
command of General Washington. Congressional records are replete with calls for the
states to provide soldiers for Continental service, that of 26 February 1778 being
representative. On that day, Congress declared that troops were essential to the “well
being and safety of these states,” and “to oppose and defeat the public enemies thereof.”
This was followed by the recommendation that the states complete their regiments by
drafts from the militia, as voluntary enlistments were inadequate. These levies would
serve for nine months, although the resolution encouraged three year enlistments. Those
men who supplied their own arms and accoutrements were to be paid a higher wage at the
end of their term of service, a sign of the scarcity of weapons authorities could provide.
Congress initially advised the states not to offer enlistment bonuses, but this was later
dropped. The resolutions also provided that “no prisoners of war or deserters from the
enemy be enlisted, drafted, or returned to serve in the continental army,” but even this
recommendation was often ignored, given the pressing need for men.12
For North Carolina, some of the most persistent calls for contributing its
battalions of regulars to the common cause came from its own delegation to the
Continental Congress, even as early as June 1775. In a letter written to the various
12
Worthington Chauncey Ford, ed., Journals of the Continental Congress, 1774-1789, 34 vols.
(Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1904), 10:199-203. The drafting of men to serve within
the Continental battalions is discussed in greater detail in Chapter 6.
58
committees of safety across the colony about war preparations in America, the province’s
representatives lamented that “North Carolina alone remains an inactive Spectator of this
general defensive Armament. Supine and careless, she seems to forget even the Duty she
owes to her own local Circumstances and Situation.”13 “We must most earnestly
importune you to compleat the Continental Battalions,” wrote the delegation in August
1776, to the Council of Safety, followed by another plea in September.14 Congressman
William Hooper urged a correspondent in the state to “pray hasten by every means in
your power the recruiting Service amongst you[,] we shall have difficulty enough this
way to encounter.”15 The next year, John Penn wrote of needed efforts to a fellow Whig
in the state: “Could you raise four or five battalions in the whole?...matters are drawing to
a crisis.”16 At the end of 1777, matters remained equally irksome. Cornelius Harnett,
then serving as a Continental congressman for North Carolina, anxiously wrote home
about the requirement for troops, having seen Philadelphia captured by the British, and
Washington defeated twice that fall. “For God’s sake fill up your Battalions, Lay Taxes,
put a stop to the sordid and avaricious Spirit which infected all ranks and conditions of
men,” he implored fellow Carolinian Thomas Burke. “If we have Virtue, we certainly
have power, to work out our own salvation, I hope without fear or trembling.” When the
13
William Hooper, Joseph Hewes, and Richard Caswell to the Committees, 19 June 1775, NCCR, 10:21.
14
North Carolina Delegates to the North Carolina Council of Safety, 2 August 1776, Letters of Delegates to
the Continental Congress, 4:640-641; North Carolina Delegates to the North Carolina Council of Safety, 10
August 1776, Letters of Delegates to the Continental Congress, 4:649-650; North Carolina Delegates to the
North Carolina Council of Safety, 3 September 1776, Letters of Delegates to the Continental Congress,
5:99-100; North Carolina Delegates to the North Carolina Council of Safety, 18 September 1776, Letters of
Delegates to the Continental Congress, 5:191-192.
15
William Hooper to Joseph Hewes, 16 November 1776, Letters of Delegates to Congress, 5:497-500.
16
John Penn to Thomas Person, 14 February 1776, Letters of Delegates to Congress, 3:254-256.
59
British invaded the South at the end of 1778, and when Charleston was threatened in
1780, the state’s delegates continued to urge the assembly to devise proper measures to
strengthen the regular troops.17
An exchange of letters between one of the state’s congressional representatives
and the governor illustrates the typical frustrations involved with getting men into the
regular units. In early 1777, Congressman Thomas Burke implored Governor Caswell to
have the state’s Continentals sent northward to join the main army. “I hope,” he wrote
“through your efforts the North Carolina Battalions will come into the field as complete
as those of any state.”18 Before he had received this letter from Burke, Caswell urged
state officers to hurry the regiments forward to Washington, even though they were not
yet at full strength.19 The situation remained the same in April of that year, when
Caswell advised Burke that the state’s regulars were sluggish in moving to the north, and
“the recruiting service goes on slowly.”20 Burke thought rumors of disease to the north
might have hindered the state’s efforts to raise regulars. Although he made pains in his
letter to refute the claims of disease in Washington’s camps, the fact that the rumor made
it all the way to Pennsylvania could only mean it had been heard widely in his home state
and hindered enlistments at least to some degree.21
17
North Carolina Delegates to Richard Caswell, 9 February 1780, Letters of Delegates to the Continental
Congress, 14:404-405; Cornelius Harnett to Thomas Burke, 16 December 1777, NCSR, 11:696. Thomas
Burke, from County Galway, Ireland, moved to Orange County prior to the outbreak of war, served in the
Continental Congress, and later became state governor in 1781.
18
Thomas Burke to Richard Caswell, 5 February 1777, NCSR, 11:374-375.
19
Richard Caswell to Gen. James Moore, 6 February 1777, NCSR, 11:375.
20
Richard Caswell to Thomas Burke, 20 April 1777, NCSR, 11:456-457.
60
The state’s financial difficulties thwarted the success of filling of the ranks of the
regular regiments in 1777 to a far greater extent than rumors of disease. Congress had
authorized a $20 bounty for each new recruit, in addition to any local or state
incentives.22 North Carolina found it difficult to raise the money to provide these
incentives to potential recruits, who balked at enlisting without receiving it in hand. In a
frustrated reply in June to Burke over the lack of funds, Caswell wrote that “the officers
left here to recruit can do nothing without money…of course that very essential service is
nearly at a stand[still].” The officers of one regiment had to borrow money from friends
and use their own funds to provide the enlistment bonuses to the new recruits.23 A week
later Caswell reiterated these sentiments to Burke, reporting that “the recruiting business
still goes on slowly, owing to the want of money.”24 Again he penned Burke in late July,
pleading for funds to assist in the drive to fill the ranks for regular service. “I once more
entreat in the most earnest manner that you use your utmost endeavors to furnish us with
money, without which you know as well as I do little can be expected from us.”25
By August 1777, the state’s recruiting efforts were characterized by nothing so
much as confusion and delay. Governor Caswell was pelted with reports of chaos and
irregularities associated with raising the regiments to full strength, prior to sending them
to serve with Washington. An officer of one of the battalions located near Halifax
21
Thomas Burke to Richard Caswell, 23 May 1777, Letters of Delegates to the Continental Congress,
7:108-109.
22
William Ellery to Nicholas Cooke, 21 September 1776, Letters of Delegates to the Continental Congress,
5:215.
23
Richard Caswell to Thomas Burke, 10 June 1777, NCSR, 11:494-495.
24
Richard Caswell to Thomas Burke, 17 June 1777, NCSR, 11:500-501.
25
Richard Caswell to Thomas Burke, 15 July 1777, NCSR, 11:737.
61
reported to him that few officers were with the regiment, while those who were present
were not only “under the necessity of borrowing money to recruit,” but several officers
planned to resign before the march northward.26 Lt. Col. Henry Irwin of the 5th Regiment
succinctly outlined his plight for Caswell on 15 August while trying to collect enough
recruits to march for Washington’s camps.
It is impossible for me to make payroll, as many of our officers are absent.
Regarding officers of my Regiment staying in the State to recruit, I am
afraid they will meet with little or no success, as very little has been done
in the past: if agreeable with your Excellency, I think their stay will be of
no advantage…I also am told that some officers of the 5th Batt’n have
resigned to you; as I can’t account for their absence, shall be glad you will
please to inform me if any resigned to your Excellency.27
A lieutenant in the 5th Regiment advised Caswell that if he had some money “I can recruit
a good many men” in Bath, for “I have lately recruited six men without a farthing of the
public’s money.” While Caswell may have been slightly pleased that half a dozen men
enlisted without a bonus, the report was certainly not a hopeful one.28
By the summer of 1777, most of the state’s regiments were with Washington, and
later fought under Brigadier General Francis Nash at the battle of Brandywine,
Pennsylvania on 11 September 1777, though none were at complete strength.29 Back in
26
Col. John Williams to Richard Caswell, 16 August 1777, 11:579.
27
Lt. Col. Henry Irwin to Richard Caswell, 15 August 1777, NCSR, 11:578. For all practical purposes, a
regiment and a battalion were equal in strength, as Continental regiments consisted of only one battalion.
28
29
Lt. Jesse Read to Richard Caswell, 31 August 1777, NCSR, 11:601.
Samuel S. Smith, The Battle of Brandywine (Monmouth Beach, NJ: Philip Freneau Press, 1976), 30-32.
Rankin, North Carolina Continentals, 99-105; Stephen R. Taaffe, The Philadelphia Campaign, 1777-1778
(Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2003) 68. Smith gives an order of battle for the American Army
including the 1st, 2nd, 3rd 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th, and 9th North Carolina Regiments with a strength of just over
five hundred men. Nash (brother of future N.C. state governor Abner Nash) was mortally wounded in the
battle, “his thigh being shattered by a Cannon Ball.” Cornelius Harnett to Richard Caswell, 10 October
1777, Letters of Delegates to the Continental Congress, 8:97.
62
North Carolina, Col. Abraham Sheppard had difficulty raising three hundred men for his
10th North Carolina regiment, despite a bounty of $30, two-hundred fifty acres of land
and a suit of clothes for each volunteer.30 Even after Sheppard raised three hundred men,
and received orders from Caswell to march to join Washington’s forces, the regiment
moved so slowly that the Assembly ordered a committee of inquiry into the repeated
delays. This committee found that some unruly soldiers and officers refused to march,
despite excellent weather and being reasonably well-equipped and supplied.31 One
recruiting officer in the 9th North Carolina told the Assembly that “it is almost impossible
to get men,” and noted that there were “two soldiers for every officer.”32 A report from
Bath described recruiting efforts there as “almost impossible,” largely because local
militia officers were giving potential inductees double the state’s recruitment bonus to
serve in their stead. “Three officers have got only three new recruits,” he noted.33
Deserters lurked in the woods, while officers repeatedly requested leaves of absences.34
As this evidence suggests, there was a significant unwillingness on the part of many
citizens to serve in the Continental forces.
The problem of North Carolina’s incomplete military formations concerned
America’s highest ranking general officer as well. From his headquarters in
Pennsylvania, General Washington wrote to Congress of “the general defective state of
30
NCSR, 11:467; Peter Dauge to Samuel Johnston, 2 June 1777, Samuel Johnston Papers, Hayes
Collection, Southern Historical Collection, microfilm, reel 3.
31
For the committee report on the saga of the 10th North Carolina during 1777, see NCSR, 12:293-298.
32
Petition of John Luttres, 24 December 1777, General Assembly Session Records, November-December
1777, N.C. State Archives.
33
Capt. Benjamin Stedman to Richard Caswell, 8 October 1777, NCSR, 11:645.
34
Lt. Col. J. Luttrell to Richard Caswell, 2 September 1777, NCSR, 11:606. Caswell approved his request.
63
the Regiments which compose our Armies…they do not amount to near half their just
complement,” and opined that “every idea of voluntary enlistments seems to be at an
end.”35 In June 1777, Washington wrote of “the shameful deficiency in all our
Armies…if the Quotas assigned the different states, are not immediately filled, we shall
have everything to fear.”36 Months later, in March 1778, the problems persisted. A
frustrated Washington implored that it would be “highly advantageous”
if the Recruits and draughts from No. Carolina and Virginia were not
suffered to Halt on their way to Camp (under pretence of getting equip’d)
but sent forward & incorporated into the different Regiments of their
respective states, as soon as it could be done—Out of the number of Men
said to be draughted in Virginia last fall & others from No. Carolina very
few have joined the Army, but owing to desertion and other causes have
dwindled to nothing, this will always be the case with new recruits
(especially those who are unwillingly drawn forth) if much time is spent in
getting them to their Regiments under the care of proper Officers.37
A few days later the tireless Continental commander wrote to Richard Caswell in a
similar vein. “I hope some means have been fallen upon before this time for the
completion of the Battalions of your State,” noting “whether it be by drafting or
recruiting, I desire that the Men may be sent forward as fast as they are raised, always
under the charge of a commissioned Officer.”38 Thomas Burke, then serving in Congress
at York, summarized the dilemma in a way with which Washington surely would have
35
George Washington to John Hancock, 13 October 1777, W.W. Abbot, et. al., editors, The Papers of
George Washington, Revolutionary War Series, 16 vols. (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia,
1985- ) 11:499 (herein cited as Papers of George Washington, Revolution Series).
36
Washington to John Hancock, 2 June 1777, Papers of George Washington, Revolution Series, 9:593.
37
George Washington to Henry Laurens, 24 March 1778, Papers of George Washington, Revolution Series
14:293.
38
George Washington to Richard Caswell, 28 March 1778, Papers of George Washington, Revolution
Series, 14:333.
64
agreed. “I am myself of the Opinion,” he wrote Caswell in March 1778, “that our Army
will neither take the field early enough or be of competent Strength when it is collected,
and I fear we shall be able to undertake nothing against the Enemy, but must act still on
the Defensive, and prolong the War.”39
Recruiting the regiments to full strength occupied North Carolina military officers
and civil officials for the rest of the war. In August 1778, perhaps with the expectations
of a renewed British threat to the South, the state senate recommended to the officers of
the various Continental regiments “to use their utmost endeavors to induce the new levies
to enlist in the Continental services, during the war or for the term of three years.”
Earlier that month Governor Caswell had sent an emissary to Congress, then meeting at
York, Pennsylvania, to draw $500,000 “to be applied in raising and marching men to
complete the Continental Battalions belonging to this State.”40 Cornelius Harnett had
feared that the North Carolina Assembly would have “been induced to have disbanded
the New raised Troops for want of money,” and was glad to advise the governor of the
drafts on Congress for the funds.41
Despite the grumblings of the governor about the inability or unwillingness of the
state to complete its Continental establishment, and the admonishments of congressional
delegates, very little attention to these concerns was given by the state’s Assembly. Most
of its attention with regard to military matters was inward-looking, demonstrative of a
characteristic provincialism evident during and after the war. In their first session of
39
Thomas Burke to Richard Caswell, 12 March 1778, Letters of Delegates to Congress, 9:274-275.
40
NCSR, 12:808, 819-820.
41
Cornelius Harnett to Richard Caswell, 27 August 1778, Letters of Delegates to Congress, 10:506-509;
ibid., 15 September 1778, 10:642-643; David T. Morgan, “Cornelius Harnett,” 236-237.
65
1777, which met in April, the legislature enacted several measures to regulate the militia,
prevent domestic insurrections, and “for the encouragement of the militia and volunteers
employed in prosecuting the present Indian War.”42 In May a measure was adopted by
the Assembly to encourage enlistments, the only one of its kind. With military officers
struggling to enlist men for active service against British forces to the north, the lack of
attention to these concerns is glaring. In November of that year, the legislature passed an
act to allow the state governor to send five thousand militia troops to the aid of another
state “to assist in the common Defence,” upon the request of Congress, but this was a far
cry from providing regulars.43 Not a bill was passed concerning the state’s Continental
forces, although by this time news of the North Carolina troops’ fighting at the battles of
Brandywine and Germantown had reached New Bern. Governor Caswell wrote to
Washington in February 1778 of his concern “to find those Regiments so exceedingly
short of their Complement of Men, and beg leave to assure you Sir, that every Attention
shall be paid and such Measures adopted as may be in my power to make them more
respectable and as nearly complete as possible.”44
Perhaps the state’s chief executive had some influence in this matter, for in April
1778, the legislature passed a bill “for raising men to complete the Continental Battalions
belonging to this State.” Significantly, by this time the Assembly recognized that merely
relying on bounties and volunteers to fill the ranks would be insufficient, for this measure
42
NCSR, 24:1-42.
43
NCSR, 24:128-129, 154.
44
Richard Caswell to George Washington, 15 February 1778, Papers of George Washington, Revolution
Series, 12:544. See Thomas Burke to Richard Caswell, 18 March 1779, Letters of Delegates to the
Continental Congress, 12:206-207, for his concerns about the lack of state support for their Continental
troops serving with Washington.
66
called for 2,648 men “raised and detached from the Militia.” This phrase meant, of
course, that if volunteers were too few, men would be drafted to serve.45 The next act
passed addressed both the need to prevent desertion among the state’s regiments and to
fill the ranks. “An Act for Restraint of Vagrants, and preventing Desertion” declared that
“Men who shall be found loitering and neglecting to labour for reasonable Wages, not
having property to sufficiently maintain themselves, and all persons who shall run from
their Wives and Children” should be deemed “Rogues and Vagabonds,” and delivered to
a Continental officer who had the authority to enroll them. Penalties for harboring
deserters were spelled out in the act, an effort to curb this inimical practice and its
deleterious effects on keeping men in their companies. Thus, state authorities arrived at
the expedient of having its lowest class of men fight for independence when higher ranks
of society failed to produce a sufficient number of soldiers. Even so, the measure was
inefficacious.46
Although the state had (nominally) ten regiments on foot, and received numerous
pleas from Congress to provide the full complement of men for each, the assembly failed
to meet its quotas. The delegates met twice in 1779, but did not pass meaningful
measures to fill the regular regiments at either session. In May, the government passed
“An Act for raising regular forces for the defense of this and the neighboring states, and
for other purposes,” but it proved ineffective. This act stated that by 1 July of that year,
any ten of the militia who enlisted one “able bodied man into the continental service for
the space of eighteen months, or a longer period, they shall during the time of such
45
NCSR, 24:154-157.
46
NCSR, 24:157-159.
67
inlistment be cleared from all military duties or drafts whatsoever, except when the state
shall be invaded, or in the case of domestic insurrection.” Thus for every man sent to fill
the ranks of the Continentals, ten men were exempted from all martial burdens
whatsoever, unless the state was directly threatened.47 This was a tacit admission that
most men simply could not be made to serve.
In the October 1779 legislative session, the only measure enacted relating to
providing more soldiers was “to aid the states of South Carolina and Georgia,” but this
merely authorized the governor, with the advice of the council, to order up to three
thousand militia men to go to the support of these two states. Only at the session of April
1780, did the assembly address the need for more soldiers. The lawmakers called for the
recruitment of three thousand men for three years, with a bonus of five hundred dollars
for every year served of the three, in addition to “one prime slave between the age of
fifteen and thirty years, or the value thereof in current money, and two hundred acres of
land.”48 Such hefty inducements to enlist demonstrate that at this time, no rage militaire
existed within the state, if indeed it really ever had. They also indicate an admission by
state lawmakers that North Carolinians could be enlisted into regular battalions only with
great difficulty, and not in the numbers required by the precarious military situation in
1779 and beyond. Significant incentives of money, slaves and land rather than patriotism
were necessary for recruitment.49
47
NCSR, 24:254.
48
NCSR, 24:262, 338-339.
49
For the disappearance of this rage militaire, or enthusiasm for the war particularly in its early stages, see
Charles Royster, A Revolutionary People at War: The Continental Army and American character, 17751783 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1979).
68
Land bounties were insufficient to entice men to the ranks of North Carolina
regiments. “Landed property” in the state “is very easily acquired,” wrote Thomas Burke
from Congress at the end of 1780. “The Climate is mild, and the Soil either fruitful for
agriculture, fit for raising Stock, or for producing Naval Stores.” Thus, with land already
easily available to Carolinians, and the relative effortlessness to make a profit from such
property, no doubt many leaders wondered why men would endure the hardships of
military service for such bounties. “This [recruiting] act has had little or no Success,”
Burke observed “war has exhausted all or most of the men who might be calculated upon
for voluntary inlistments.” Many resentful Carolinians understood that a draft would
have to be implemented if enough troops were to be fielded.50
The unremitting problem of getting men to join the ranks of the regular battalions
was never solved. Indeed, Major General Nathanael Greene, commander of the Southern
Department for the last three years of the war, wrote to North Carolina’s governor “I
hope to heaven your Legislature will adopt some decisive measures for filling up your
Continental line,” with a warning that the failure to do so would bring “distress and
perhaps disgrace.”51 Prior to the 1778 British invasion of the South, a combination of
factors led to the chronic shortage of men, including the disaffection of many people
from the Whig cause, a lack of resources to provide for the regiments, and the lack of a
significant external threat to the state up to that time. Unsurprisingly, enlisting troops for
Continental service took on new urgency once powerful British forces began to focus
their military efforts on Georgia and the Carolinas.
50
51
Thomas Burke to John Laurens, 26 December 1780, Letters of Delegates to Congress, 16:499-500.
Richard Showman and Dennis M. Conrad, eds., The Papers of General Nathanael Greene, 13 vols.,
(Chapel Hill, University of North Carolina Press, 1976-2005), 11:14-15.
69
Yet for all of these impediments, perhaps Carolina officials were not surprised
that raising their own troops for regular, extended service out of the state was so difficult,
had they recalled the province’s experiences of a similar nature during the Seven Years’
War, 1754 to 1762. Attempts to raise soldiers during that conflict, known in the colonies
as the French and Indian War, can only be described as marginal, with little influence on
the ultimate outcome of the conflict’s events. A growing pattern of unwillingness and
inability on the part of the colony to contribute its men and money to the war
characterized the war years. From early 1754, to the end of Indian hostilities by 1762,
North Carolina reduced its commitment to the war substantially as each session of the
assembly met.52 Just as North Carolina had difficulty raising men for Continental service
during the War for American Independence, so too did authorities find getting men into
the ranks a burden during the 1750s. Despite offers of bounties, few men signed up for
service during the war. Recruiting parties from the British army enlisted few men,
despite the colony having about thirteen thousand men nominally on the militia rolls that
summer. Recruiters noted that although there were “men enough Scattered in the back
Part of the two Carolinas,” the wages for other labors were high enough that the settlers
“despise our pay, and those who inlist, being the worste, desert very Soon.”53 A lack of
an external threat from Indians and the French no doubt explains in part the reluctance of
Carolinians to “take the king’s shilling” and enlist in a regular battalion during this
52
NCCR, 5:131; Maass, “All this Poor Province Could Do,” 50-54, 81-89.
53
NCCR, 5:603.
70
imperial struggle, and may also explain the failure of the state’s men to willingly serve
during the Revolutionary War as well, at least through 1778.54
Although state leaders encountered enormous difficulties raising Continental
regiments during the first several years of the war, these challenges paled in comparison
to the recruiting struggles they faced once the British concentrated their military efforts in
the southern states by late 1778. Recruiting troops and providing them with the
necessities of wartime service was difficult enough when the seat of war was hundreds of
miles away near Boston, New York or Philadelphia. The problems were substantially
compounded once British troops invaded the Carolinas, occupied Wilmington, and
exacerbated the conflict with Tory militia units in 1781 and 1782. The chaos within the
state once the British menace drew closer to home not only prevented North Carolina
from getting enough troops to serve, but elucidated the fledgling state’s substantial
weaknesses during the time of crisis.
As noted in the introduction, the British invaded the southern states during the last
weeks of 1778, captured Savannah the next year and by May 1780, had forced a large
American army commanded by General Benjamin Lincoln to surrender at Charleston.
This was followed by the redcoats’ campaign to subdue both Carolinas, a campaign in
which North Carolina was invaded in 1781 and its principle port, Wilmington, was
occupied for almost a year. Although Patriot forces won crucial victories at Kings
Mountain and Cowpens, the British incursion was devastating for the state and produced
utter confusion and disorder within its borders. Notwithstanding the Wilmington
garrison, however, once Cornwallis’ army left the state for Virginia in May 1781, North
54
Arthur Dobbs to William Pitt, 30 December 1757, NCCR, 5:792.
71
Carolina witnessed the presence of no additional British troops or invasions during the
war.55
This does not mean, however, that the war’s taxing burdens slackened for the
state once his Lordship’s weary troops tramped north toward their eventual downfall at
Yorktown. Instead, a substantial threat from hostile and active Tories remained a
worrisome concern for the Patriots for two more years. In addition, North Carolina
labored to support the war effort in South Carolina as General Greene continued his
campaign to win back that state from British occupiers, and force them to abandon
Charleston. The fall of Charleston in 1780 intensified the need for North Carolina to
provide men and supplies to the armies of Gates and Greene, a necessary burden for the
remainder of the conflict. The state’s failure revealed the limited attachment of the
people to the revolutionary cause.
After Gates’ defeat near Camden in August 1780, disorder, confusion and chaos
reigned supreme in North Carolina. With the British host poised to enter the state in
October, coupled with increased Tory activities, delegates failed to convene for the
legislative session amid such dangers. Not until 18 January 1781 did the General
Assembly meet at Halifax. Any prospects for getting more men into the field were bleak.
So many Carolinians had been killed, wounded, captured or deserted, that the state’s six
remaining Continental battalions were reduced to four, and many officers no longer
needed. The legislature admitted that “the common mode of recruiting” had been
unsuccessful and thus looked for other methods for filling the ranks. They hoped to place
55
Russell F. Weigley, The American Way of War: A History of United States Military Strategy and Policy
(Macmillan Publishing Co., Inc., 1973), 25-27; Don Higginbotham, The War of American Independence:
Military Attitudes, Policies, and Practice, 1763-1789 (New York: Macmillan, 1971), 352-388.
72
2,724 men in the regiments with the use of bounties of £3,000 (paper) per able-bodied
man, with provisions of corn for his wife and children (if any) for the duration of his tour.
This, of course, was a way to ease the fears of potential recruits for the well-being of their
families, but corn and currency certainly would not protect them from Tory depredations.
Volunteers were hoped for, but the act allowed militia commanders to draft men if need
be. Any man who volunteered for the war’s duration received an additional bounty of
money and land.56 Of course, getting the militiamen organized and mustered for the
purpose of drafting them took time, and was interrupted by Cornwallis’ incursion through
much of the state from January to April. Many counties failed to raise troops for
Continental service by the summer as a result.57
When the legislature met next in June 1781 at Wake Court House, it still needed
to “raise troops for the better security and defence of this State.” It sought to raise
soldiers for twelve months, though officers were not to enlist any British or Hessian
deserters, Indians, blacks, sailors or apprentices. Another act was passed to enlist
additional men in the Continental regiments for a year, previous efforts obviously having
been fruitless. With this no doubt in mind, the assembly enacted a measure to draft the
militia to reinforce Greene’s small army, then in South Carolina. These men were to
come from the districts of Salisbury and Hillsborough, fifteen hundred of them “armed
and equipped in the best manner,” but only to serve three months. Furthermore, the
governor was permitted to order out up to four thousand militiamen “for the use of the
56
NCSR, 24:367-373; Paul V. Lutz, “A State's Concern for the Soldiers' Welfare: How North Carolina
Provided for Her Troops During the Revolution,” North Carolina Historical Review 42 (July 1965): 315318.
57
NCSR, 24:395.
73
Southern Department.”58 These efforts, not surprisingly, brought forth few new men to
the southern army, perhaps because by the time the laws were passed most of the British
forces had left the state. At Hillsborough in April 1782, the Assembly met again, and
sought once more to “compleat the Continental Battalions” of the state, something it had
been unable to do at any point in the war. Again, militia officers were empowered to
make use of a draft within their counties should an insufficient number of men step
forward. This was the last act passed by North Carolina for raising troops or for drafting
the militia to serve with Greene or other commanders, and proved no more effectual than
its predecessors.59
With the advent of statehood, North Carolina began its lengthy period of military
struggles as it sought to contribute to the Continental war efforts, and defend itself from
enemies both foreign and domestic. A fundamental concern for the state was the need to
mobilize for war, particularly with regard to raising troops. Repeated calls for recruits
and generous bounties failed to produce the desired results with regard to the state’s
regular regiments. State leaders may also have noticed a peculiarity regarding military
service in 1776 and 1777. That is, while getting men to enlist in Continental regiments
was difficult, there seemed to be no shortage of men willing to serve in a limited capacity
in 1776 during the Moore’s Creek insurrection and for Rutherford’s western campaign
against the Cherokee. Serving in the regulars meant strict discipline, a longer time
commitment, and as it turned out, a tour of duty far from home. That the state was not
threatened by British forces until 1779 meant that Carolinians experienced no significant
58
NCSR, 24:384-387, 395-396, 404-405.
59
NCSR, 24:413-417.
74
external threat for the first three years of the war, a fact which surely dampened
enthusiasm for enlisting. Much like the situation a generation before in the French and
Indian War, numerous Carolinians may not have seen British operations in the northern
provinces from 1775 to 1778 as an inducement to leave home in the ranks of the regulars.
On the other hand, more than enough men responded to the call to arms when danger
struck closer to home. Caswell’s forces were certainly adequate to put down the
insurgents at Moore’s Creek, and to round up scores of loyalist prisoners in its aftermath.
For the frontier campaign of 1776 against the Indians, more than enough militia troops
turned out for service, some of whom never made it to the frontier at all, their services
being deemed superfluous.
These two alarms—Moore’s Creek and the Cherokee campaign—were
characterized by two important features that lead to enthusiastic participation by
Carolinians in the ranks. First, both were in essence local threats, in that Cherokee
warriors and enemy soldiers presented a danger close to home, and threatened the lives,
families, livelihoods, and property of men loyal to the state. To a large extent, this also
explains the motivation and large numbers of frontier men who turned out to defeat
Ferguson’s command at Kings Mountain in 1780. Such defensive service meant staying
within one’s community, or at the most within the state’s borders, not marching off to
New York, Pennsylvania or New England as Continentals. This immediate interest in
defending home and hearth created an emphasis on localism among Carolinians for all of
the war years, whether the foe happened to be a redcoat, a Tory or a Native American.
This was particularly true in the backcountry and frontier counties, and those areas
threatened significantly by Tories, such as the Cape Fear Valley. Secondly, duty against
75
Indians and Tories usually meant tours of a limited duration. The Moore’s Creek
campaign meant only a few months active duty for most of the men, who served in their
local militia companies with friends and neighbors they knew. Rutherford’s expedition
was only slightly longer, and once the troops were no longer needed, they were quickly
sent home. Such duty was far different than Continental service, which meant lengthy
tours—sometimes for several years—oftentimes with strangers, and officers the men
hardly knew.
As North Carolina’s new government discerned, the significant difficulties
involved with raising troops created troublesome disorders within the state, and
demonstrated the unpopularity of bearing arms in the war for more than a limited scope.
As will be shown in the following chapter, similar problems confronted state and military
officials with regard to furnishing its men all manner of arms, supplies and uniforms as
North Carolina’s precarious financial position contributed in no small part to the
confusion and disorders that came to be so common in the early 1780s.
76
CHAPTER 3
“A VERY DISMAL PICTURE INDEED”: FINANCIAL AND LOGISTICAL
CHALLENGES
In addition to the seemingly insurmountable problems getting men to serve in the
ranks of the state’s battalions, two crucial obstacles to victory were lack of supplies of all
kinds, and inadequate financial resources. Keeping the state’s soldiers in the field
required sufficient guns, fodder, food and a seemingly incalculable number of other items
was an impediment North Carolina was unable and ill-prepared to overcome, even after
the British left the state in 1781. Particularly in the last years of the war, the demand for
military necessities disrupted the state and its people. Scarce resources, duplication of
efforts and a resistant populace bred chaos of and undermined the new state’s claims of
legitimacy. Moreover, these overwhelming obstacles forced Carolina officials to focus
on immediate needs within their state and local communities, at the expense of the
continental war effort.1
Two letters clearly illustrate the state’s wartime logistical and financial dilemmas.
From the state’s military magazine at Halifax, Nicholas Long, deputy quartermaster
general for the Continental army, wrote a letter to North Carolina Governor Thomas
1
R. Arthur Bowler, “Logistics and Operations in the American Revolution,” in Don Higginbotham, ed.,
Reconsiderations on the Revolutionary War: Selected Essays (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1978), 57.
77
Burke in late February 1782, with unwelcome but unsurprising news. Burke was
finalizing plans to launch an expedition within the state to quell the powerful Tory forces
in a number of central and eastern counties, where disaffection had been rampant. Long
could only report, however, that as he attempted to outfit the forces for this anti-loyalist
campaign he faced a bevy of difficulties. “Tanned leather, Bar Iron, Coffee, Sugar and
Salt are articles much wanted,” he advised Burke, and “of the first and last mentioned of
said commodities, there are none at hand.” In continuing his report, Long also advised
Burke of another serious issue: “I have, of my own private Estate, advanced Considerable
Sums of Money to various assistants, and Artificers of peculiar Craft, which still remains
unpaid.”2
This letter far from atypical. Earlier in the war, one of the state’s top militia
officers, Alexander Lillington, advised Governor Richard Caswell of his precarious
situation in an aggrieved letter. He had “not a waggon, cart, pot or kettle” in Wilmington
in December 1779, and to make matters worse, he possessed “not one farthing of money
to purchase an article with.” Lillington reported that “borrowing money here” was out of
the question, as “the public faith is so bad with [the citizens], what we are to do I know
not.” It is notable that the situation described by Lillington was prior to the major British
expedition against Charleston in 1780, and well before the enemy had entered North
Carolina, after which these matters became even more thorny.3
2
William S. Powell, ed., Dictionary of North Carolina Biography, 6 vols. (Chapel Hill: University of
North Carolina Press, 1979), 4:93-94 (herein cited as DNCB); Nicholas Long to Thomas Burke, 28
February 1782, Preston Davie Collection, Southern Historical Collection, UNC, Box 3, #151. The
expedition against the Tories in 1782 is described in Chapter 4.
3
Alexander Lillington to Richard Caswell, 18 December 1779, Preston Davie Collection, Southern
Historical Collection, UNC, Box 2, #99.
78
In addition to the reports of the officers above, the letters of two commanders of
the Southern Department, generals Horatio Gates and Nathanael Greene, also explicitly
illustrate the magnitude of the problems facing American armies in terms of logistics and
supplies. On his journey to assume command of southern forces in July 1780, Gates
wrote to Virginia’s governor, Thomas Jefferson, from Hillsborough. While the general
expected to encounter prior to his arrival in North Carolina “much difficulty and a
perplexed department,” he was taken aback by what he found. The Virginia militia was
“not so completely supplied as I either wished or expected. The arms were yesterday
distributed among them, a few out of repair, but too many without cartouche Boxes, and
all destitute of bayonet Belts which I need scarcely tell your Excellency is the certain loss
of the Bayonet. They are also deficient in hatchets and light axes.” “These defects”
included scarcities of ammunition and provisions. Gates continued with more bleak
news. “Upon the subject of provisions my reports must be still less satisfactory…there
are intervals of 24 hours in which the army…are obliged to feed upon such green
vegetables as they can find, having neither animal food or Corn. So frequent a total a
want, must eventually break up our Camp, should not the evil be hastily remedied,” a
situation the general blamed on “the scarcity of Crops for the last year, the disaffection of
many of the inhabitants and a want of Economy, and management.” By this last cause he
meant impressment, in that “the supplies have been precariously obtained by detachments
from the Army whose misapplied violence in some instances must affect any future
purchase.” Gates had been a soldier for too long not to recognize that such a poorly
supplied and equipped army could not only lead to its own dissolution through desertion
or mutiny, but might become intolerably burdensome and oppressive on the local
79
inhabitants as well. In the weeks ahead Gates followed up this report with other accounts
to Jefferson of his army “intirely in want,” “void of a Magazine,” “half Starved,” and in
“inconceivable” distress. With similar complaints about North Carolina’s
“backwardness,” Gates asked Jefferson a pointed question: “what can the Executive
Councils of Both States believe will be the consequences, of such unpardonable
Neglect?” While Virginia’s mountaintop philosopher no doubt objected to the charge of
neglect, he was surely well aware of the logistical challenges American leaders faced in
the south.4
Gates also contacted North Carolina’s governor about the inadequacies of his
department’s supplies. To Abner Nash, he described the “Deplorable State of the
Commissary and Quarter Master’s Departments, and the intire Deficiency of Magazines
to Supply the Southern Army.” He urged an immediate reorganization of the state’s
supply system, for “unless these things are done, an Army is like a Dead Whale upon the
Sea Shore, a Monstrous Carcase without life or Motion.” He predicted ruin for the army
and the southern states without instant action to rectify the state’s chaotic logistical
efforts.5 Gates also complained that the southern army was “without Strength,”
possessed a “Military Chest without Money, and a Department apparently Deficient in
public Spirit.”6 Of the sad state of affairs, he reported that Virginia was “without a single
4
Horatio Gates to Thomas Jefferson, 19 July 1780, Julian P. Boyd, ed., Papers of Thomas Jefferson, 33
vols. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1950-2000), 3:495-496; Horatio Gates to Thomas Jefferson,
22 July 1780, Papers of Thomas Jefferson, 3:501; Horatio Gates to Thomas Jefferson, 19 3 August 1780,
Papers of Thomas Jefferson, 3:524-525.
5
Gates to Abner Nash, 19 July 1780, NCSR, 15:4. Even the British operations in the Carolinas were
effected by “the great scarcity of provisions in North Carolina” that summer. See William B. Willcox, ed.,
The American Rebellion; Sir Henry Clinton's Narrative of his Campaigns, 1775-1782 (New Haven, Yale
University Press, 1954), 223.
80
Dollar,” as was North Carolina. “Without Money, without Provisions—without Tents
and without many Articles…I have before me the most unpromising Prospect my Eyes
ever beheld.” It was “a very dismal Picture indeed.”7
Early in August, as his lamentable army made its way toward Camden in the
Carolina heat, Gates sought to inform Governor Nash of his army’s precarious condition,
and how the situation adversely affected military success. “The Distress this Army has
suffered, and still continues to suffer, for want of Provisions has perhaps destroyed the
finest Opportunity that could be presented of driving in the Enemy’s Advanced Posts,”
Gates declared. He advised Nash of the lack of flour, and that “this miserable Country
(already Ravaged by the Enemy, & gleaned by the Militia under the Generals Caswell
and Rutherford) can afford [only] a Handful to me.” The troops were “almost
famished…flour and Rum are the Articles most in request in this Climate, which bad
water contributes to render more unwholesome.” Without these items, he assured Nash,
“full Hospitals and a thin Army will be all that your State or the Congress can depend
upon in the Southern Department.” Only a few weeks later, Gates’ woefully supplied
force met disaster near Camden on 16 August, the cause of which can be attributed in
part to the army’s lack of provisions and military materiel.8
Even after his soldiers were routed that day, Gates still found his forlorn army
shockingly unsupported. A few weeks after the battle, he advised Washington that there
6
Gates to Benjamin Lincoln, 2 July 1780, Papers of Horatio Gates, microfilm, reel 11.
7
Gates to Samuel Huntington, 20 July 1780, Papers of Horatio Gates, Gates Letterbook, microfilm, reel 11.
8
Horatio Gates to Thomas Jefferson, 19 July 1780, Papers of Thomas Jefferson, 3:495-496; Horatio Gates
to Thomas Jefferson, 22 July 1780, Papers of Thomas Jefferson, 3:501; Horatio Gates to Thomas Jefferson,
19 3 August 1780, Papers of Thomas Jefferson, 3:524-525; Gates to Abner Nash, 3 August 1780, Papers of
Horatio Gates, microfilm, reel 11.
81
were no stockpiles of provisions near the army in North Carolina, and they lived “from
Hand to Mouth.”9 Governor Nash advised the Continental Congress that the defeat at
Camden had virtually broken the state. “All the funds of this State have been exhausted
in the course of the late campaign,” he wrote. “The horses, wagons, tents, arms, camp
equipage of every kind, the pay and bounty of the militia, and the provision of beef, pork,
flour, spirits, sugar, coffee, wine, medicines, etc., etc., all fell upon us, besides the
payment of very large sums on Congress[ional] draughts, & all was lost in a single
hour.”10 To the North Carolina Board of War, a committee specifically created by the
legislature in 1780 to bring some control and direction to the state’s war efforts,11 Gates
wrote in early September of the army’s desperate plight. No doubt hoping to stir the
committee into action, he advised the board members in an ominous letter:
there are Two Methods of Supplying an Army with Forage & Provisions,
One by a Magazine of each, being by the proper authority provided for
them; the Other, by their taking it with a Strong Hand for themselves. The
Former is the Mode they ever wish to take place; the Latter, as Citizens &
Soldiers they wish never to be obliged [to] follow—but unhappily for
them it is almost the only Mode by which both Militia & Continental
Troops have been supplied for the whole of the preceding part of this
Campaign.12
The message to the Board was clear—lay in stockpiles of provisions or the army would
live off the resources of the citizenry by force. This apparently frightened the legislature
9
Gates to Washington, 30 August 1780, Papers of Horatio Gates, reel 12.
10
Nash to Samuel Huntington, 6 October 1780, NCSR, 15:98-99; Nash to the N.C. General Assembly, 23
June 1781, NCSR, 17:881.
11
The idea for the board of war came from Abner Nash, then governor, after the debacle at Camden.
Abner Nash to the General Assembly, 25 August 1780, Joint Papers, General Assembly Session Records,
August-September 1780, Box 1, N.C. State Archives.
12
Gates to N.C. Board of War, 22 September 1780, Papers of Horatio Gates, microfilm, reel 12. For a
detailed look at impressment in North Carolina, see Chapter 6.
82
enough to cause its members to “pledge themselves to the General that they will exert
themselves to obtain an immediate supply of all Military and other stores necessary for
the Continental Army, and that the utmost strength and credit of this State shall be
exerted to make their present Situation respectable and agreeable to them.” The
assemblymen feared that Gates would withdraw his command into Virginia due to lack of
provisions and supplies, leaving North Carolina vulnerable and exposed to British
invasion. Yet little changed. By November, Gates again described to the Board of War
the “unspeakable” travails “the army has suffered and shall like to suffer for want of
provisions, requiring your instant interposition to save it from utter ruin.”13
Gates’ relationship with the Board quickly turned sour due to the latter’s inability
to meet the army’s needs. By November he had taken to writing the board even when
located in the same town, so “that no imputation may lay at my door by the neglect” of
those on this state committee. Superseded in early December, Gates never saw the
alleviation of his deplorable troops’ distress so long as he commanded them, and had to
endure the resultant turmoil.14
On 4 December 1780, General Nathanael Greene assumed command of the
Southern Department at Charlotte, North Carolina, at which time he inherited all of the
myriad supply and logistics problems from his ill-starred predecessor.15 Like Gates,
13
Gates to N.C. Board of War, 12 November 1780, Papers of Horatio Gates, Gates Letterbook, microfilm,
reel 11; Resolution of the House of Commons, 13 September 1780, Papers of Horatio Gates, Gates
Letterbook, microfilm, reel 12.
14
Gates to N.C. Board of War, 5 November 1780, Papers of Horatio Gates, Gates Letterbook, microfilm,
reel 11.
15
Greene to William H. Harrington, 4 December 1780, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 6:519. Greene’s
previous extended service as Continental Quartermaster General under George Washington must have been
of great help to him in the southern theatre.
83
Greene was astounded at the wretched condition of the army. “The Difficulty of carrying
on the war in this Department is much greater than my imagination had extended to,” he
found just a few days after reaching his command, which he described as “the Shadow of
an Army in the midst of Distress.”16
Greene fired off a letter to Jefferson almost the instant he assumed command.
Greene expected Jefferson and other Virginia military and civil officials to provide a
major share of the supplies and stores for the defense of the south. The commander
described the execrable situation for Jefferson in detail on 6 December, in a vivid letter
worth quoting at length.
I find the Troops…in a most wretched Condition, destitute of every thing
necessary either for the Comfort or Convenience of Soldiers. It is
impossible that Men can render any Service, if they are ever so well
disposed whilst they are starving with Cold and Hunger. Your Troops
may literally be said to be naked, and I shall be obliged to send a
considerable number of them away into some secure place and warm
quarters until they can be furnished with Cloathing. It will answer no
good Purpose to send men here in such a Condition, for they are nothing
but added Weight upon the Army, and altogether incapable of aiding in its
operations. There must be either pride or principle to make a Soldier. No
man will think himself bound to fight the Battles of a State that leaves him
to perish for want of Covering, nor can you inspire a Soldier with the
Sentiment of Pride whilst his Situation renders him more an Object of Pity
than Envy. The Life of a Soldier in its best State is subject to innumerable
Hardships, but when they are aggravated by a want of Provision and
Cloathing his Condition becomes intolerable, nor can men long contend
with such complicated Difficulties and Distress—Deaths, Desertions and
the Hospital must soon swallow up an Army under such Circumstances
and were it possible for them to maintain such a wretched existence they
would have no Spirit to Face their Enemies….it is impracticable to
preserve Discipline when Troops are in Want of every Thing and to
attempt Severity will only thin the ranks by a more hasty Desertion…you
raise men in vain unless you clothe, arm and equip them properly for the
Field.
16
Greene to Abner Nash, 6 December 1780, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 6:533-534; Greene to Henry
Knox, 7 December 1780, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 6:547.
84
Greene concluded his admonishment by pointedly reminding Jefferson that “a Genl with
such Troops can give no Protection to a Country.”17
Greene wanted to make sure Jefferson and others responsible for supplying the
troops understood that poorly clad and armed men could perform little service except to
consume the army’s precious supplies. Hungry, angry soldiers would eventually take
what they wanted by force, and thereby alienate the population against the army and its
cause. He ominously warned North Carolina’s Board of War on 7 December that “if an
Army is not well provided the people will soon begin to feel the hand of violence.” Such
a deplorable situation “can never promote the Public Interest,” and would weaken the
soldiers’ attachment to the revolutionary cause.18
As he organized his army, Greene reported to General Washington that “nothing
can be more wretched and distressing than the state of the troops, starving with cold and
hunger, without tents and camp equipage,” and wondered if his army even deserved the
name. In other letters he noted that the troops were almost without clothes, “and we
subsist by daily Collections…in a Country that has been ravaged and plundered by both
Friends and Enemies.”19 Complaining to North Carolina officials about his pitiful army,
he declared that “to have a good army you must begin by providing well for the belly, for
that is the mainspring of every operation.” He urged them to establish magazines around
17
Greene to Jefferson, 6 December 1780, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 6:530-531.
18
Greene to Jefferson, 6 December 1780, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 6:530-531; Greene to N.C. Board
of War, 7 December 1780, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 6:548.
19
Greene to Washington, 7 December 1780, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 6:542-543; Greene to Henry
Knox, 7 December 1780, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 6:547.
85
that state, the collection of cattle and swine, and “about a month’s provision laid in.”20
His men were hungry and cold, “naked and undisciplined,” and supplied with food only
with difficulty.21
In the days ahead Greene repeated his melancholy descriptions of the army’s
situation. “What shall I say to you representing this department,” he asked a friend
rhetorically, “to tell you the truth I dare not; nor would you believe me if I should. Give
scope to your imagination and form to yourself as bad a picture as you can draw and still
it will fall short of the real state of things.” Greene advised North Carolina government
officials that “the subsistence of this Army is so precarious and difficult to obtain either
from the real scarcity of supplies or for want of a more general and permanent
arrangement that I am not a little alarmed for its existence.” He again noted that the army
was living day to day by local foraging operations, which often meant detaching half of
the army for this purpose, which made the conduct of operations against the enemy
“almost impossible.” Although Greene, a former quartermaster general of Washington’s
army, was eventually able to make some headway in the realm of logistics and
organization of supply, the situation improved only slowly, and in some matters, not at
all. Unfortunately for all those concerned with supplies and logistics, these frustrations
demonstrated the inability of state and Continental officials to provide logistical support
for the armed forces in the field, which could have done little to endear the new state and
country to the people.22
20
Greene to N.C. Board of War, 7 December 1780, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 6:548.
21
Greene to Baron Steuben, 7 December 1780, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 6:551.
86
The myriad problems North Carolina faced are difficult to overstate. The
challenge of arming, equipping and sheltering troops in the field is dramatically
demonstrated by a surviving estimate made in May 1780 for outfitting four thousand
militia men voted by the North Carolina General Assembly to aid an embattled South
Carolina, then besieged by Sir Henry Clinton’s British army. The militia, commanded by
former state governor Richard Caswell, required twenty-two wagons just for the
commander, his staff and the ammunition; 844 tents; 4,000 muskets, bayonets, cartridge
boxes, canteens and haversacks; 670 axes and kettles; 6 field pieces with their carriages,
ammunition boxes, sponges, rammers, worms, spikes, hammers, prickers, and ladles;
pistols, swords, saddles, boots and spurs for 105 light horsemen; 20,000 muskets
cartridges, 6,000 pistol cartridges, 6,000 artillery loads; 8,000 pounds of powder for small
arms and cannon; cartridge paper and 16,000 musket flints; 6 tons of lead, bullet molds
for round balls and buckshot; entrenching tools “of all kinds,” carpenters’ and smiths’
tools, bar and sheet iron; canvass, twine, sail and needles; “old junk for wadding,” and
“many necessaries that will be wanting…[and] not particularized here.”23 These supplies
were to come from (or be paid for by) a state in its fourth year of war, and the estimate
did not include that which was needed for the state’s Continental troops, other militia
forces already at Charleston, and the defense of the frontier.24 No wonder that by the
22
Greene to Peabody, 8 December 1780, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 6:554; Greene to N.C. Board of
War, 14 December 1780, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 6:575-576.
23
NCSR, 14:811-812. The canvass, twine, sail and needles were needed for tent making. It is interesting to
note that Caswell’s four thousand men needed four thousand muskets, which certainly indicates that the
weapons the state had been able to procure up to that point had all been issued, captured and/or lost.
24
This was not the first expedition North Carolina sent to the south that required outfitting with the tools of
war. In 1779, one of the state’s militia commanders reported to Governor Caswell what his command
lacked, prior to their march southward to aid South Carolina. The militia wanted “almost everything, as
87
time North Carolina was invaded by redcoats in January 1781, it was already exhausted.
Moreover, a depleted state and its troops in such poor condition could also hardly have
been expected to inspire the citizenry to support the revolutionary movement, or to
encourage men to risk their lives in the state’s defense.
The sheer magnitude of what the army needed to stay in the field—and getting it
to the camps—overwhelmed state and Continental commissaries in all of the states. E.
Wayne Carp has described in detail the financial and logistical challenges faced by army
supply officers, and their often ineffectual responses to them. Yet while Carp’s study is
an excellent overview of supply matters confronted by Congress and Continental
authorities during the war, very little of his work covers the southern theatre, or the final
few years of the war. It might be argued that due to more limited resources, greater
distances, and extensive military activity, the army’s procurement conundrum was more
severe in the South than in other theatres. To feed North Carolina’s militia and to
contribute to the maintenance of the Continental army, the state needed to procure an
array of items, many of which could be obtained and transported only with the greatest
difficulty, if at all. Rarely were all of the essential items available at the same time.
Carolina officials and military officers serving within the state spent much of their time
Arms, Accoutrements, tents, Camp Kettles, Intrenching Tools, Wagons, Horses,” forage and means to pay
the men when they arrived in South Carolina. He recommended that “we must have our own
commissary…otherwise we stand but a bad chance of being served.” Alexander Lillington to Richard
Caswell, 15 November 1779, NCSR, 14:224.
88
and effort securing adequate supplies, particularly of food. These travails were both
caused by and a result of the chaos of the war.25
The state’s assembly was well aware of the problems providing for the troops
even before the British invaded the south in 1778. Griffith Rutherford, for instance,
reported in July 1777 of the scarcity of grain in the western part of the state, where “an
immediate supply of money” was required in order to get what little was available.26
Procurement officers in Cumberland County told the governor the same month that
“bread is exceedingly scarce,” and it “is not possible to get one bushel of corn, upon any
consideration, in this County.”27 Matters did not improve with time. The assembly
passed an act the in 1778 to “prohibit the exportation of Beef, Pork, Bacon and Indian
Corn,” unless for the Continental Army in the north or Carolina troops sent out of the
state.28 At one point in early 1779, Allen Jones, commander of the Halifax District
militia, feared that if the militia there were embodied it would “almost bring on a famine”
due to the lack of grain available.29 Later that year, Rutherford again reported from the
western counties that “provision in this part of the State is very scarce.”30 Militia Colonel
Peter Mallett advised Governor Caswell in November 1779 that “there is a great
appearance of scarcity of bread kind and forage, and unless the articles are immediately
25
NCSR, 17:683-684. See also E. Wayne Carp, To Starve the Army with Pleasure: Continental Army
Administration and American Popular Culture, 1775-1783 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina
Press, 1984), 64-65.
26
Griffith Rutherford to Richard Caswell, 17 July 1777, NCSR, 14:161-162.
27
Mallett, Emmet & Mallett to Richard Caswell, 31 July 1779, NCSR, 14:179-1780.
28
NCSR, 24:168-169.
29
Allen Jones to Richard Caswell, 19 February 1779, NCSR, 14:24.
30
Griffith Rutherford to Richard Caswell, 28 June 1779, NCSR, 14:132.
89
procured it will not be possible to procure them towards Spring. Beef there is in plenty;
Pork none.” Mallett also added that “little can be done without cash,” something
Carolina officials heard quite frequently.31
By the time the state became the scene of increased military activities leading up
to Gates’ defeat at Camden, providing food to the troops became exceedingly difficult.32
Major General Baron de Kalb of the Continentals, during operations in North Carolina
that summer, wrote of his difficulties obtaining a number of crucial items for his troops.
“I have struggled with a good many difficulties for Provisions ever since I arrived in this
State,” he reported, “and although I have put the troops on short allowance for bread, we
cannot get even that; no stores laid in, and no disposition made of any, but what I have
done by military authority; no assistance from the legislative or Executive power, and the
greatest unwillingness in the people to part with anything.”33 Thomas Person also
bemoaned the situation that summer. “At present we cannot support an Army in this
State,” he advised Thomas Burke, “so as [to] march them…to the Assistance of S.C. till
Harvest for Bread…[which] cannot be got.”34
31
Peter Mallett to Richard Caswell, 17 November 1779, NCSR, 14:225-226; Horatio Gates to Richard
Caswell, 22 August 1780, Horatio Gates Papers, microfilm, reel 12.
32
NCSR, 15:5-6. This measure, of course, certainly did not help the state’s already struggling commerce.
33
Baron Johann de Kalb to Horatio Gates, 16 July 1780, NCSR, 14:503. De Kalb was trained in the military
service of the French, and arrived in the United States with Lafayette in early 1777. He received a
commission as major general in the Continental Army in September 1777. In order to help the besieged
garrison at Charlestown, Washington sent DeKalb with the Maryland and Delaware Continentals to South
Carolina, but the city fell before the relief force entered that state. DeKalb marched through Hillsborough
and established a camp at Deep River in early July. With General Lincoln’s surrender, DeKalb became by
default the commander of the American southern forces, until superseded by Gates’ arrival in North
Carolina at the end of July. DeKalb was mortally wounded at the battle of Camden. See A.E. Zucker,
General de Kalb, Lafayette's Mentor (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1966).
34
Thomas Person to Thomas Burke, 21 June 1780, Thomas Burke Papers, Box 55.1, N.C. State Archives.
90
Governor Nash also wrote Gates before the latter’s arrival in North Carolina,
giving him a bleak picture of the state of affairs he would soon face. “The army you are
going to command unhappily has suffered greatly and been much distressed and impeded
for want of provisions, spirits and other necessaries.”35 Some blamed “the evil of a
numerous staff department, established in such a manner as to enhance the most ruinous
abuses.”36 In addition, a lack of wagons made for transportation delays, while Nash
pointed out to Gates that his powers as executive were “very limited,” and “inadequate to
the public exigencies.”37
During operations prior to the battle of Camden in 1780, militia and Continental
troops had gleaned almost all of the provisions available along the Yadkin/Pee Dee River
valley, which created severe hardships for other troops then campaigning in the field.
Food became so scarce that as the Virginia militia marched through North Carolina to
join the American army in early August, they were placed on half rations and frequently
forced to halt so that large parties could scour the country side to procure provisions from
the local inhabitants, who had already been picked clean by other troops.38 Richard
Caswell, then commanding the North Carolina militia, advised Gates that in the region
along the border of the two Carolinas, “not a Grain of Corn or Wheat” could be found.
He complained of Gates’ orders to join the main army, as he had to march his already
weakened men “without one ounce of Meal or flour & not Sufficiency of Bread for this
35
Abner Nash to Horatio Gates, 17 July 1780, NCSR, 14:504-505.
36
N.C. Congressional Delegates to Richard Caswell, 29 February 1780, Letters of Members of the
Continental Congress, 5:57. See also Wayne Carp, To Starve the Army with Pleasure, 33-52.
37
Abner Nash to Horatio Gates, 29 July 1780, NCSR, 14:513-514.
38
Edward Stevens to Horatio Gates, 1 August 1780, NCSR, 14:519.
91
day.” Very little was available for consumption, and prospects for an adequate supply
were slim. Operating in an area notorious for its disaffection no doubt made securing
supplies even more arduous.39
The travails of Gates’ army on their march into South Carolina are perhaps one of
the best known examples of how logistical difficulties affected the performance of an
army in the field. Advancing through both Carolinas, his famished forces crossed
through a largely hostile, under-populated Tory country of pine trees, sand, and numerous
watercourses, where provisions along the way were meager.40 “The extreme want to
which the army was exposed was productive of serious ills,” with “the troops’
substituting on green corn and unripe fruit for bread, disease ensued, which reduced
considerably our force." According to one soldier, the fatigued men were “often fasting
for several days.”41 While they suffered, the weary men trudged on, and covered
seventeen to eighteen miles per day, often in a mutinous mood. “At this time we were so
much distressed for want of provisions,” one Delaware soldier wrote, “that we were
fourteen days and drew but one half pound of flour.”42 “Green peaches substituted for
bread,” and some hungry soldiers “plucked the green ears [of corn] and boiled them with
the lean beef which was collected in the woods, [and] made for themselves a repast which
39
Richard Caswell to Horatio Gates, 3 August 1780, NCSR, 14:525-526.
40
Christopher Ward, War of the Revolution (New York, Macmillan, 1952), 2:718; Otho Holland Williams,
“A Narrative of the Campaign of 1781,” in William Johnson, Sketches of the Life and Correspondence of
Nathanael Greene, 2 vols. (Charleston: A.E.Miller, 1822), 1:436.
41
42
Frank Moore, Diary of the American Revolution, 2 vols. (New York: Charles Scribner, 1860), 2:310.
Ward, War of the Revolution , 2:720; J. T. McAllister, The Virginia Militia in the Revolutionary War
(Bowie, MD: Heritage Books, 1989), 122.
92
was attended with painful effects.”43 Word reached Congress in early August of the poor
state of conditions in North Carolina, exacerbated by the lack of money there. “The want
of provisions is extremely great in the southern army,” a Congressman noted, “even to
that degree that they are without either Flesh or Bread, living on Vegetables.” The
Congress was “endeavoring to fix on ways and means to make more Ample provisions
for their support,” these efforts were ineffectual.44
Efforts to feed the defeated troops became more chaotic. One officer wrote Gates
that “I find ye Scarcity and Difficulty of getting provisions will oblige me to move
[northward] to Hillsborough, or loose ye greatest part of ye party by Desertions.”45
Governor Nash implored the members of the General Assembly to adopt a specific tax in
provisions, as “no other measure will, in my Opinion, be adequate to the consumption of
the Army.” This measure, recommended by Congress in 1780, would have allowed
civilians to pay their taxes in goods, in order to quicken the time it took for foodstuffs to
reach the army. He advised the legislature that “I don’t know that there is three days’
bread that can be depended on for the troops here.”46 Thomas Burke ruefully reported a
similar scene in Hillsborough. The troops were in “distress for bread, and obliged to
procure it by force.” Commissary officers had no funds to pay for food and other
43
Rankin, North Carolina Continentals, 242; Williams, “Narrative,” 437.
44
Ezekiel Cornell to the Governor of Road Island (William Greene), 8 August 1780, Letters of Delegates to
the Continental Congress, 15:560.
45
46
Edward Stevens to Gates, 3 August 1780, NCSR, 14:573-574.
Bowler, “Logistics and Operations in the American Revolution,” 60-61; Abner Nash to the General
Assembly, 6 September 1780, NCSR, 15:76; Carp, To Starve the Army with Pleasure, 176-187.
93
provisions, while at the same time the “people were exasperated at the Insults and
outrages they had suffered from the Troops that had passed.”47
After the Camden debacle civilians too suffered in terms of provisions. “The
Ravages of the Army no doubt have greatly distressed the Inhabitants of Rowan and
Mecklenburg,” noted the Board of War, in November 1780, “especially those near the
general Routes, as to Provision and Forage, and render the procuring of Supplies very
difficult.” In an attempt to relive the burden on those who adhered to the Patriot cause,
the board recommended to the commissary at Salisbury that he procure the “great
quantities of Corn belonging to the Tories now or late in arms against us, especially those
on the Yadkin, PeeDee and Rocky Rivers, which, by forfeiture, belong to State.” Many
Carolinians opted to relocate to safer areas in which provisions could be obtained.48
Lord Cornwallis’ invasion in January 1781 further wreaked havoc on the state’s
supply system, as British troops and Tories gathered up provisions from the countryside
and made requisitions on towns such as Salem as they marched in pursuit of Greene’s
forces. This hampered the Patriots’ ability to provision Greene’s army. Roving British
cavalry patrols and loyalist units made the capture of supply wagons or magazines a
constant threat for the revolutionaries. Additionally, Greene’s troops were almost
constantly on the march from late January until the battle of Guilford Courthouse on 15
March 1781, in what was called the “Race to the Dan.” Such mobility prevented state
47
Thomas Burke to Unknown, 13 October 1780, Thomas Burke Papers, Box 55.1, N.C. State Archives.
48
NCSR, 14:445. See also Otho Holland Williams to William Smallwood, 8 November 1780, Otho
Holland Williams Papers, Society of the Cincinnati Library.
94
and Continental commissaries from knowing precisely where to send Greene’s hungry
men supplies.49
Although Cornwallis left the state with his command for Virginia in May 1781,
North Carolina authorities continued to struggle to supply Greene’s men and the state’s
militia with victuals. In June the assembly passed an act for levying a specific provision
tax to expedite the procurement and transportation of actual foodstuffs and forage needed
by the army.50 In July, the governor proposed “that magazines of stores, provision and
forage be procured and kept in constant readiness, for at least six thousand men, and for
this purpose that contributions be levied in proportion to the last list of taxables.”51 This
plan would have gleaned supplies directly from the populace, a plan a number of officers
had been recommending for some time. Like most of the other expedients resorted to for
obtaining provisions, the specific tax and the plan for magazines worked poorly. By
1782, Governor Burke called for an end to “the waste of supplies as well as expense of
collecting and issuing” them to the troops. He recommended the elimination of the tax
for the procurement of provisions, as the system was “inconvenient, unjust and unequal,
and from the difficulty, perplexity and waste inseparable from numerous Collectors and
infinite claims scarcely capable of check or liquidation.”52 Greene too complained that
49
Nathanael Greene to George Washington, 28 February 1781, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 7:369.
50
NCSR, 24:392-394; Carp, To Starve the Army with Pleasure, 176-187. Along these lines, in April 1782
the state passed another “Specific Provision Tax” in order to supply the armies of the country, though
previous experience with such a measure showed it was largely ineffective due to the problems transporting
the supplies to the army, and the confusion among procurement agents in the counties across the state.
NCSR, 24:434-437.
51
52
NCSR, 19:857-858.
Burke’s message to the General Assembly, 16 April 1782, NCSR, 16:8-9. See also a Petition of
Inhabitants of Salisbury, 19 April 1782, Joint Papers, General Assembly Session Records, April-May 1782,
95
wagons of provisions on the road to his headquarters were consumed by other troops as
they proceeded on their way. “No stores will ever get to Camp if Officers are allowed to
consume them on the road.” Such practices, he fumed, produced “such a waste and abuse
as would exhaust the supplies of Europe.”53
In the end, no system proved adequate to the demand. Too many troops had
campaigned all over the state for too many months to allow of an organized, efficient and
effective logistical network to develop amidst the scenes of scarcity, violence and chaos.
In February 1782, Greene reported that in the Carolinas, “where the war has raged for
two years with such violence…the Country must be greatly ravaged…the situation of this
Country now compared with its former flourishing condition exhibits a melancholy
picture.” “The States have taken up the idea that the Continental Army can subsist upon
Air,” he observed with what must have been more than a little annoyance.54 Supplies for
Greene’s forces were so inadequately provided by North Carolina and the other southern
states that by March 1782, Greene reported that his “troops are fed from hand to mouth,”
which quickly led to discontent and “a very murmuring tone to the Army.”55 “For want
of regular supplies of provisions,” the army was “uneasy,” he reported, “one day we are
without beef the next without rice, and some days without either.” Such tribulations had
their effects on morale. “Men will bear disappointment for two or three days at a time,”
Box 1, N.C. State Archives, in which the signers declared that the Specific tax would “amply supply the
Army,” if it were equally collected and “properly applied.”
53
Nathanael Greene to Jethro Sumner, 2 February 1782, NCSR, 16:498.
54
Nathanael Greene to Jeremiah Wadsworth, 9 February 1782, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 10:338.
55
Nathanael Greene to Benjamin Lincoln, 9 March 1782, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 10:468; Nathanael
Greene to Anthony Wayne, 6 April 1782, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 10:591; Nathanael Greene to John
Kean, 30 March 1782, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 10:562.
96
he observed, “but when the supplies are continually irregular and frequently deficient the
soldiers will get impatient.” He warned South Carolina’s governor that “the service must
suffer if the troops are without provisions, and god knows what may be the consequence”
of an enemy attack with the army in such a miserable condition.56
Greene remained cautiously optimistic that if the southern states “will but recruit
their Army and find a ways to pay, clothe and feed them” military success was likely, but
getting provisions to his army remained problematic.57 By this point in the war,
Carolinians had grown weary of the ever-present demands upon them, and were reluctant
“to lend the necessary aid,” as one of Greene’s officers stated in the spring of 1782.58
That November, North Carolina still struggled to supply Greene’s army, encamped in
South Carolina near Charleston, which the British continued to garrison. Governor
Alexander Martin advised Greene that the state legislature had done nothing that year to
aid in the procurement of supplies besides the enactment of a tax, “which I find answers
very little purpose for the Army, the supplies granted in the same being so small.” Martin
advocated laying a new “Tax of Cattle and pork on every County in the State,” in order to
get food to the soldiers immediately. He advised Greene that since North Carolina had
abolished its Commissary General Department, Greene should send a commissary from
his army “to receive, direct, and manage the business after the collections are made.”59
An exasperated Governor Martin resorted to sending a circular letter to the members of
56
Nathanael Greene to John Mathews, 1 April 1782, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 10:568.
57
Nathanael Greene to Baron Steuben, 12 March 1782, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 10:489.
58
Nathaniel Pendleton to Griffith Rutherford, 1 May 1782, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 11:149.
59
Alexander Martin to Nathanael Greene, 16 November 1782, NCSR, 16:718-719.
97
the Assembly, which failed to meet in November 1782, in which he advised them of the
imminent disbanding of the army “unless supported by you,” and warned that harsh
measures to obtain supplies would soon have to be adopted unless something more
practical could be devised.60
The conclusion of the war in the south in 1783 brought such conjectures to an
end, along with any additional North Carolina legislative acts in support of procuring
supplies. The British abandonment of Charleston on 14 December 1782 eliminated any
real enemy threat to the Carolinas, though some American troops remained in the south
until June 1783.61 Nevertheless, North Carolina had by and large ended its support
several months beforehand, and even some of the state’s officers became sympathetic to
the inhabitants’ reluctance to provide material assistance. Frustrated by the challenges
and weary of the incessant demands for food and fodder, relief came when it became
apparent that the hostilities were at an end.62
Given the confusion and trying circumstances in which Carolina and Continental
authorities labored to find and send provisions to the militia and regulars as long as the
war lasted, it should not be surprising that similar challenges met them in their efforts to
60
Alexander Martin to the Assembly (circular letter), 23 November 1782, NCSR, 16:463.
61
Terry Golway, Washington’s General: Nathanael Greene and the Triumph of the American Revolution
(New York: Henry Holt, 2005), 302, 304. The fact that some South Carolinians sold food and other stores
to the specie-paying British force in Charlestown did nothing to help Greene’s army alleviate its own
logistical woes. See Jerome J. Nadelhaft, The Disorders of War: the Revolution in South Carolina (Orono,
Me. : University of Maine at Orono Press, 1981), 90-91. Savannah had already been evacuated by Crown
forces in July 1782 (Mackesy, The War for America, 492.)
62
Nathaniel Pendleton to Nathanael Greene, 1 May 1782, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 11:149. Pendleton
complained that N.C. Militia Brig. Gen. Griffith Rutherford wrote letters to several militia officers in the
western district to procure wagons, but refused to give orders or use compulsion to achieve this goal.
98
secure muskets, gunpowder, ammunition and other “warlike stores.”63 These items were
just as important to the armies of the American cause as were ample supplies of food and
forage. As North Carolina’s congressional delegates neatly put it, “without arms[,] virtue
and vigilance cannot avail much.” A shortage of serviceable arms and accoutrements
was a constant concern for Patriot leaders. “If there be a rock on which we are to be
split,” wrote Jefferson in 1781, “it is the want of Muskets, bayonets and cartouch boxes.”
North Carolina officials concurred with these sentiments. Congressman William Sharpe,
for instance, advised General Washington in September 1781, that North Carolina was
“so destitute of arms…that she is not able to arm one third of the new levies raised in the
state, nor can she arm her militia to any considerable amount.” Continental officers
echoed these remarks. Greene pleaded with the governments of Virginia and North
Carolina for arms, the lack of which made “it almost impossible to take measures to stop
[Cornwallis’] progress.” The shortage was most acute in the final years of the struggle.64
By the first month of 1779, the alarming paucity of arms led the two houses of the
state assembly to form a joint committee to “devise ways and means to supply this state
with Arms and Ammunition with the greatest expedition.”65 No doubt British operations
in Georgia and South Carolina spurred the lawmakers to action. Around the same time,
Whitmell Hill, then one of the state’s delegates to the Continental Congress, deplored the
state troops’ “want of proper arms: our men are numerous and willing but their means of
63
William Smallwood to Horatio Gates, 31 October, 1780, NCSR, 14:720.
64
John Penn, Thomas Burke and William Sharpe to Richard Caswell, 15 July 1779, NCSR, 14:156;
Jefferson to the Virginia Delegates in Congress, 18 January 1781, Papers of Thomas Jefferson, 4:398;
Baron Steuben to Nathanael Greene, 8 January 1781, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 7:77; Nathanael Greene
to the N.C. Legislature, 17 February 1781, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 7:303; William Sharpe to George
Washington, 1 September 1781, Letters of Delegates to Congress, 18:4.
65
NCSR, 12:639. The committee was appointed on 21 January 1779.
99
Defence most deplorable.” The militia had “a miserable appearance of Arms. My God;
how negligent we have been in providing means for our Defence,” though he admitted
that “the whole Country is worn out with the War.”66 Later that year Caswell received a
report from Joseph Hewes in Wilmington, which advised him “there is not one musket or
a pound of lead in this place belonging to the United States, to this or any other
State…few Muskets are to be found among the Militia in this and the adjacent Counties.
I do not think a good musket can be found for every fourth man,” though Hewes believed
the men were “very willing to turn out.”67
A Virginia militia commander found one thousand muskets at Hillsborough in
October 1780, though they had been “picked and Culled in such a manner that there is
not one of them fit for Service till they are repaired, and they have no conveniences here
for doing it.”68 Nor, apparently, did Virginia. In January 1781, the state had within its
magazines 68 muskets in good condition, but 2,273 muskets “out of repair” for want of
facilities and expertise to make them serviceable.69 Obviously, none of these could be
sent to North Carolina, where they were sorely needed. “We have not one hundred good
Muskets in the district,” wrote Edenton’s militia commander to Nash, in a letter
representative of many coming from local militia officers, unsure of how to proceed with
66
Whitmell Hill to Thomas Burke, n.d., NCSR, 14:2-3. See also Thomas Person to Thomas Burke, 21 June
1780, Thomas Burke Papers, Box 55.1, N.C. State Archives.
67
Joseph Hewes to Caswell, 23 May 1779, NCSR, 14:95.
68
Edward Stevens to Thomas Jefferson, 30 October 1780, Papers of Thomas Jefferson, 4:82. Eight
hundred of these weapons were eventually transported to Richmond for repairs. Gates to Jefferson, 1
November 1780, Papers of Thomas Jefferson, 4:87.
69
“Statement of Arms and Men in Service,” 29 January 1781, Papers of Thomas Jefferson, 4:470.
Typically, muskets were rendered unserviceable by broken, rusted, or worn out locks, which were difficult
to come by and could be properly repaired only by experienced armorers with the proper tools and forges.
100
unarmed men.70 The critical shortage of arms and accoutrements in North Carolina was
exacerbated by many militia troops taking their arms with them as they walked home
after the battle of Guilford Courthouse.71
This shortage of the soldier’s basic tool had significant implications for the state’s
security. “The want of arms and the approach of the enemy without any apparent relief at
hand I believe are circumstances very encouraging to [the Tories],” Governor Burke
heard from Wake County in 1781.72 With similar language, a Whig officer wrote from
Randolph County in February 1782 that “the want of arms and ammunition is another
circumstance which tends very much to dispirit and distress the well affected and to
embolden the disaffected in this County.”73 From Chatham County, a militia officer
reported a few weeks later that his force was insufficient to defeat the Tories in his
district, as “it is out of our power as we are destitute of both Arms and ammunition,” and
he hoped that “something immediately will be done for the speedy suppression of these
lawless villains.”74 The absence of arms made British-supplied Tories a more formidable
obstacle to the state’s struggle to establish order and stability within its own borders.
North Carolina’s Assembly was not oblivious to the desperate need for arms. In
January 1781, it passed “An Act for encouraging the importation of Arms, Ammunition
and other warlike stores,” a move delegates regarded as “absolutely necessary”
70
Thomas Benbury to Abner Nash, 22 October 1780, NCSR, 15:128.
71
Nathanael Greene to Baron Steuben, 23 March 1781, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 7:464.
72
Hardy Sanders to Thomas Burke, 16 August 1781, NCSR, 15:610.
73
John Collier to Thomas Burke, 25 February 1782, NCSR, 16:204.
74
Roger Griffith to Gen. Butler, 2 March 1782, NCSR, 16:212-213.
101
considering the loss of so many military stores at the surrender of Charleston and the
defeat at Camden the year before. Vessels carrying military supplies received relief from
commercial duties at the state’s seaports for bringing in arms, ammunition, and powder.75
In June 1781, the assembly empowered the governor to purchase or impress tobacco to
sell in exchange for two thousand stands of arms, five thousand pounds of powder, and a
large supply of blankets and lead, though where these supplies were to be secured was
unclear.76 Burke recommended to the delegates that the state contract with France to
provide arms for flour or tobacco. “I apprehend a State, so abounding in property, and
resources as this, can be at no loss to assign adequate funds for the performance of such a
contract,” Burke noted, but this suggestion produced little in terms of actually securing
more firelocks.77 Simultaneously, the desperate state’s legislature took up an offer by the
Marquis de Bretaigne in June 1781, to obtain arms “as Agent for the State of North
Carolina,” in the French West Indies, “either on loan or in such other Manner as shall
seem most expedient.” The Assembly authorized the Marquis to import five thousand
stands of arms, ten thousand pounds of gun powder, thirty-five thousand pounds of lead,
two hundred thousand flints, and two thousand blankets. Twenty thousand pounds of
tobacco were to be obtained through impressment by the Sheriff of Craven County, to be
delivered to the Marquis to pay for these necessities.78
75
NCSR, 24:380-381. The North Carolina militia “all lost their arms as Well as the V[irginia] Militia,” an
officer reported after Camden. These were weapons difficult to replace. Edward Stevens to Thomas
Jefferson, 27 August 1780, Papers of Thomas Jefferson, 3:563. North Carolina is not known to have had a
working manufactory of muskets during the war.
76
NCSR, 24:407.
77
Thomas Burke to the General Assembly, 29 June 1781, NCSR, 22:1033.
78
NCSR, 17:799-802.
102
Numerous reports of a lack of arms made recruitment difficult. While draftees
from the militia appeared to be finally marching to their rendezvous points, “few of them
have arms, cartridge boxes or bayonets.” One militia general advised Governor Burke in
July that should the British sally forth from their garrison in Wilmington, he would “raise
what men I can arm, but fear it will be very few as Arms are very Scarce.”79 In August,
Burke received word that twenty men in Hillsborough were willing to serve against local
loyalists, but no weapons were available for them.80 Tories plundering the Whigs west of
the Haw River disarmed the people, “and what is somewhat Strange, altho’ the General
Complaint is that there is no Arms to oppose them, they seldom fail of finding Arms in
every House they go to.” A militia officer in Kingston reported the same thing on the
same day. “Arms cannot be had to Arm as many men as may be raised,” observed
William Caswell in Kingston, though he added “I believe there is Arms enough, but the
Inhabitants secret them, either owing to their being disaffected or their fearfulness of their
not being returned, though every assurance is given them.”81
Much like the confusion that pervaded the state in the effort to obtain provisions,
similar obstacles beleaguered military officials desperate for weapons. In one instance,
Major Griffith McCree of the North Carolina Line complained to General Sumner about
the difficulties involved in getting arms within the state. Col. Nicholas Long, the
79
Jethro Sumner to Nathanael Greene, 12 June 1781, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 8:384; William Caswell
to Thomas Burke, 31 July 1781, NCSR, 22:553. Sumner, from Bute County, was a French and Indian War
veteran who served as a Continental officer until 1780, when he assumed command of the state’s militia
after Richard Caswell’s resignation.
80
Andrew Armstrong to Thomas Burke, 28 August 1781, NCSR, 22:1047.
81
Armand Armstrong to Thomas Burke, 20 August 1781, NCSR, 22:568; William Caswell to Thomas
Burke, 20 August 1781, NCSR, 22:569. William Caswell, son of the governor, rose to the rank of Brigadier
General of militia during the war.
103
Continental quartermaster for North Carolina, applied to borrow arms from the state of
North Carolina and issue them to 180 new recruits McCree raised in the Wilmington
District. General Allen Jones of the state militia, however, obstinately thought it improper
to supply him, “as they were procured for the militia they should be reserved for that
purpose.” Because of this intransigence, McRee complained that “I will be obliged to
march thro’ a disaffected country among inhabitants who still bid defiance to our power,
without Arms sufficient for a Sergeant’s Guard.” In another incident, several hundred
stands of arms had been delivered to North Carolina for the state’s use, but upon the
governor’s orders militia officers were not to arm Continental forces with them, even
those of the North Carolina regulars. Such jealously hardly advanced the interests of
either state or Continental forces, yet was common.82 Continental Congressmen William
Sharpe worked tirelessly to get arms shipped from the north to his home state in the late
summer of 1781, but logistical difficulties and the urgent need for arms during the
Yorktown campaign made his efforts unrewarding. “North Carolina is so destitute of
arms,” he reported to Washington, “that she is not able to arm one third of the new levies
raised in the state, nor can she arm her militia to any considerable amount.”83
While procurement agents scoured the state for guns and powder, others tried to
find shoes and clothing for military use. North Carolina failed to adequately uniform not
only its own Continental regiments, but faced difficulties supplying military clothing and
82
Griffith McCree to Jethro Sumner, 19 February 1782, NCSR, 16:515; Jethro Sumner to Nathanael
Greene, 5 March 1782, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 10:454; Greene to Benjamin Lincoln, 9 March 1782,
Papers of Nathanael Greene, 10:466. See also John Laurens to Nathanael Greene, 6 March 1782, Papers
of Nathanael Greene, 10:461n.
83
William Sharpe to George Washington, 1 September 1781, Letters of Delegates to the Continental
Congress, 18:4.
104
footwear to other state units and Greene’s army as well.84 These shortages created
misery for the officers and the soldiers in the regiments, and adversely affected military
movements as well. For example, Colonel Abraham Sheppard of the 10th North Carolina
Regiment reported in October 1777 that he could not march his troops from Halifax to
join Washington’s army in Pennsylvania, because “it is out of my power to march on, as
there is not…any shoes or breeches[,] only about 100 p[ai]r of Linen Breeches not fit for
winter, and about 150 Blankets wanting.”85 Months later, North Carolina’s Continental
battalions were delayed in Pennsylvania from marching to the relief of South Carolina in
1779 for want of shoes. Such items were necessities not luxuries for troops going north
to face the winter, marching long distances, and later facing the enemy.86
The state government recognized these deficiencies, and attempted to properly
attire the men it put into the field. In its spring 1778 session, the assembly passed a
provision (as part of an act to complete the state’s Continental battalions) that each new
recruit was to receive from the county in which he volunteered shoes and clothing, in
addition to tent cloth.87 This was after the state senate resolved that the health of the
troops required that they be supplied adequately, and ordered that each county contribute
84
George Washington to North Carolina Delegates in Congress, February 17, 1780, George Washington
Papers, Library of Congress, Letterbook 5, #26; North Carolina Delegates to the North Carolina Council of
Safety, 2 August 1776, Letters of Delegates to the Continental Congress, 4:607-608. This was a major
problem for North Carolina during the French and Indian War as well.
85
Abraham Sheppard to Richard Caswell, 22 October 1777, NCSR, 11:662.
86
John Mathews to Thomas Bee, 5 January 1780, Letters of Delegates to the Continental Congress,
14:321.
87
NCSR, 24:155.
105
its share.88 Despite such enactments, however, getting men clothed or uniformed met
with little success. In 1779, for example, General Jethro Sumner of the militia advised
Governor Caswell that in his eastern brigade, “the men generally are healthy, but very
much in want of necessary clothing.”89 Reports like this one were received frequently by
state military and civilian leaders, who simply did not have the means at hand to properly
outfit the men with clothes or shoes.
Once the British turned their attention to the south in 1778, North Carolina found
the prospect of supplying clothing to the men even more trying. Just as with the problem
of finding arms and provisions, the twin disasters of Charleston and Camden in 1780
added to the already frustrating burden of providing uniforms in the region. After
Camden, Virginia General Edward Stevens advised Thomas Jefferson that his men “are
in a very distressed situation on Account of the loss of their Cloths, and if they are
Continued in Service until cold weather they will be much more so.” With the British
capture of the American baggage train after the battle, what little surplus uniforms Gates’
army had were lost. Stevens concluded that “humanity requires that something should be
attempted for their relief,” and that if clothes were not provided to his men in North
Carolina, “when they return Home, they will make such impressions on the Minds of
others that whenever there is a necessity of calling on the militia again it may add greatly
to the Difficulty of getting them out.” In other words, desperate, bedraggled troops were
not good for recruiting efforts.90
88
NCSR, 12:639.
89
Jethro Sumner to Richard Caswell, 28 March 1779, NCSR, 14:48.
90
Edward Stevens to Thomas Jefferson, 27 August 1780, Papers of Thomas Jefferson, 3:563.
106
General Greene shared these opinions as he made his way south in November
1780 toward the army’s North Carolina camp. “To take men into the field without
clothing is doing violence to humanity and can be attended with nothing but disgrace,
distress and disappointment.” He advised the president of the Continental Congress that
he was “persuaded that “the expence of the hospital department will nearly equal that of
the Clothiers besides sustaining the loss of a great number of valuable soldiers” if the
troops were not uniformed in such a manner as to “contend with the enemy upon an equal
footing.”91 One of Greene’s soldiers in this period recalled that “at this time the troops
were in a most shocking condition for the want of clothing, especially shoes, and we
having kept open campaign all winter the troops were taking sick fast.”92 By the end of
the month, Greene’s assessment grew even bleaker. “The small force that I have
remaining with me are so naked & destitute of every thing, that the greater part is
rendered unfit for any active kind of duty,” even drill or parades.93
Clothing the troops became no easier once the British departed the state in 1781.
A militia officer in Wilmington wrote to General Sumner in early 1782, “I hope you will
be good enough to represent the deplorable condition of [his new recruits] to the
Legislature and endeavor to procure them some supplies of Clothing. They are really
very ragged…”94 North Carolina’s officers serving with Greene in South Carolina had
received no uniforms from the state, which placed some of them “under the disagreeable
91
Nathanael Greene to Samuel Huntington, 1 November 1780, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 6:452.
92
William Seymour, "Journal of the Southern Expedition, 1780-1783,” Pennsylvania Magazine of History
and Biography 7 (1883): 286-98, 377-94. Quote is on page 292.
93
Nathanael Greene to Samuel Huntington, 28 December 1780, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 7:8.
94
G. I. McRee to Jethro Sumner, 19 February 1782, NCSR, 16:515.
107
necessity of applying for leave of absence until they can be furnished some other way.”
These officers, wrote an observer, “must be men of the greatest fortitude and forbearance
in the world, they serve without pay, cloathing, or any regular supplies of the necessaries
allowed them.”95 Surely civilian North Carolinians were not unaware of the obvious
plight of such ill-clad men in the ranks, and may have avoided this hard service
accordingly. Moreover, the state’s inhabitants may also have wondered about the
longevity, stability and legitimacy of a state that not only had trouble feeding and arming
its military forces. To the American Secretary at War, Benjamin Lincoln, Greene still
reported on the lack of adequate uniforms in March 1782. Most of his men were “in a
truly deplorable condition with respect to clothing. Not a rag has arrived to our relief
during the winter.”96
Not only did a number of troops lack clothing, they were also often shoeless.
After the hard marching in the Camden campaign, the state’s Board of War made
obtaining footwear a priority, and ordered officers to seize them if need be. “In our
Situation,” the Board recorded with this priority in mind, “we conceive it to be our duty
to forward the service all we can and to settle accounts after we have beaten the
Enemy.”97 In other words, the state was prepared to buy or take the needed shoes.98
95
John Armstrong to Jethro Sumner, 25 October 1781, NCSR, 15:656.
96
Nathanael Greene to Lincoln, 9 March 1782, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 10:466. Although France
provided thousands of uniforms to the American armies during their involvement in the war, very few
apparently made it to the lower south by the time Greene commanded there. After 1779, Congress directed
the states to supply their troops with clothing. Carp, To Starve the Army, 175-176.
97
N.C. Board of War to Abner Nash, 17 September 1780, NCSR, 14:380.
98
Horatio Gates to John Peter Muhlenburg, 2 September 1780, Papers of Horatio Gates, Reel 12; William
Smallwood to Horatio Gates, 2 September 1780, Papers of Horatio Gates, Reel 12.
108
Unable to obtain sufficient numbers of shoes by purchase or confiscation, North Carolina
turned to a different expedient. In November 1780, shoemakers were to be exempted
from a militia tour of duty if they would work within their craft for the good of the army,
by an order of the Board of War. 99
Thus, consistently throughout the war, troops from North Carolina went without
food, clothes, weapons and other supplies. Neither Continentals, state units nor militia
companies were exempt from the sufferings associated with these shortfalls. Yet this was
not always because the supplies were unavailable or impossible to procure. Rather, as
many authorities recognized, the inability to transport what was in hand or available from
other states was often the cause for the soldiers’ miseries and the army’s consistent want
of supplies and warlike stores.
The pressing need for more wagons became obvious by the summer of 1776, as
officials scoured the countryside, roads and seaports to find any transport they could buy
or lease.100 At times, officials noted that provisions were adequate but they could not be
brought to camp in a timely manner for want of wagons and teams. The General
Assembly recognized that by at least the end of 1777, large supplies of public stores
existed throughout the state but “from want of being collected…are liable to perish.”101
In one instance in 1779, Caswell reported to South Carolina’s governor that fifteen
hundred stands of arms had been shipped with ammunition from Congress in North
99
NCSR, 14:444. See also Greene to George Davidson, 14 December 1780, Papers of Nathanael Greene,
6:572, regarding the proposal to find or make shoes in North Carolina.
100
Council of Safety to James Moore, 3 August 1776, NCSR, 11:338.
101
NCSR, 12:362.
109
Carolina wagons, but a further supply was halted near New Bern for want of wagons.
“Twas with great difficulty we got the last wagons, and I am fearful if the arms are
wanting to the Southward they cannot be sent on until the wagons return.”102 By the end
of that year, the state faced the necessity of spending “a considerable sum…to purchase
wagons to carry provisions.”103 In June 1780, Caswell reported from Dobbs County that
“there is not a single waggon or Team in this part of the Country,” and worried that his
militia forces could not move quickly enough to counter British strokes without them.104
Merchants recognized before the battle of Camden in 1780 that at least some
provisions and stores were available, but that “the want of supplies at this point,
especially the Articles of salt, rum, &c., is Owing to the want of waggons, and this want
arises from so many officers impressing waggons.”105 Two other reports after Camden
demonstrate this as well. “The troops…for three days past, has been entirely without
Bread,” wrote General Stevens in November 1780, “nothing is more dispiriting to Troops
than to be badly supplied, especially when in a Country where plenty might be had.”106
Likewise, Jethro Sumner of the militia advised the board of war in October that he was
“satisfied a great plenty might be collected with proper management.”107
102
Richard Caswell to John Rutledge, 26 May 1779, NCSR, 14:99-100.
103
Charles Jewekes to Richard Caswell, 15 November 1779, NCSR, 14:225.
104
Caswell to Abner Nash, 1 June 1780, NCSR, 14:829.
105
Millett & Estis to Horatio Gates, 22 July 1780, NCSR, 14:508.
106
Edward Stevens to Thomas Jefferson, 1 November 1780, Papers of Thomas Jefferson, 4:113.
107
Jethro Sumner to John Penn, 1 October 1780, Preston Davie Collection, Southern Historical Collection,
UNC, Box 3, #117. See also Abner Nash to Jethro Sumner, 21 September 1780, Preston Davie Collection,
Southern Historical Collection, UNC, Box 3, #115, in which Nash reports that cattle were plentiful in
Orange County; and Abner Nash to the General Assembly, 25 August 1780, Joint Papers, General
Assembly Session Records, August-September 1780, Box 1, N.C. State Archives.
110
When the seat of war came closer to the state, problems of transport only became
more worrisome. In short, too few wagons were available, while military demand
drastically outpaced the supply of wagons in the hands of farmers and merchants. One
state official reported from Wilmington to Governor Nash on 6 June 1780 that he had
“ordered out the quarter Master in search of waggons; he has returned without any.
Could it not answer to send some person up the country from Newbern after waggons,
and order a dozen [men] …to drive those? We shall be able to secure all the property
belonging to the public in this Town, with the assistance of those waggons.”108 Facing a
possible British invasion, authorities seemed hamstrung by confusion within the
procurement process and lack of adequate transportation. Thomas Burke, recently
returned from his congressional post in Philadelphia, reported that “a supply of Waggons
and draft horses are very much wanted, and I fear every exertion that can be made will
not procure a sufficiency within the State, for in truth we have them not. We have been
exceedingly exhausted of those articles by our frequent Southern Expeditions, by wear
and destruction of our old stock and want of means to recruit it.” Thus, even before the
British army entered the state in 1781, North Carolina faced a critical shortage of wagons,
carts, and other modes of transport to support Patriot forces within its borders.109
108
Benjamin Hawkins to Abner Nash, 6 June 1780, NCSR, 14:840. Early in the war, Princeton-educated
Hawkins served on the staff of General George Washington as his French interpreter. He was later a
member of the N.C. lower house in 1778-1779, and 1784. Hawkins was chosen by the North Carolina
legislature in 1780 to procure arms and munitions to defend the State. He was also a member of the
Continental Congress from 1781 to 1783, and 1787. He later served Congress as a negotiator with the
Creek and Cherokee Indians in 1785. C.L. Grant, “Senator Benjamin Hawkins: Federalist or Republican?”
Journal of the Early Republic 1 (Fall 1981): 233-47.
109
Thomas Burke to the President of Congress, n.d., , NCSR, 15:771-773. By noting Gates’ recent arrival
in the state, Burke’s letter is doubtlessly from July 1780.
111
Matters of transport became more desperate in August 1780, with military
reverses. The British captured all of the American army’s wagons after the battle of
Camden, including those of North Carolina.110 Thomas Burke observed that “the utter
loss of tents, Wagons and every Camp Necessary made it impossible for his troops to
keep the field.”111 After the fight, North Carolina militia general Jethro Sumner advised
one of his subordinates of “the alarming Situation of the State, from the defeat of Genl.
Gates,” adding that “the scarcity of waggons will hardly be sufficient for the Commissary
& Quarter master’s departments.”112 Gates advised Jefferson a month after the battle that
until his army was supplied and had wagons from North Carolina, “it is in Vain to think
of acting Offensively against Lord Cornwallis. I will not risk a Second Defeat, by
marching through Famine and encountering every distress.”113 Gates recognized that the
logistical problems in North Carolina and Virginia could be rectified quickly, only “were
it possible to find means of transportation.”114
By 1780 the state began to systematize the use of wagons, with duty rotated
among the owners of the wagons for two months service if possible.115 The wagons were
to be formed into “brigades” by county, to consist of from six to twelve wagons each.
110
NCSR, 14:429; Stevens to Horatio Gates, 21 August 1780, NCSR, 16:569; John Hanson to Charles
Carroll, 11 September 1780, Letters of Delegates to the Continental Congress, 16:49-50.
111
Thomas Burke to John Adams, 20 December 1780, Thomas Burke Papers, Box 55.1, N.C. State
Archives.
112
Jethro Sumner to Gideon Lamb, 23 August 1780, NCSR, 14:573.
113
Gates to Jefferson, 20 September 1780, Papers of Thomas Jefferson, 3:650.
114
Gates to George Washington, 23 September 1780, Papers of Thomas Jefferson, 3:660.
115
Board of War to Nathanael Greene, 4 January 1781, NCSR, 14:485.
112
The Board of War made allowances for exemptions if the loss of a wagon would create
an undue burden on those least able to do without them.116 However, the board also
warned the commanding officers of several counties that this system needed to be
implemented immediately so as to get food to the soldiers, otherwise “they will be under
the disagreeable necessity of getting Supplies at the Point of the Bayonet, which must be
avoided.”117 Like most plans during wartime, this one was slow to come to fruition. The
Board noted in October 1780 that “wagons are in great demand to move the army.”118
Gates realized how disagreeable the expedient of taking wagons from the people
would be. “This mode of supplying Waggons to the public is really ruinous,” he
concluded, “we distress the Farmers unreasonably, and not only get into the Service old
Waggon[s] that will soon be unfit for service, but we also cut off our resources in the
different parts of the country[,] for such occasional services as we often find ourselves
dependent on the people for.”119 As Gates and Carolina officials well knew, such an
expedient would hardly endear the revolutionary movement to those from whom wagons
were commandeered.
Yet, Carolina officials came to see that if only enough wagons could be had,
much of the army’s logistical pains would be alleviated. From the Waxhaws region in
the fall of 1780, Col. William R. Davie wrote that “if we had fifty or sixty wagons to
make one trip down the Catawba, there would be little wanting afterwards,” an indication
116
NCSR, 14:420.
117
N.C. Board of War to County Militia Commanders, 24 September 1780, NCSR, 14:393.
118
NCSR, 14:429.
119
Edward Carrington to Horatio Gates, 13 October 1780, NCSR, 14:691.
113
that supplies were available if only commissaries could reach them. This was easier said
than done, for not even half that number of wagons could be easily procured for the
army’s pressing needs.120 A few weeks later, the state Board of War wrote to General
Greene on 4 January 1781 of the difficulties in supplying his army, one of which was
“the difficulty of carriage…The late defeat near Camden deprived us of too many
Waggons, which now would be very necessary.” The board concluded that Greene’s
forces would be better supplied using the new specific tax system were more wagons
available to bring the provisions directly to the army.121 Matters improved little by the
next summer, for in June 1781 the governor found it necessary to propose “that one
hundred fifty waggons, with teams and sufficient equipments, be procured by
contribution…to be always kept in the State service for necessary transportation in order
that impressments may be rendered unnecessary.”122 While the state’s Council approved
it readily enough, few wagons for such a scheme were available. Thus, at the start of
1782, Burke had to advise Greene of the continuing woes with regard to wagons. “I
perceive you are apprehensive of wanting some supplies of foreign Commodities,” he
wrote, “some such I am told are now ready in the Sea Ports of this State but the old
120
William R. Davie to William Smallwood, 15 November 1780, William R. Davie Papers, Society of the
Cincinnati Collection. Born in England, Davie came to America in the 1760s, eventually settled in the
Waxhaws region, and later graduated from what is now Princeton University. He was a prominent cavalry
commander during the early years of the war, and also served Greene as commissary-general. A Federalist,
Davie became Governor of North Carolina in 1798, after being prominent in founding the University of
North Carolina.
121
Board of War to Nathanael Greene, 4 January 1781, NCSR, 14:484-485.
122
July 1781 State Council Journal, in NCSR, 19:858.
114
Difficulty of Transporting them occurs.”123 Later that year, shipping difficulties
remained a concern, as seen by a letter from Col. Nicholas Long to General Jethro
Sumner, about finding drivers and wagons. “We have only three waggons of the public at
this Post,” Long reported, “two of which are without drivers, and the other impaired &
unfit for present service. I have applied to Major Hogg for Waggoners, who informs me
that there are not men for that purpose here, except, perhaps, a few on Furlough, who
cannot be immediately commanded. The Waggons…are of no service to me, unless
Drivers were appointed.”124 Evidence shows that even without the threat of British
troops within North Carolina after the end of 1781, efforts by the state to obtain wagons
for use in arming and supplying Greene’s men met with little success.125
Perhaps no other civilian or military leader in the southern theatre was more
cognizant of the need for acquiring proper transportation assets for the army than
Nathanael Greene. He had been Quartermaster General of the Continental Army under
General Washington from March 1778 until July 1780, when he resigned to protest
Congress’s newly enacted policy of requisitioning supplies from the individual states.
Although Greene had not relished this mundane assignment, he performed well and
learned much about supplying an army in the field that proved invaluable to him as
Southern Department commander.126 One of the first logistical problems Greene
123
Thomas Burke to Nathanael Greene, 31January, 1782, NCSR, 16:493. Greene’s army was then in South
Carolina.
124
Nicholas Long to Jethro Sumner, 30 July 1782, NCSR, 16:633.
125
Lt. Col. Stephen Moore to Jethro Sumner, 4 August 1782, NCSR, 16:635.
126
Theodore Thayer, “Nathanael Greene: Revolutionary War Strategist,” in George A. Billias, ed. George
Washington’s Generals and Opponents: Their Exploits and Leadership (New York: DeCapo Press, 1997),
118-120.
115
identified in the Carolinas of inadequate transportation resources. “Unless we can obtain
wagons…I do not see the least prospect of getting forward the few stores we have,” he
noted.127 He reported that matters in his department were “in the greatest state of
confusion imaginable,” especially with regard to transportation, namely, “the want of
wagons.” Greene planned to “have all the rivers examined” in North Carolina once he
arrived there, “in order to see if I cannot ease this heavy business by water
transportation,” as he worried that unless the problem of transporting provisions was
solved, he feared it would be impossible to subsist the army in either of the Carolinas
during the winter. Greene understood that “provisions and forage are plenty in the
Country if we can but hit upon measures to collect and convey them to the army.”128 He
tried to spur Virginia into action before he left Richmond, pointing out that unless
supplies could be carried to the army, a dreadful fate awaited all of the southern states.129
After about six weeks as commander of the southern army, Greene had seen
enough of the logistical confusion to recommend that North Carolina register all wagons
and carriages so that the quartermaster department could better plan to employ them, in
addition to the appointment of a state wagonmaster with a proper number of deputies.
Greene laid out additional details for his plan to Governor Nash, noting that “heavy
penalties will be necessary to oblige the people to come out with their teams when
warned for duty.” He implored the state to figure out a way to use water transport as
127
Nathanael Greene to Pickering, 1 November 1780, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 6:453; Nathanael
Greene to Joseph Reed, 1 November 1780, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 6:455. These two letters were
written from Philadelphia, as Greene made his way south to join his new command in North Carolina.
128
Nathanael Greene to Washington, 19 November 1780, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 6:486; Greene to
Thomas Jefferson, 20 November 1780, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 6:492-493.
129
Nathanael Greene to Thomas Jefferson, 20 November 1780, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 6:493.
116
well. Despite these recommendations freely made “from an honest zeal to serve the
common cause and promote the security of” North Carolina,130 by April 1781, Greene
was still pleading with Carolina officials to adopt a sound plan for transporting supplies
and provisions to his men.131 He also approved of taking horses belonging to people
within enemy lines “especially such as are either fit for the Waggon or Dragoon service,”
though he also noted his aversion to plundering in general.132
Those responsible for logistics within the state of North Carolina reported
continued difficulties in the spring and summer of 1781. Commissary William R. Davie
informed Greene from Charlotte that a “Scarcity of Horses…with the busy season of the
year accounts for the difficulty of procuring transportation” from the backcountry
counties. Horses and wagons, in other words, dragged away from farms and plantations
meant potentially smaller harvests come fall—a counterproductive expedient no one
wished for. To the state assembly Davie reported that the “want of water-transportation”
on the interior rivers, coupled with the failure of legislative remedies in establishing “a
land carriage[,] have been productive of many difficulties and abuses.” This was
particularly galling, in that the resources of some parts of the state were “equal perhaps to
the ample supply of our troops,” but the provisions were often spoiled by the absence of
any means to carry them to the camps. Nothing summed up the state’s supply
predicament better that Davie’s own conclusion: “Much could be done—but
130
Nathanael Greene to Nash, 17 January 1781, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 7:137-138.
131
Nathanael Greene to Abner Nash, 3 April 1781, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 8:36.
132
Nathanael Greene to Thomas Sumter, 15 April 1781, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 8:100-101.
117
transportation—no transportation is the grand difficulty.” No doubt Greene and many
others across the state would have agreed wholeheartedly.133
Lacking transport, little progress was made by North Carolina to meet the needs
of its men and those of the Continental service, as demonstrated by the repeated calls for
more of everything until the last days of the war. In words not much different than those
he used in 1780 when he assumed command in Charlotte, Greene wrote “our situation is
truly deplorable,” in March 1782, and added that “certainly there is a great want of
exertion among men of influence in the District of Salisbury to aid the Army.” In such a
execrable situation, Greene seems to have become concerned not just for his men, but for
the cause of independence he and others, including those of North Carolina, had worked
so hard to achieve. However, by the last several months of the conflict, Greene came to
think that with the British forces limited in the south to a small garrison in Charleston, the
southern states no longer strove to keep his command supplied. “As danger retires
exertion ceases,” he surmised. “How can you,” he asked Col. Davie, “expect we can have
success or even an existence when whole States desert us; and if not desert us their efforts
are too feeble to support us.” Surely he grouped North Carolina with the states that by
1782 could or would do very little to keep the troops in the field. Nevertheless he
concluded with a bit of pride as well, by maintaining that “certainly no Army after the
133
William R. Davie to the General Assembly, 7 July 1781, Joint Select Committee Reports, General
Assembly Session Records, June-July 1781, Box 1, N.C. State Archives; William R. Davie to Nathanael
Greene, 23 April 1781, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 8:139.
118
hardships it has endured was ever left in so deplorable condition as ours; and none but
ours would keep together under such distressing circumstances.”134
Although Gates and Greene may have had their doubts at times, North Carolina
authorities and army procurement officers were well aware of what the army and militia
needed, and struggled to meet their needs. Yet, to effectively provide the armed forces
with their fundamental requirements to face the enemy, civilian and uniformed
procurement agents had to obtain the supplies quickly, effectively, and lawfully. Usually,
the largest impediments to their efforts were twofold: difficulties paying for what was
needed, combined with an often fierce opposition from many inhabitants to part with
their property at any price. Like many of the new American states, North Carolina found
that perplexing financial matters were as constant and thorny as the operations of the
enemy troops, and served not just to make the collection of supplies difficult, but led to
expedients harmful to the legitimacy of the state and the citizens’ support for its new
government.
No doubt many Carolinians would have agreed with Nathanael Greene’s
observation earlier during the revolutionary struggle that the War for Independence “will
terminate in a War of funds, [and] the longest purse will be triumphant.” Only if the
Americans’ resources were managed “prudently and oeconomically,” he noted, would the
states be able to secure adequate provisions and supplies for the conflict.135 North
Carolina had great difficulties financing the war due to its limited economic and financial
134
Nathanael Greene to William R. Davie, 5 March 1782, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 10:444-446;
Nathanael Greene to Richard Henry Lee, 25 April 1782, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 11:114-116. Both
letters contain much the same language.
135
Nathanael Greene to William Greene, 7 March 1778, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 2:302.
119
resources, a problem which predated the American Revolution, but was nonetheless a
significant handicap to the war effort.136
Born in a state of war, North Carolina found itself in financial difficulties from
the first days of conflict, even before statehood. In late 1775, the Provincial Congress
issued $125,000 in bills of credit in order to have a medium of exchange in circulation to
purchase military stores. On 3 March 1776, the public treasurers were authorized to draw
on the Continental Treasury up to $25,000 “towards defraying the expense of the Troops
on the Continental establishment in this Province.”137 It took all of two months for
officials to recognize how woefully inadequate such a paltry sum would be, for on May
9, the Provincial Congress allowed for £500,000 in paper bills to be emitted “for the
purpose of defraying all the expenses of armaments, bounties, and other contingencies,
that shall occur in this Colony during the recess of the Congress,” to be redeemed by a
poll tax beginning in 1780, “and continue for 20 years afterwards.”138 More emissions
followed as the financial forecast was anything but sunny. These paper emissions had to
be backed, of course, by hard money obtained through taxation. Replacing the poll tax,
in 1777, the Assembly resorted to an ad valorem tax on property. This measure did not
136
For North Carolina’s history of profound economic straits, see A. Roger Ekirch, "Poor Carolina”;
Bradford J. Wood, This Remote Part of the World: Regional Formation in Lower Cape Fear, North
Carolina, 1725-1775 (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 2004); Maass, “All this Poor
Province Could Do,” 50-89; Robert A. Becker, Revolution, Reform and the Politics of American Taxation,
1763-1783 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1980), 94-99; R.D.W. Connor, History of
North Carolina, 1:431; Charles C. Crittenden, The Commerce of North Carolina, 1763-1789 (New Haven:
Yale University Press, 1936), 134-136. See also David T. Morgan and William J. Schmidt, North
Carolinians in the Continental Congress (Winston-Salem, NC: John F. Blair, 1976), 50-70.
137
138
NCCR, 10:473.
NCCR, 10:572-573; Joseph Hewes to Samuel Johnston, 4 June 1776, Letters of Delegates to the
Continental Congress, 4:139. Hewes advised that the emission of £500,000 “is a very large sum and…will
ruin the country.”
120
meet the state’s needs and was objected to by many wealthier citizens. The uncertainty
of collection and the great expansion of the currency by further emissions led to rapid
depreciation of the bills, inflation, and adversely affected the state’s credit. Later
expedients such as the use of a specific tax to provide for the needs of the state and the
army were only marginally more effective, if at all. When it is noted that between 1775
and 1780, the state issued $6,500,000 in unsecured paper bills, to say nothing of
$26,250,000 “of various military supply and pay certificates…for 1781 alone,” it is not
difficult to see why North Carolina’s financial position teetered on ruin during the war
years.139
Whether for procuring supplies or raising men to serve in the state’s Continental
regiments, specie was difficult to come by in North Carolina from the outset of the
Revolution. It was reported in 1783 that due to the “general dislike of paper money,”
people horded their gold and silver coin, which kept its value.140 No matter how paper
money was perceived, there existed few if any options other than to issue it “upon the
faith and credit of the state”—a dubious foundation to say the least. North Carolina paper
currency often was not accepted outside of the state, and in some areas of the state paper
money no longer circulated after the battle of Camden, when North Carolina’s very
survival was doubtful. By the end of 1781, it had depreciated to a rate of 800 to 1. In
addition to these paper bills, state authorities also issued various payment certificates
139
R.D.W. Connor, History of North Carolina, 1:431-436; Robert A. Becker, Revolution, Reform and the
Politics of American Taxation, 1763-1783 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1980), 192-193;
North Carolina Delegates to Richard Caswell, 29 February 1780, Letters of Delegates to the Continental
Congress, 14:451-454. Depreciation also had the effect of making enlistment bounties less enticing, and
thus added to the difficulties of raising troops. Thomas Burke to John Laurens, 26 December 1780, Letters
of Delegates to Congress, 16:499-500.
140
Johann David Schoepf, Travels in the Confederation [1783-1784], transl. Alfred J. Morrison (New
York: Bergman Publishers, 1968), 129; Crittenden, The Commerce of North Carolina, 135.
121
throughout the war that the state pledged to redeem later with hard money. Although
declared legal tender for all public and private debts during the war, there was nothing to
back these notes and certificates except the faith of the people in the state’s credit.141
Somehow these notes had to be redeemed, since backing the currency with gold or silver
was generally acknowledged to be out of the question. As historian James R. Morrill has
explained,
Basically there were two views as to what would constitute acceptable
redemption alternatives. One argued that since specie was regrettably not
available, some other form of valuable, tangible property would have to be
employed. Maintaining that the state possessed insufficient resources to
redeem the currency in that manner, other persons were prepared to accept
or promote reduction of the currency debt by means of devaluation,
retirement of old emissions, and withdrawal of currency through taxation.
During the Revolution the latter two fiat redemption policies had been
attempted in an effort to improve the currency’s reputation, but the
financial necessities of war had rendered the measures ineffective and had
only led to additional currency emissions. As redemption expectations
had faded and as new emissions had appeared, public confidence in the
paper—and hence its market value—had sharply declined.142
Yet the state clearly needed money for the war effort. One such measure came in May
1779, “An Act for emitting money for the draying the expenses of the war,” passed by the
assembly partially due to “incurred debts by raising men to reinforce the battalions
thereunto belonging in the army of the United States.” The act ordered that “one half a
141
Morrill, Fiat Finance, 15; Fries, Moravian Records, 4:1596, 1736; John Penn to Richard Caswell, 12
July 1777, Letters of Delegates to the Continental Congress, 7:339; Whitmell Hill to Thomas Burke, 24
May 1779, Letters of Delegates to the Continental Congress, 12:517; Carp, To Starve the Army at
Pleasure, 70-71.
142
James R. Morrill, The Practice and Politics of Fiat Finance: North Carolina in the Confederation,
1783-1789 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1969), 16.
122
million pounds be emitted on the faith and credit of this state.”143 Depreciation of the
currency, however, led to further emissions, which of course compounded the problem.144
Not only was state money almost worthless and specie rare, but what would be
called today the “cost of living” skyrocketed. By 1779, Virginia, the Carolinas and
Georgia had all felt the sting of war, which not only reduced public faith in paper money
of all kinds, but also created scarcity. With foreign trade cut off and coastal commerce
very risky in waters plied by British ships, a paucity of trade goods made prices soar.
People in the interior of the state bemoaned the high costs of salt, rum, and other goods at
the river towns and coastal ports, as did military officers. “What a Sett of Atheistical
fellows must there be in Newbern that thinks there is Neither God nor Devil to punish
them in a Nother World, for their usury to us in this,” complained Thomas Hart to his
cousin William Blount in 1780, regarding high prices charged by merchants.145
Eastern merchants were not the only ones denounced for high prices. Moravians
in Salem were also occasionally objects of resentment for their business dealings, but
they too paid dearly for goods they could not produce themselves. During the last few
years of the war the Moravians, who were actively involved in trade of many kinds,
struggled with issues of commerce and paper currency. Moravian leaders were quite
reluctant to accept North Carolina currency in payment of goods or services due to its
depreciation, but feared running afoul of state and local authorities for refusing to take it,
143
NCSR, 24:255.
144
Morrill, Fiat Finance, 16-17.
145
Thomas Hart to William Blount, 25 January 1780, Alice Barnwell Keith and W.H. Masterson, eds., The
John Gray Blount Papers, 3 vols. (Raleigh: N.C. Dept. of Archives and History, 1952-1965), 1:8-10;
William H. Masterson, William Blount (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1954), 38-43.
123
and being declared Tories. “We cannot refuse to accept this money from strangers who
have no other [method of payment] and are in distress, but it must not be taken at a higher
rate than it can be used again,” they decided.146 In 1780, the Moravians decided that with
regard to “outsiders, we will do the best we can to avoid taking North Carolina paper
money,” though they agreed to take it from soldiers or people in need, in order to avoid
having their goods taken by force. In 1782, when the town of Salem was inundated with
legislators for the Assembly session scheduled for February, Moravians worried about the
visitors’ payments to them for lodgings, etc., in “Tickets or paper money, by which the
town would have lost two-thirds of the value,” but eventually the delegates paid in “hard
money.”147
Confused finances plagued the state relentlessly. The paper emissions and the
drafts on Congress caused great confusion and bitterness among the inhabitants of the
state, who saw the currency depreciate rapidly—when it was available at all. Confused
finances gave the new state the impression of weakness and instability as well. It also
made military preparations trying, if not chaotic. In some counties, paper bills had
become scarce as early as 1777. It became difficult for people to understand the value of
the paper money compared to Continental bills, hard currency and other instruments of
exchange, particularly when they were confronted by unsympathetic state impressment
officers offering notes of dubious value for requisitioned property. On numerous
occasions, North Carolina could not manage to find the funds to support all of its
146
147
Schoepf, Travels in the Confederation, 131.
Adelaide L. Fries, Records of the Moravians in North Carolina, 13 vols. (Raleigh: Edwards &
Broughton, 1922-2005), 3:1214, and 4:1596, 1736, 1914.
124
delegation to the Continental Congress, which led the state to be unrepresented for
months on end.148
“The principal difficulty is want of money,” Governor Caswell wrote to Thomas
Burke in June 1777, in a report on recruiting, though he may as well have referred to a
host of other needs to pay for as well.149 State authorities were beset by financial
complaints of all stripes, as demonstrated by a brief sample. Officers all over the eastern
part of the state reported on financial constraints adversely affecting enlistments,
including instances in which the state’s bills were not accepted for money.150 In the fall
of 1777, Salem residents learned that local farmers in Rowan County were “willing to
sell, but not to take Congress money in payment.”151 As the governor succinctly noted in
February 1778, “nothing can be done without money,”152 an observation echoed in 1779
by Griffith Rutherford of the Salisbury Military District, who wrote that “without an
immediate supply of money there is nothing to be expected” as far as gathering supplies
and foodstuffs.153
Even if money could be had, it usually did not solve the problems at hand. The
sheer volume of bills circulating by 1780 led to depreciation, while the state’s woefully
148
Thomas Burke, Notes of Debates, 7 February 1777, Letters of Delegates to Congress, 6:230-231; North
Carolina Delegates to Richard Caswell, 15 July 1779, Letters of Delegates to the Continental Congress,
13:223-226. The records of the Continental Congress contain numerous letters and other documents noting
North Carolina delegates’ poor history of attendance at its sessions.
149
Richard Caswell to Thomas Burke, 17 June 1777, NCSR, 11:500-501.
150
Lt. Col. Robert Mebane to Richard Caswell, 17 July 1777, NCSR, 11:521; Maj. Selby Harney to Richard
Caswell, 10 June 1777, NCSR, 11:522-523; Richard Caswell to Thomas Burke, 15 July 1777, NCSR,
11:737-738.
151
Fries, Moravians Records, 3:1163.
152
Richard Caswell to Thomas Burke, 15 February 1778, NCSR, 8:42.
153
Griffith Rutherford to Richard Caswell, 17 July 1779, NCSR, 14:162.
125
disorganized and confused systems for spending and accounting during military
emergencies, made efficiency an unobtainable goal for civil and military officers trying
to manage the war. North Carolina’s lower house noted at the end of 1777 that “Monies
have been at different times received from the public treasury for the purpose of
purchasing stores or other articles, which monies have not been applied agreeable to their
true intention, but detained in the hands of those who received them, without account
rendered thereof.” The state’s several governors made frequent complaints along these
lines, but were essentially powerless to stop the abuses.154
Thomas Burke, who in 1781 assumed the position as the state’s chief executive,
made a number of suggestions to rectify financial matters. Public revenues went
uncollected, and those charged with doing so failed to make proper reports or settlements
with the district treasurers. There was little accountability for disbursements, and those
who made them. No “exact account” was available of the “debts due to and from the
State, of advances made by the State, on account of the United States or any particular
State, and of advances for the account of the State.” Burke recommended that “all public
commissioners who are authorized to issue certificates for supplies be required to return
an exact list of all such as shall be issued in every month.” He regretfully noted the
“negligence of duty, and of orders in every department.” Matters had not improved much
if at all by October 1781, when Burke’s successor, Alexander Martin, described matters
as “deranged.”155
154
NCSR, 12:363.
155
NCSR, 19:860-861, 870.
126
As the war progressed, other issues related to money surfaced. In August 1778,
the state’s Senate lamented that “the present depreciation of our money is in a great
measure owing to the quantity of counterfeit money, which has been so well-executed as
to deceive the most skilful and thereby has been drawn into circulation in common with
the currency of the State and scarce distinguishable therefrom.”156 During the same
session of the General Assembly, William Hooper, reporting for the Joint Committee of
both Houses, reported that “the treasury of this state is at this time exhausted, and that the
means of obtaining a supply without further provision by the Legislature are distant and
uncertain and that therefore there is an absolute necessary to emit a sum of money equal
to the pressing present exigency.” With no specie in the state, and trade limited due to
the conflict, few options for finance remained. In addition to concerns over
counterfeiting, Hooper also noted that paper money issued by Congress had “been in
some degree prejudiced by an invidious and injurious distinction made by the disaffected
favorable to what is commonly called old money and which from their obstinate
prejudices in favor of a Government their adherence to which can no longer support them
and which only proves their obstinacy, and its hostility is by them preferred to the
currency which has the credit of our present happy Constitution to support it.”
Carolinians could also face legal sanctions or worse if they too refused to support
the state’s financing schemes. This is demonstrated by a notable example in Currituck in
1780. At a muster in that county, Thomas Younghusband “did publicly and openly make
use of many violent, indecent and dangerous expressions having a tendency to create a
156
NCSR, 12:781; North Carolina Delegates to the North Carolina Council of Safety, 2 August 1776,
Letters of Delegates to the Continental Congress, 4:609. For the issue of counterfeit money in the
Moravian towns, see Fries, Moravian Records, 3:1188, 1324.
127
spirit of disaffection among, the people,” including “Damn the Congress” and “Damn the
Currency.” It was known too that he refused to accept any paper money from patrons of
his “public house of entertainment,” all of which caused him to face a Superior Court
session in Edenton that year. What is striking about Younghusband’s case is that not
only was he a justice of the peace, but also a state assemblyman!157
The Continental Congress’s actions with regard to money only served to
compound problems for North Carolina, as it did for the other states as well. There were
eleven emissions of paper currency by Congress through 1780, for a total of
$241,550,000. Additionally, various loans were procured from France, Spain and
Holland, which provided some much-needed hard currency, but further added to
America’s debt. Congress opened offices in each state, to issue loan certificates. These
depreciated rapidly. Congress next turned to the issuance of certificates for the
Commissary and Quartermaster departments to cover their expenses. They were used in
effect when impressing food and supplies, bore no interest and declined in value due to
inflation. These various measures constituted a “financial sleight-of-hand,” according to
one historian, to the point that Congress eventually resorted to begging the states to pay
its bills, as by 1781 millions in currency “had shrunk to almost nothing.”158
Depreciation, the lack of money and rising prices in the Southern Department
were all well-known challenges to state and Continental leaders, especially by the
summer of 1780. Governor Jefferson of Virginia advised General Washington in June of
157
158
Court Papers, District of Edenton, 1757-1787, Criminal Court Records 141, N.C. State Archives.
Richard B. Morris, The Forging of the Union, 1781-1789 (New York: Harper & Row Publishers, 1987),
34-38; Ward, The War for Independence and the Transformation of American Society, 31-32.
128
what Carolinians were also painfully aware: “the want of money cramps every effort.”159
Perhaps the most pragmatic summary of the plight North Carolina faced in terms of
monetary difficulties was offered by William Hooper’s joint committee during the
session of the General Assembly in August 1778. Before the committee’s
recommendation for the emitting of £850,000 in unsecured paper, Hooper described
North Carolina’s quandary.
This State stands indebted to sundry persons in large sums of money
which have been principally incurred by raising a body of troops at the
request of the Continental Congress to reinforce the Continental Army,
and that this State has pledged the public faith for the payment of the
same, that the Treasury of this State is at this time exhausted and that the
means of obtaining a supply without a further provision by the Legislature
are distant and uncertain and that there is an absolute necessity to emit a
sum of money equal to the present pressing exigency.160
By the end of the war, the state’s “currency had acquired a confusingly mixed status,” as
the preeminent student of North Carolina finance has written, which eventually gave rise
to the need for a scale of depreciation by 1782,161 to alleviate the difficulties in “adjusting
and settling debts and demands…from the rapid depreciation of paper currency emitted in
circulation,” and to set a fixed scale for ascertaining the values of the various paper bills
floating around the state. Perhaps an indication of how devalued the state’s paper
currency had become by the beginning of 1782 is the report of a number of Rowan
159
Thomas Jefferson to George Washington, Papers of Thomas Jefferson, 3:433.
160
NCSR, 12:781.
161
Morrill, Fiat Finance, 18-25.
129
County residents that robbers and plunderers in the backcountry would steal from their
victims only specie—if paper money was found they burned it instead.162
The lack of money and rampant inflation in North Carolina and the other southern
states were some of Greene’s most difficult wartime conundrums. Late in the war,
General Greene found “the prices of things are so enormous at George Town [S.C.] and
North Carolina that I am determined to send a vessel to the Head of the Elk [Maryland]
and load her from Philadelphia,” where presumably prices were more reasonable.
163
He
complained that the states could not “be brought to collect their taxes with more certainty
and effect,” the result of which was a lack of funds to pay the troops and buy supplies. In
part, Greene blamed the lack of coercive power of Congress to make the states contribute
to the war effort, which under the Articles of Confederation was difficult. “How we are
to establish a foundation for the business of finance upon this sandy footing is difficult
for me to conceive,” he lamented in 1782. In part, he blamed a lack of cooperation
among the states, including North Carolina, and despaired of getting the states to act for
“the common interest.” “A more general disposition among them to support the war” was
what Greene desired, especially with regard to finances, which he held as “the foundation
to the whole and I want to see each State obliged to pay punctually into the treasury of
the Continent their several proportions of the National expence.” Only then, he
concluded, would the financial outlook be anything but bleak. At what must have been a
particularly trying time in early February 1782, Greene’s frustration became evident in a
162
NCSR, 24:485-488; Petition of Inhabitants of Rowan County, undated, Grievances, Joint Papers,
General Assembly Session Records, April-May 1782, Box 1, N.C. State Archives.
163
John Waites, Jr. to Nathanael Greene, 25 January 1782, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 10:14-15; Risjord,
Chesapeake Politics, 96-99.
130
letter to Jeremiah Wadsworth, a Representative from Connecticut in the Continental
Congress and former deputy and commissary general during the Revolution. “All the
States are gaping at Congress and looking for help,” he complained “but not one of them
are willing to put their hands in their pockets and fill her treasury. Where is our revenue
to come from but from the States?”164
What was obvious to Greene and surely other military and civil authorities
throughout the war was that the absence of money made for an absence of supplies. He
implored North Carolina’s governor to have the state adopt the plan of Robert Morris,
America’s Financier General, a system of contracts to obtain needed supplies “for the
support of the Army, ” a contract method for supplying the armies which Congress urged
the states to implement. This plan would replace the current mode of taxation of citizens
for specific supplies, which had proved ineffective. Taxes, Greene noted, had to precede
the contracts so that the state would have the monetary resources in hand to enter into
such agreements with citizens to supply the army. Perhaps as a threat, Greene warned
Governor Burke that financial viability “is the foundation of Government and nothing
short of the plan proposed can continue our political existence for any length of time.”165
Burke recognized the problems with finance and the lack of money his state confronted,
which contributed to what he called a “Confusion of our Accounts.” He reminded
Greene that since the legislature did not meet that winter due to a lack of a quorum, no
164
Nathanael Greene to John Hanson, 23 January 1782, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 10:242; Nathanael
Greene to Edward Carrington, 24 January 1782, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 10:249; Nathanael Greene to
Robert Morris, 24 January 1782, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 10:254-255; Nathanael Greene to Jeremiah
Wadsworth, 9 February 1782, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 10:337.
165
Ward, The War for Independence and the Transformation of American Society, 95; Nathanael Greene to
the Governor of North Carolina, 5 March 1782, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 10:447.
131
tax could be approved to obtain the necessary funds to supply the army. Moreover, the
impoverished state was unable to get on its financial sea legs on account of the already
chaotic situation within its borders when Burke wrote that winter of 1782. The governor
advised Greene that the state could not pay its allotment of taxes to the Continental
Congress other than by selling its produce, “which, in general, is Consumed either by the
Army, or the posts appertaining thereto which remain here [in North Carolina].”166
Additionally, the hostile activities of a “great number of disaffected” in large swaths of
the state made the collection of taxes and supplies quite troublesome. In fact, as early as
1778, Carolina legislators were aware that “many counties in this state are infested with
Tories and disorderly people who refuse to pay taxes.”167
An exasperated former delegate to Congress wrote to Greene in August 1782 of
the “derangement of the affairs of our State,” which led him to conclude that “more
resources have been wasted, embezzled, and misapplied in this state in the last three
years, than would have been sufficient to defray the expences and subsist the Southern
army during one whole year.” He also blamed a “want of frugality and oeconomy as well
as firmness and diligence in our executive department” for the state’s financial woes, and
an over reliance upon the sale of confiscated loyalist property, which stood in the way of
“other measures for raising revenues.” These sales had been sporadic throughout the war
until the spring of 1782, at which time “radicals” in the Assembly began to press for their
166
167
Thomas Burke to Nathanael Greene, 5 March 1782, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 10:450-452.
Nathanael Greene to Robert Morris, 9 March 1782, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 10:469; Nathanael
Greene to Robert Morris, 12 April 1782, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 11:37; NCSR, 12:775. More on the
issue of the disruption of the state caused by Loyalists is discussed in Chapter 4.
132
execution.168 To Charles Pettit, former assistant Quartermaster General of the
Continental Army, Greene again displayed his displeasure at “the want of a revenue, and
still a greater want of a spirit of union among the States,” which was no small concern
with the British still occupying Charleston with a significant force.169
Despite the numerous pleas from Greene and the Continental Congress, North
Carolina did not provide the funds or supplies so desperately needed by the ill-equipped,
under-fed troops in the field. Governor Alexander Martin’s letter of 29 August 1782, in
which he informed Greene of the state’s failure to grant “proportional Revenue to the
Support of the Union as recommended by Congress, conceiving themselves unable at
present” to do so, could not have either pleased nor surprised Greene.170 No wonder then
that as the year came to a close, with little if any improvement in the financial situation in
the Southern Department, a despondent Greene concluded that “Without finance all our
buildings must tumble to the ground. The struggle may last for a long time, but must
terminate in ruin.”171
Certainly, many military officers who served in the south during the American
Revolution, particularly in the latter years, deplored the lack of money from Congress
and the states they were fighting to defend. So too did North Carolina’s four wartime
governors, all of whom had occasion to see how monetary problems during and after the
war led to exorbitant prices, the inability to pay recruiting bonuses or fill the ranks of
168
William Sharpe to Nathanael Greene, 8 August 1782, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 11:505-507; Lefler
and Newsome, History of a Southern State, 235-236.
169
Nathanael Greene to Charles Pettit, 29 August 1782, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 11:594.
170
Alexander Martin to Nathanael Greene, 29 August 1782, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 11:599.
171
Nathanael Greene to Joseph Clay, after 29 December 1782, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 12:356
133
Continental regiments, and confusion within the state over depreciation and taxes. By
1781, the state’s effort to raise money and provisions from its inhabitants was clearly a
failure. “The Collection of Taxes and supplies have been irregular and unreasonable and
the expenditure wasteful and disorderly,” Thomas Burke concluded. Little oversight
burdened the tax collectors, who were largely unaccountable for their expenses or
revenues, which occasioned “great negligence and confusion.” Attempts made to
simplify and systematize the specific tax collection were, Burke held, unsuccessful. In
addition, the people were “subjected to great injustice” by the “waste of supplies as well
as the expense of collecting and issuing” the gathered provisions.172
For all of the reliance North Carolina put on unsecured paper currency and other
monetary certificates of dubious worth to pay for provisions, materiel and recruiting
bonuses, the state was never able to adequately obtain enough weapons, food, horses,
wagons, salt, rum, clothes, blankets, shoes, forage, tents, ammunition, and a multitude of
other items to support its soldiers in the field and to defend itself. This inability undercut
the state’s legitimacy in the eyes of some inhabitants, and led the state to adopt
oppressive measures such as impressment and confiscation (to be discussed in Chapter
6). The state’s powerlessness to defend itself with men and gather supplies, to say
nothing of making contributions to the common defense, must have inspired little
confidence in the Patriot cause among much of the citizenry.
These problems with provisions and the way they were procured contributed
immensely to the chaotic situation within the state, especially from the time the British
returned to the south in force in 1779. Establishment of authority, order, and stability
172
Burke’s message to the General Assembly, 16 April 1782, NCSR, 16:6-9.
134
amidst such turmoil was difficult if not impossible. In fact, the civil and military leaders
trying to provide for the troops exacerbated their difficulties by the very methods they
adopted to solve their problems. State and Continental authorities attempted to relieve
the problem by the use of steadily depreciating currency and later specific taxes; yet this
modus operandi induced scores of citizens, even those well-disposed to the Whigs, to
refuse to cooperate with commissaries and state agents or hide their possessions, rather
than accept as payment what they regarded as worthless script or valueless certificates
and receipts. No matter what rhetoric soldiers and politicians used to convince
themselves and the public of the virtue and righteousness of the cause of liberty, they
recognized that burdensome taxes, dubious currency and heavy-handed methods of
obtaining sustenance did little to make North Carolina’s revolutionary government
popular, effective or stable.173
Writing two years after the war in the south ended, General Greene recalled the
challenges of his command in matters of logistics in a long letter that neatly sums up the
widespread disorder seen in North Carolina and other states as he led his army to
eventual victory in that theatre. In August 1785, Greene recalled that his army suffered
greatly in 1781 and 1782 “for the want of supplies of all kinds,” for which he blamed “the
inability of Congress to give effectual support” to the troops. “In this situation without
funds or public credit[,] necessity compelled us to have recourse to many expedients to
prevent a dissolution of the Army.” He noted that in the spring of 1782, his command
was on the verge of disbanding but for a timely provision of clothing from South
Carolina. “Several hundred men had been as naked as they were born except a [cloth]
173
Carp, To Starve the Army with Pleasure, 84-88, 93, 97-98.
135
about their middle for more than four months and the enemy in force within four hours
march of us all the time,” he recalled. Even after the evacuation of Charleston in
December 1782, Greene remembered that his men “were reduced to the utmost distress
and at times compelled from hunger to plunder the market in Charleston for support.”
This was exacerbated by the “critical situation” of finance Greene, his officers and a host
of civil authorities across the southern states faced at the time.174
While Greene for the most part describes South Carolina in this letter, North
Carolina too felt the same despair brought on by financial woes and inadequate logistical
supply system, and unpopular taxation methods adopted to meet the army’s needs. These
various factors acted cumulatively to create a confused, almost anarchic state of affairs
which the new state government was unable to manage. Moreover, such severe shortages
and financial limitations prevented the state from sending any aid to Congress in the form
of supplies of money, a situation that perhaps contributed to North Carolina’s myopia in
favor of its own state and local concerns, rather than those of the Confederation. One of
the hallmarks of a legitimate state is its sound finances and monetary system, along with
an ability to defend its people from foreign aggression. North Carolina’s logistical
shortcomings and its muddled, unruly finances during the war and for years thereafter
made such a claim of firmly-founded statehood questionable.
174
Nathanael Greene to Richard Henry Lee, 22 August 1785, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 8:564-566.
136
CHAPTER 4
“THAT INTERNAL WAR: DISAFFECTION AND THE TORY PROBLEM”
Estrangement from the Revolutionary movement among a large part of the
population spread out over much of the state was for North Carolina its most widespread,
persistent, and frustrating problem during the war years. The daunting presence of a
large number of disaffected inhabitants faced Patriots from the beginning of the war, and
persisted long after the British had evacuated Wilmington in November 1781, and
Cornwallis had surrendered the main force of redcoats in the south at Yorktown the
month before. Disaffection may even be seen as early as 1774, as historian Carole W.
Troxler has suggested, in the opposition to the colony’s non-importation movement to
protest the British governments “abuses” of their North American provinces.1 State and
Continental officials continually tried to mitigate the harmful effects of Tories in their
midst, with mixed results. “Almost nowhere in British North America did whigs go to
war with less support than in North Carolina,” historian Roger Ekirch concludes in his
essay on backcountry disorders from 1775 to 1783. While historian Robert DeMond’s
claim that “North Carolina probably contained a greater number of Loyalists in
1
Troxler, The Loyalist Experience in North Carolina, 1-3.
137
proportion to its population than did any other colony” can not be verified with certainty,
its implication of the level of disaffection within the state is surely accurate.2
Disaffection as understood by Whigs and Tories alike in the late eighteenth
century meant disloyalty to the government or to established authority. In North
Carolina, disaffection manifested itself in a number of forms, from men refusing to swear
allegiance to the new state government, to a plot to kill the governor, to the presence of
enclaves of Tories whose plundering, raiding and killing undermined the state’s stability,
legitimacy and capacity to assist in the war effort against the British. While some
citizens who did not support independence merely wanted to sit out the war unmolested,
others refused to be drafted or shirked militia duty—and encouraged others to do so as
well. Hundreds more of those estranged from the Revolution joined provincial
companies or battalions during the war and served alongside British or Hessian regulars
in battles small and large, particularly at Camden and Kings Mountain. Thus, this
alienation from those in rebellion against the Patriot government was a continuum of
beliefs and actions, from passive dislike of local Whig leaders to those who took up arms
against Patriot forces.
Disaffection contributed to the chaos and brutality that characterized the war for
many Carolinians, notably in the struggle’s last several years. Moreover, the resistance
2
DeMond, Loyalists in North Carolina, vii; Ekirch, “Whig Authority and Public Order,” 99; “Minutes
respecting political Parties in America, 1778,” #487, B.F. Stevens, Facsimiles of Manuscripts in European
Archives relating to America, 5:5. The subject of Loyalism during the American Revolution has been
discussed in a number of studies. See Paul H. Smith, Loyalists and Redcoats: A Study in British
Revolutionary Policy (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1964); North Callahan, Flight from
the Republic; the Tories of the American Revolution (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1967); Robert M.
Calhoon, et. al., The Loyalist Perception and other Essays (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press,
1989); and Robert M. Calhoon, The Loyalists in Revolutionary America, 1760-1781 (New York, Harcourt
Brace Jovanovich, 1973). For an excellent recent look at disaffection in Georgia and South Carolina, see
Robert S. Davis, “Lessons from Kettle Creek: Patriotism and Loyalism at Askance on the Southern
Frontier,” Journal of Backcountry Studies, Vol. 1 (May 2006), No. 1, http://www.uncg.edu/~rmcalhoo/jbs/.
138
of the disaffected hindered the state in its efforts to establish order, authority and
legitimacy. Not all sections of the state were similarly affected by “the Tory menace.”
The Cape Fear Valley, the backcountry, and to a lesser extent the Old Granville region,
suffered far more than did other parts of the state in terms of violence and destruction
associated with battling the disaffected. Some counties, particularly those along the Cape
Fear River watershed, were heavily Tory in sentiment for much or all of the war, and
presented a dangerous challenge to Patriot efforts to create their new state. Other regions,
such as the coastal counties and the western frontier, saw much less trouble from
disaffected Carolinians, though their presence was certainly a challenge not be ignored.
This sectional nature of disaffection added to the centrifugal forces within the state that
not only forced Carolinians to focus on internal matters rather than those of a continental
scope, it also emphasized intra-state differences and localism as well. 3
The correspondence of North Carolina and Continental authorities clearly
demonstrate the magnitude of the threat posed by the disaffected within the state, a few
examples of which depict the nature of this peril. At the end of March 1782, Governor
Thomas Burke, wrote from Halifax to General Greene, then encamped with army in
South Carolina. In his letter, Burke made mention of his state’s primary problem
throughout the revolutionary struggle, and its most taxing one.
It is our misfortune to have among us a large Settlement of people who
were never thoroughly United with us, and who have always become very
dangerous Instruments in the hands of the Enemy. Under Cover of that
Settlement Numbers of the Outlaws of every State have Collected in this,
and even many deserters from both armies. These under pretence of
bearing Arms in British Interest Commit the most inhuman Barbarities and
3
Michael A. McDonnell, “Resistance to the American Revolution,” in Jack P. Greene and J. R. Pole, eds.,
A Companion to the American Revolution (Malden, Mass : Blackwell Publishers, 2000), 342-351. See also
Robert M. Calhoon, “Loyalism and Neutrality,” Ibid., 235-238, 244-246.
139
most atrocious Crimes. The injured People are provoked by those
Outrages into Acts of desperate revenge and the Country is in many places
filled with Assassinations…no Efforts can be Expected from a State in
such Circumstances…”4
Burke’s sketch accurately described the long-standing and pernicious problem that
plagued the state from the war’s initial stages—virulent disaffection among large
numbers of the inhabitants of his state, and the resultant disorder and mayhem that served
to undermine the authority and very existence of the Revolutionary movement.
Greene too was well aware of the troubles caused by such internal discord. To
the president of the Continental Congress he noted that the problem with the disaffected
in the south was critical. Greene described the disorderly situation in the Carolinas.
More inhabitants appear in the King’s interest than in ours; and the
Country is so extensive and thinly inhabited that it is not easy to draw any
considerable force together, or subsist them when collected. The militia in
our interest can do little more than keep the Tories in subjection, and in
many places not that. 5
The alienation of a significant portion of the state’s inhabitants was a ubiquitous
predicament. Alexander Martin, at the time North Carolina’s chief executive, wrote to
Greene in September 1781 of his own concerns regarding disaffection. I cannot but
lament that we are teased with Disaffection from some of our worthless inhabitants while
such great and promising Prospects are opening around us.6
Yet, as seen by another letter from Greene, this one to Robert Morris in
Philadelphia of March 1782, the problem of domestic enemies remained a worry for state
4
Thomas Burke to Nathanael Greene, 28 March 1782, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 10:549-550.
5
Nathanael Greene to Samuel Huntington, 22 April 1781, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 8:129-132.
6
Alexander Martin to Nathanael Greene, 19 September 1781, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 9:376.
140
and Continental leaders long after all redcoats had departed their state. He asked Morris
rhetorically,
what can be expected from those States who have been ravaged
continually and who are still torn to pieces by little parties of disaffected
who elude all search, and conceal themselves in thickets and swamps from
the most diligent pursuit and issue forth from these hidden recesses
committing the most horrid Murders and plunder and lay waste the
Country. And although their collective force is not great yet they do a
world of mischief and keep the people in perpetual alarms and render
traveling very unsafe and difficult…North Carolina is troubled with this
kind of banditti. In this situation you may readily conceive it is difficult
for Government with the best disposition to levy and collect taxes.
He concluded this account with the report that the state’s General Assembly had been
prevented from meeting for months, in part due to the amount of disorder within the state
caused to a large extent by Tory depredations.7
Disaffection during the War for Independence has received modern scholarly
attention. One of more notable works in this field is Ronald Hoffman’s overview of
those alienated from the Patriot cause in the South.8 Hoffman points out the “waves of
discontent and social violence seriously undermined and eroded the dominant position of
the political leadership” of the Whigs, and asserts that the lower orders of southerners
often resisted demands of the political elite to support the war with “actions that ranged
from passive refusal to fierce opposition.” He concludes that “social and regional
divisions ran deeper” in the South than “in any area of colonial society, and where,
7
Nathanael Greene to Robert Morris, 9 March 1782, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 9:468-469.
8
Hoffman, “The Disaffected in the Revolutionary South,” 273-316. Quote is on p. 275.
141
during the war, near anarchy prevailed.”9 When Revolutionary leaders placed demands
on southerners, demands “in many ways more oppressive” than Parliamentary taxes and
regulations, a number of men refused to comply—especially those with “limited
involvement in their political culture.” Military commanders in the early 1780s had to
consider their political role in winning the confidences of the disaffected and that the
establishment of political and social order by soldiers would bring many of these men to
their cause.10 Often, however, the disaffected refused to comply, the direct result of
which was that militia companies failed to muster, men reacted violently against the
draft, large sections of the population declined to provide crucial assistance to the Whig
war effort, or they joined Loyalist companies and served in the field with British
armies.11
9
Hoffman, “The Disaffected in the Revolutionary South,” 274, 278. Hoffman’s previous study of
Maryland is A Spirit of Dissension: Economics, Politics, and the Revolution in Maryland (Baltimore: Johns
Hopkins University Press, 1973.)
10
Hoffman, “The Disaffected in the Revolutionary South,” 300. Other work on the disaffected in the South
include several essays in Ron Hoffman, Thad Tate and Peter J, Albert, eds. An Uncivil War: The Southern
Backcountry in during the American Revolution (Charlottesville: The University Press of Virginia for the
U.S. Capitol Historical Society, 1985). These include Jeffrey J. Crow, “Liberty Men and Loyalists:
Disorder and Disaffection in the North Carolina Backcountry,” 125-178; Roger Ekirch, “Whig Authority
and Public Order in Backcountry North Carolina, 1776-1783,” 99-124; Emory G. Evans, “Trouble in the
Backcountry: Disaffection in Southwest Virginia during the American Revolution,” 179-212; and two
essays in John Resch and Walter Sargent, eds., War and Society in the American Revolution: Mobilization
and Home Fronts (DeKalb: Northern Illinois Press, 2007): “’Fit for Common Service?’ Class, Race, and
Recruitment in Revolutionary Virginia,” by Michael A. McDonnell; and “Restraint and Retaliation: The
North Carolina Militias and the Backcountry War of 1780-1782,” by Wayne E. Lee. See also Paul H.
Smith, Loyalists and Redcoats, 100-167.
11
Recently, Michael A. McDonnell has moved beyond considering disaffection only by the definitions of
contemporaries, who limited it to “war weariness or…loyalist-leaning sentiment.” He includes resistance
by slaves, Indians, counterfeiters, tax protesters, those who traded with the enemy and others among the
populace. Michael A. McDonnell, “Resistance to the American Revolution, in Jack P. Greene and J. R.
Pole, eds., A Companion to the American Revolution (Malden, Mass : Blackwell Publishers, 2000), 342351.
142
While some scholars such as Roger Ekirch have recognized “varying degrees
of…disaffection ranging from tacit neutrality to overt Loyalism,” other historians have
differentiated “loyalists”, “Tories” and “the disaffected.” Hoffman for example, implies
that disaffection is “civil dissention,” but this anachronistically defines it as somehow
different from those who donned the red or green uniforms of the King’s forces in
America. Charles Royster may be doing the same when he separates “suspected loyalists
and…persons who would not take the oath” of allegiance. Jeffrey Crow distinguishes
between disaffection and Loyalism by writing that the former can “harden” into the latter.
Contemporary records and correspondence rarely make such distinctions. To the patriots
of the 1770s and 1780s, their domestic foes were dangerous no matter what nomenclature
was used to describe them at the time or later, and stood as challenging enemies to the
new state’s efforts to wage war and establish independence, peace and security.12
What these aforementioned scholars do agree upon is the internecine nature of the
southern war influenced considerably by disaffection, in what state Governor Abner Nash
described in 1780 as “a Country exposed to the misfortune of having a War within its
Bowels.”13 Certainly by then, it was a civil war marked by mutually destructive violence
ruinous or fatal to both sides until the end of the conflict. During these years, “violence
was harsh and pervasive,” and the period saw a collapse of traditional restraints on
12
Hoffman, “Disaffection,” 275; Ekirch, “Whig Authority and Public Order,” 100; Royster, A
Revolutionary People at War, 105; Crow, “Liberty Men and Loyalists,” 126. See letter of Horatio Gates to
George Washington, 3 September 1780, Papers of Horatio Gates, microfilm, reel 12, for an example of how
he failed to make a distinction between the Tories and the disaffected. While hundreds of North
Carolinians also served in Loyalist units raised by the British, for the most part they fought outside the
state, notably in South Carolina.
13
Abner Nash to the General Assembly, 25 August 1780, Joint Papers, General Assembly Session Records,
August-September 1780, Box 1, N.C. State Archives.
143
brutality as practiced by the militia forces of those who supported independence and
those who opposed it. A new paradigm emerged in North Carolina among its warring
factions, the “war of retaliation,” which as historian Wayne Lee argues, evolved into a
legitimate form of warfare for both sides by this stage of the bloody struggle. As Jerome
Nadelhaft has written, “war encouraged vicious behavior not easily controlled in the
years of fighting or abandoned afterwards.”14
Greene was horrified by the situation in the south upon his arrival in December
1780. He reported that “the Whigs and Tories pursue one another with the most
relent[less] Fury killing and destroying each other wherever they meet. Indeed a great
deal of this Country is already laid waste & in the utmost danger of becoming a Desert.”
He further noted that this type of warfare “so corrupted the Principles of the People that
they think of nothing but plundering one another.” His letters throughout his command
tenure speak of numerous incidents of atrocities, particularly what he called “private
murders.”15 Governor Thomas Burke wrote in June 1781 that the war had “unhappily
kindled the most fierce and vindictive animosity” between Whigs and Tories,
characterized by “reciprocal violences and bloodshed.”16
These and other writers, then and now, have amply detailed the brutal nature of
the Whig/Tory conflict, which needs little further elaboration here. Nevertheless,
14
Nadelhaft, The Disorders of War, 50. Don Higginbotham likewise notes that “from the summer of 1780
onward,” the war in the south was “a full-scale civil war” marked by a bitterness and brutality that appalled
many “sober, reasonable leaders in both the British and American camps.” Don Higginbotham, War and
Society in Revolutionary America: The Wider Dimensions of Conflict (Columbia: University of South
Carolina Press, 1988), 167-168.
15
Nathanael Greene to Robert Howe, 29 December 1780, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 7:17.
16
Thomas Burke to Major James Craig, 29 June 1781, NCSR, 22:1027.
144
disaffection and these associated features of revenge, retaliation and brutality (most
notably by 1780) greatly contributed to the chaos in North Carolina’s revolutionary
struggle and created animosity among Carolinians after the war as well.17 The failure to
restrain violence, including plunder, arson and murder, undermined the state’s legitimacy
and authority, neither of which could be established convincingly until the disorders were
quelled. This chapter explores the widespread extent of disaffection and Loyalism, its
duration from the earliest days of the war, and how it undermined the efforts of
Carolinians to create a new state.18
The revolutionaries of North Carolina were not spared the difficulties of dealing
with disaffection at the war’s commencement. The proclamation of the New Bern
Committee of Safety in June 1775, which stated that “all such Persons within the said
Town who fail to subscribe the Articles [of Association]…be deemed Enemies to their
Country,” was typical of a number of early attempts at quelling dissent.19 One of the first
issues taken up by the Provincial Council that began on 28 February 1776 in New Bern
involved the case of William Bourk, charged with “being inimical to the Liberties of
America.” Bourk had been overheard the day before saying that “we should all be
subdued by the month of May by the King’s Troops,” and several other pronouncements
17
Lee, Crowds and Soldiers in Revolutionary North Carolina, 176-179; DeMond, Loyalists in North
Carolina, 153-180.
18
Lee, Crowds and Soldiers in Revolutionary North Carolina, 176-211; John Shy, A People Numerous and
Armed: Reflections on the Military Struggle for American Independence (Ann Arbor: University of
Michigan Press, 1990), 163-180, 229-244; Harry M. Ward, Between the Lines: Banditti of the American
Revolution (Westport, Conn.: Praeger Publishers, 2002), 221-239; Hoffman, “The Disaffected in the
Revolutionary South,” 273-313.
19
Proclamation of the New Bern Committee, 17 June 1775, Samuel Johnston papers, Hayes Collection,
reel #3.
145
of a similar bellicose nature which were not well received by Carolinians in support of
the cause of liberty. Having heard the witness against him, Bourk admitted to these
confrontational statements, but went on steadfastly to declare that he was “sure the
Americans would be subdued by the month of August.” The Council, having heard quite
enough of Bourk and his contrary declarations, ordered him to be sent to the jail at
Halifax, and “there to remain till further Orders.” He was later paroled to Northampton
County, and by 13 May, released from the same.20
Other cases along these lines cropped up repeatedly. One involved Dr. James
Fallon of Wilmington, a prominent physician deemed by some as “an insinuating and
dangerous person among the soldiers,” who in January 1776 was ordered by the city’s
affronted Committee of Safety to be “committed to the common jail there to remain until
he makes a full confession of his offences to the public and asks pardon of the Committee
for the repeated insults he has in person offered.” Fallon’s transgression had been to
publish a paper in Wilmington obnoxious to the Whig cause, with “many false and
scandalous reflections” on the local committee and the use of divisive language. Fallon
was ordered to “give sufficient security for his good behavior to the public, for the space
of six months in the sum of £500 prock money,” and seek the forgiveness of the
Committee for his transgressions. Fallon refused and was consequently ordered to have
no communications with soldiers or civilians of the area “except in case of sickness.” In
light of the rumors then circulating about a loyalist rising around Cross Creek, the
20
NCCR, 10:471, 559, 585.
146
Committee also ordered that Dr. Fallon have no further contact with the public, “and that
the prison door be kept locked.”21
Another case from Halifax County also details early Whig attempts to deal with
disaffection. In late 1775, George Massingbird ran afoul of local Whig authorities there.
The county sheriff required that Massingbird appear before the Provincial Council on 19
December, when it met at the court house in Johnston County, “accusing him of having
made use of some words disrespectful to the Cause of America.” The accused, against
whom no witnesses appeared personally, seemed to be “truly sensible of his past ill
Conduct.” The Council was bent toward leniency, at least in this case, for “having taken
an Oath satisfactory to the Council do therefore Order that the said George Massingbird
be discharged from Custody.” This was the only case of this nature heard by the Council
during this session, and Massingbird does not appear again in the extant records.22
These three cases of North Carolinians suspected of disaffection from the
revolutionary movement are representative of how such citizens were handled early in the
war. Bourk, Fallon and Massingbird, like many others in similar predicaments in the
province in 1775 and the first few months of 1776, were brought before the authorities
for things they said or wrote, not for violent acts or being found under arms against Whig
forces. These were men of whom Carolina officials were leery as they began the
establishment of their new government, and sought to claim legitimacy. Obviously the
21
NCCR, 10:410, 412, 418-420, 422. Fallon must have later acceded to Patriot demands for his good
behavior as he was appointed in 1779 to the Continental Congress’ Commission of Senior Physicians and
Surgeons in Military Hospitals, in which capacity he served in New York. Dr. James Fallon to Thomas
Burke, 1 April 1779, NCSR, 14:49-50.
22
NCCR, 10:349.
147
three accused were unimpressed with these efforts and said so, yet none of them were
shot by their neighbors, had their homes and barns burned, or were otherwise harshly
handled. In all, except for brief periods in jail, the men were treated rather humanely by
Patriot officials. It should be noted here, though, that all three incidents occurred before
the watershed battle at Moore’s Creek Bridge, and thus prior to what was in effect a
massive demonstration of how strong the Tories were in the state. This was in marked
contrast to the Whig-Tory conflict that marked the rest of the war, especially after the
American forces were defeated at the battle of Camden in August 1780, and the summary
executions of several Tories after the battle of Kings Mountain in October of the same
year.23
Evidence that not all of the province’s inhabitants favored opposition to British
authority in America was unmistakable long before North Carolina Whig forces under
Richard Caswell faced a thousand armed men loyal to the King on the banks of murky
Moore’s Creek. In June 1775, the Rowan Committee of Safety made mention of “our
enemies” within the county, and the corresponding need for “a certain Quantity of
powder.”24 The colony’s delegates to the Continental Congress warned Carolinians of “a
dangerous Enemy in your own Bosom” the same month, in reference to the disaffected.25
This Congress reported in June that “the enemies of the liberties of America are pursuing
measures to divide the good people of the Colony of North Carolina and to defeat the
23
John Shy, A People Numerous and Armed ,163-180, 229-244; Anthony Allaire, “Extract from a letter
from an officer,” The Royal Gazette, (New York), February 24, 1781.
24
NCCR, 10:9-10.
25
NCCR, 10:21.
148
American Association,” and recommended that “all in the Colony who wish well to the
liberties of America…embody themselves as militia.”26
As news of the state of rebellion in New England trickled in, Carolina safety
committees became more serious about controlling potential or real internal enemies in
1775. Aware that enemies lurked within their town, the New Bern Committee in August
ordered them stripped of their arms, including guns, “Swords, Cutlasses, etc., etc., and all
Gun powder.”27 James Hepburn, a Cumberland County lawyer, discovered the hard way
how vigilant the Patriots had become. He was declared by the Wilmington Safety
Committee to be “a wicked and detestable character” in July 1775, for being in the
company of Royal Governor Josiah Martin, deriding the committee, and for “falsely and
maliciously” asserting that there were fifty thousand Russians about to embark by the
orders of the British king “to subdue the Americans.” More critically, Hepburn was
accused of raising militia for the King’s service, which earned him the approbation of the
Wilmingtonians as a “false, scandalous and seditious incendiary…in favor of tyranny and
oppression.” Significantly, the fact that the committee did not jail or punish Hepburn,
other than to urge all “Friends to American Liberty” to avoid all intercourse with him,
illustrates the forbearing nature of the early months of the Revolution, as did the cases of
Bourk, Fallon and Massingbird, above. Hepburn begged to “be restored again to the
favor of the public” the next month, and was ordered by the local committee to recant his
earlier offensive statements. Only after the state’s apprehension of a large number of
26
NCCR, 10:40.
27
NCCR, 10:158.
149
those loyal to the King in the aftermath of Moore’s Creek was Hepburn imprisoned,
having served as secretary to the loyalist commander during that campaign.28
If any Carolinians were unaware of the large number of inhabitants within the
colony who retained their imperial allegiance at the start of hostilities, the 1776 Moore’s
Creek Bridge campaign surely disabused them of this notion. This major rising of Tories
greatly alarmed the province’s revolutionaries. Although the loyal troops suffered a
complete battlefield defeat, this display of loyalist strength put Carolina patriots on notice
that not only was the emerging state home to numerous internal enemies, but that a
significant geographic portion of the state was insecure as well. Moreover, this early
demonstration by the loyalists was only the first of numerous risings throughout the war,
all of which challenged the state’s ability to wage war, and added to the chaos and
uncertainty of the Revolution.
By the time of the American Revolution, a sizeable contingent of Highland Scots
had emigrated to North Carolina and settled in the region of Cross Creek and
Campbelltown, on the upper Cape Fear River in Cumberland County. The total number
of these Scots may have been as many as twelve thousand at the start of the war, and
included communities in Bladen and Anson counties as well.29 It was clear to both sides
as early as the summer of 1775 that these Highlanders were firmly attached to the King,
28
NCCR, 10:72-73, 486. Hepburn was paroled in May 1776.
29
Lee, Crowds and Soldiers in Revolutionary North Carolina, 16, 208; Loyalist claim of Allen McDonald
in Rassie Wicker, Miscellaneous Ancient Records of Moore County, 370-372; E. W. Caruthers,
Revolutionary Incidents and Sketches of Character, Chiefly in the “Old North State” (Philadelphia: Hayes
and Zell, 1854), 41-49. For a useful overview of Highland Scots’ settlements in North Carolina, see Duane
Meyer, The Highland Scots of North Carolina, 1732-1776 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina
Press, 1957). Meyer refutes the common assertion that the Scottish Highlanders were forced to come to
North Carolina by their expulsion from their homelands after the battle of Culloden in 1746. He cites
instead economic factors and pressures of population increase in the Highlands.
150
having sworn allegiance to him in return for their American land grants. Governor Josiah
Martin expected three thousand Scots to fight against the rebels in June if need be, “out
of the interior Counties of this Province, where the People are in General well affected.”30
The optimistic governor believed the Scots were “dormant” only due to a want of support
from Britain. “They have not lost their loyalty or love for their Mother Country,” he
concluded. Martin believed that these émigrés were ready to “lay down their lives in the
support and defence of his Majesty’s Government,” as he advised Dartmouth in
November. He and others were convinced “that the Scotch Highlanders here are
generally and almost without exception staunch to Government,” and far more numerous
than the rebels.31
Whigs too suspected the allegiance of the Highland settlements.32 By the first
couple of months of 1776, rumors along these lines proved to be correct. Loyalists in
Cross Creek and its environs were urged to rally to the King’s colors by Thomas
Rutherford, colonel of the Cumberland County militia, and a staunch supporter of the
30
Josiah Martin to Earl of Dartmouth, 30 June 1775, NCCR, 10:45-46.
31
Josiah Martin to Earl of Dartmouth, 16 October 1775, NCCR, 10:267; Josiah Martin to Earl of
Dartmouth, 12 November 1775, NCCR, 10:324-325. Even in 1780, the British expected the Scots in the
state to support them. Cornwallis wrote in August of that year that “the Highlanders have offered to form a
regiment as soon as we enter their country.” Willcox, Sir Henry Clinton's Narrative of his Campaigns,
448. Many Highlanders remained loyal to the crown throughout the war. A 1782 roster of the North
Carolina Highland Regiment shows that numerous soldiers in that organization came from Anson, Bladen,
and Cumberland counties, and had served in the Loyalist Militia prior to that as well. “Roll of Soldiers
belonging to the No. Carolina Highland Regt. who served in the No. Carolina Militia,” 6 March 1782,
English Records, Box ER 17, Folder 41, Miscellaneous Treasury Papers, N.C. State Archives.
32
NCCR, 10:65. See also Laura Page Frech, “The Wilmington Committee of Public Safety and the
Loyalist Rising of February 1776,” North Carolina Historical Review 41 (January 1964): 1-20, and Hugh
F. Rankin, “The Moore's Creek Bridge Campaign, 1776.” North Carolina Historical Review 30 (January
1953), 23-60.
151
crown. These men were to collect by 16 February “in order to join the King’s army.”33
Although the rising of the Highlanders in response to this and similar declarations turned
out to be part of an ultimately unsuccessful British campaign in which the loyalist forces
suffered a telling defeat at Moore’s Creek, the scale of the participation among this large
ethnic minority alarmed Whig officials. This was confirmed by the findings of a
committee of the Provincial Congress charged with inquiring “into the conduct of the
insurgents and other suspected persons” after the battle. The committee report showed
North Carolina patriots that not only were these men who had taken up arms against them
mostly Highlanders, but that some had previously signed oaths of allegiance to the
revolutionary government, served in the provincial congress or on county safety
committees. The list of names in the report contains Scottish surnames almost
exclusively, most of whom were inhabitants of Cumberland, Bladen and Anson counties,
which remained pockets of disaffection throughout the war.34
A number of the most prominent Scots who fought at Moore’s Creek were sent to
Maryland, Virginia or Pennsylvania to be imprisoned, as Whig leaders feared “their rank
and influence over an Ignorant and restless part of our Inhabitants” would have a
detrimental effect on others inclined to disaffection.35 However, though crushed on the
field of battle in 1776, the threat posed by these Highlanders remained a concern to
Carolina authorities for the duration of the war. As late as 1781, state governor Alexander
33
Manifesto of Thomas Rutherford, 13 February 1776, NCCR, 10:452.
34
This committee’s report is found in NCCR, 10:594-601. Some insurgents on the list were from Guilford
and New Hanover counties.
35
Thomas Burke to John Hancock, 22 April 1776, NCCR, 10:293-294; . A list of prisoners destined for
Philadelphia accompanied this letter and is published in the same volume of NCCR, 10:294-295.
152
Martin complained that “the Scotch emigrants…have uniformly persisted in their refusal
to take the Oath of Allegiance to this State,” and British officers that year hoped to rely
on them again to conquer the southern provinces.36
The months leading up to the brief fight at Moore’s Creek also exposed another
group of disaffected inhabitants, the Regulators. These men had taken part in what was
called the North Carolina “Regulation,” a movement primarily of rural inhabitants of the
backcountry who objected to the abuses and corruption of local sheriffs and other court
officials regarding rents, taxes and further irregularities associated with royal
administration. The agitation began in the late 1760s and culminated at the battle of
Alamance, where eastern militia forces under the leadership of Governor William Tryon
and General Hugh Waddell defeated the insurgents on 16 May 1771 in Orange County.
In the weeks after the battle, Tryon's command marched through Regulator territory and
induced the insurgents to sign or affirm loyalty oaths to the Crown, in exchange for
pardons. He also had several of the most conspicuous Regulators tried and hanged at
Hillsborough on June 19, 1771.37
36
NCSR, 19:871; E. W. Caruthers, Revolutionary Incidents and Sketches, 41-49. The British post at the
Cheraws, just over the South Carolina border from Bladen and Anson counties, was established in part to
attract and support Highlanders in 1780 and 1781.
37
Carole Watterson Troxler and William Murray Vincent, Shuttle & Plow: A History of Alamance County,
North Carolina (North Carolina: Alamance County Historical Association, 1999), 86-96; Lee, Crowds and
Soldiers in Revolutionary North Carolina, 46-96; Hugh T. Lefler, "Orange County and the War of
Regulation" in Hugh T. Lefler and Paul Wager, eds., Orange County, 1752-1952 (Chapel Hill: University
of North Carolina Press, 1953), 22-40; Paul David Nelson, William Tryon and the Course of Empire: A Life
in British Imperial Service (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1990); William S Powell,
James K Huhta, and Thomas J. Farnham (compilers), The Regulators in North Carolina. A Documentary
History 1759-1776 (Raleigh: State Dept. of Archives and History, 1971). An older work that holds a
number of Regulators were Tories, or at least refused to join the Whig movement is E. W. Caruthers, Life
and Character of the Reverand David Caldwell, 169-173. Caruthers concluded that “the battle of
Alamance made many Tories.”
153
As it happened, many of the loyal militia officers and other supporters of Tryon’s
campaign to suppress the Regulators became active in the Revolutionary cause by 1775,
including William Hooper, Richard Caswell, James Moore, Richard Henderson, Willie
Jones, and Samuel Ashe. A number of supporters of the Regulator Movement thus saw
their former oppressors as being inimical to royal government to which they had just
declared their allegiance after the defeat at Alamance. As one late nineteenth century
historian concluded, the regulators had a “distrust for the men who led the Revolution,”
who were “the same men who had oppressed them, whom they had tried to turn out of
office, whom they had fought, by whom they had been defeated, and who still kept the
offices through which they had received their wrongs.” At the outbreak of revolution in
1775, “these men now came to the Regulators asking aid in a movement which, to say the
least, was of doubtful issue.”38
Moreover, the Regulator Movement was not a hazy, distant memory of events
gone by, but only four years in the recent past. Surely, recollections of the abuses which
gave rise to the insurgency, as well as the defeat and subsequent legal actions against
those who fought Tryon and his forces lay fresh in the minds of many backcountry North
Carolinians in 1775. It is important to note that certainly not all Regulators became
loyalists; indeed many fought bravely for the cause of independence. A number of them,
38
John S. Bassett, “The Regulators of North Carolina, 1765-1771,” Annual Report of the American
Historical Association for the Year 1894 (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1895), 209-242;
Oliver Wolcott to Andrew Adams, 22 March 1776, Letters of Delegates to Congress, 3:428.
154
however, did in fact oppose the Whigs, and more importantly, were seen by crown and
patriot leaders alike as a potential source of Loyalism in the state when war broke out.39
Patriot leaders recognized early on the issues posed by the potential disaffection
of those in what was called Regulator Country, primarily in Guilford and Orange County,
and the backcountry lands between the Haw and Yadkin rivers.40 Delegates to the
Provincial Congress in August 1775 noted that “enemies to the Liberties of America”
were trying to convince those who had been Regulators that “they remained still liable to
be punished, unless pardoned by his Majesty,” and that they had to take up arms in the
King’s service. Some former Regulators believed that they had no choice but to take the
side of the King if they had sworn a loyalty oath to him after Alamance. To prevent this,
the provincial Congress resolved that “the late Insurgents” should be protected from any
attempts at punishment, in order to allay the fears of the Regulators.41 North Carolina
Congressman Joseph Hewes, at the end of the year, summed up the unique problem the
colony faced with regard to what he termed a “particular misfortune of North Carolina.”
To a clergyman soon to visit the Carolinas he reported that
39
Lefler and Newsome, North Carolina: The History of a Southern State, 185-190; Butler, Coming of the
Revolution, 1763-1776, 44-45. John Adams wrote that the only province in 1775 in which the “people of
the country” were not opposed to the King was North Carolina, due to their “hatred towards the rest of their
fellow citizens.” Charles Francis Adams, ed., The Works of John Adams, 10 vols. (Boston: Little, Brown
and Co., 1850-1856), 7:283-284.
40
North Carolina Delegates to the North Carolina Council of Safety, 13 February 1776, Letters of
Delegates to Congress, 3:250-251. Carolinians also feared that the British would seek to enlist slaves (“the
motley tribe”) in their attempt to subdue the colony. See William Hooper to Joseph Trumball, 13 March
1776, Letters of Delegates to Congress, 3:373.
41
NCCR, 10:169; Memorial and Petition of William Field, May 1783, Joint Standing Committee papers,
General Assembly Session Records, November-December 1785, Box 1, N.C. State Archives. Field was a
former Regulator from Randolph (earlier Guilford) County. In 1781, Cornwallis also referred to the area
between Guilford Courthouse and Hillsborough as “the Regulator’s country.” Cornwallis to Sir Henry
Clinton, 10 April 1781, Davies, Documents of the American Revolution, 20:107.
155
in a very populous part of that Province there is seated a body of Men who
not only refuse to become active in support of those rights and privileges
which belong to them in common with the rest of the inhabitants of that
colony, but from the temper of mind which these people discuss at present
there is some reason to apprehend that they might be led by any designing
tool of administration to prosecute measures hostile to the friends of
America and which might eventually involve them and us in a melancholy
scene of bloodshed. Those from whom these disagreeable consequences
are principally to be apprehended are of those who some years ago were
concerned in the Insurrection and from thence got the appellation of
Regulators.
Thus, Carolina leaders did not take the threat or loyalty of the former backcountry
insurgents lightly. Hewes, it should be noted, also wrote in this letter that this
disaffection was not confined to just this group—“it prevails…among the Highlanders
and we much fear is too general in the back part of North Carolina. It probably has its
source in ignorance and want of information with respect to the nature of the dispute
[with Great Britain] and the rectitude of those who advocate the American side of the
question.”42
To repress this backcountry dissension, in January 1776, the Continental Congress
sent two ministers to the western parts of North Carolina, with which both were familiar,
“where some of the inhabitants we are told are pursuing measures hostile to the friends of
America.” The New Jersey ministers, Elihu Spencer and Alexander McWhorter, chosen
because they were “well acquainted with the genius of the back inhabitants,” were to try
to “prevail on those people by reason and argument to become active in support of those
rights and privileges which belong to them in common with the rest of the inhabitants.”43
42
Joseph Hewes to Reverend Elihu Spencer, 8 December 1775, Samuel Johnston Papers, Hayes Collection,
Reel #3.
43
Joseph Hewes to Samuel Johnston, 6 January 1776, Samuel Johnston Papers, Hayes Collection,
microfilm reel #3.
156
The two divines had reason to worry, however, as reports circulated that disaffection was
rampant in Regulator country by early 1776.44 Word reached New Bern in February
from the interior counties that “the Regulators and Tories were making head there, and
intended marching to Cross Creek,” to join the Highlanders.45 In fact, this is just what
Governor Martin hoped for. In a report to Lord Dartmouth, he informed his superior that
My latest information from the interior parts of the Province whence I
have always represented to your Lordship that I expected to draw my
principal support corresponds with my warmest wishes. The people called
Regulators (of whom I hoped before this time to have received his
Majesty’s Pardon) to the number of between two and three thousand men
have given me the strongest assurances of their joining the King’s
standard whenever they shall be called upon although not half of them are
provided with arms and I have no doubt that much greater numbers will be
found to resort to it besides the Scotch Emigrants.
Martin went on to praise the “friends of the Government in the back Country,” and
expected them to support the restoration of royal government within the province.46 A
Provincial Congress delegate reported just a few days before Moore’s Creek that
Governor Martin “had kept up a correspondence with the disaffected in the western part
of this Province, and formed a plan of insurrection,” including the Regulators.47
A number of the Regulators did turn out in conjunction Martin’s plan to embody a
sizeable force of Loyalists to meet the British forces of Clinton and Cornwallis at Cape
44
Joseph Hewes to Samuel Johnston, 6 January 1776, Letters of Delegates to Congress, 3:42-43.
45
NCCR, 10:452.
46
Josiah Martin to Earl of Dartmouth, 12 January 1776, NCCR, 10:406. As Martin notes in his letter, he
attempted to get the King to pardon all Regulators for their former insurrection as a way to solidify their
attachment to the Crown.
47
Extract of a letter from a Member of the Provincial Congress to Col. Howe, 24 February 1776, NCCR,
10:469.
157
Fear in February 1776.48 At least one of these men, from Guilford County, served during
the campaign “on acct that he had been out Law’d by the province as a regulator and that
he was assured by the [royal] Government that nothing less would procure his pardon.”49
In March, just after Moore’s Creek, one Carolinian complained of Governor Martin’s
“indefatigable…endeavors to bring upon this province every species of calamity, by
secretly spiriting up out internal foes.” He went on to write that North Carolina “ought to
call for hostages from the regulators and Highlanders, to be safely kept in some other
province, beyond the possibility of a rescue, during the present commotions.”50
Provincial Council records of 1776 refer to the uprising a number of times with reference
to the participation of Regulators, clearly placing them in the camp or the disaffected
Tories.51
Despite concerns of Whig leaders over disaffected Regulator support for the
British expedition to Cape Fear, the backcountry threat failed to materialize in an
appreciable manner.52 For most of the war, the former Regulators did not collect in large
numbers, though certainly many remained disaffected and were active in the field. In
September 1777, for example, Richard Caswell reported “the rising of Tories, and
forming of conspiracies: the former among the Highlanders and Regulators,” in several
48
William Purviance to N.C. Provincial Council, 23-24 February 1776, NCCR, 10:465-468. The Moore’s
Creek loyalists were also identified as “Highlanders and Regulators” in a letter “from a gentleman in North
Carolina to his friend in this city [New York],” dated 10 March 1776, reprinted in the Pennsylvania
Evening Post, 26 March 1776, p. 152. This letter also reported that the battle lasted only three minutes.
49
Petition of Sundry Inhabitants of Guilford County, 18 September 1776, NCCR, 10:804.
50
“Extract from a Letter, 10 March 1776, NCSR, 11:287.
51
See for example NCCR, 10:475, 477, and 485.
52
Wilson, The Southern Strategy, 21-35. Wilson’s analysis of the number of Regulators who turned out for
the campaign and those who actually were engaged is the most thorough.
158
counties.53 By March 1781, their enthusiasm for the King had markedly waned, at least
temporarily. Cornwallis attempted to rally them in Guilford and Orange counties, but
“could not get 100 men in all the Regulator’s Country to stay with us, even as Militia.”
He lamented that the Regulator’s numbers were “not so great as had been represented,
and that their friendship was only passive.” Governor Martin may have had similar
thoughts after the backcountry men failed to materialize in the promised numbers back in
1776.54
Moore’s Creek was a turning point for the rebellious province in terms of internal
dissent. The Tories suffered a decisive defeat, in that they were not able or willing to
embody again in such a large force at a single time and place for the duration of the
hostilities, even during the British offensive of 1781. Moreover, Whig leaders became
very much aware of the many disaffected citizens capable of bearing arms against them,
and moved decisively to quell such unrest with means more stern than warnings, oaths
and brief jail terms. These strict measures were carried out at both the state and local
levels, and eventually involved the military as well, notably after the battle of Camden in
1780 and subsequent British invasion of the state in 1781. This is not to say that such
means became more effective; in fact, 1781 and 1782 saw some of the bleakest days of
the war regarding the effects of Toryism and disaffection across the state. Only through
persistent efforts to defeat these forces was North Carolina able to enjoy the fruits of the
victory by 1783, but until that time, “the Tory question” was very much unsettled.
53
54
Richard Caswell to Cornelius Harnett, 2 September 1777, NCSR, 11:603.
Cornwallis to Sir Henry Clinton, 10 April 1781, NCSR, 17:1011; Cornwallis to Lord George Germain, 18
April 1781, NCSR, 17:1016.
159
As Carolinians saw throughout the long years of revolutionary hostilities,
enacting measures to thwart domestic enemies was often a far cry from actually affecting
it. Scores of records abound with reports of the dangers of disaffected people within the
state, which led to much anxiety and consternation among the Whigs and soundly refutes
the notion so popular among historians that North Carolina had a period of repose before
the British launched their second southern campaign in 1778. In July 1777, a militia
commander in Wilmington found “so many of the inhabitants here disaffected, and such a
number of Tories from other Counties here…occasions me to suspect they intend seizing
the magazine by surprise.” This officer suspected such a large uprising that he ordered
out the “well-affected part of the militia” from surrounding counties.55 In August 1778,
the state senate reported that “many counties of this State are infested with Tories and
disorderly people who refuse to pay taxes or otherwise to be obedient to Government,
and are daily committing outrages on the good people of this state.” To coerce the
disaffected to pay taxes and observe the state’s laws, the Senate advised each county to
“order out a sufficient number of militia” to compel compliance. This situation in which
the state found so many enemies within its territory that militia troops were required to
collect its taxes and obey its laws clearly demonstrates the deleterious effect disaffection
had on the state’s authority and legitimacy, and shows the internal turmoil as well.56
One of the most significant Tory insurrections occurred in the summer of 1777,
known as the “Llewelyn Conspiracy.” This was an attempt by a number of prominent
loyalist planters on the Albemarle Sound of northeastern North Carolina, to defend their
55
John Ashe to Richard Caswell, 28 July 1777, NCSR, 11:546.
56
NCSR, 12:775.
160
Anglicanism against what they perceived of as a threat from the state’s revolutionary
leadership. One of these insurgents was John Llewelyn, who along with a number of
others, formed a secret society with possibly hundreds of members in opposition to the
draft, oaths, and other measures enacted by the state legislature, and in defense of the
Anglican Church. Somehow, Llewelyn became convinced that the state sought to bring
Roman Catholicism to North Carolina, opposition to which turned him and others of like
mind into loyalists. Part of the conspirators’ plan included seizing the state magazine at
Halifax, and capturing or killing the state’s leaders including Governor Richard Caswell.
The plot fell apart in the summer of 1777, as several conspirators attempted to flee the
state. By July, Caswell had ordered out the militia to protect the state’s magazines, in
case the conspiracy was as widespread as many Whigs feared.57
The Albemarle Sound was by no means the only place to see manifestations of
disaffection. In February 1779, insurrections in Tryon County and other locales was
dangerous enough to lead the Assembly to call for over two thousand militia troops from
across the state to put them down, in addition to sending ammunition to the western and
southern parts of North Carolina, “to put a speedy and happy decision to this
Insurrection.”58 The governor was urged to request assistance from Virginia to quell the
57
Llewelyn was tried in Edenton in September and convicted of high treason. At the urging of the
presiding judge, it appears that Caswell granted Llewelyn a pardon by the end of 1777. Two years later
reports of a plan to take the magazine at Kingston “against the authority and good government of this
State” by a “combination of some of the people in Hyde, Beaufort and Martin Counties” must have
reminded Caswell and other Whigs that while the Llewelyn conspiracy had been squelched, disaffection in
the area had not been completely rooted out. Thomas Hall to Richard Caswell, 23 September 1777, NCSR,
11:776-777; Jeffrey J. Crow, “Tory Plots and Anglican Loyalty: The Llewelyn Conspiracy of 1777,” North
Carolina Historical Review 55 (January 1978): 1-17. For the 1779 plot in the same area, see Thomas
Bonner to Richard Caswell, 3 August 1779, NCSR, 14:184.
58
NCSR, 13:734b-734c. Tryon County was also the home to numerous loyalists upon whom Cornwallis
counted to support his invasion of the state in 1781. Lord Cornwallis to Sir Henry Clinton, 30 June 1780,
161
insurrections and to remove British prisoners away from Johnston County to a place
“where nothing is to be apprehended from their insidious attempts to disaffect the
subjects of this State or to remove their slaves.” The legislature further suggested that all
county authorities seize and secure, and even to place at a distance from their residences,
all disaffected persons who, “not satisfied with entertaining sentiments inimical to the
Country, may be justly suspected of a disposition to carry those sentiments into
execution.”59
Efforts to eliminate disaffection and prevent it from destabilizing the new state’s
war efforts occupied North Carolina county officials as well. For example, in Guilford
County, widely considered to be a “Regulator county,” the local Committee of Safety
moved in August 1776 against untrustworthy persons. The board created a company of
light horse “to apprehend those that are disaffected to the Common Cause & for the
express purpose of Inforcing the resolves of Congress and dispersing meetings or
Imbodying of the Torys.” A number of suspects were required to present the committee
with inventories of their estates, presumably for the purpose of confiscation, and several
had to be jailed for not complying with these orders. Other county residents were sent to
the Provincial Council that month, one “as an Enemy to the Common Cause,” and for
having been “in both Camps, and declares he would on the Same Occasion take up arms
for the defence of the King.” Another man had urged Guilford residents to sign a
Benjamin Franklin Stevens, ed., The Campaign in Virginia, 1781: An Exact Reprint of Six Rare Pamphlets
on the Clinton-Cornwallis Controversy…(London: [s.n.], 1888), 1:224.
59
NCSR, 13:734e-734f.
162
proclamation in favor of the King, and had refused to give up his arms to the board.
Others incurred the committee’s ire for plundering Whigs.60
Guilford was the scene of Tory agitation during the weeks leading up to Moore’s
Creek as well, and was cited by Governor Martin in 1775 for its citizens’ “loyalty,
fidelity, and duty.”61 These sentiments no doubt contributed to the disaffection there in
subsequent years as well.62 In late April, 1777, the State Senate was “informed that a
number of evil minded persons” resided in the county, and openly hindered recruiting
efforts there “by their evil example.”63 Three years later the situation had not improved.
The state’s Board of War advised the commander of the Southern Department, Major
General Horatio Gates, that “there ought to be a strong Guard to go with the Arms and
Ammunition to Guilford,” perhaps a light horse company, in order to “protect the
Country from the plundering parties of the enemy.” Tories became more active there
after Gates’ overwhelming defeat near Camden the month before, as the luster began to
wear off of the Patriot’s cause.64
From a wealth of surviving records, it appears that several of the most
consistently disaffected counties in the state were in the Cape Fear Valley, including its
tributaries, and along the border with South Carolina. Numerous reports circulated
60
NCCR, 10:761-762.
61
NCCR, 10:444, 146.
62
Council of Safety to John Butler, 31 July 1776, NCSR, 10:335; Thomas Craig to Richard Caswell, 23
July 1777; Georgetown, S.C. Committee to Henry Laurens, Philip M. Hamer, ed., The Papers of Henry
Laurens, 16 vols. (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1968-2003), 11:98-99.
63
NCSR, 12:48; Thomas Craike to Richard Caswell, 23 July 1777, NCSR, 11:530.
64
NCSR, 14:394-395; Otho Holland Williams to Alexander Hamilton, 30 August 1780, Harold C. Syrett,
ed., Papers of Alexander Hamilton, 15 vols. (New York: Columbia University Press, 1961-87), 2:385.
163
during the war years of loyalist agitation on the Deep River, one such tributary, and
Cornwallis believed that the area was home to a large number of “friends” to the crown.65
One of these counties was Anson, which had been the scene of considerable
Regulator unrest, including a violent courthouse brawl in 1768.66 As noted above,
Governor Martin encouraged loyalists there as early as July 1775 “to unite against the
seditious” in their midst.67 By the end of the summer, extreme tensions existed in the
county between loyalists and rebels. James Cotton, a militia officer and a loyalist,
refused to sign resolves of the local Committee of Safety, but told his Whig tormentors
instead that “they would be all deemed Rebels and their Principals would be hanged.” He
was later removed from his home by a party of well-armed Whigs, but escaped soon
thereafter and hid in the woods for several days. In retaliation, the “Rebels laid my corn
fields flat to the ground in many places, and there was an appearance of many men and
horses by their tracks.”68 Home to a number of Scottish settlements, Anson provided
some of the Highlanders for the Tory forces during the Moore’s Creek campaign, as the
list of prisoners made after the battle reveals a number of officers and men hailing from
the county.69 That fall, the county remained an area of concern for Whigs, to the point
that light horsemen were “out on Duty in Anson” patrolling for Tories, while in the
65
Cornwallis to Sir Henry Clinton, 10 April 1781, NCSR, 17:1011; Henry Dixon to Jethro Sumner, 22 May
1781, NCSR, 15:464.
66
Wheeler, Historical Sketches of North Carolina, 2:21-24.
67
Josiah Martin to James Cotton, 21 July 1775, NCCR, 10:119. In his proclamation of 8 August 1775,
Governor Martin referred to Anson loyalists as “faithful people,” as he did for those of Dobbs, Bladen,
Cumberland, Orange, Chatham, Rowan, and Surry as well. See NCCR, 10:444, 146.
68
Deposition of James Cotton, 13 August 1775, NCCR, 10:127-129.
69
NCCR, 10:444, 594-601.
164
spring of 1777, the legislature received word of the county being the scene of particularly
ill-disposed men “prejudicial to the public Good.”70 A letter penned by several county
militia officers to Governor Caswell in October 1777 gives a clear picture of the
disaffection in Anson, and what a concern it had become. The officers wrote of the
many disaffected persons in our County, some of them we have caused to
be cited agreeable to the Act of the Assembly in that case made and
provided, and in consequence of the refusal of James Chile, Jacob
Williams, William Yaw, William Bennett and Samuel Flake, to take the
oath prescribed by the said act and their refusing to give security for their
departure to Europe and the West Indian in sixty days, the Court
committed them to jail, and have also issued warrants to apprehend a
number of other disaffected persons who have been cited for the same
purpose, and neglected to appear at Court.—Our jail is much to small to
contain those whom we are constrained to commit, and the District jail
being still further from the seashore, makes it necessary for us to apply to
your Excellency for your immediate instructions how to proceed.71
As this report demonstrates, men refused to pledge fealty to the state, others failed to
provide required bonds to assure their good conduct before being banished, and so many
Anson people were disaffected that the jails were inadequate. Such a scene depicts a
county struggling with division and the demands of war.
In August 1780, peace and order began to disappear as war intensified in the
county. While the remnants of American forces retreated through Anson following their
defeat at Camden, a Virginia general observed that “the behavior of the Tories surpasses
any thing you can imagine” there.72 A few weeks before, Richard Caswell, commanding
the state’s militia in the field, wrote to Governor Abner Nash that “very few of the
inhabitants of Anson County…have not taken the Oath of Allegiance to the King of Great
70
Ebenezer Folsom to Council of Safety, 8 October 1776, NCCR, 10:839-840, NCSR, 12:48.
71
Charles Medlock, et. al. to Richard Caswell, 17 October 1777, NCSR, 11:655.
72
Edward Stevens to Horatio Gates, 21 August 1780, NCSR, 14:569.
165
Britain,” though he opined that most would “be willing to break it & take up Arms
against him, saying they were compelled by the British.” The county’s true loyalists, he
noted, had fled to the British near Camden or Cheraw, “or lye out.”73 Despite Caswell’s
optimism about Anson County’s loyalties, at least six Anson men received military
commissions from British Major Patrick Ferguson in South Carolina in July 1780, one of
whom was killed in battle, one was hanged, and two were “murdered by the Rebels,” if
loyalist records are to be relied upon.74 In the aftermath of the defeat near Camden, a
significant number of Anson men refused to be drafted by the state, and “are almost all
gone to the enemy.”75 In September, however, Colonel Abel Kolb and his South
Carolina militia defeated two parties of loyalists in bloody skirmishes in Anson, in which
two Tory officers were killed.76
In November 1780, Anson County militia Colonel Thomas Wade penned a
striking depiction of “the Disafected & Deluded people of this neighborhood.” He
described his hopes that the recent surrender of a prominent Tory would convince other
“Outlyers” in the county to do the same. He had accepted the surrender of about one
hundred Tories within the previous two weeks, some doubtlessly encouraged to do so by
the Tory defeat at Kings Mountain on 7 October 1780 and Cornwallis’ subsequent
withdrawal to Winnsboro, South Carolina for several months of repose. Wade sent the
73
Richard Caswell to Abner Nash, 31 July 1780, NCSR, 15:10-11.
74
NCSR, 22:199. Ferguson was the Inspector of Loyalist Militia for the British in 1780, and was defeated
by Whig militia forces at Kings Mountain in October.
75
H. W. Harrington to The Board of War, 3 November 1780, NCSR, 15:140.
76
H. W. Harrington to Horatio Gates, 12 September 1780, NCSR, 14:609. These fights were probably near
Mask’s Ferry. Kolb was later killed by Tories on 28 April 1781. See Southern Campaigns of the American
Revolution, Vol. 3, #5 (May 2006), 27.
166
captured officers to his commanding general, who transported them to jail at New Bern,
but made rank and file prisoners do militia tours for the Whigs.77
Just to the north of Anson was Montgomery County, formed in 1779 out of the
former. Although named for fallen Continental General Richard Montgomery, evidence
shows that the inhabitants there were far from uniform in their support for the Patriot
cause. General Gates received a report in September 1780 that Whig militiamen captured
a light dragoon sergeant of the British (Tarleton’s) Legion in the county who had been
recruiting there since August. Militia commanders reported difficulties drafting men to
serve in the field from the county, many of whom fled to British posts to the south. By
the time the British invaded the state in January 1781, disaffection in Montgomery
reached a level to the point that even two justices of the peace were charged with “sundry
treasonable practices and misdemeanors,” were removed from office and sent to the
Salisbury District jail “to answer the said charges.”78
Disaffection was no more entrenched within the state than in Anson’s neighbors
to the east, Cumberland and Bladen counties, both along the Cape Fear River.
Cumberland, especially its primary town of Cross Creek, was unquestionably the heart of
Highlander settlements. Significantly, even after their defeat at Moore’s Creek in 1776,
the area never ceased to be a hotbed of Toryism throughout the Revolutionary years. In a
list of prisoners made after the battle, Whig leaders identified a number of Cumberland
County men, primarily Scots, as their enemies. In May, following the battle, the
77
78
Thomas Wade to Horatio Gates, 23 November 1780, NCSR, 14:750-751.
Jethro Sumner to Horatio Gates, 13 September 1780, NCSR, 14:612; H. W. Harrington to The Board of
War, 3 November 1780, NCSR, 15:140; NCSR, 17:646; David Leroy Corbitt, The Formation of the North
Carolina Counties, 1663-1943 (Raleigh : Division of Archives and History, North Carolina Dept. of
Cultural Resources, 1950), 152. Montgomery, a former British officer, was killed at Quebec in 1775.
167
provincial congress moved to appoint commissioners for the county (as well as Guilford,
Anson, Orange, Bladen and Chatham) to “take inventories of the estates of the prisoners
lately sent out of this Province, and of those who are put out upon parole and bail,” the
first step in the confiscation process.79 Most of the senior commanders at Moore’s Creek
were Cumberlanders.80 Governor Josiah Martin identified the county specifically as one
in which there was “steadfast” support for “King and Country,” which was an accurate
description given the number of its men in the ranks at Moore’s Creek.81 Many of them
stayed home, however, and became impediments to recruiting for the state’s Continental
battalions, and other military preparations, while many “disorderly persons” refused to
pay taxes and resisted civil officers in 1778, to the point where Whig militiamen were
required to assist government officials in the completion of their duties.82
Disaffection there worried Carolina leaders in early 1781 as well, particularly
over military storehouses and magazines, “which are liable to be seized by the disaffected
inhabitants” of Cumberland. A company of light horse was ordered by the Senate to be
formed to guard these public stores, though mounted units were very difficult to raise in
North Carolina.83 A Continental contractor reported “disaffection being much in vogue”
79
NCCR, 10:554-555.
80
NCCR, 10:594-600.
81
NCCR, 10:146; Governor Alexander Martin to Mrs. McLean, n.d., NCSR, 19:942-943.
82
David Smith to Edward Winslow, 27 July 1777, NCSR, 11:540-541; NCSR, 12:48; NCSR, 12:811. For
more on the Tory sentiments in this region, see Lawrence Lee, The Lower Cape Fear in Colonial Days
(Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1965), 184-185,224-225, 263, 264-280, Bradford J.
Wood, This Remote Part of the World, 242-245; and Richard Rankin, “'Musqueto' Bites: Caricatures of
Lower Cape Fear Whigs and Tories on the Eve of the American Revolution.” North Carolina Historical
Review 65 (April 1988): 173-207.
83
NCSR, 17:699-700.
168
in the county, the citizens of which worked “to retard the progress of all public officers,”
and another agent there wrote of being “constantly threatened by the Inhabitants.”84 That
same year, a number of Cumberland men were officers under the command of loyalist
Colonel David Fanning, one of whom, Captain John Cagle, was later “hanged by the
Rebels at P[ee].D[ee].”85 Also in 1781, Governor Thomas Burke suspected that British
forces would “establish Posts for the support of the disaffected to the southward of Cape
Fear River,” including those in Cumberland, one of the counties Burke thought “the
greatest number inhabit.” The problems of Cumberland’s hostility and its injurious
effects upon the maintenance of civil order came up in the state Senate in July 1781,
several months after the invading army of Lord Cornwallis had left the state for Virginia,
but with a menacing British garrison still at Wilmington. Burke and the assemblymen
had received word that in that country was “a set of Fellows that bid Defiance to the Civil
Law, several horrid Murders and robberies having been committed there lately with
impunity.” One of the justices of the peace could not secure a single person within the
county to execute a warrant against one of these outlaws. He wrote Burke that “if some
means is not fallen upon to support the Civil Law in that County, the peaceable
Inhabitants must be under the necessity of removing themselves very speedily.”
Accordingly, a committee was formed to ascertain what measures might be taken to
“effectually…secure from Ravage the Inhabitants” of Cumberland, as well as Chatham,
Richmond and Randolph counties, all located in the middle of the state along or near the
Cape Fear watershed. In response several legislators recommended that each county, and
84
William Pendergast to Nathanael Greene, 5 January 1781, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 7:55; William
Fletcher to Nathanael Greene, 6 January 1781, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 7:58.
85
NCSR, 22:197. Fanning gives no date for this event in his narrative, but it must have been after 1781.
169
the counties adjoining, raise one company of light horse subdue Tories, though these
troops were not to be sent out of the state. Despite these efforts, the state again had to
send an expedition of troops against the Tories in Cumberland and other counties along
the Cape Fear River in 1782, so “that all may see we are determined and ready to act with
vigor."86
Randolph County was also viewed by state and local authorities as a place of
particular Tory agitation, especially in the war’s later years. The notorious Tory Colonel
David Fanning made the county part of his regular area of operations, and had some
success recruiting there. The county had been created out of Guilford in 1779, and was
still without a courthouse in 1783, something of a hindrance to county officials trying to
bring Tories to justice.87 In 1777, the area was the scene of a Tory “insurrection” led by
several former Regulators who resided there, though the troublemakers were put down
and disarmed.88 Reports of disaffection in the county were notable in the weeks after the
Camden debacle, when the state’s Board of War recognized the need to raise “some Light
Horse” to quell the “insolent” disaffected of Randolph and “keep them in awe,” and in
Chatham, just to the east.89 Not much had improved by the following May, when an
officer reported having to use a longer, safer route while traveling in the state, “due to the
Tories residing in Randolph and Deep River,” a tributary of the Cape Fear within the
86
Robert Rowan to Thomas Burke, 13 July 1781, NCSR, 22:545; NCSR, 17:849, 850, 853-854, 860, 946,
955-956, 959; NCSR, 22:1041-1042; Thomas Burke to Major Hogg, 13 March 1782, NCSR, 16:229-230;
Report of the Joint Committee on Chatham, Randolph, and Richmond, 11 July 1781, Joint Select
Committee Reports, General Assembly Session Records, June 1781, Box 1, N.C. State Archives.
87
Corbitt, North Carolina Counties, 179.
88
Lazenby, Catawba Frontier, 74.
89
NCSR, 14:381, 391.
170
county. In March 1781, just after the battle of Guilford Courthouse, militia forces had to
move into Randolph to suppress Tories gathered in the hilly regions of the county.90 One
of the county’s commissioners wrote that in 1780 and 1781, “the County was under very
peculiar circumstances from the great number of disaffected persons residing therein.”91
A number of Randolph men served with Colonel Fanning as commissioned officers,
including one who was “hanged at Hillsboro for his loyalty.”92
Despite these efforts, civil disarray and mayhem only worsened in 1782. In a
detailed letter illustrative of the violence, chaos and disorder the state was simply unable
to curtail, Colonel John Collier of Randolph wrote to the governor in February 1782 of
“the circumstances of this unhappy County,” almost a year after the British had invaded
the region before the battle of Guilford Courthouse, and months since Wilmington had
been evacuated by the King’s troops.
He pleaded for help from Governor Burke “for
adequate protection to the officers of the County, both Civil and Military in the execution
and enforcement of the Laws.” The Colonel painted a bleak picture of an area overtaken
by disaffection, violence and lawlessness.
The County is still very much infested with a set of villains…who have
rendered themselves desperate by the atrocity of their crimes, mounted
upon the best of horses, well armed and harbored and secreted by many of
the inhabitants upon the waters of the Deep and Little Rivers, murder and
rob with great impunity. They have hanged two men in open day, besides
shooting several others and burning houses just before that. A few days
ago they surprised one of our County Captains, who was likewise one of
90
Capt. E. Yarborough, 12 May 1781, NCSR, 15:460; Pension application of John Montgomery, NCSR,
22:151-152.
91
Petition of William Bell, 7 May 1784, Joint Papers, General Assembly Session Records, April-June
1784, N.C. State Archives. Bell also reported that the British and Tories burned down the county clerk’s
office in 1781.
92
NCSR, 22:196.
171
the Collectors of the public Tax, at his own house, robbed him of his
Horses, Arms, Tax list and all the money he had collected, and threatened
him with instant death if ever they catched him again in the execution of
his duty. I know of no way of extirpating these villains, but by a
permanent post of Light Horse, as well mounted as they, continually kept
up in the midst of their ranges, who, by closely pursuing and hunting the
rogues and living upon their abettors or harborers, will oblige them in
time, to find their real interest consists in joining against and giving up
these pests of Civil Society.
Collier regretted the lack of arms and ammunition for the use of the Whigs, which tended
to “distress the well-affected and embolden the disaffected in this County.”93 Indeed,
Randolph’s significant hostility to Carolina patriots made it one of the counties against
which state authorities ordered a retaliatory campaign in March 1782 under the leadership
of a Continental officer, with all the “necessary severities.”94 Burke was determined to
make the disaffected there into “Soldiers or Prisoners,”95 and noted that “the disaffected
are extremely troublesome in [Randolph] County,” and mostly “for want of arms.” Thus,
a county in which arms and munitions for defense were lacking, and where taxes could
not be collected due to the boldness of the Tories, surely inspired little confidence in or
support for the revolutionaries and their government, which was not able to supply or
protect them, to say nothing of carrying out civil functions or for creating the body of
light horse the Board of War had recommended two years earlier.96
93
John Collier to Thomas Burke, 25 February 1782, NCSR, 16:203-205. Notice Collier’s interchangeable
use of the words “villain” and “disaffected,” which he equates with Fanning, a commissioned Loyalist
officer.
94
Thomas Burke to Major Thomas Hogg, 13 March 1782, NCSR, 16:229-231.
95
Thomas Burke to Collin Guilford, 13 March 1782, NCSR, 16:540.
96
Thomas Burke to General John Butler, 9 March 1782, Preston Davie Collection, Southern Historical
Collection, UNC, Box 3, #152.
172
Chatham County, along the upper Cape Fear, was also prominent during the war
years for its disaffection, and was the scene of a number of attempts by Whig leaders to
eradicate Tories. As early as December 1775, Samuel Johnston reported that this area
was filled with “insolent” former Regulators.97 By 1776, light horse companies patrolled
the county to keep the loyalists there subdued. The Provincial Congress in November of
that year concluded that a number of Chatham inhabitants were “arrayed in arms, and are
daily committing outrages and depredations on the persons and properties of the
inhabitants.”98 Four years later the state was still working at “scouring the County…of
disaffected persons,” who needed “an immediate Check” to prevent the “depredations
and Mal-practice of the disaffected of those parts.”99 In October 1780 the state’s Board
of War implored the county’s militia commander to “be as active as possible in
suppressing and apprehending the miscreants, and treat them with the severity they
deserve,” adding rather ominously, “which you know without defining.” This officer,
John Lutrell, was still at this work in November, but evidence suggests that by May 1781,
the situation in the county had become worse. Hundreds of Tories in Chatham had
collected under their own militia officers by then, “distressing the people very much near
where they lay, and causing a number to flee.”100 Militia General Jethro Sumter received
word in July 1781 of the Tories in the county being active, led by officers who had
97
Samuel Johnston to Joseph Hewes, 21 December 1775, Samuel Johnston Papers,, Hayes Collection, reel
#3.
98
Ebenezer Folsom to the Council of Safety, 8 October 1776, NCCR, 10:839-840; NCCR, 10:935, 940-941.
99
NCSR, 14:376, 381-382, 391.
100
NCSR, 14:427, 464; NCSR, 15:555.
173
“called a general muster…they are distressing the people very much.”101 Whigs reported
tales of the Tories murdering and robbing men and women alike, but were limited in their
ability to respond due to a lack of arms and ammunition. Major Roger Griffith, a Whig
militia commander in Chatham wrote in March 1782 that with the absence of the British
post at Wilmington, rather than bring captive Whigs to that port, the Tories “seemed
determined to take a shorter method of putting them out of the way.” Only a “formidable
body of troops…stationed in the upper part of this County” would prevent future
disorder, he concluded.102
Bladen County, on the west bank of the Cape Fear River along the South Carolina
border, was one of the most consistently disaffected areas in the state for the entire war.
Much of Bladen was settled by Highland Scots, hence a number of residents took an
active role in the Moore’s Creek campaign of 1776.103 That fall the state deployed a
company of light horse to Bladen to hunt for “the out-lying men” involved in the murder
of a Whig, and other devious acts, while locals offered rewards for the capture of
particularly active Tories.104 In early 1779, well before the British came anywhere near
the county, Bladen inhabitants complained that they were “in Constant dread and Fear of
being Robbed and Murdered,” with no exceptions for non-combatants. “Women were
knocked down with stakes and Tommyhakes,” the residents reported, as farms were
robbed of cattle, corn, and other property which made the people “entirely undone and
101
NCSR, 22:196-197; William Loftin to Jethro Sumner, 20 July 1781, NCSR, 15:555.
102
Roger Griffith to Brigadier General Butler, 2 March 1782, NCSR, 16:212-213.
103
NCCR, 10:595.
104
Ebenezer Folsom to Council of Safety, 8 October 1776, NCCR, 10:839; NCCR, 10:939.
174
Ruined.” The people cried for guns with which to defend themselves, or for the state to
set up courts of Oyer and Terminer “to protect us…otherwise we are Outerly undone.”105
After Gates’ 1780 disaster at Camden, emboldened Bladen Tories turned out in strength
on the Pee Dee River to the southwest: “they burn all the Houses of our friends that are
absent,” the Board of War recorded, and threatened the state’s supply stores at
Wilmington and Cross Creek.106
In April 1781, a large force of British troops advanced into the county from
Wilmington, and defeated a Patriot militia force there at Rockfish Bridge. One observer
wrote that the defeat “seemed to be a finishing stroke to the well Affected in the Lower
Counties…it gives me pain to see them go in, in bodies to surrender” to the redcoats.
The writer added that the few Whigs left in the area were “oblidged to be out constantly
or lay in the woods.”107 By the summer of 1781, during the period of intense loyalist
militia activity, Bladen was the scene of widespread disaffection. The county’s militia
commander, Thomas Robeson, described the “distressed situation of” the county in a
letter to governor in order to give Burke a clear picture of the chaotic situation there.
Whigs were
in constant Danger of their Lives by a set of Tories and Robbers that is
protected by the British, that if we can’t have assistance, must unavoidably
fall prey to those Villians…without immediate assistance the Inhabitants
along Cape Fear River between Cross Creek and the lower Parts of Bladen
County, that has stood forth against those Enemy must in Course in a very
105
Petition of Jacob Alford and the Inhabitants of the Upper Part of Bladen County, 23 January 1779,
Petitions, General Assembly Session Records, January-February 1779, Box 1, N.C. State Archives.
106
NCSR, 14:383, 388, 652; H. W. Harrington to Horatio Gates, 25 September 1780, NCSR, 14:652-653.
107
John Ramsey to Thomas Burke, 13 April 1781, NCSR, 15:437. Drowning Creek is now called the
Lumber River.
175
Short time be obliged to go and leave their Homes or submit to immediate
Destruction, and is at this Time obliged to leave their Habitation every
Night to take their rest, and has several been robbed of their property.
Robeson concluded his distressing description by mentioning that of the fifteen
companies of militia in the county, only seventy or eighty men could be deemed
Whigs.108
Reports of hundreds of armed Tories in the field, especially at Raft Swamp within
Bladen, reached the state’s leaders in the summer of 1781, including the troubling news
that few Whigs would muster to defeat them and “the Collonel never came at all.”109
Governor Burke received word from General Steven Drayton in July that the British
commander at Wilmington, Major James Craig, ordered Bladen men “to be in Arms,”
and it was Drayton’s estimation (which echoed Robeson’s, given above) that twelve of
the county’s fifteen militia companies “incline for Craig.” Such disaffection, Drayton
concluded, was because Whigs there did not turn out due to want of a leader. The people
“become indifferent to everything but personal safety and thus, have many been driven to
join the Enemy because they have been by Some thought to be no friend to their
Country.” Moreover, the county had slipped into lawlessness and chaos due to the brutal
actions of Whigs and Tories alike. “Civil Wars are always attended with something
horrid,” he wrote, “the bare Idea of Friend against Friend & nearest Relatives in armed
opposition shocks human nature! But good God! Sir let us not countenance barbarities
108
Thomas Robeson to Thomas Burke, 10 July 1781, NCSR, 22:543-544. Joseph Graham believed that
because of the scarcity of salt in the Lower Cape Fear region in 1781, many inhabitants “who otherwise
would have been for the country” had to assent to the British garrison’s authority at Wilmington in order to
obtain this precious commodity. William A. Graham, General Joseph Graham and his Papers on North
Carolina Revolutionary History (Raleigh: Edwards and Broughton, 1904), 354.
109
Isaac Williams to William Caswell, 12 July 1781, NCSR, 15:525-526.
176
that would disgrace the savage! If we cannot totally stop, yet we may check wanton
exercise of cruelty.” After declaring his horror at a recent unprovoked murder in Cross
Creek, he continued: “I plead the cause of Humanity, of true policy. I am for preventing
every Execution even of my enemy, by private hands, but what may be done in the field
of battle.” Whig violence along these lines could have done little to persuade many of
the disaffected to endorse the Patriot cause.110
An illuminating letter to Burke from several North Carolinians captured by
Fanning’s force at Chatham Courthouse in July 1781 also sheds light on why at least
some of the inhabitants of the Cape Fear Valley were disaffected. After their seizure,
these men conversed with several of their captors, “who complained of the greatest
cruelties, either to their persons or property.” The Tories told the captives of their
complaints, which included being unlawfully drafted, physically abused “without trial,”
of houses burned and property plundered, and of “Barbarous and cruel Murders
committed in their neighborhoods.” Drayton’s message, noted above, was that by
allowing such cruelty to be perpetrated by Whigs upon the disaffected in Bladen and by
extension, everywhere else within the state, or at least failing to prevent it, North
Carolina would “loose their power and Confidence with the people,” and keep “alive that
Marauding Spirit already too prevalent.” Thus, Whigs had to exercise restraint in order
to demonstrate legitimacy, earn the loyalty of the citizenry, and show the disaffected that
more was to be gained by supporting the cause of America than supporting the British or
110
Stephen Drayton to Thomas Burke, 6 July 1781, NCSR, 15:511-513; James Emmett to Thomas Burke,
19 July 1781, NCSR, 22:548.
177
participating in the cycle of violence. “The minds of Men never wanted conciliating
measures to be used more than Now,” the general concluded.111
The alienation of the Tories was not eradicated in the area of Bladen and
surrounding counties for quite some time. August 1781 saw the loyalists temporarily
take Cross Creek, after which they were “ravaging the Inhabitants of Capefear on both
sides, for a Considerable Distance up it.” Colonel Robeson of the Bladen militia advised
Governor Alexander Martin in January 1782 that with regard to the Tories, “the worst of
them still continues to stand out & not surrender, & I am of the opinion won’t till they
can be taken or killed.” Robeson recommended that state troops be stationed in Bladen in
the Raft Swamp area to subdue these treacherous loyalists, which was eventually done.112
Some conclaves of the disaffected seemed to be more bent on robbery and other
offenses than active support of the British efforts to put down the American rebellion,
and used Toryism as a cover for crime. Drowning Creek, in Bladen County, was one
such locale. General Gates received reports just before the battle near Camden regarding
the area, where the inhabitants stayed away from their homes to avoid capture and the
draft. Instead the well-armed “Rascalls” stole cattle and other valuable stores to prevent
them from getting to state magazines. A letter from Matthew Ramsey, a Continental
officer captured by some Drowning Creek marauders while he was collecting cattle,
provides a particularly detailed description of the state of affairs there in 1780, and shows
111
Herndon Ramsey, et. al. to Thomas Burke, 22 July 1781, NCSR, 22:550-551; Caruthers, Revolutionary
Incidents and Sketches, 161. The party captured by the Tories at Chatham Courthouse also reported that
they were treated well by their captors, including Fanning.
112
Thomas Robeson to Alexander Martin, 24 January 1782, NCSR, 16:487; Hardy Sanders to Jethro
Sumner, 21 August 1781, NCSR, 15:612; DeMond, Loyalists in North Carolina, 144-145; Graham,
General Joseph Graham and his Papers, 355-368.
178
the formidable challenge to state and local officials the disaffected had become. “I have
been at fifty houses and have not found one man at home,” he reported, and added that he
tried to induce these men to “come in,” and assist him in his mission in return for
leniency and protection “which is more than the Rascalls Deserves.” But for the mercy
of the commander of the robbers he would have been killed after his capture. These
disaffected outlaws
has lay out ever Since the commencement of this present war. They swore
that if we ever came into their parts again they would ly in the Swamps
and Shoot us as Soon as a Dear….I think they are the worst enemy we
have at this present. All their Studey Seems to be is to prevent the army
from being Supply’d with provisions. They are a Lawless Gang. It is
impossible to catch them among so many Swamps…If I am Reenforced,
& Can by aney Means Catch any of them, I will Send them to you; if I
cannot Catch them, I am in hopes Your Honour will have No Obligation to
Laying their Cottages waste, as they are Only a harbour for thieves and
Tories.
Ramsey concluded the letter with the desire to “have leave to take Satisfaction out of
them Villains.” He intended nothing improper, as he assured Gates: “all I want is to
Breake up their den.”113 The entrenched nature of disaffection can be seen as well by
noting that almost two years later, in the early summer of 1782, civilian and military
leaders of North and South Carolina were still trying to root out the Tories along
Drowning Creek. Both states cooperated in a joint expedition into the area to force
surrender of the disaffected, and compel the men to swear allegiance to North Carolina
and serve twelve months in Continental battalions. Refusal meant the possibility of a
charge of treason. “Those guilty of murder, robbery, house burning, and crimes not
113
Matthew Ramsey to Horatio Gates, 9 August 1780, NCSR, 14:543-545.
179
justifiable by the Laws of War” were to receive no clemency, and perhaps not even
quarter.114
In January 1782, Colonel Thomas Robeson of Bladen described to Governor
Alexander Martin a fascinating state of affairs in South Carolina, about which he was
much concerned. He complained that a number of North Carolina Tories had gone over
the South Carolina line “into a Settlement that is under what they call a Truce of Peace
with General Marrian [Francis Marion], and there they are protected among the South
Tories.” These loyalists constantly came back “over the Line into Bladen and does
mischief, such as Robbing and Stealing and has Shot at some men and Cut and abused
some with their Swords.” Robeson heard “there is near a hundred of the Tories from the
different parts of this State is gone over the Line into that Settlement, that is Called the
Truce of Peace with General Marrian.”115
Robeson referred to an area within South Carolina along the Pee Dee River, on
the border with Bladen, in which Continental General Francis Marion of that state
negotiated a truce or cease fire with active Loyalists, in order to end the internecine
violence and destruction there.116 “My motives for coming into the measure of granting
them a neutrality were compulsory,” explained Marion to Thomas Burke in 1782, “by my
114
Alexander Martin to Joel Lewis, 8 June 1782, NCSR, 16:689; Alexander Martin to Governor Matthews,
9 June 1782, 16:689-690; Alexander Martin to Francis Marion, 9 June 1782, 16:690-691; Alexander Martin
to Maj. Crafton, 26 June 1782, 16:693.
115
Thomas Robeson to Alexander Martin, 24 January 1782, NCSR, 16:487.
116
Hugh F. Rankin, Francis Marion: The Swamp Fox (New York: Crowell, 1973), 216-217; Papers of
Nathanael Greene, 9:380n; Graham, General Joseph Graham and his Papers on North Carolina
Revolutionary History, 56.
180
being always kept near the British Lines and not having time to subdue them.”117 The
need to eradicate the disaffected finally bowed to military necessity.
As Robeson’s letter states, this unorthodox enclave was attractive to many North
Carolinians as well. After Wilmington had been evacuated by the British in November
1781, many North Carolina loyalists were suddenly left without support, and fled to the
upper Pee Dee, part of Marion’s truce lands, from which they carried out raids into their
home state. Governor Burke was aware of this danger too, for in March 1782 he noted
that into this area went about one hundred “desperate and destructive” Bladen Tories, and
complained of so many of them “thinking to avail themselves of General Marion’s
compact by mingling with the people there.” Marion received complaints about this from
North Carolina officials, but was unable to get Tory officers to put a stop to these bordercrossing depredations.118 These South Carolina loyalists, with a few exceptions,
surrendered by June 1782, but Marion reported unpromisingly to Greene that “there will
be a few men on the North line who was not under controle of Either party will yet be
troublesome but hope to settle them in such a manner that will Leave that part of the
District in peace for the future.” This he followed a week later with another letter to
Greene, in which he conveyed his intentions of marching his small cavalry force toward
the North Carolina line “where the Disaffected Live & [I] hope in ten days to put an End
to the Expedition & Leave this part of the Country in peace.” Upon completion of the
117
Francis Marion to Thomas Burke, 13 April 1782, NCSR, 16:283.
118
Thomas Burke to Governor Matthews, 6 March 1782, NCSR, 16:217-219; Papers of Nathanael Greene,
11:232n.
181
expedition he advised Greene that he had “settled with the toreys in such a manner that
may prevent future Operations in that part of the country.”119
In North Carolina, a similar arrangement was suggested in which the Tories
would be given an enclave along the Cape Fear in exchange for their pacific behavior.
This followed a period in the second half of 1781 and the early months of 1782 of
reciprocal outrages by Whigs and Tories, the latter commanded by Colonel Fanning.
Although some Whig North Carolina officers opposed an armistice or appeasement with
Fanning and his notorious command, others had few if any qualms negotiating a cease
fire with the loyalists in arms against them, including Governor Burke, in 1782. Burke
initially had reservations about such a plan, in that he sought to capture the active
disaffected and compel them to serve in North Carolina’s Continental Line. “Nothing but
military success can keep the enemy from extending over [the state] a temporary
Dominion,” but he also noted that negotiations might prove expedient in an effort to
bring order and peace to this region. Fanning wrote to Burke in February 1782 about a
truce along the lines of Marion’s in South Carolina, but was cautious in light of the state
legislature’s refusal to treat with any Tory guilty of robbery, murder or house burning.
“There never was a man who has been in Arms on either side but what is guilty of some
of [these] crimes” he chided Burke, “especially on the rebel side.” Fanning and his
followers remained loyal to the King, but reiterated that they were “willing to come to a
cessation of arms for three months,” within a prescribed zone around Cumberland.
Burke’s successor, Alexander Martin, and the state Assembly balked at Fanning’s
119
Francis Marion to Nathanael Greene, 9 June 1782, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 11:313-314; Francis
Marion to Nathanael Greene, 16 June 1782, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 11:341; Francis Marion to
Nathanael Greene, 8 July 1782, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 11:412.
182
suggested truce, which thwarted the attempts at peace until later that spring, when in
early May 1782, Fanning left the state for British-held East Florida, ultimately to settle in
Nova Scotia.120
As the preceding discussion demonstrates, the country lying along or near the
Cape Fear River121 was notable (or notorious) for being part of the state that saw the most
loyalist activity and general disaffection during the war. The presence of British forces at
Wilmington for most of 1781, and at nearby Cheraw in South Carolina for several
months the year before, gave those in support of the crown a degree of political and
military support no other section of the state enjoyed. No other areas within North
Carolina saw more of its men openly support the King’s troops or battle the new state
government well into 1782 as did this region, which required a concentrated punitive
campaign that year to quell the disorders there. Furthermore, the fact that at least some
Revolutionary state and local officials were prepared to negotiate a truce with a hostile
minority within their own borders demonstrates more than a high level of disaffection
among so many citizens in such a large region of the state. It also points to the inability
of the state to maintain its sovereignty there, to prove to the region’s inhabitants that it,
the state, was legitimate and had the power and authority to preserve the stability, order
and institutions characteristic of a legitimate government. Instead the area saw bloodshed
120
NCSR, 22:198-199; Thomas Burke to Governor Matthews, 6 March 1782, NCSR, 16:217-219; David
Fanning to Thomas Burke, 29 February 1782, NCSR, 16:205-208, in which the complete set of his terms is
given; DeMond, Loyalists in North Carolina, 149-152; Carole Watterson Troxler, “'To git out of a
Troublesome neighborhood': David Fanning in New Brunswick,” North Carolina Historical Review 56
(October 1979): 343-365; Thomas Burke to the General Assembly, 7 July 1781, Governor’s Messages,
General Assembly Session Records, June-July 1781, Box 1, N.C. State Archives.
121
This included the counties of Montgomery, Anson, Bladen, Cumberland, Chatham, Guilford, Randolph
and Richmond. Anson and Montgomery were some distance from the Cape Fear River, but were home to a
number of Highlander settlements.
183
and destruction, insecurity of property and person, and other signs that mayhem ruled
supreme, not the new North Carolina constitution or its officers. Can a government that
considers appeasement with several of its counties in armed, open resistance to its
authority really be said to be in control? Disaffection, to the point that loyalists and not
Whigs were able to muster the counties’ militia (in at least some of these counties), courts
could not regularly meet, taxes could not be collected, and people who supported the
Patriot cause had to lay out at night away from their homes to avoid being killed by
Tories, meant that inhabitants lived during the war in a chaotic social and political
situation, in addition to the violence and disruption of everyday life. Only when this
chaotic situation was brought under control in favor of the Whigs could the state prove its
legitimacy, and demonstrate that the war was over.
Although the Cape Fear Valley was problematic for Carolinians fighting for
independence, other areas of the state were also filled with what South Carolina’s
governor called “our Domestic or Internal Enemies.”122 The Albemarle Sound region in
the state’s northeastern corner was the scene of the Llewelyn Conspiracy in 1777, and
saw other demonstrations of disaffection as well. The year before, in Pasquotank County,
one of its citizens was called before the Committee of Safety to answer for a “very
sedicious and dangerous paper” he wrote, and was jailed for it.123 In the spring of 1776,
an expedition of militia under Colonel Philemon Hawkins had to put down “insurgents”
in Currituck County, nearby.124 In the town of Bath, in Hyde County, the disaffected not
122
John Rutledge to Abner Nash, 24 May 1780, NCSR, 14:823.
123
NCSR, 11:332.
124
NCCR, 10:571. Hawkins was from Warren County, to the west of the Albemarle Sound.
184
only refused to join the state’s Continental regiments in 1777, but “discouraged men from
inlisting in the service as well.” Hyde was still considered to be disaffected by Governor
Burke in March 1782, though he warned against local officers seizing the property of
those persons against them as being unlawful, as did his successor Alexander Martin, the
following September.125
Martin and Beaufort counties, also in the northeast, showed similar signs of
disaffection, as noted in a 1779 report to Governor Caswell of “a combination of some of
the people” there who were “were formed against the good government of this State, and
they have resolved to take the Magazine at Kingston.” Nearby Pitt County showed
similar proclivities. Henry Irwin, a North Carolina Continental officer advised the
governor in 1777 of “too many evil persons in this and the neighboring Counties being
joined in a most wicked conspiracy.” He was able to disarm most of the malefactors
“and made many take the oath.” Disaffected Pitt men refused in 1779 to allow a draft to
be made for service with the regulars.126 At a Superior Court in November 1780, one
Aquila Sugg of Pitt was tried for his “wicked, disaffected and discouraging expressions”
in order to dissuade others from serving in the army.127 Matters in this county had not
improved by May 1781, when Tories embodied, probably due to the passage of
Cornwallis’ army through Pitt around this time, though Whig militia forces gradually
125
Simon Anderson to Richard Caswell, 8 June 1777, NCSR, 11:490; Thomas Burke to Maj.
Mountflorence, 17 March 1782, NCSR, 16:235; Alexander Martin to William Bryan, 21 September 1782,
NCSR, 17:712. Martin and Burke both favored confiscation of the property of the disaffected only if carried
out according to law.
126
Henry Irwin to Richard Caswell, 16 July 1777, NCSR, 11:521; Thomas Bonner to Richard Caswell, 3
August 1779, NCSR, 14:184.
127
Papers of James Iredell, 2:185-186.
185
seem to have gotten the upper hand there. In August 1781, parties of Tories roamed
Hertford County plundering the inhabitants. Even the Outer Banks were not immune to
disaffection.128 While some men declined to attend militia musters due to frequent
enemy incursions, others were “deserters and men refusing to march when drafted”
midway through the war.129
In the western reaches of North Carolina, the constant threat of Indian attacks
generally seems to have united the majority of white settlers to each other and the Patriot
cause in the face of common danger, and thus served to minimize disaffection. As noted
above, the Cherokees and other tribes were perceived by many Carolinians to be on the
side of the British, and indeed most of them were, which of course led encroaching
whites to oppose both groups. Moreover, the remarkable unity of many of these frontier
westerners in the fall of 1780, during which hundreds of them embodied to overwhelm a
Loyalist force at Kings Mountain in the Carolina backcountry, tends to obscure the
presence of disaffection in the mountainous region of the state.130
This is not to say, or course, that Tories on the frontier of the state could not be
found. Some disaffected Carolinians from the more settled eastern counties fled to the
mountains during the first few years of the war in order to avoid taking the oath of
128
James Armstrong to Jethro Sumner, 26 May 1781, NCSR, 15:467; H. Murfree to Jethro Sumner, 1
August 1781, NCSR, 15:591.
129
Col. W. Russell to Richard Caswell, 30 June 1779, NCSR, 14:135. This was on Hatteras Island, in
Currituck County.
130
Although many backcountry and Over-mountain North Carolinians served on the Whig’s side at the
battle of Kings Mountain on 7 October 1780, the vast majority of the Loyalists who served there under Lt.
Col. Patrick Ferguson were from South Carolina, particularly the Ninety Six and Orangeburg districts. See
Paul H. Smith, Loyalists and Redcoats, 136-148; and Bobby Gilmer Moss, The Loyalists at Kings
Mountain (Blacksburg, SC: Scotia-Hibernia Press, 1998), which includes the most extensive roster of the
Kings Mountain Tories available, including the militia units in which they served.
186
allegiance and the consequences of refusing to do so. Others hid out in mountains to
avoid the Whigs’ wrath.131 General Griffith Rutherford, the western military district
commander who once referred to the loyalists as “Imps of Hell,” noted in 1777 the “many
malevolent implacable Enemies who range from place to place embracing every
opportunity which presents itself to disseminate sedition among the Inhabitants.” In this
same letter he clearly differentiated between “the Savages”, or Indians, and those whom
he describes as “other inhuman hostile wretches.” Once the British began their invasion
of the Carolinas in 1780, disaffection in the west became a much greater concern. South
Carolina Governor John Rutledge described the entire southern frontier when he wrote in
May 1780 that the British “can hardly expect to penetrate far into your back Country
unless they depend…on the disaffection of your People.” He worried that if the British
sent their soldiers into the frontier region, “they will be joined by Numbers,” and fall pray
to the loyalists there. Prior to the battle of Camden, several hundred backcountry
loyalists collected in the area known as the Forks of the Yadkin to march south under
Colonel Samuel Bryan and join Cornwallis’ British forces. These men fought at the
battle of Camden as the North Carolina Volunteers. A woman in Salisbury noted in July
1780 that “we have been surrounded by Tory Insurrections” along the Yadkin and the
Catawba, and added “the tories are flocking in.” Fortunately for Carolina Patriots, the
American victory at Kings Mountain in October 1780 “awed many of the disaffected into
submission, and rescued the Western parts of this state from devastation and ruin.” This
may have been due in part to the “rough justice” many Tories received in the aftermath of
131
J.G.M. Ramsey, The Annals of Tennessee to the End of the Eighteenth Century…(Charleston: John
Russell, 1853), 145, 178-180.
187
that battle. Little trouble was had from the disaffected on the frontier for the remainder
of the war.132
An incident along the Neuse River in the eastern part of the state also
demonstrates the widespread problem of Tory violence—and the duration of the threat.
Samuel Spencer, one of the state’s three Superior Court justices, required a mounted
guard of eighty armed men for his journey from Halifax to New Bern in November 1781.
The party, however, was attacked before dawn one day, the result of which was that
Spencer lost almost all of his property in the skirmish, excepting his clothes, musket and
bayonet. That one of the state’s top three judges had to carry a musket while riding
circuit and had to be guarded by cavalry while doing so speaks volumes about the
seriousness of the loyalist threat, and the inability of the state to provide for its own
internal security.133
These regions—the frontier, the Cape Fear Valley, the Albemarle Sound—were
certainly not the only places within the state in which Patriots confronted domestic
enemies to their cause. Indeed, records reveal that disaffection was widespread, with few
132
Griffith Rutherford to Richard Caswell, 15 November 1777, NCSR, 13:282-283; Evan Shelby to Richard
Caswell, 18 December 1779, NCSR, 14:233-234; John Rutledge to Abner Nash, 24 May 1780, NCSR,
14:822-823; NCSR, 17:697; Cornwallis to Clinton, July 14, 1780, NCSR, 15: 256; Cornwallis to Germain,
August 20, 1780, NCSR, 15:263; Graham, General Joseph Graham and his Papers on North Carolina
Revolutionary War History, 54; Elizabeth Steele to Ephraim Steele, 30 July 1780, John Steele Papers, Vol.
1, N.C. State Archives. See also Betty Linney Waugh, “The Upper Yadkin Valley in the American
Revolution: Benjamin Cleveland, Symbol of Continuity” (Ph.D. dissertation, University of New Mexico,
1971); Catherine S. Crary, ed., The Price of Loyalty: Tory Writings from the Revolutionary Era (New
York: McGraw-Hill Book Co., 1973), 239; and Hsiung, Two Worlds in the Tennessee Mountains, 20-54;
Ashe, History of North Carolina, 2:33. Hsiung argues that “external threats from the British, Loyalists, and
Indians served to unite the inhabitants of upper Tennessee with one another and with those living in the
neighboring mountain regions.”
133
Samuel Spencer to Calvin Spencer, 18 November 1781, Samuel Spencer Papers, PC 948.1,
Miscellaneous Records, N.C. State Archives; House Joint Resolutions, General Assembly Session Records,
August-September 1780, N.C. State Archives. Despite this violent incident, Spencer wrote “I think our
affairs seem to be drawing nigh a happy conclusion.”
188
counties if any being immune from its presence and dangers. “Out Lyen” men in Tryon
County on the Catawba River, for example, prevented the draft there in 1779, while
evidence shows that a similar disturbance occurred there in November 1775, as well.
These men rose prematurely in June 1780 to join Cornwallis’ advancing army, but were
defeated by Griffith Rutherford and a force of Whig militia. A Continental officer
complained of “the greatest unwillingness on the People to part with anything” when
asked for supplies on the lower Deep River in July 1780. In Dobbs County in August
1781, three militia companies out of seven went over to the British, which caused an
evacuation among the Whig residents there and the abandonment of the draft. Earlier
that year the county’s militia regiment was ordered out by the Board of War to apprehend
a number of “associators,” who were thought to be particularly dangerous. That same
summer, in nearby Duplin County “the people there, except one family, are all
disaffected,” to the point where a few of the officers in that county could not serve in the
upcoming state legislature, so desperately needed were they to fight Tories. Half of
those drafted in Duplin in June 1781 were avowed Tories, “or so disaffected that they
will not appear,” in what a militia captain deemed “the tumults in this part of the
Country.” Tories plundered Whigs in May 1781, just six miles from Hillsborough, site of
a state magazine and occasional meeting place of the state’s executive council and
Assembly.134 The Executive Council’s records in 1779 note a rising of disaffected
134
Charles McLean to the General Assembly, 6 February 1779, NCSR, 14:261; Deposition of David
Jenkins, 29 March 1776, Revolutionary War Papers, Southern Historical Collection, UNC, microfilm, reel
1; Earl Cornwallis to Sir Henry Clinton, 30 June 1780, NCSR, 15:252; William Caswell to Thomas Burke,
20 August 1781, NCSR, 22:568-569; Joseph Hawkins to Abner Nash, 17 June 1781, NCSR, 15:487-488;
George Doherty to Jethro Sumner, 22 June 1781, NCSR, 15:490; NCSR, 15:390; Henry Dixon to Jethro
Sumner, 22 May 1781, NCSR, 15:464; Baron de Kalb to Horatio Gates, 16 July 1780, Papers of Horatio
Gates, microfilm, reel #11; Samuel Chapman to Jethro Sumner, 11 August 1781, NCSR, 15:599-600.
189
persons “assembled together” in an area encompassing Edgecombe, Nash, Johnston and
Dobbs County, who had formed an association and “obliged themselves to prevent the
Militia from being drafted…threatened others with desolation or destruction…and shot at
and wounded several persons who are apprehending and Conveying to justice Deserters
& Harbourers of Deserters from the Continental Army.”135 Militia men from Wilkes
County, at the eastern base of the Blue Ridge, had to cross the mountains to suppress
Tories in the west, as well as serve tours to combat them at the “head of the Catawba.”136
James McBride, a native Irishman who resided in Guilford by the time of the war, was
typical of many militia soldiers in that he served in a number of short “Tory hunting”
tours in addition to (or instead of) major battles involving the regular armies of the
Americans and the British. McBride took part in restraining loyalists in Randolph,
Chatham, Moore, Anson, Montgomery and Rowan counties, and “as far south as the Pee
Dee River” in 1781.137
This account of the various locations within North Carolina demonstrates how
geographically widespread disaffection was. It can be seen as well that from the earliest
days of the war there was a sizeable segment of the state’s inhabitants who not only failed
to support revolution and independence, but actively worked against those who did. A
particularly vivid demonstration of the way disaffection acted to rent North Carolina in
two can be seen at the battle of Camden, fought on the morning of 16 August 1780. At
this engagement, the Patriot army under General Gates included approximately eighteen
135
NCSR, 14:319.
136
Pension declaration of Colonel Richard Allen, NCSR, 22:99.
137
Pension declaration of James McBride, NCSR, 22:144-145. McBride used the term “Tory hunting”
himself.
190
hundred North Carolina militia commanded by Brigadier General Richard Caswell, the
state’s former governor, and came from a number of counties across the state. Opposed
to them that day was a group of their fellow North Carolinians, on the opposite side of the
field. These were armed, uniformed loyalists who served under Lt. Colonel John
Hamilton of the Royal North Carolina Regiment. The Scottish born Hamilton, a pre-war
North Carolina trader from Halifax, had recruited a battalion of loyalist men from the
state, and was allowed to do so in part because “he is perfectly well acquainted with our
friends the Regulators,” one British official observed.138 A contingent of Yadkin River
loyalists also battled the Patriots at Camden as well. Other loyalist (or provincial)
military forces raised during the war within the state included the North Carolina
Highland Regiment, the North Carolina Dragoons, the Royal Volunteers of North
Carolina, the Black Pioneers, and several independent companies. The willingness of at
least some North Carolinians to enlist in military units in support of the British is an
obvious sign that the cause of independence was not universally espoused in the state.
Several legislative votes also demonstrate the widespread nature of disaffection
and its opposition within the state. A 1786 lower house vote on a resolve to exonerate
several Whigs involved in the wartime killing of a Tory reveals that it was supported by
an overwhelming majority of assemblymen from counties all along the spectrum of
disaffection (Table 4.1), demonstrative of the broad geographical support for those who
opposed Loyalism during the war.139
138
William Tryon to Henry Clinton, 27 November 1777, University of Michigan, William L. Clements
Library, Sir Henry Clinton Papers, Volume 27, item 41.
139
NCSR, 18:444-445. For the purpose of this voting analysis I have classified the state’s counties into four
categories with regard to the level of disaffection therein: “Tory” counties are those heavily dominated by
191
Level of Disaffection
Tory
Yes
7
No
1
Disaffected
8
2
Somewhat disaffected
21
2
Patriot
10
2
Table 4.1: Vote to exonerate Whigs of wartime crimes, 1786.
A 1779 House vote on a resolution to recommend to the governor that two Whigs be
granted clemency for killing Tories in a manner of questionable lawfulness also
demonstrates the nature of disaffection within the various regions in the state. The
resolution passed 28 to 23 (Table 4.2). Assemblymen from those counties that can be
considered Tory, disaffected or somewhat disaffected voted in favor of the
recommendation for clemency, although only in those “somewhat disaffected” counties
was the margin in favor substantial (64%). Thus, lawmakers from counties that were the
anti-Patriot sentiments consistently throughout the war. These include Anson, Bladen, Chatham,
Cumberland, Montgomery, Moore, Randolph, Richmond, and Robeson. “Disaffected” counties refer to
those locations with a strong presence of loyalists, but not as dangerous or extensive as “Tory,” including
Duplin, Guilford, Lincoln, Mecklenburg, Orange, Rowan, and Surry. The counties of Bertie, Burke,
Caswell, Dobbs, Edgecombe, Franklin, Granville, Halifax, Hertford, Hyde, Hillsborough, Johnston, Jones,
Martin, Nash, New Hanover, Northampton, Pasquotank, Perquimans, Pitt, Rockingham, Rutherford,
Sampson, Tyrrell, Wake, Warren, Wayne, Wilkes and the town of Wilmington. I have deemed “somewhat
disaffected” are those where disaffection existed in a more mild form, or where incidents of Tory violence
was less frequent; and “Patriot” are those counties in which the pro-independence forces maintained control
without much of a threat from loyalists during the conflict. These include Beaufort, Brunswick, Camden,
Carteret, chowan, Craven, Currituck, Davidson, Gates, Greene, Hawkins, Iredell, New Brunswick, Onslow,
Sullivan, Sumner, Tennessee and Washington counties.
192
most threatened by loyalists voted in favor of this exculpatory measure. Those delegates
from “Patriot” counties, however, voted against the resolution, by a wide margin of 8 to 3
(73% to 27%). Perhaps this is because men from counties with a less significant Tory
threat were more concerned about the exoneration of murder—even during wartime—
than they were about overawing the disaffected, who posed a limited danger in patriot
counties.140
Level of Disaffection
Tory
Yes
4
No
3
Disaffected
7
4
Somewhat disaffected
14
8
Patriot
3
8
Total
28
23
Table 4.2: Vote to exonerate Whigs of wartime crimes, 1779.
Evidence of disaffection and the disruption it caused in the lives of many
Carolinians can be seen as well in the records of county common pleas courts. Although
Roger Ekirch uses a portion of these records to conclude that little institutional disruption
occurred in the backcountry between 1779 and 1783 as a result of dissent,141 but a closer
and more complete review of court documents depicts disaffection in several ways. In
Mecklenburg County, for example, the court ordered in 1778 that local justices of the
140
NCSR, 13:988-989.
141
Ekirch, “Whig Authority and Public Order in Backcountry North Carolina,” 117-118.
193
peace in all militia companies compel those who had yet to take the state’s oath of
allegiance to do so, or otherwise appear at the next court to answer for it. In October of
1781, a long list of names appears of those who finally came into court “and delivered
their paroles” according to law, perhaps persuaded to do so upon hearing the news of
Yorktown. In February 1782, when disaffection began to rise in several locales in the
state, the Mecklenburg court held a special session “to sit as a court of inquiry…to
summon all persons therein whom they suspect to have forfeited their rights as Citizens
by Joining Aiding or Assisting our Common Enemy—or any person they know or
suspect to have secreted any confiscated property.” The court also noted in July 1783
that the county taxes had not been fully collected for 1780 or 1781, which suggests the
effects of disaffection and the British incursions into the state during those years, as does
the report that part of the county’s 1782 taxes were collected only in 1784.142
Many counties show evidence of disaffection in recording incidents of citizens
refusing to take the prescribed loyalty oath to the state in their lower court records. In
1777, two men in Wake County refused to do so, one of whom was consequently
banished from the state, while the other had to post a bond of £5,000 “for his departing
the state within sixty days.” At the September session of that year, the court required the
county’s militia commander “to call private musters of each company of his Battalion” in
order to have justices of the peace administer the state oath to the men “and other
inhabitants who are not on the muster role.” Rowan County’s court ordered that anyone
who had neglected or refused to take the Oath of Allegiance and had failed to appear at
142
Mecklenburg County, Minutes of the Court of Pleas and Quarter Sessions, microfilm.
194
the court’s meeting to explain themselves had to “depart this state within 60 days after
the rising of this Court,” and that the order was “to be advertised.” By September 1781,
the county had trouble with a number of jurors who failed to report for the session, a
problem that became dramatic in September 1782. This period corresponds with
increased Tory activities and a similar rise in disaffection nearby.143
In Orange County, considered by many to be part of Regulator territory, a number
of men came before the court for refusing to take the Oath or for treason, including one
(found not guilty) in 1786.144 Chatham County’s courts followed this process too in
August and November 1777, mandating the departure of those “suspected persons”
unwilling to take the oath. This even included one of the county’s justices of the peace,
charged with “having spoken words inimical to the united States of America,” though the
accused was later found not guilty by the court that same session.145
Rowan courts saw a number of men refuse the oath during the early years of the
war. In November 1782 the court was active in quelling disaffection within its
jurisdiction. A number of confiscation issues were heard, and the justices ordered that
the county’s militia captains provide the clerk with a list of all those inhabitants “having
been found guilty of high Treason or Misprison, or are supposed to come within the
143
Wake County, Minutes of the Court of Pleas and Quarter Sessions, September 1777, December 1777,
September 1781, and December 1782 sessions, microfilm; Rowan County, Minutes of the Court of Pleas
and Quarter Sessions, August 1778.
144
The Orange County records are abstracted in Alma C. Redden, Orange County, N.C. Abstracts of
Minutes of the Court of Pleas and Quarter Sessions, 1777-1788, 3 Parts (Greenville, SC: Southern
Historical Press, 1991), Part I: 2, 7, 10, 53; Part II: 24; Part III: 24. At the November 1783 session John
Allison was convicted for refusing to accept the state’s currency, but this may be evidence more of sound
business practices than a display of disaffection.
145
Chatham County, Minutes of the Court of Pleas and Quarter Sessions, August 1777, November 1777,
August 1778 sessions, microfilm.
195
Confiscation Law on or before the 10th Day of March next.” Rowan’s 1783 records also
show that the state’s specific tax had yet to be collected for the year 1781, which may
have been the result of the British invasion that year, disaffection, or both.146
Cumberland County’s court records show an active Tory presence, no doubt due
to the Highlanders’ settlements there. Corbin Shaw was jailed seven days and fined in
July 1777 for “speaking words against the peace and Dignity of this state.” At the same
session, the court found John Colbreath guilty of misprision of treason for “speaking
seditious and contemptuous words against this state.” He had also cheered the King
several times and declared that “his life was at the King’s service,” which no doubt
contributed to his legal difficulties, though in 1779 he did finally submit to the oath of
allegiance. Several others met with similar convictions for loyalist utterances or refusing
to take the oath. By October, the situation in the county failed to improve much for the
Whigs. The court noted the presence of “a considerable body of persons, to the number
of three or four hundred, disaffected to the American Cause,” some of whom it was
rumored “had an intention of insulting the Court & Stopping the legal proceedings.” The
justices deemed it “highly necessary” to have a body of armed men present at the
courthouse for protection. In July 1778, the court continued to order men out of the state
for their disaffection, many of them with recognizable Scottish surnames, but by 1779
apparently many had failed to do so. The January court ordered the sheriff to apprehend
them, and “sell as much of their estates as will be sufficient to satisfy the court and
146
Rowan County, Minutes of the Court of Pleas and Quarter Sessions, microfilm, November 1782 and
February 1783 sessions.
196
charges of sending them out of the said state to Europe or the West Indies as the law
directs.”147
By looking at Rutherford County’s court records for a one year period, one can
get a detailed picture of the activities related to the disaffection there, and the power and
authority of the local court as well. In October 1781, the court ordered the sheriff to
summon all persons suspected of treason against the state to appear at the next court
session, and for all of the county’s militia captains to “make a return of all suspected
persons” immediately. To be named on this list, of course, meant not only being exposed
to the censure—or worse—of one’s neighbor’s but the threat of having to forfeit all
property to the state if convicted.148 Over the next year, the county courts did exactly that
to a number of men within the county. In practice, the court does not seem to have been
bent on revenge and generally seems to have followed the rule of law. In January 1782,
for instance, the court exonerated several men of these charges and ordered the return of
their previously-seized property to them. Others also had their estates returned upon the
court’s learning that they had agreed to military service in a state battalion.149 Later that
year John Childers was brought “into Court on a charge of words spoken against the
State; on enquiry it is the opinion of the Court that he be bound on security for his good
behavior,” a rather mild punishment.
By the middle of 1782, however, there were a significant number of cases
involving treason—at a time when North Carolina was actively trying to crush Tory
147
Cumberland County, Minutes of the Court of Pleas and Quarter Sessions, microfilm.
148
Property confiscation will be examined in greater detail in Chapter 7.
149
Military service in return for amnesty for Tories will be addressed in Chapter 8.
197
forces in the central part of the state. In July, the court ordered the colonel of the
county’s militia to “order sufficient guard of militia to guard the officers and Justices of
this Court during this term.” This may have been due to the heavy case load of treason
matters expected that session. As it turned out, the Rutherford Grand Jury identified as
Tories 109 men who joined Maj. Patrick Ferguson’s command prior to the battle of Kings
Mountain in 1780, and consequently their property would be subject to confiscation.
Almost all of these men failed to show cause by January 1783 why their property should
not be confiscated, or failed to appear, so that the court adjudged their property forfeited
to the benefit of the state. Commissioners for Confiscated estates were ordered to
advertise the sale of these properties sixty days in advance of the next court.
At the October 1782 court session, more men were deemed enemies of the state
by default, as they did not appear. Others were tried and found guilty of treason, yet
some were acquitted as well. One Robert Taylor was accused of treason during this term,
but produced a record of a “acquittance and discharge” from a previous trial. The court
ordered all charges against him dropped and his property restored to him. Others seem to
have become nervous at the number of treason convictions and forfeitures that were part
of the court’s business. Thus “Joshua Hawkins came into court on supposition of some
charge that might be laid against him for treason against the State,” but “upon
examination, there appears nothing against him,” so he was “discharged and acquitted as
a Citizen.” Additionally, Several widows were confirmed in part of the estates of
convicted men according to law, and the court ordered that any fees necessary to
198
complete a confiscation transaction could not be taken out of the proceeds granted to
wives or widows.150
Rutherford County’s busy court sessions with regard to treason were much like
those in other counties as well. In order to handle the large number of cases involving the
disaffected, the state resorted to the establishment of courts of oyer and terminer, in
which only criminal cases were heard, usually concerning treason cases. These courts
were specially authorized by the governor as the need arose, which was the case in the
Revolutionary War period due to the large number and seriousness of crimes related to
loyalty.151 Few of these court records survive for the war years, but those that do usually
involve cases of treason. Two Cumberland men, for instance, had to face misprision of
treason charges at a Wilmington District Court of Oyer and Terminer in August 1777.
Although Conor Dowd and Donald McClean were found not guilty, the court did not
deem them to be model Whigs. The pair were ordered to “be of good behavior to all the
liege Subjects of this State and particularly to John Elkins,” who appeared at the trial as a
witness against them.152 In the Edenton District, a 1777 oyer and terminer court met and
heard the case of a Martin County planter, William Tyler, who “did attempt to convey
Intelligence to the Enemies of this State and the United States, of America.” Also
indicted before this same court was Absalom Leggitt, who it was alleged tried to “excite a
great number of people to resist the government of the State, and did also dispose sundry
150
A. B. Pruitt, Abstracts of Sales of Confiscated Loyalists Land and Property in North Carolina (North
Carolina?: A. B. Pruitt, 1989), 113-126.
151
George Stevenson and Ruby D. Arnold, “North Carolina Courts of Law and Equity Prior to 1868,”
Archives Information Circular, No. 9 (March 1977), N.C. Division of Archives and History, 11. Also
commonly heard by oyer and terminer courts were cases involving horse thievery and counterfeiting.
152
Secretary of State Court Records, Oyer and Terminer Courts, 1774-1777, SS.315, N.C. State Archives.
199
people to favour the Enemy,” as well as oppose the draft. Similarly, Samuel Bryan faced
a Salisbury District oyer and terminer court, in his case for “spreading false news, etc.”
Although the final outcomes of these cases are not known, they do show the kinds of
offenses for which some disaffected men could face judicial action.153 More is known
regarding an Oyer and Terminer session at Hillsborough in January 1782, as the state
sought to become more active against the Tories. Four men were tried and convicted of
treason and ordered hanged, though the justices directed that their widows and families
receive enough of their estates for sufficient maintenance.154
With the fall of the American garrison at Charlestown in May 1780, and the
decisive British victory at Camden the following August, many of the disaffected became
much more overt in their Toryism. This is reflected in the meetings of the Cumberland
County court that year, for after a typical session in April, the meetings of the court in
July and October were very brief, with little business conducted. This may be due to the
imminent threat of British incursions into North Carolina, as well as fears among the
inhabitants of Tory hostilities, which may have been more likely during the several days
of a bustling quarter session at the courthouse town. Others perhaps stayed home to
protect their property and families rather than leave their farms to tend to legal issues.
Although the court did meet in January 1781, there were no sessions until January 1782,
at which time reports of plundering among the inhabitants were recorded. The court even
ordered the sheriff to construct a stockade around the county jail, a sign that either the jail
153
Court Papers 1777, District of Edenton, 1757-1787, Criminal Court Records 141, N.C. State Archives;
Secretary of State Court Records, Oyer and Terminer Courts, 1774-1777, SS.315, N.C. State Archives.
154
Hillsborough District Superior Court Minute Docket, 1768-1788, Vol. 1 (Dist. Sup. Court Records
204.311.1), N.C. State Archives.
200
was dangerously overcrowded or that loyalists threatened to release prisoners there.
There is also a gap of twenty-one months in the court records from April 1782 to January
1784, which coincides with the state’s punitive expedition under Major Thomas Hogg in
the later half of 1782 against the disaffected of the Cape Fear Valley. As late as the
January 1784, the county records show the court still prescribing the oath to the state,
though this was the last recorded instance of it.155
Some of the most dramatic court records that provide evidence of the pernicious
results of disaffection during the war come from Randolph County, reportedly home to a
number of former Regulators.156 In the wake of the defeat at Camden, the Court of
Quarter Sessions met for the first time in September 1780 for just one day, though this
may be due to the lack of docket matters in the newly formed county. The next session in
December was more active, but the March 1781 meeting of the court conducted no
business at all and had only one of the required three justices present. The fact that
Cornwallis’ main army was nearby and many Loyalists had embodied in support of the
British may explain this disruption of the court, which was just before the battle of
Guilford Courthouse. It seems few county residents were willing to leave their farms to
go to court in the midst of emboldened loyalists nearby, not to mention British dragoons
and foraging units. The court met again for its June session that year with three justices,
but again conducted no legal matters at all other than to appoint tax collectors and a
sheriff. The next scheduled quarterly session was in September 1781, but the record
155
Cumberland County, Minutes of the Court of Pleas and Quarter Sessions, microfilm. There is some
evidence that there was a session in July 1783, but the records do not exist for it.
156
Wheeler, Historical Sketches of North Carolina, 2:348-349.
201
clearly indicates that no matters came before the court, which may not have had any
jurors or justices attend. It should be recalled that this was a period of intense Tory
activity in this and neighboring counties, which suggests that the militia wars between
Whigs and Loyalists and the resultant violence may have kept all parties away from the
courthouse during such a trying time. There was still no session in December, and that of
March 1782 was quite brief. From that time on, the court met as scheduled without
further interruptions.157
Not all court records demonstrate interruptions. The courts of other counties,
such as Northampton, Pasquotank, Gates, and Perquimans in the northeastern corner of
the state, showed little disruption from or concern with the state’s domestic enemies,
other than to report on the efforts of property confiscation and administer oaths of
allegiance. This was in part due to the lack of a British threat to those jurisdictions
during most of the war, or lesser levels of disaffection there. Moreover, a number of
counties’ court records for the period do not survive.158
What is striking in examining the issue of disaffection is how late in the war the
problem remained, despite numerous efforts to eradicate it, or to keep it in check. In light
of continued brutality among the Tories and Whigs, Governor Alexander Martin issued a
proclamation on Christmas Day 1781, in which he offered a pardon to those of the
disaffected who would surrender to the state by 10 March of the next year, provided they
157
Randolph County, Minutes of the Court of Pleas and Quarter Sessions, microfilm.
158
Pasquotank County, Minutes of the Court of Pleas and Quarter Sessions, microfilm. Of note, in
Pasquotank County the only disruption to the normal sessions of the court was in September 1780, just
after the Patriot debacle at Camden, though the county was far removed from the scene of that battle.
202
enlist in the Continental service for twelve months.159 Toryism was still so prevalent in
much of the state after this deadline that the Carolina government launched a punitive
expedition against the disaffected in the southeastern part of the state in the summer of
1782 with state troops supplemented by militia, under Major Thomas Hogg, a former
Continental officer. This, Burke held, would make them citizens—“Except [for] the very
mischievous and atrocious, I wish to see very few submitted to the Executioner.” This
expedition went well into the summer.160
It should be noted that this campaign to rid the state of its internal enemies was
long after Cornwallis and his large British host left the state in April 1781. In fact, His
Lordship had surrendered this army at Yorktown, Virginia on 19 October 1781, which
was followed by the British evacuation of Wilmington, their last post in North Carolina,
the next month. Yet, despite these major enemy reverses, the state still had to deal with a
significant internal threat for months afterwards that may in fact have been even more
intense in 1782 than at any other point during the war.161 In April 1782, for example,
Tories continued to menace the citizenry of Anson County with all sorts of crimes
including murder. That same month, the state legislature passed a law dictating that all
people in Bladen County who attended county courts, elections, and all other public
meetings there “are hereby required to bring their guns, and at least six rounds of
159
NCSR, 22:211-212. Those guilty of murder, arson and other crimes along these lines were exempted
from claiming pardon under this proclamation.
160
Thomas Burke to Major Hogg, 13 March 1782, NCSR, 16:229-230, Alexander Martin to Francis
Marion, 9 June 1782, NCSR, 16:690-691; Thomas Hogg Society of the Cincinnati Membership Certificate,
N.C. Chapter Documents, #17, Society of the Cincinnati Library. Hogg had served in the 3rd North
Carolina Regiment.
161
Hoffman makes this point in “The ‘Disaffected’ in the Revolutionary South,” 295. See also Algie
Newlin, The Battle of Lindley’s Mill (Burlington, N.C.: The Alamance Historical Association, 1975), 1-2.
203
ammunition, to repel the enemy in case they should attempt to surprise the good citizens”
of that county. This measure was enacted due to “the large number of disaffected persons
living in said county,” joined by a “considerable” number of similarly disaffected men
from South Carolina. By July of that year, Thomas Burke described the state as
“everywhere infested by Enemies, either open or concealed.” That same month, General
Nathanael Greene wrote that the Carolinas had been “ravaged from one end to the
other…which is chargeable to the Tories who have been very numerous.”162 A
Moravian described an area along the Haw River as distressful in the summer of 1782.
He heard “many stories of deeds of violence which are still taking place in the
neighborhood.”163 In August, an officer in Cumberland County called for “some State
Horse” to assist his militia in quelling the disaffected there, though the problem seems to
have been related to deserters rather than active supporters of the British.164
A somber General Greene wrote at the end of September 1782 that “the whole
Country is in a manner ruined. The disaffection of the people has multiplied the
calamities of war. The weeping widow and the distressed orphan fills the land with
mourning.”165 As late as 24 October 1782, Governor Alexander Martin reported Tory
“mischief” in the Raft Swamp area of Bladen, and some in Anson County still feared that
Tories among them would steal Continental supplies there in February 1783. In an
exceptional case, the Moore County court allowed the expenses of three militiamen “for
162
Thomas Wade to Nathanael Greene, 8 April 1782, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 11:23; Thomas Burke
to Nathanael Greene, 6 July 1782, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 11:401; NCSR, 24:474; Greene to Joseph
Reed, 10 July 1782, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 11:426.
163
Adelaide Fries, Records of the Moravians, 4:1916.
164
Joshua Hadley to Jethro Sumner, 15 August 1782, NCSR, 16:639.
165
Nathanael Greene to John Trumball, 29 September 1782, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 11:709.
204
guarding the Surveyor” of confiscated lands—in August 1785. Over the winter and into
1783, however, it appears that the problems associated with loyalist violence and
depredations within the state had to a large extent subsided, some proof of which is the
recognition on 8 May 1783 by the state senate that “the necessity for keeping guards at
the different Magazines of this state no longer exists.” Indeed, the journals of both
houses of the General Assembly during their spring 1783 sessions contain no hint of any
active internal enemies within North Carolina.166
The examples above are only a small sample of the evidence that demonstrates
what a serious problem disaffection was for North Carolina for the entire war and
beyond. With so many internal enemies in their midst, the stability of the new Whig
government and its legitimacy was difficult to establish.167 Nathanael Greene was aware
of the difficulties disaffection produced for the American war effort by April 1781, as he
wrote that in both Carolinas “more of the Inhabitants appear in the King’s interest than in
ours…the Militia in our interest can do little more than keep Tories in subjection, and in
many places not that.” This would become even more obvious by the end of the year.168
Perhaps it was true, as one veteran recalled years after the war, that the “success of the
enemy at Camden gave the Tories more confidence and they became more bold, more
166
NCSR, 19:197; Moore County Court of Quarter Sessions, August 1785, microfilm; NCSR, 24:489-490;
Thomas Wade to Nathanael Greene, 10 February 1783, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 12:428. Governor
Martin’s lengthy 19 April 1783 address to the General Assembly, for example, mentions no new incidents
of Tory violence or activities of the disaffected. See NCSR, 16:773-776. The “Act of Pardon and Oblivion”
had significant exceptions to those who could claim mercy, as will be discussed in a later chapter.
167
Ekirch, “Whig Authority and Public Order in Backcountry North Carolina,” 100.
168
Nathanael Greene to Samuel Huntington, 22 April 1781, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 8:130.
205
daring, and more numerous.”169 Having a sizeable British army march through much of
the state’s settled lands in 1781, and an enemy garrison in the state’s largest port town for
most of that year, added to the staggering difficulties faced by those called Patriots. Yet
this “militia war,” as Wayne Lee has aptly described the Whig/Tory conflict from 1780 to
1782, was most intense during the period from May 1780 to the late summer or fall of
1782. Thus, with Cornwallis gone from the state by early May 1781, and Wilmington
abandoned by the King’s troops the following November, a number of the most bitter
months of conflict between Patriot and Loyalist Carolinians took place after British
forces had abandoned North Carolina. This is at odds with traditional accounts of the
war, which conclude that disaffection and Loyalism were most pronounced—and
threatening—when British troops supported local forces still attached to the King. Even
more traditional histories of the war end the military story of the Revolution with
Washington’s successful siege of Yorktown in October 1781. For many Carolinians who
continued to face danger, destruction and death for most or all of 1782, the result of
Yorktown was to a large extent irrelevant in their everyday struggle for safety and
security as atrocities continued. When General Greene wrote of “the great number of
disaffected who are in the most desperate situation and are concealed throughout these
States,” it was in April 1782, a full six months after Cornwallis had surrendered.170
Disaffection in its many forms considerably hindered the North Carolina war
effort. “Nothing can be properly effected in the State,” Thomas Burke wrote succinctly
169
Pension application of William Armstrong, NCSR, 22:108. The application was made in 1833.
170
Thomas Wade to Nathanael Greene, 8 April 1782, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 11:23. Nathanael
Greene to Robert Morris, 12 April 1782, Papers of General Nathanael Greene, 11:37.
206
late in the war, “until the disaffected are entirely suppressed.”171 This dissent disrupted
the draft and discouraged enlistments, which significantly reduced the state’s ability to
put men in the field for service at home or with American forces in other states.172
Alexander Martin, serving as governor at the end of 1781, admitted that “internal
Commotions” prevented North Carolina from drawing forth “every Resource and
Assistance in the power of the State to aid” Greene in the continuing struggle.173
Disaffection undermined the authority and legitimacy, the “Peace and Dignity,” of the
state government as well, particularly when men shouted such utterances as “Good Luck
to George our King” and drank the King’s health.174 Disaffection was not a threat the
nascent state government took lightly, as is clearly seen in Governor Burke’s message to
the Assembly in late June 1781. To the legislators he noted
the peculiar distress arising from that Internal War which is raging with
intemperate fury in some parts of the State between the well affected and
ill affected Citizens, and which has produced enormities dangerous in their
example to all good Government and cruelly fatal to Individuals. Perhaps
the most humane as well as the most prudent Council would be to reclaim
all that are reclaimable of our ill advised and deluded Citizens, and expel
the incorrigible by force of Arms.
Loyalist attacks were often devastating. Tories under Col. David Fanning raided
Pittsboro in Chatham County on a court day in July 1781, and captured “the lawyers,
justices and other officers of the court, with such citizens and prominent men in the place
as he wanted.” Three months later, Burke himself was captured by “ill affected” loyalists
171
Thomas Burke to Nathanael Greene, 30 July 1781, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 11:112.
172
Proclamation of Governor Richard Caswell, 25 January 1777, NCSR, 22:903; Nathanael Greene to
unknown, January] 1781, Papers of General Nathanael Greene, 7:176.
173
Martin to Greene, 19 September 1781, Papers of General Nathanael Greene, 9:376.
174
Higginbotham, ed., Papers of James Iredell, 2:124; John Williams to Richard Caswell, 23 July 1777,
NCSR, 11:527.
207
under Fanning while at Hillsborough and subsequently held as a prisoner in South
Carolina for months, an event which “had the effect not only of producing a great
excitement among the Loyalists of the State generally, but especially in arousing into
activity those on the PeeDee.” When a state’s chief executive falls into the hands of its
internal enemies and the state is unable to secure his release, it demonstrates that
government’s inability to maintain order within its own borders, and surely undermines
its legitimacy.175 So did the Patriots’ inability to collect taxes and provisions, to have
courts meet regularly, or to prevent the attacks of those in opposition to it. Carolina
officials knew that this internecine violence begot violence, and would perpetuate a cycle
of retributive brutality that highlighted the state’s inability to prevent it. Once again,
Governor Burke provided a lucid summary of the problem, in 1781.
The pernicious license which the people in the Southern Counties have
been pillaged and persecuted, no doubt has rendered them vindictive and
desperate, and we have great reason to apprehend the greatest Cruelties
and devastation for their resentments. Such calamities will not be
confined to the Individuals whose intemperate Measures have greatly
increased the distress of the Country and the number of our enemies but
must fall Indiscriminately on all where the foe may prove superior. These
considerations afford strong reasons for putting the State as soon as
possible in a situation to support them, suppress them.176
As Burke suggested, putting the state in a proper condition to support its loyal adherents
was crucial, as was military victory on the field of battle—both of which the state tried to
realize beginning in 1775.
175
NCSR, 17:913; DeMond, Loyalists in North Carolina, 146; Edward McCrady, The History of South
Carolina in the Revolution, 1780-1783 (New York: Macmillan, 1902), 466; Newlin, The Battle of Lindley’s
Mill, 3; Caruthers, Revolutionary Incidents, 161. Newlin’s brief study has an excellent account of the
unsuccessful attempt to rescue Burke and others captured by Fanning’s men at Hillsborough.
176
Thomas Burke to the General Assembly, 14 July 1781, NCSR, 22:1042.
208
Disaffection in all its forms also contribute to the localist outlook on the part of
many Carolinians, in that threats to their safety and security often came in the form of
immediate dangers within their communities. The very real concerns patriots had for
their homes, farms, families, and livelihoods made seeing the war with Great Britain from
a broader perspective not only unlikely, but also dangerous. Men simply refused to leave
their homes to fight British enemies when doing so would entail leaving their families
unprotected and exposed to Tory raiders. In a similar manner, the ever-present and
extensive Tory threat within its own borders prevented North Carolina from contributing
a significant amount of money or soldiers to the national war effort, which from 1776 to
1779 was fought for the most part hundreds of miles away to the north. Carolina officials
appear to have decided to focus on defeating the enemies close to home, rather than
march its men off to fight battles in other states.
By the later stages of the war, the state’s inhabitants wished for nothing so much
as “peace and stability.” The Tories and the disaffected contributed decidedly to this
chaotic state of affairs in the state, which in early 1781, Nathanael Greene described as
having “but barely the shadow of a government.”177 Only when order, stability and
effective government returned to the state after the eradication of domestic enemies could
a Revolutionary settlement take shape, though the issue of the loyalists in the post-war
period remained a concern for North Carolina years after the echo of musket shots could
no longer be heard. Rather than fight the Tories—“those Vipers…Nurtured in our own
177
Ekirch, “Whig Authority and Public Order,” 112; Nathanael Greene to Thomas Jefferson, 28 February
1781, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 7:81. See Nathanael Greene to Thomas Jefferson, 28 February 1781,
Papers of Nathanael Greene, 7:367, for his opinion on how military successes had “a very happy effect” on
the disaffected.
209
Bosoms”—with swords and guns, Carolinians turned to other weapons to rid themselves
of their domestic foes as part of the post war years: banishment and confiscation.178
178
Petition of Inhabitants of Onslow County, undated, Governor’s Papers, General Assembly Session
Records, April-May 1782, Box 1, N.C. State Archives. Banishment and confiscation are discussed in detail
in Chapter 7.
210
CHAPTER 5
“A FEINT RESEMBLANCE TO A MILITARY FORCE: NORTH CAROLINA’S
REVOLUTIONARY MILITIA
North Carolina seems to have relied upon the militia for its defense and its
contributions to the military campaigns in the Southern Department due to its inability to
raise Continental troops for extended periods of time. While this alternative to enlisting
full-strength, well-disciplined battalions of regulars was often deplored by Continental
officers, Congress, and some North Carolina leaders as well, it was the mainstay of the
state’s efforts to get armed men in the field, particularly after 1777.
North Carolina’s heavy reliance on militia forces in the southern theatre of the
war greatly contributed to the chaos so rampant in North Carolina during the struggle for
independence, and led the state to adopt detested expedients to compensate for the
dilemma. Moreover, an examination of the militia system, especially in the last several
years of the conflict, reveals the weighty demands placed by the state upon the citizenry,
and demonstrates the failure of this inherently weak, unpopular institution to effectively
defend the newborn state. Along with the disorders caused by the Tories, the confusion
associated with raising, arming, and equipping militia soldiers appears to have been a
major cause of waste and disruption within the context of North Carolina’s mobilization
efforts. The poor performance of this institution also reveals the widespread resistance
211
within the state to serve willingly in North Carolina’s militarily forces, even for short
periods of time. Finally, the tendency of Carolinians to resist militia duties except when
British, Tory or Indian enemies directly threatened their homes, families, and
communities further exemplifies that for a large number of the state’s inhabitants, they
preferred to see the war in local terms, not always (or often) as a constitutional struggle
on a Continental scale.
Nevertheless, while civil and military leaders in North Carolina complained about
the numerous and glaring shortcomings of the militia, they were obliged to rely upon this
problematic class of soldiery for much of their strength and support. Two revealing
wartime letters encapsulate many of the challenges Patriots encountered in the southern
states with regard to the employment of the militia in the Carolinas.
On 27 April 1779, William Bryan resigned his commission as one of North
Carolina’s six brigadier generals of the state’s militia. In a letter to Governor Caswell, he
explained his reasons for quitting the service only two months after he commanded the
militia troops of North Carolina at the battle of Briar Creek, Georgia, at which the Patriot
force (eighty percent of which was comprised of militia) was defeated decisively by
regular British troops. Bryan’s frustrations with the problematic yet widespread reliance
on militia units in the south to oppose a professional enemy force are lucidly stated in his
letter, and as such are worth quoting at length.
I have long since been convinced that experienced officers commanding
undisciplined troops cannot possibly acquire reputation to themselves or
render material service to their Country. Our Militia officers, some few
exceptions, are unexperinced, a striking instance we have seen in the late
expedition to Georgia. The Militia establishment of this State, I think, too
very imperfect, as there is no law, sufficiently penal, to compel men when
drafted to turn out and march, whereby seldom more than half of the
212
number ordered enters upon duty, those badly armed, and entirely without
the necessary Equipment, not is it possible the necessary supplies can be
obtained when there is no Quartermaster General or commander of
Military Stores appointed to supply the Militia with the numberless
articles which come under those two departments. Our Militia, therefore,
when embodied are in such a naked, defenceless state that they have but a
feint resemblance to a military force. I cannot, therefore, help saying it is
my opinion that armies thus raised, officered, armed and supplied must
eventually bring dishonor on the command, as it would be very difficult
for the best and most experienced commander to arrange them in such
order as in to insure any degree of success when opposed by a regular,
disciplined force.
Bryan decided to have nothing more to do with a service that in his estimation could only
bring defeat to his command and disgrace to his name.1
Bryan was not the only soldier in the American Revolution to reach such
conclusions. Major General Nathanael Greene penned a lengthy letter on January 10,
1781 to his friend and fellow army officer Alexander Hamilton, to express candid
opinions as to the state of affairs for the Revolutionary cause in the South.
The loss of our Army at Charleston, and the defeat of General Gates, has
been the cause of keeping such shoals of Militia on foot, and their service
has been accompanied with such destruction and loss, as has almost laid
waste their whole Country. Nothing has been more destructive to the true
interest of this Country, than the mode adopted for its defence…should it
be continued, the Inhabitants are inevitable ruined, and the resources of
the Country rendered incapable of affording support to an Army
competent to its defense…the Inhabitants…are scattered over such a vast
extent of Country that it is difficult to collect and still more difficult to
subsist them…there are also some particular Corps under Sumter, Marion
and Clarke that are bold and daring; the rest of the Militia are calculated to
destroy provisions than oppose the Enemy…
Greene concluded his letter by deploring North Carolina’s “high opinion of the Militia,”
and worried that “they will ever attempt to raise a single Continental soldier;
1
William Bryan to Richard Caswell, 27 April 1779, NCSR, 14:74-75; William Caswell to Thomas Burke,
27 August 1781, NCSR, 15:627.
213
notwithstanding the most sensible among them will acknowledge the folly of employing
Militia.”2
The role and effectiveness of the militia in the southern theatre of the American
Revolution have concerned historians for some time. Scholars have examined the militia
in the Revolutionary South in terms of military competency and its ancillary functions,
such as social control, law enforcement, and procurement of supplies for armies in the
field. Others have studied the militia’s propensity for violating cultural norms regarding
brutality. Many scholars have detailed the weaknesses of inexperienced, poorly equipped
militia companies in battles against battalions of British regulars. Fewer studies,
however, have detailed the larger challenge faced by local, state and Continental officers
throughout the war: raising, equipping and keeping militia units in the field in a manner
helpful to the American prosecution of the war. Although numerous contemporaries also
disparaged the militia for its many limitations, senior officers in the South were
dependent on it to wage the war. American commanders largely solved the problem of
militia ineffectiveness and cowardice on southern battlefields as early as 1781, by
increasing the use of militia units as partisans and auxiliaries, and by innovative tactical
deployments of these troops. Yet the problems of getting local militiamen to report for
duty, clothing and arming them, moving them to the main armies, and keeping them in
the field for their assigned terms of service were all formidable challenges that
revolutionaries in North Carolina never effectively surmounted.
2
Nathanael Greene to Alexander Hamilton, 10 January 1781, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 7:87-91.
Greene referred to the surrender of Charleston on May 12, 1780, and the defeat of Major General Horatio
Gates by British forces on August 16, 1780 a few miles north of Camden, South Carolina. His reference to
Sumter, Marion and Clarke refers to militia commanders Thomas Sumter and Francis Marion of South
Carolina, and Elijah Clarke of Georgia.
214
In writing about the southern militia over the past several decades, modern
historians of the Revolutionary War tend to focus on two major themes. They have
stressed the battlefield performance of militia units or the various non-combat military
and societal functions the militia attempted to carry out. Among recent campaign
histories of the war in the South, most stress the weaknesses of the militia on the
battlefield combined with their indispensability in the overall war effort.3 Other scholars
have produced works more analytical than campaign narratives, yet still concentrate on
3
John S. Pancake, This Destructive War: The British Campaign in the Carolinas, 1780-1782 (Tuscaloosa:
University of Alabama Press, 1985), 51-54; John Buchanan, The Road to Guilford Courthouse: The
American Revolution in the Carolinas (New York: John Wiley and Sons, 1997), 182; 193; Dan L. Morrill,
Southern Campaigns of the American Revolution (Baltimore: The Naval & Aviation Publishing Company
of America, 1993), 104; John Morgan Dederer, Making Bricks Without Straw: Nathanael Greene’s
Southern Campaign and Mao Tse-Tung’s Mobile War (Manhattan, KS: Sunflower Press, 1983), 35;
Lawrence E. Babits, A Devil of a Whipping: The Battle of Cowpens (Chapel Hill: University of North
Carolina Press, 1998), 28-29; and James Kirby Martin and Mark Edward Lender, A Respectable Army: The
Military Origins of the Republic, 1763-1789 (Wheeling, IL: Harlan Davidson, 2nd Ed., 2006). Pancake
asserts that these units were no match for British regulars, but “in spite of their faults, the militia were [sic]
necessary” in the southern war efforts. Similarly, in his study of the British invasion of the Carolinas,
Buchanan concludes that “despite their volatile ways…the Patriot militia was a key ingredient to victory
throughout the states.” Morrill’s Southern Campaigns of the American Revolution offers little interpretive
material regarding the militia, but instead presents such shopworn inaccuracies as “militiamen were grim
and pitiless warriors” at Kings Mountain, and “these forbidding troops fought as individuals, not as
members of disciplined groups.” Dederer’s more analytical study of Nathanael Greene’s southern
campaign focuses almost exclusively on the martial capabilities and weaknesses of “a militia of dubious
quality,” and limited attention to the almost insurmountable obstacles for Greene of getting these men to his
camp at all. Babits discusses the organization, tactics and motivation of southern militia in his masterful
study of the Battle of Cowpens, in which he notes that most men tried to avoid militia service in the field if
possible. “In the South,” he writes, “militia duty served to identify who supported the patriot or Loyalist
sides by noting who reported for duty.” Some of these works perpetuate a number of myths as well.
Pancake contends that “almost all Americans…either owned firearms or were thoroughly familiar with
them.” (51) Despite the controversy surrounding Michael Bellesiles’ claim that Americans were largely
unfamiliar and unequipped with firearms during this period, Pancake’s assertions are certainly exaggerated.
See Bellesiles, Arming America: The Origins of a National Gun Culture (New York: Alfred A. Knopf,
2000), particularly chapter 6. Buchanan’s analysis of the patriot militia and the problems it produced for
commanders on and off the battlefield is overly simplistic. His statement that militiamen “maintained their
allegiance to the cause through one disaster after another to Continental armies” (193) is far too broad to be
accurate, and ignores much research concerning the shifting loyalties of southern militia units. Babits’
echoes Charles Royster, who noted that “the role of the local militia organization in maintaining
revolutionary authority demonstrated the importance of its members’ commitment to the American cause.”
See Royster, A Revolutionary People at War, 323.
215
the militia principally as a fighting force.4 The battle of Camden is usually cited as the
primary example of the unreliability of militia forces, as many of these companies from
North Carolina and all of those from Virginia precipitously fled the field of battle within
minutes of the opening volley, and could not be rallied despite the efforts of their
officers. The militia’s performance at Guilford Courthouse was somewhat better, though
Greene and others were not as complimentary of their service as they were of the
Continentals. Brigadier General Daniel Morgan had far better success with his militia
forces at Cowpens, and other examples of militia success can be found throughout the
south. In fact, Cornwallis himself paid the southern militia a backhanded compliment in
1781. “I will not say much in praise of the militia in the Southern colonies,” he
concluded in a letter to Sir Henry Clinton, “but the loss of British officers and soldiers
killed and wounded by them since last June, proves but too fatally that they are not
wholly contemptible.”5
Not all scholarly treatment of the Revolutionary era militia focuses exclusively on
issues relating to the fighting prowess of the militia in combat. Much insightful work on
4
Robert C. Pugh, “The Revolutionary Militia in the Southern Campaign, 1780-1781,” William and Mary
Quarterly, 3dr Series, 14 (2) 1957: 154-175. In 1957, Pugh called for “a closer examination of the role of
the militia soldier...[for] a fuller understanding of why the rebellion succeeded,” in order to “observe and
reappraise the effectiveness of the militia.” Pugh was primarily concerned with the southern militia’s
combat effectiveness, not the numerous logistical, morale and supply problems associated with
Revolutionary militia forces. He traced the history of the militia/regular debate among scholars back to
Henry B. Carrington’s “ambitious” Battles of the American Revolution, 1775-1781, published by A. S.
Barnes & Company, N.Y. in 1896, in which Carrington portrays the militia as a liability to the army in
general and of very little worth in battle. These thoughts, Pugh notes, were echoed by many subsequent
historians including Francis V. Greene, whose 1893 biography of Nathanael Greene disparaged the
contributions of the militia units serving in the South. For a study of the institution of the militia in the
early 1770s, see Wheeler, “The Role of the North Carolina Militia in the Beginning of the American
Revolution,” 1969.
5
Charles Stedman, The History of the Origin, Progress, and Termination of the American War, 2 vols.
(Dublin: Wogan, et. al., 1794), 2:382; Lord Cornwallis to Sir Henry Clinton, 30 June 1781, Charles Ross,
ed., Correspondence of Charles, First Marquis Cornwallis, 3 vols. (London: John Murray, 1859, 2nd Ed.),
1:103.
216
the subject of American militia forces has been done by John Shy, in which he examines
the militia’s many roles besides combat, and its organization, motivation and
effectiveness, particularly in the South from 1778-1781. “From the beginning,” Shy
contends, “the rebel militia was [to the British] one of the most troublesome and
predictable elements in a confusing war.” He emphasizes the militia’s role as a
“coercive” enforcer of political and social order, and notes that “the militia was the
virtually inexhaustible reservoir of rebel military manpower, and it was also sand in the
gears of the [British] pacification machine.”6 Don Higginbotham has written extensively
on the militia’s partisan activities and quelling “disaffection, war weariness,” and “the
Revolution’s internal enemies.”7 More recently, Wayne E. Lee has studied the North
Carolina militia in his innovative work Crowds and Soldiers in Revolutionary North
6
Shy, A People Numerous and Armed, 236-238. Clyde R. Ferguson’s work on militia units on both sides
of the conflict in Georgia and the Carolinas reaches similar conclusions. Whig militia units, he writes,
were “the major prop of law and order in the revolutionary era,” and served as “the chief arm to suppress
political dissent.” Clyde R. Ferguson, “Carolina and Georgia Patriot and Loyalist Militia in Action, 17781783,” in Jeffrey J. Crow and Larry E. Tise, eds., The Southern Experience in the American Revolution
(Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1978), 174-199; and “Functions of the Partisan-Militia in
the South During the American Revolution: An Interpretation,” in W. Robert Higgins, ed., The
Revolutionary War in the South : Power, Conflict, and Leadership : Essays in Honor of John Richard
Alden (Durham, N.C. : Duke University Press, 1979). See also Stephen Conway, The War of American
Independence, 1775-1783 (London: Edward Arnold, 1995), 28-31, on the revolutionary nature of the
American militia.
7
Don Higginbotham, War and Society in Revolutionary America: The Wider Dimensions of Conflict
(Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1998), 20. Higginbotham finds that the American militia
prior to the Revolutionary War was “an institution that, in its actual operation, was more myth than reality,
that never really stood up to professional armies in major combat, and that could scarcely do so in 1775.”
(36) See also Don Higginbotham, Daniel Morgan: Revolutionary Rifleman (Chapel Hill: University of
North Carolina Press, 1961), 108; Don Higginbotham, The War of American Independence: Military
Attitudes, Policies and Practice, 1763-1789 (New York: Macmillan, 1971), 94; 273-275. Perhaps
Higginbotham’s most valuable work on this subject is his own chapter in Reconsiderations on the
Revolutionary War, which he edited in 1978. Here he outlines traditional views of the militia by
contemporaries and historians, its functions in war, “motivation for service,” its officers, and the “all
encompassing role” it was asked to play. “The militia,” he concludes, was “expected to perform virtually
every military function available,” especially when Nathanael Greene assumed command in the South late
in 1780. Higginbotham, “The American Militia: A Traditional Institution with Revolutionary
Responsibilities,” in Reconsiderations on the Revolutionary War (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1978),
95.
217
Carolina: The Culture of Violence in Riot and War (2001). This study considers the
militia’s functions beyond fighting battles, the necessity Continental officers faced using
militia regiments, and the drawbacks from doing so as well. Part of Lee’s study of the
legitimacy of violence during the war is that of the bloody feuds between Whigs and
Tories, an internecine conflict that caused the Patriot militia to become mired in
“retaliatory escalation,” vendettas, plundering, murder and other crimes, all of which
served to weaken the authority of the newly created state. As Lee notes, problems such
as plundering and violence against civilians were a constant concern for commanders in
the south, just part of the many challenges arising from the unavoidable dependence on
militia troops.8
The roots of the militia in North Carolina as an institution for its defense can be
traced to the colony’s earliest period, and dates from 1663.9 The militia’s martial
effectiveness, however, had declined to a large extent by the 1750s and 1760s, although
by 1771 Governor William Tryon was able to crush the Regulator insurrection with a
8
Lee, Crowds and Soldiers in Revolutionary North Carolina, 181. Mark V. Kwasny’s Washington’s
Partisan War, 1775-1783 (Kent, Ohio: Kent State University Press, 1997) is also a regional study of the
actions of Revolutionary War militia in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut during the conflict.
Militiamen, he states, “were partisans and therefore could serve best in that capacity.” Kwasny points out
the uses to which the militia were most successfully put by Washington—reconnaissance, foraging,
suppressing dissent—in this study, which is for the most part a detailed military analysis that too often gets
bogged down in the small details of skirmishes, orders and call ups. See pp. 185-186; 330-333. Other
studies of military service from 1775 to 1783 include Allan Kulikoff, The Agrarian Origins of American
Capitalism (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia), Gregory T. Knouff, The Soldiers’ Revolution:
Pennsylvanians in Arms and the Forging of Early American Identity (University Park: Pennsylvania State
University Press, 2004); and Michael D. Pearlman, Warmaking and American Democracy: The Struggle
over Military Strategy, 1700 to the Present (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1999). Allen R.
Millett’s “Whatever Became of the Militia in the History of the American Revolution,” in Three George
Rogers Clark Lectures (Washington, D.C.: University Press of America for the Society of the Cincinnati,
1991), is an introductory essay on the historiography of the militia in the War of the American Revolution
through the 1980s.
9
For the history of the militia in North Carolina from its foundation, see Wheeler, “North Carolina
Militia,” 1-27, and Lee, Crowds and Soldiers in Revolutionary North Carolina, 104-136.
218
force comprised solely of these men. At the outbreak of the Revolution in 1775, Carolina
leaders recognized the need for a rejuvenated militia force and permanent regiments for
Continental service. After warning their fellow citizens of the dangers posed by the
Royal government within the state, North Carolina’s delegation to the Continental
Congress in June 1775 advised the people there “to follow the examples of your sister
colonies, and to form yourselves into a militia…to be in readiness to defend yourselves
against any violence that may be exerted against your persons or properties.”10 This
advice implies that the province’s militia was not in a state of preparedness and
organization, a problem to which the newly constituted state turned at its first legislative
session in April 1777.
In “An Act to Establish a Militia in this State” passed at New Bern that spring, the
newly created state assembly sought to firmly establish and regulate this organization
“for Defending and securing the Liberties of a free State.” While this measure was
revised several times during the course of the Revolutionary War, its basic tenets
remained in place. The state was dived into six militia districts, each to be commanded
by a brigadier general (to be appointed by the legislature, not the governor). The
effective men of each county aged sixteen to fifty, were required to serve when mustered
or mobilized. Arms and equipment were to be issued by the state to each soldier, along
with other camp necessaries for active campaigning, although doing this was always
problematic for state authorities. All militiamen were subject to be drafted if insufficient
numbers could not be collected for service voluntarily. Thus, in large part the state
10
William Hooper and N.C. Congressional Delegates, “To the committees of the several towns and
counties of the province of North-Carolina,” New Bern, N.C., 19 June 1775.
219
sought to place its defenses upon a footing of inexperienced citizens, who were expected
to train regularly, turn out with alacrity when called, and fight in the event the state
suffered an enemy invasion. In the end, such expectations were in most cases thoroughly
confounded by events and the militiamen themselves, the result of which was to intensify
the chaotic situation within North Carolina for the duration of the conflict and generate
no little animosity to its government.11
For those of republican sympathies, the reliance upon militia troops rather than a
permanent standing army was surely based in part on their belief that regular troops
posed a potential threat to the individual liberties of the citizenry if controlled by
unscrupulous tyrants, while the enormous expense associated with such a measure might
prove ruinous. Certainly these republicans had a valid point as to the expense, which
North Carolina came to realize as it tried to raise and maintain its Continental regiments
beginning in 1776, and support Gates’ and Greene’s forces several years later. The fears
of a standing army and its abuses in English history went back at least to that of Charles I
in the seventeenth century, followed by Oliver Cromwell’s decision to keep on foot his
New Model Army for years after the success of the Parliamentary side in the English
Civil War. Despite these historical precedents, of which the colonists were well aware,
and the vociferous objections in the colonies to the British garrisons in America between
the end of the Seven Years’ War and 1775, very little expression of these concerns exist
in the public records or private correspondence of North Carolinians during the war years
11
NCSR, 24:1-5.
220
as the debate raged over what kind of force to create in order to defend their liberties
from British invaders.12
A number of American military and civil leaders recognized the weakness of
using militia to defend the states from British attacks. This was particularly true of
Continental officers, whose praise of militiamen during their wartime service was rare.
Perhaps no one recognized these manpower and logistical challenges more than
Nathanael Greene, both before and during his tenure as Southern Department
commander. Even in 1776, he had served long enough to take stock of the pitfalls of a
reliance on militia troops. “The policy of Congress has been the most absurd and
ridiculous imaginable,” he recorded that year, “a military force established upon such
principles defeats itself. People coming from home with all the tender feelings of
domestic life are not sufficiently fortified with natural courage to stand the shocking
scenes of war. To march over dead men, to hear without concern the groans of the
wounded, I say few men can stand such scenes unless steeled by habit or fortified by
military pride.”13 Even before he was appointed to his southern post, he observed that
regarding militia forces, “it will take more than double the number of them to give the
12
Lois G. Schwoerer, “No Standing Armies!” The Antiarmy Ideology in Seventeenth-Century England
(Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1974); Martin and Lender, A Respectable Army, 20-27,
151, 203; John Phillip Reid, In Defiance of the Law: The Standing-Army Controversy, the Two
Constitutions, and the Coming of the American Revolution (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina
Press, 1981), particularly 101-106; Royster, Revolutionary People at War, 35-38; Jack C. Lane, “Ideology
and the American Military Experience: A Reexamination of Early American Attitudes Toward the
Military,” in Garry Ryan and Timothy K. Nenninger, eds., Soldiers and Civilians: The U.S. Army and the
American People (Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, 1987), 15-26; and
Paul David Nelson, “Citizen Soldiers or Regulars: The Views of American General Officers on the Military
Establishment, 1775-1781,” Military Affairs, 43, No. 3 (Oct. 1979), 126-132.
13
Nathanael Greene to Jacob Greene(?), 28 September 1776, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 1:303.
Remarkably, at the time he wrote this letter, Greene had little more experience in war than did those he
disparaged.
221
same protection and security to the Country that it will of regular troops.” He went on to
note how the militia wasted stores and obstructed “all kind of business.”14 By the
beginning of 1778, his assessment of the militia was based upon almost three years of
observation. “The Militia are…a constant drain upon Provisions and military stores of all
kinds,” he complained, and were troops “that scarsely render the least shadow of
advantage to the cause.”15
The next few years did not dispel his opinions. In late summer of 1780 Greene
wrote that “there are a thousand disadvantages which spring from the mode of employing
militia,” the reliance on which could only result in “fatal effects.” While “at first it may
afford a seeming security,” dependence on the militia to fight the enemy actually just
wasted the south’s limited resources. Upon receipt of the news of Gates’ Camden
debacle, Greene concluded that “surely we have had enough to convince us that the
liberties of America ought not to be trusted in the hands of the Militia.” As he soon came
to learn, he and other officers charged with securing American independence had little
choice than to employ the militia.16
Just prior to assuming his new command in 1780, Greene had warned Virginia
Governor Thomas Jefferson that the difficulties and expenses of maintaining militia
regiments in the field might prevent Virginia, and by implication, other states from
effectively resisting British forces. Greene also reminded the governor that without arms,
14
Nathanael Greene to Joseph Reed, 5 September 1780, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 6:260-261.
15
Nathanael Greene to William Greene, 7 March 1778, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 2:302.
16
Nathanael Greene to Lewis Morris, 14 September 1780, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 6:284; Greene to
Joseph Reed, 5 September 1780, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 6:260-261; Nathanael Greene to Joseph
Reed, 19 September 1780, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 6:296; Nathanael Greene to Nathaniel Peabody, 6
September 1780, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 6:267.
222
provisions and supplies, soldiers could do little good. The militia was not to be
“depended upon as Principal, but employed as an Auxiliary,” due to the difficulties in
keeping them in order and the great expense in keeping them embodied. Primary reliance
upon militia to fight the war would be “the extreme of Folly.”17 A lack of arms “renders
the aid of the Militia precarious and almost useless,” he complained in February 1781 to
Washington. He favored penal laws “to oblige the inhabitants to furnish themselves with
Arms and Accoutrements.”18 After the battle of Guilford Courthouse in 1781, he wrote
of his astonishment at how North Carolinians “could place such a confidence in a Militia
scattered over the face of the whole Earth and generally destitute of everything necessary
to their own defences...they are all very ungovernable and difficult to keep together.”19
Several months later, having faced numerous exasperating trials getting militiamen to
turn out and supplying them, Greene lamented that “experience must now convince every
Man that Militia are not calculated to protect an invaded Country.”20
With regard to the strong reliance upon the militia, most troublesome to Greene
was the burden large numbers of militia troops placed upon the localities in which they
served or marched through. He advised Abner Nash in January 1781 that
Should the country be ravaged for some months to come, as it has been for
six months past, the distress of the inhabitants will become intolerable, &
the support of the army impracticable. The inhabitants have not yet felt, in
the fullest latitude the disagreeable effects which will result from the
ravages which have taken place; nor will they cultivate their grounds the
17
Nathanael Greene to Thomas Jefferson, 20 November 1780, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 6:491-492.
18
Nathanael Greene to Washington, 28 February 1781, Greene Papers, 7:369-371; Nathanael Greene to
Jefferson, 20 November 1780, Greene Papers, 6:491-493.
19
Nathanael Greene to Joseph Reed, 18 March 1781, Greene Papers, 7:448-451; Nathanael Greene to
Samuel Huntington, 30 March 1780, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 8:7-9.
20
Nathanael Greene to Gov. Abner Nash, 23 June 1781, Greene Papers, 8:447.
223
ensuing season, unless they have a firmer barrier against the enemy & a
better prospect of preserving their property from the deprivations of their
friends.
Greene went on to advise that while some times the use of militia was warranted, such as
in the absence of Continentals, militia could not be subsisted long in the field, had little
discipline, and generally distressed the state’s inhabitants as they looked for food and
plunder.21 These constant call ups of militia in North Carolina Greene deemed “useless,”
as they served chiefly to throw his department into confusion.22
The irregular nature of militia service in North Carolina meant that commanders
could rarely count on a specific number of men to join them in the field, and accordingly
found planning offensive operations difficult. A week before he met Cornwallis in battle
at Guilford Courthouse, Greene had no firm grasp on how many troops he could expect to
fill his ranks. He blamed the militia, who “have flocked in from various quarters, and
seemed to promise me as much as I could wish; but they soon get tired out with
difficulties, and go and come in such irregular Bodies that I can make no calculations on
the strength of my Army, or direct any future operations that can ensure me the means of
Success.” On 10 March 1781, he had with him eight to nine hundred militiamen,
“notwithstanding there have been 5000 in motion within the course of a few Weeks.”
This mode of war, Greene noted, only served to destroy the assets of the state “without
promising the most distant hope of Success.”23 Just after the battle, Greene’s blamed the
state legislature for “the foolish prejudice of the formidableness of the Militia being a
21
Nathanael Greene to Abner Nash, 7 January 1781, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 7:61-64; Nathanael
Greene to Thomas Sumter, 8 January 1781, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 7:74-75.
22
Nathanael Greene to Thomas Sumter, 8 January 1781, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 7:74-75.
23
Nathanael Greene to Thomas Jefferson, 10 March 1781, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 7:420.
224
sufficient barrier against any attempts of the enemy prevented the [legislature] from
making any exertions equal to their critical and dangerous situation. It is astonishing to
me how these people could place such a confidence on a Militia scattered over the face of
the whole Earth and generally destitute of everything necessary to their own defences.”
While he conceded that the backcountry militia was formidable, “the others are not, and
all are very ungovernable and difficult to keep together.”24
By the summer of 1781, having fought two major engagements against the British
in the Carolinas, Greene’s low appraisal of the militia remained almost constant.25 As
late as March 1783, Greene noted that North Carolina could raise a force of militia
greater than Georgia and South Carolina, “but they cannot be kept long in service nor will
they march to [South Carolina’s] aid but with the greatest reluctance.” The general
remained convinced for the duration of the conflict that winning American independence
could not be done by relying heavily on militia forces, which he continued to regard as
unequal to regulars.26
A wealth of evidence shows that other American leaders concurred with Greene’s
assessment of the militia’s disadvantages in the south.27 The Continental Congress’
24
Nathanael Greene to Joseph Reed, 18 March 1781, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 7:449; Nathanael
Greene to Abner Nash, 3 April 1781, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 8:36.
25
Nathanael Greene to Joseph Reed, 6 August 1781, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 9:135; Nathanael
Greene to Thomas Nelson, 10 August 1781, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 9:160.
26
Nathanael Greene to Thomas Burke, 26 April 1782, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 11:122-123. As this
letter also shows, Greene refused to consider regulars equal to militia soldiers for the purposes of prisoner
exchanges with the British in the south. Nathanael Greene to Benjamin Guerard, 31 March 1783, Papers of
Nathanael Greene, 12:553.
27
Udny Hay to Nathanael Greene, 26 October 1780, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 6:434; Thomas Nelson
to Thomas Jefferson, 22 January 1781, Boyd, Jefferson Papers, 4:426-427.
225
Executive Committee minced no words in January 1777 when criticizing the reliance on
militia. “Pray Heaven that American States may never more be obliged to call Militia too
the Field. It is the most ruinous, destructive, expensive way of supporting a war that
human invention can devise.”28 Rawlins Lowndes, President of South Carolina, wrote in
early 1779 that “fatal experience demonstrates every where the inefficiency of trusting
altogether upon the Militia,” an observation proven to be true that year when British
forces invaded the south in earnest.29
Deprecating judgments of the militia’s martial qualities was not limited to the
southern theatre. Washington famously observed during the Revolutionary War that “to
place any dependence on Militia, is assuredly, resting upon a broken reed.”30 His 1777
reflection that “it is without doubt a disagreeable task to command Militia, but we must
make the best of circumstance, and use the means we have” was a damning assessment of
this type of soldiery.31 He preferred the states to fill their Continental forces rather than
call out unreliable militia troops. “We shall never be able to resist [the enemy’s] force,”
he warned Congress in 1777, “if the Militia are to be relied on.”32 While Washington on
28
Executive Committee to John Hancock, 10 January 1777, Letters of Delegates to the Continental
Congress, 6:79. See also the comments of Jefferson and Lafayette, both of whom observed first-hand the
deleterious effects of using militia to secure independence. Jefferson to the Speaker of the House of
Delegates (Richard Henry Lee), 1 March 1781, Boyd, Jefferson Papers, 5:33-37; Jefferson’s “Circular
Letter to Members of the Assembly,” 23 January 1781, Boyd, Jefferson Papers, 4:433; Marquis de
Lafayette to the Prince de Poix, 14 October 1780, Stanley J. Idzerda, ed., Lafayette in the Age of the
American Revolution, 4 vols. (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1977), 3:200.
29
Lowndes to Henry Laurens, 3 January 1779, Papers of Henry Laurens, 15:22.
30
Washington quoted in Pancake, This Destructive War, 52.
31
George Washington to Thomas Nelson, 2 September 1777, Chase, Papers of George Washington,
11:129.
32
George Washington to John Hancock, 31 May 1777, Chase, Papers of George Washington, 9:593.
226
occasion praised the “ardor and spirit” of these troops, he nevertheless concluded that
“perseverance in enduring the rigors of military service is not to be expected from those
who are not by profession obliged to it.”33 Reports of the details of Gates’ defeat in
South Carolina did nothing to disabuse the Commander in Chief of his strong opinions
regarding the militia, and prompted him to declare to all of the states that “I never was
witness to a single instance that can countenance an opinion of Militia or raw troops
being fit for the real business of fighting.”34
While the state of North Carolina relied substantially upon the use of militia
soldiers to fight the war, either as volunteers or draftees, not all of its leaders considered
such measures prudent. Early in 1777, for instance, Samuel Johnston held the
employment of militia to defend the state to be “but a temporary expedient,” and
certainly not at the expense of filling its Continental battalions.35 In late 1780, Brigadier
General Thomas Benbury called the Chowan County militia “backward,” and
“readymade slaves” on account of their lack of spirit and unwillingness to defy their
33
George Washington to Congressional Committee of Cooperation, 11 June 1780, Fitzpatrick, Writings of
George Washington, 18:505.
34
Circular to the States, 18 October 1780, Fitzpatrick, Writings of George Washington, 20:209-210. For
more on Washington’s views of militia and conventional forces, see Russell F. Weigley, Towards and
American Armey: Military Thought from Washington to Marshall (New York: Columbia University Press,
1962) 1-11, Russell F. Weigley, An American Way of War: A History of United States Military Strategy
and Power (New York: Macmillan, 1973) 3-17; and John Shy, “American Society and Its War for
Independence, Don Higginbotham, ed., Reconsiderations on the Revolutionary War: Selected Essays
(Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1978) 78-79.
35
Samuel Johnston to Thomas Burke, 19 April 1777, NCSR, 11:454. At about the same time Thomas
Burke, then serving in the Continental Congress at Philadelphia, reported to Governor Caswell the details
of the battle of Oriskany, New York (6 August 1777) in which he praised the steadfastness of the militia
during the engagement. He deemed the news “happy presages of the accomplishment of what I have
always hoped and wished for, that our militia might become good soldiers!” He was to be sorely
disappointed by his home state’s militia when he served as North Carolina’s governor in 1781 and 1782.
Burke to Richard Caswell, 21 August 1777, NCSR, 11:593.
227
British foes.36 Other Carolinians were of a similar opinion. The state’s Board of War
held in early 1781 that dependence upon the militia was “a defence too transitory to place
much Reliance in,”37 while Abner Nash advised Greene discouragingly that he had “little
to say for the militia forces of this state,” as Cornwallis’ army marched toward Virginia
in May 1781. “I have begun using every endeavour to draw the people out to Oppose the
progress of the enemy—as yet without Effect. They turn out badly and for the present it
appears that the state must be run over and perhaps ruined unless you save us,” the
embarrassed governor lamented. A few months later Nash bluntly told the state’s
legislators of the “evil Consequences” associated with relying on the militia to defend the
state, especially those who had been drafted. With “this kind of service,” he stated,
“Public and Private Arms and Accoutrements are lost; Household and Husbandry
Utensils, Horses and other things useful to the Farmer are wrested from the owners and
never returned. The public provisions and Ammunition in the respective Counties are
consumed and wasted, and the Cultivation of the Land, so particularly necessary in a time
of war, is interrupted and neglected.”38 Perhaps Thomas Burke’s views of May 1782
sums up his, and by extension, others’ mixed opinion of militia forces. “To trust our
defence Altogether, to Such a militia as ours deserves a harsher name than folly, but it
36
Thomas Benbury to Abner Nash, 30 October 1780, NCSR, 15:137. Benbury was former Speaker of the
state’s House of Commons, and had served in all of the Provincial Congresses.
37
N.C. Board of War to Nathanael Greene, 4 January 1781, NCSR, 15:484.
38
Abner Nash to Nathanael Greene, 7 May 1781, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 13:740; Abner Nash to the
General Assembly, 23 June 1781, NCSR, 17:882.
228
does not follow that the auxiliary aid of the Militia is unnecessary,” he supposed, adding
“if Necessary, it ought to be rendered as efficient as possible.”39
Greene’s frequent entreaties to Jefferson, Sumter, Caswell and other political and
military leaders in Virginia and the Carolinas throughout his tenure in the South reflect
his caution in fighting Cornwallis’ battalions. No doubt much of his prudence was based
upon his reluctance to hazard a battle when so much of his army would consist of ill-clad,
poorly-armed and largely inexperienced militia units. What made reliance upon militia
units so precarious was to a considerable extent their often unpredictable conduct on the
battlefield.40 Yet it was not always the case with southern militia companies in set-piece
battles that they were routed. In fact, militia forces acquitted themselves satisfactorily in
several engagements in the south in the last few years of the conflict.41
39
Thomas Burke to Nathanael Greene, 5 May 1782, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 11:159; Burke’s address
to the General Assembly, 29 June 1781, NCSR, 17:910.
40
Nathanael Greene to Nash, 6 March 1781, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 7:401-402; Abner Nash to N.C.
Delegates in Congress, 23 August 1780, NCSR, 15:60; Major McGill to his Father, 17(?) August 1780,
NCSR, 14: 584; E. Meade to Richard Caswell, 16 March 1779, NCSR, 13:38; John Ashe to Richard
Caswell, 17 March 1779, NCSR, 13:39-43; N.C. Board of War to Thomas Sumter, 20 and 22 September
1780, NCSR, 14:386, 389; Nathanael Greene to George Washington, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 7:451;
Joseph Reed to Nathanael Greene 16 June 1781, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 8:396-397; Edward
Carrington to Thomas Jefferson, 31 March 1781, Papers of Thomas Jefferson, 5:298; Abner Nash to
Thomas Jefferson, 2 February 1781, Papers of Thomas Jefferson, 4:504; N.C. Board of War to Nathanael
Greene, 4 January 1781, NCSR, 15:484.
41
Nathanael Greene to Samuel Huntington, 16 March 1781, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 7:434-435. Some
accounts of the battle of Guilford Courthouse, including Greene’s, report that most of the North
Carolinians, deployed in the first line, ran before firing a shot. Some of them did to be sure, as seen in one
militia veteran’s pension application, an extract of which is found in NCSR, 22:106-107. See also Henry
Lee, Memoirs of the War in the Southern Department of the United States (New York: University
Publishing Co., 1869), 277. As historian Dennis Conrad has detailed extensively, Greene’s assessment of
the performance of the North Carolina militia at Guilford (noted above) may in fact be inaccurate, as other
witnesses at that engagement contradict his reports. Historian Henry Carrington wrote that the N.C. militia
ran from the first line precipitously, apparently based solely on Greene’s account of this affair, which the
general did not witness (Carrington, Battles, 559). W.J. Wood’s analysis of this phase of the battle is
similar to Carrington’s, though he does contend that the militia delivered two effective volleys into the
British ranks prior to their flight. See W. J. Wood, Battles of the Revolutionary War, 1775-1781 (Chapel
Hill: Algonquin Books, 1990), 250. Buchanan (375), Pancake (179,) and Morrill (154-155) all conclude
that the Carolinians fired with telling results before giving up their positions and quitting the field.
229
Nevertheless, what was needed to secure the liberties of Americans was, Greene
and many other Patriots concluded, a regular army. “The enemy will never relinquish
their plan, nor the people be firm in our favor until they behold a better barrier in the field
than a Volunteer Militia who are one day out and the next at home,” according to Greene.
The militia could produce “little strokes” of a partisan nature, but these were only “like
the garnish of a table,” which might give some splendor to the army but “afford no
substantial security.”42 Greene was particularly frustrated with North Carolina. While
the state did in fact raise additional regulars during the war’s last years, Greene was
correct that Carolinians did rely upon the use of militiamen far more consistently than he
deemed wise.43 “You ought to attempt to raise your regular troops,” Greene advised the
Conrad’s analysis is in Papers of Nathanael Greene, 7:436-441, in which he argues that Greene may not
have been a witness to the front line fighting where the North Carolinians were posted. By the early
summer of 1781, Greene had developed a reputation among some Congressmen as being contemptuous of
militia forces. See Joseph Reed to Nathanael Greene 16 June 1781, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 8:396.
With regard to battlefield successes of the southern militia, a complete Whig victory at Kings Mountain (7
October 1780) was won with a force composed entirely of militiamen. At Cowpens (17 January 1781),
Daniel Morgan used a masterful tactical deployment of the militia under his command to defeat the British
in a battle in which the militia were quite effective. Partisan leaders including William R. Davie, Elijah
Clarke, Isaac Shelby, Francis Marion, Thomas Sumter, Andrew Pickens, and Thomas Wade were able to
successfully conduct a number of sustained operations against British and Tory enemies with forces
composed largely of militiamen deployed as irregulars. For example, a force comprised solely of North
Carolina Whig militia troops under Francis Locke, Joseph McDowell, and Griffith Rutherford soundly
defeated a collection of Tories at Ramsour’s Mill in June 1780, in Tryon County, while in August of that
year, Carolina militia soldiers defeated a larger force of provincial regulars and Tory militia in South
Carolina at Musgrove’s Mill. Rankin, North Carolina in the American Revolution, 33-36; Schenck, North
Carolina, 1780-1781,51-63; Pancake, This Destructive War, 84, 111. Lyman Draper’s Kings Mountain
and its Heroes: A History of the Battle of King's Mountain, October 7th, 1780, and the Events which led to
It (Cincinnati: P.G. Thomson, 1881) offers several accounts of Whig militia successes in the Carolinas,
while Michael Scoggins’ The Day It Rained Militia: Huck’s Defeat and the South Carolina Backcountry,
May-July 1780 (Charleston: The History Press, 2005) is an excellent modern account of a successful Patriot
militia action.
42
Nathanael Greene to Thomas Sumter, 8 January 1781, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 7:74.
43
Nathanael Greene to Alexander Hamilton, 10 January 1781, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 7:90. As early
as 1776, Greene concluded that only a “good established army,” with men enlisted for the entire war, could
ensure American independence. Nathanael Greene to Jacob Greene(?), 28 September 1776, Papers of
Nathanael Greene, 1:303.
230
North Carolina Board of War in 1781, “the little force we have to oppose the enemy and
the uncertainty of the Militia in the most critical moment renders the situation of North
Carolina precarious.” Only a regular army “aided occasionally by the Militia” would
answer, especially in light of “the waste of stores that prevails in employing Militia.”44
In the wake of the militia’s disgrace at Camden he asked Carolinians rhetorically, “What
is to become of our Southern affairs? Shall we be able to oppose the enemy or not; if we
are it must be with Regular troops, and not with a Militia…if you don’t raise an army for
the war you are a ruined people.”45
Greene learned first hand the difficulties of prosecuting a war in the South
without a sufficient force of regulars by the end of that year. “Nothing can save [the
Carolinas] from ruin, but a good permanent Army, that can face the enemy with
confidence,” he wrote upon assuming command in Charlotte in December 1780, “the
great bodies of Militia which this state have lept on foot has well nigh ruined the State,
and its currency, and must if persisted destroy both.”46 At the same time, he wrote to
North Carolina’s governor imploring him to have the state assembly get regulars in the
field. “Don’t be deceived and trust your liberties to a precarious force,” he warned Abner
Nash, who surely did not need much convincing after the Camden fiasco.47 A
discouraged Greene wrote to another correspondent that month not to expect to hear
44
Nathanael Greene to Alexander Martin, 23 February 1781, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 7:335.
45
Nathanael Greene to Nathaniel Peabody, 6 September 1780, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 6:267;
Nathanael Greene to Lewis Morris, 14 September 1780, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 6:284. These letters
were written before Greene had been appointed to command the Southern Department.
46
Nathanael Greene to Nathaniel Peabody, 8 December 1780, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 6:555.
47
Nathanael Greene to Abner Nash, 15 December 1780, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 6:579.
231
anything favorable from his department “without a regular Army, and one well appointed
and supplied.”48
Greene was willing to concede that the loss of so many Continentals in 1780 at
Charleston and at Camden necessitated the temporary dependence on militia in the
Carolinas, but recommended to Governor Nash, however, that “the evil should be
remedied as soon as possible.” Otherwise, the consequent destruction of resources which
invariably accompanied the call up of militia forces would serve to alienate the
inhabitants from the cause of liberty, disrupt agricultural demands, and weaken the state’s
finances. This was to say nothing of the trouble the state would have repelling British
invaders and Tory threats as well. “The little skirmishes which have happened for some
time” involving the militia would not “produce any other consequences than the mere
loss which happens on one side or the other.” Numbers were no substitute for discipline,
and he bluntly warned that “if the State of N. Carolina continue to bring out such shoals
of useless militia as they have done the least season, it will be impossible to subsist an
Army in this Country.” To a sympathetic General Washington, he concluded in early
1781, “nothing can save the Southern States but a good regular army,” sentiments he also
sent the North Carolina legislture.49 This remained a problem for military officers until
the end of the war. Greene feared that by May 1782 “all America have been dreaming
too long of peace,” and thus could not be roused to embody more Continentals, noting
that “Virginia and North Carolina are taking a serious nap.” Although active operations
48
49
Nathanael Greene to Ezekiel Cornell, 29 December 1780, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 7:21.
Nathanael Greene to Abner Nash, 7 January 1781, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 7:63; Nathanael Greene
to Thomas Sumter, 8 January 1781, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 7:75; Nathanael Greene to George
Washington, 15 February 1781, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 7:294; Nathanael Greene to the North
Carolina Legislature, 17 February 1781, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 7:304.
232
by the British in the South had largely ended by this time, the enemy garrison at
Charleston was still a potential threat to the region—but none of the states in his
department were able to provide such a contingent of regulars as the general so ardently
desired.50
Some North Carolinians, recognizing the weaknesses of the militia, also called for
the support of the raising of regulars instead. Thomas Burke, while serving in the
Continental Congress in 1779, favored sending much-needed regulars from Washington’s
command to the south, as “Militia forces ought to be employed only in Cases where they
cannot be dispersed with.”51 After the rout of Gates’ command after Camden, the North
Carolina General Assembly resolved that “the Safety and Security of this State essentially
depends upon the Continental Troops.” The Board of War in 1781 also lamented the
tardiness of the state to augment its undersized regular battalions, “on whom the salvation
of this country chiefly depends.”52 Colonel William R. Davie complained that “the
militia in a lump are quite inconsiderable,” but could be put to good use if supported by
“a small body of regulars.” He believed that “if they were only managed to take the field
by timely assistance” from Continentals, the militia would do well. Unfortunately for all
the southern states, there were too few Continentals to adequately protect them from the
veteran redcoats and provincial troops bent on conquering the South.53
50
Nathanael Greene to Thomas Burke, 8 April 1782, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 11:14-15; Nathanael
Greene to Henry Knox, 20 May 1782, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 11:217-218.
51
Thomas Burke and Henry Laurens to George Washington, 15 March 1779, Edmund C. Burnett, ed.,
Letters of Members of the Continental Congress, 8 vols. (Washington, D.C., The Carnegie Institution of
Washington, 1921-36), 4:105.
52
Records of the Board of War, 4 January 1781 and 7 January 1781, NCSR, 14:485, 487; NCSR, 14:612.
233
Despite the urging of Burke, Nash, Greene and others for the state to direct its
manpower efforts to the better establishment of regular troops for long tours, the General
Assembly did little to comply, particularly after it had created its ten Continental
regiments by 1777. While some measures were enacted for the purpose of strengthening
the state’s several regiments of regulars, these for the most part failed to produce any
sizeable number of Continental troops. Rather, North Carolina’s lawmakers focused on
the establishment and regulation of the militia, and favored the call up of these men,
either as volunteers or as drafts, for the purpose of defending the state and sending
assistance to other states. The enactment of the many laws regarding militia, and the lack
of attention paid to calls for increasing the number of regulars in the field, suggests a
willingness of the state’s legislators to ignore the numerous and desperate pleas from
military and civil leaders to produce a well-disciplined force of regulars. Their reluctance
to provide a credible fighting force, particularly from 1779 to the end of the war,
hindered the overall war effort, and added to the confusion and destruction within the
state once war came within its own borders.
The militia’s performance on numerous southern battlefields, which might be
charitably termed uneven, was not the only factor that led critics to deplore their use and
call for a regular, standing army. What also made Greene and others object to the use of
militia to defend the south were the difficulties related to the raising, arming and
equipping of these units, the time, expense and waste associated with it, and the
confusion and disorders it generated. An exasperated Greene summed up many of these
53
William R. Davie to Richard Caswell, 29 August 1780, NCSR, 22:777; Burke to the General Assembly,
29 June 1781, NCSR, 17:910-911.
234
frustrations in a pointed letter to the North Carolina Board of War in March 1781.
Referring to the dependence on militia troops instead of Continentals, he noted that
The force employed [is] so fluctuating and uncertain & the demand for
Stores so extensive from the nature of the service & the Militia ordered
into the field from such different Authority and supplied through such
different channels, that it is utterly impossible to tell what force there is[,]
how employed or how supplied either with provisions or Stores, nor can I
tell what we have on hand…I find it has been the custom heretofore in the
Southern States to employ generally for equipping the Militia both
Continental and State Stores indiscriminately and the waste which has
arose from this mode as well as from the difficulty of recovering the
Stores delivered in to the hands of the Militia has rendered the
consumption and waste almost incredible.54
General Stevens, a Virginian who served actively in North Carolina, no doubt would
have agreed. “Militia troops would not be satisfied with what Regular troops would think
themselves well off with,” he wrote regarding the difficulties of supplying the men.
These letters and memorials typify the onerous tasks Revolutionary leaders confronted in
a war in which a major dependence upon militia was an unavoidable necessity. While
they made countless calls for a standing army to engage the British, they ultimately had
no choice but to make the best of the militia available. These complex problems of
militia mobilization were of equal and more immediate concern to Revolutionary leaders
than the battlefield behavior of the men.55
In addition to the unreliability of the militia in battle, other military issues
surrounding this class of soldiery frustrated army officers and state officials considerably.
54
Nathanael Greene to the [N.C.] Board of War, 30 March 1781, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 8:3.
55
“Petition of Robert Poage and Others,” to the Virginia General Assembly, Boyd, Papers of Thomas
Jefferson, 6:56-57; E. Stevens to Horatio Gates, 1 August 1780, NCSR, 14:519; Nathanael Greene to Abner
Nash, 3 April 1781, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 8:36. A letter to Joseph Reed, President of the
Pennsylvania Council, to Greene is particularly derogatory regarding the reliance upon militia troops
against the British in America—see Greene to Reed, 16 June 1781, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 8:395403.
235
Since many of these concerns are similar to those characteristic of the regulars North
Carolina raised during the war, and are described more fully in Chapter 3, only a brief
examination of them in relation to the militia will be taken up here. These problems did,
however, prove to be consistently vexatious, and contributed to the insurmountable
difficulties and confusion associated with conducting the war without a regular army.
If getting weapons into the hands of the Continental battalions presented a
logistical headache for North Carolina, getting the militia adequately armed might have
been even more troublesome. Greene and his officers continually strove to get muskets
in the hands of the militia—and to prevent them from stealing off with their arms when
discharged. “You may as well attempt to bail the sea dry as to think of arming and
equipping the whole militia of this Country,” Greene bemoaned in 1780.56 A scarcity of
arms was a problem state authorities never solved.57 The records are replete with reports
of poorly armed militia companies, such as that of Chatham’s Colonel John Simpson,
who wrote to Governor Caswell in 1777 that some of his men had previously sold their
personal arms to the state, others had no means to purchase their own, and others had
them impressed by state officials for the use of the Continentals.58 At the end of the next
year, Caswell reported that he was sensible of “the deficiency in arms and
accoutrements…but it seems these deficiencies cannot be removed here,” and little was
56
Nathanael Greene to Ezekiel Cornell, 29 December 1780, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 7:21.
57
Regarding lack of arms, see A. MacLaine to Thomas Burke, 9 February 1781, NCSR, 22:534; Alexander
Martin to N.C. Congressional Delegates, 12 October 1780, NCSR, 15:117; Martin to Nash, 10 November
1780, NCSR, 15:151; Col. Henry Dixon to Gen. Jethro Sumner, 22 May 1781, NCSR, 15:464; Gov.
Thomas Burke to Sumner, 30 June 1781, NCSR, 15:502; and Nathanael Greene to the Marquis of
Malmedy, 24 May 1781, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 8:306.
58
John Simpson to Richard Caswell, 4 August 1777, NCSR, 11:556.
236
to be expected from North Carolina militia troops without receiving weapons from
Congress.59 He later wrote that the state’s militia in 1779 was marched to South Carolina
“shamefully deficient…in Arms, accoutrements and clothing.”60 Whitmell Hill was
particularly concerned about the lack of guns available for the North Carolina militia in
early 1780, as the British seemed to be on the verge of invading the state. Should
Charleston fall, he predicted, “our disarmed State becomes a victim of easy conquest,
merely for the want of proper Arms: our men are numerous and willing, but their means
of defense deplorable…My God, how negligent we have been in providing means for our
Defence.”61 Even when arms could be procured in the cash-starved state, they were at
times not suited for military use due to varying calibers of the weapons, age and
condition.62
General Greene learned quickly that the lack of arms hindered military affairs as
well. As Cornwallis pursued him in the “Race to the Dan” in February 1781, he informed
the North Carolina legislature that the militia was “so unfurnished with arms and
ammunition, that it is almost impossible to take measures to stop [Cornwallis’] progress
in any direction in which he chooses to move.”63 During operation in South Carolina
later that year, Greene reported that militia troops reached him from the north “without
arms, and must be furnished from the little stock we have, or sent home useless after all
59
Richard Caswell to John Ashe, 29 December 1778, NCSR, 13:339.
60
Caswell to Benjamin Lincoln, 13 January 1779, NCSR, 14:14.
61
Whitmell Hill to Thomas Burke, n.d., NCSR, 14:2-3.
62
Pitt County Militia Return, 29 September 1781, Military Collection, Troop Returns, box 7, file 17, N.C.
State Archives.
63
Nathanael Greene to the N.C. Legislature, 17 February 1781, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 7:303.
237
the expence of coming out.”64 Such concerns were echoed repeatedly by army officers,
state officials, and county militia commanders throughout the war, the above examples
being just a small sample of reports of the paucity of arms available to the militia.
One of the most often cited disadvantages of using militia soldiers was their
consumption of enormous amounts of food and fodder, the burdens this placed on the
states in order to equip them, and the vast quantities of all manner of military supplies
they required, much of which was never seen by the army again. 65 Greene frequently
pointed out the enormous waste of resources that accompanied the unorganized nature of
militia call ups in Virginia and North Carolina. Within a month of taking command in
the south, he was well aware of the problem.
The great expence of employing the Militia in a country so extensive as
this, where the Inhabitants live so distant form one another; and where the
Staff departments are so badly regulated would ruin any Nation on
Earth…the war should be carried on in the quarter upon a contracted scale,
the expence and difficulty is so great of equipping a large body of troops.
The private views and fears of individuals keep shoals of militia on foot
when they can be of no more use than if they were on the moon. And the
manner of feeding and subsisting them is generally three times as
expensive as regular troops.66
The general urged state officials not to activate militia units without making some
provision for supplying them, and to coordinate their efforts with militia and Continental
officers across the region. Many militia forces aimlessly roamed the countryside, and
served only “to destroy the provisions upon routes where we most want them.” In
64
Nathanael Greene to the Continental Board of War, 28 July 1781, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 9:94.
65
William R. Davie to Nathanael Greene, 9 April 1781, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 8:73; in 1778,
Greene had written in a similar fashion: “the Militia are so expensive, their waste of Arms and Ammunition
so great that neither the funds or resources of the States can support the drafts.” Greene to William
Smallwood, 16 March 1778, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 2:316.
66
Nathanael Greene to Ezekiel Cornell, 29 December 1780, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 7:20-21.
238
January 1781, Greene bemoaned “the waste of stores & consumption of provision and
forage” by the militia of both Carolinas, which “ravaged this quarter in such a manner
that it will be with the greatest difficulty we shall be subsisted.” He soon concluded that
this “mode of going to war is so destructive, as well as uncertain, that it is the greatest
folly in the world, to trust the liberties of the people, to such a precarious tenure.”67
The state’s over reliance on militia for the duration of the war meant that great
waste remained a continuing problem in North Carolina. In the spring of 1781, Colonel
Davie found that the western part of the state was “almost entirely exhausted,” not from
the armies of Cornwallis and Greene, but the destructive, wasteful bodies of militia.68 By
the end of 1781, Greene knew that by the employment of a regular army, rather than
militia units, “the Country will be more secure and less ravaged, and the expence far
less.”69 One of Greene’s correspondents from North Carolina, William Sharpe,
concurred. Writing in 1782, he deplored the state of affairs there, in which “more
resources have been wasted, embezzled and misapplied in this state in the last three years
than would have been sufficient to defray the expences and subsist the Southern army
during one whole year.” No doubt Sharpe held that the inefficiencies within the militia
system contributed to the amateurish state of confusion, characterized by what he termed
“the want of frugality and oeconomy.”70
67
Nathanael Greene to Nash, 7 January 1781, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 7:63-64; Nathanael Greene to
Washington, 13 January 1781, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 7:111-112; Nathanael Greene to General
James M. Varnum, 24 January 1781, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 7:187. Nathanael Greene had served
with Varnum while with Washington’s army in the northern theatre. See also Nathanael Greene to Steuben,
27 November 1780, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 6:507, for problems in Virginia with militia and waste.
68
William R. Davie to Nathanael Greene, 9 April 1781, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 8:73.
69
Nathanael Greene to John Steward, 26 December 1781, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 10:107.
239
Notably troublesome was the militia’s consumption of food supplies. In the
Carolinas, the numerous militia soldiers embodied in January 1781, and kept in the field
“like the Locusts of Egypt[,] have eaten up every green thing.”71 These men were “better
calculated to destroy provisions than oppose the enemy,” to which Greene added in
another letter, “it is impossible for the Militia to be constantly in the field, without
producing a famine.”72 The problem of food was related to that of arms—unarmed
militiamen detained at camp for want of muskets and other supplies served little military
use.73 The quartermaster and commissary systems were woefully inadequate and
disorganized to meet the needs of both regular army soldiers and militiamen.74
Almost immediately upon assuming command in North Carolina, Greene grasped
the difficulty of supply. He reported from Charlotte on December 6, 1780, that compared
to fielding Continental troops, “it requires more than double the Number of Militia to be
kept in the Field, attended with infinitely more Waste and Expense than would be
necessary to give full Security to the Country with a regular and permanent Army.”75
This waste and consumption with no corresponding increase in military strength for this
70
William Sharpe to Nathanael Greene, 8 August 1782, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 11:505.
71
Nathanael Greene to Joseph Reed, 9 January 1781, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 7:85.
72
Nathanael Greene to Alexander Hamilton, 10 January 1781, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 7:88;
Nathanael Greene to the N.C. Legislature, 17 February 1781, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 7:304.
73
E. Stevens to Thomas Jefferson, 8 January 1781, Papers of Thomas Jefferson, 4:323; Baron Steuben to
Thomas Jefferson, 12 January 1781, Papers of Thomas Jefferson, 4:345; Baron Steuben to Thomas
Jefferson, 27 November 1780, Papers of Thomas Jefferson, 4:163.
74
William Davies to Jefferson, 8 February 1781, Jefferson Papers, 4:558; William Davies to Jefferson, 12
April 1781, Papers of Thomas Jefferson, 5:418-419; Nathanael Greene to Steuben, 22 March 1781, Papers
of Nathanael Greene, 7:464; Nathanael Greene to Alexander Martin, 23 February 1781, Papers of
Nathanael Greene, 7:335.
75
Nathanael Greene to Abner Nash, 6 December 1780, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 6:533.
240
army thwarted the Patriot’s military efforts.76 Moreover, the militia’s proclivity toward
waste added more than a little to the chaos within the state, especially with the British
poised to invade it. Greene observed that “such great bodies of Militia have been kept on
foot and those subsisted in a way so very expensive and wasteful that the State of North
Carolina and South Carolina are in a manner laid waste nor can any State when invaded
afford considerable support to an Army for a length of time[,] it causes such an universal
obstruction to all kind of business.”77 He came to regard the militia’s “mode of going to
war” as destructive, and certainly not one well suited to secure independence.78 Like the
majority of difficulties he and other leaders faced in North Carolina with regard to the
militia, problems outnumbered solutions by an overwhelming majority.
One of the primary factors in the destruction of much-needed supplies and fodder
by the militia was their custom of traveling by horseback when called out for service.
Most senior commanders in Continental and militia service disapproved of this mode of
service. A British officer found it remarkable that the Whig “crackers and militia” in the
Carolinas are all mounted on horseback.” North Carolina militia General William L.
Davidson expressed “in very strong Terms, dissatisfaction at having such a number of
militia horse; that they consumed all the Forage, and rendered but little service.” Greene
too concluded that “the manner of going to war all on horseback will lay waste a whole
country,” since these men were not dragoons but were to fight on foot. Such waste
hampered the army’s ability to maneuver and defend the state. Greene’s cavalry
76
Nathanael Greene to George Washington, 13 January 1781, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 7:111.
77
Nathanael Greene to Mordecai Gist, 23 January 1781, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 7:172.
78
Nathanael Greene to James M. Varnum, 24 January 1781, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 7:188.
241
commander, Lt. Col. Henry “Lighthorse Harry” Lee also decried the militia’s dependence
on their mounts. These men must be “induced to act on foot, & send away their horses.”
On a least one occasion Lee attempted to convince mounted militia serving with him to
give up their horses, but his effort was fruitless. Other endeavors to do likewise had
unfortunate results.79
Allowing the militia to move about on their mounts while in service not only
consumed scarce forage, it also deprived regular army cavalry units and other state
dragoons and light horse companies of horses as well. “It is a pity that good horses
should be given into the hands of [the milita] who are engaged” for a limited time,
Greene lamented.80 During active campaigning in June 1781, Greene sorely felt the need
for cavalry, but found that Carolinians “appear to be not the less attached to their horses
than their liberties and this attachment has embarrassed” them very much.81 With regard
to “stripping the Militia of their horses” for use by regular cavalry troops, Greene found it
79
Babits, Devil of a Whipping, 19; Minutes of the N.C. Board of War, 10 October 1780, in NCSR, 14:417;
Nathanael Greene to Ezekiel Cornell, 29 December 1780, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 7:21; Nathanael
Greene to Morgan, 15 January 1781, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 7:127; E. Stevens to Thomas Jefferson,
8 January 1781, Papers of Thomas Jefferson, 4:323; H. Lee to Nathanael Greene, 1 March 1781, Papers of
Nathanael Greene, 7:379; Graham, General Joseph Graham and his Papers on North Carolina
Revolutionary History, 334; Andrew Pickens to Greene, 5 March 1781, Papers of Nathanael Greene,
7:399; Alexander Martin to Nathanael Greene, 3 January 1781, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 7:44; Draper,
Kings Mountain, 106, 176. See also Greene to Samuel Huntington, 28 December 1780, Papers of
Nathanael Greene, 7:8, in which the general notes that most of the militia were mounted and therefore “in a
great measure unencumbered with baggage or stores.” See also Greene to Francis Marion, 9 May 1781,
Papers of Nathanael Greene, 8:230-231 and Greene to Washington, 7 December 1780, Papers of
Nathanael Greene, 6:543 on the subject of militia horses. Even the British encountered this same
proclivity—Cornwallis complained in 1780 that the loyalist militia “can be of little use for distant military
operations, as they will not stir without a horse,” which the general found to be too destructive and
wasteful. Draper, Kings Mountain, 142; Schenck, North Carolina, 1780-'81,73. Sir Henry Clinton makes
mention several times of mounted militia (both Whig and loyalist) in his memoirs. Willcox, ed., The
American Rebellion, 226-227, 441, 469.
80
Nathanael Greene to Thomas Sumter, 4 May 1781, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 8:202.
81
Nathanael Greene to the Marquis de Lafayette, 9 June 1781, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 8:366-367.
242
difficult to “accommodate the prejudices of the people.” This proclivity amongst the
inhabitants for refusing to part with their horses Greene found to be a hindrance to
effective military operations, and to the safety of the revolutionary cause, for as he wrote
in 1781, “the militia are so attached” to their horses, “it will be next to impossible” to
make them leave their mounts at home.82
One of the features of militia service in all of the southern states during the war,
and notably in the last few years of it, was that the tours of duty these men performed
were overwhelmingly of short duration. Having the militia on hand for a sufficient
length of time during which they could be put to good use was frequently out of the
question. Many pension applications of North Carolinians who had served in the militia
mention frequent tours during which they were in the field for only a few months at a
time. This was in marked contrast to state or Continental troops who were enlisted (or
were drafted) for a year or more, or even for the duration of the conflict. Military leaders
found planning operations around such limited availability of the militia particularly
irksome, and unremittingly bemoaned the practice.83
Fluctuations in the number of militia soldiers left Greene and other officers
“exposed to a superior force,” against which he dared not hazard his army. “Nothing has
been more destructive to the true interest of this Country than short enlistments and
82
Nathanael Greene to Peter Horry, 23 October 1781, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 9:466-467; Nathanael
Greene to George Washington, 22 June 1781, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 8:441; Nathanael Greene to
John Barnwell, 31 July 1782, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 9:473-474; Nathanael Greene to Henry Lee, 19
March 1781, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 7:454.
83
George Washington to the President of Congress, 20 August 1780, Fitzpatrick, Writings of George
Washington, 19:408; Robert Morris to Silas Dean, 29 January 1777, Letters of Delegates to the Continental
Congress, 6:161. See also William R. Davie to unknown, 10 November 1780, Society of the Cincinnati
Library, in which Davie complains of various troops leaving his command “at that moment when I need
them most.”
243
employing great bodies of Militia,” Greene noted, “both have been destructive to the
business of finance and waste of stores.”84 Writing in 1782 of the problem, Greene
complained to Governor Burke that “short enlistments are the bane of service. By the
time the men are formed for soldiers their service expires…besides which we are never
able to have our men decently clad, for no sooner is cloathing issued than part of it goes
immediately home.” For Greene, of course, only a regular army would eliminate this
problem.85
Militia companies and regiments in 1780 and 1781 were generally brought in to
the field with a variety of terms of service, typically from six weeks to several months.
Units were often activated for short terms, and rotated service with other companies in
their counties. Greene attempted to get North Carolina to stop the practice of short
militia tours. “It is particularly painful for me to be obliged to prosecute a war under the
disadvantages of depending on Militia and short enlistments,” he told Abner Nash, “every
moment hazards the reputation of any Man who depends on them.” By the spring of
1781, he concluded that four-month militia terms were desirable, but conceded that the
people of the southern states would not allow more lengthy terms. Short service periods
made for “undisciplined troops, who as soon as they are taught their duty, are relieved by
others with whom the Officers have the same trouble, So that in fact they are little better
84
See NCSR, 22:93-159 for a number of these applications, as well as Lazenby, Catawba Frontier, passim;
Nathanael Greene to Elihue Greene, 2 October 1780, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 6:327-328 (Greene
wrote these comments from New York before he was given command in the South, but nothing in his
experience at his new post disabused him of these sentiments); Nathanael Greene to Samuel Huntington, 30
March 1781, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 8:8.
85
Nathanael Greene to Thomas Burke, 8 April 1782, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 11:14. In some
instances, as an encouragement to get the militia to turn out for duty, the men were allowed to serve for a
few months and then “be exempted from military duties for three years after.” Graham, General Joseph
Graham and his Papers on North Carolina Revolutionary War History, 48.
244
than Drill Serjeants.”86 Two years earlier, General Benjamin Lincoln noted the same
thing as he commanded North Carolina militiamen in his army. Besides “the great loss of
time spent marching to and from Camp, they are not long enough in it either to learn the
duties or become ironed to the fatigue of it.” Lincoln also pointed out that if North
Carolina would fill up its Continental regiments as he desired, he would not have to rely
on the militia.87
Greene was later convinced that short terms of service might actually have made
the militia less willing to serve, since with shorter terms they were called up more
frequently: “they get sickly and disgusted with it, much more than when they serve
longer periods.” These brief tours led to much waste and expense, as well as
“depredations committed by the People coming and returning home,” all of which were
to be avoided.88 General Allen Jones of the militia agreed, noting that in North Carolina
“these short enlistments or drafts are destructive wherever admitted: Heaven grant our
Assembly may see the folly of the measure and avoid it for the future even in drawing out
86
William Davies to Thomas Jefferson, 18 March 1781, Papers of Thomas Jefferson Papers, 5:173;
Thomas Jefferson to N.C. General Assembly, Papers of Thomas Jefferson, 5:54; Nathanael Greene to
Abner Nash, 6 March 1781, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 7:402; Nathanael Greene to Andrew Pickens, 9
May 1781, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 8:232; Nathanael Greene to William Davies, 23 May 1781,
Papers of Nathanael Greene, 8:298. Greene referred here to short enlistments as an “evil.”; George Gibson
to Jefferson, 5 February 1781, Papers of Thomas Jefferson, 4:529; Nathanael Greene to Samuel
Huntington, 31 January 1781, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 7:225; William Caswell to Thomas Burke, 4
September 1781, NCSR, 15:632. Joseph Graham, however, does give examples of the militia staying
longer than their tours. See Graham, General Joseph Graham and his Papers on North Carolina
Revolutionary War History, 54.
87
Benjamin Lincoln to Richard Caswell, 14 April 1779, NCSR, 14:68.
88
Nathanael Greene to Thomas Burke, 12 August 1781, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 9:165-166. In
response to a possible British cavalry incursion into North Carolina in July 1781, Governor Burke called on
several counties to supply expert riflemen to come forth immediately, with the promise that their next
scheduled militia tour would be no longer than one month. Burke to John Butler, 18 July 1781, NCSR,
15:548-549.
245
the militia.”89 Yet surely these officers recognized that for many Carolinians, militia
service took them away from their families and communities, which could leave all they
held dear defenseless during times of enemy invasions or Tory hostilities. Short tours
alleviated concerns of militiamen, although they made military planning by state and
Continental authorities difficult as a result.
No matter how long the men were obliged to serve, however, they frequently
objected to how officials interpreted their time served, and pronounced their desires to
return home. Often militia units were kept with the army past the expiration of their
required times of service, much to their dislike. General Jethro Sumner warned civilian
officials in 1780 that two of his drafted militia regiments “are very turbulent and
complain of their time being out. They are not to be depended on; they will not fight, I
verily believe.” Greene lamented in March 1781 that some units of the North Carolina
militia with his army “cannot be prevailed on to continue in a disagreeable service longer
than they are bound to by agreement.” Often, it was difficult for officers to ascertain
their available troops given the unpredictable nature of militia enlistment periods. These
men “come and go in such irregular bodies,” Greene reported, “that I can make no
calculation on the strength of my Army or direct any future operations that can ensure me
success….a force fluctuating in this manner can promise but slender hopes of
89
Allen Jones to Thomas Burke, 6 July 1781, NCSR, 15:515. Washington made the interesting observation
during the war that if the states were more successful in filling up their Continental regiments and keeping
them on foot, the need to embody the states’ militia forces would decrease significantly. George
Washington to Thomas Nelson, Jr., 8 November 1777, Chase, The Papers of George Washington, 12:170171. The North Carolina delegates to Congress made a similar point in 1776. North Carolina Delegates to
the North Carolina Council of Safety, 26 September 1776, Letters of Delegates to the Continental
Congress, 5:250.
246
success…”90 “Twenty thousand men night be in motion in the manner the Militia come
and go,” he added with some exaggeration, “and we not have an operating force in the
field of five hundred men.”91 He was pained to “be obliged to prosecute a War under the
disadvantages of depending on Militia and short enlistments,” notably due to the adverse
effects it would have on his reputation.92 Debates over what constituted a proper tour of
service for militiamen of North Carolina became so contentious that the legislature in
early 1781 specified that three months were required of a militia soldier, “from the time
of his arrival at headquarters.”93 This in effect amounted to an official concession by
lawmakers that militiamen could not be brought to the field for sufficient lengths of time.
Obstinacy characterized many militia forces with regard to their commitments.
Having experienced the difficulties of short militia tours for several months,
Greene recommended drafting troops for three or four years, as “short enlistments are
dangerous, and can give you no permanent security.” He thought a year in the field was
required to give militiamen the experience they needed to perform well, and even men
drafted for eighteen months “are but little better than raw” recruits. What he wanted of
course was something close to regular army, but by the last several months of 1781, he
90
Jethro Sumner to John Penn, NCSR, 14:780. No date is given in the volume for the letter but its
placement implies September 1780. Penn was a member of the Board of War, and in a subsequent undated
letter to Sumner (NCSR, 14:781) he told the general to make the best terms he could get from the militia as
far as time to be served.); Major P. Eaton to Sumner, 17 April 1781, NCSR, 15:440-441; William
Smallwood to Horatio Gates, 17 November 1780, NCSR, 14:744; Nathanael Greene to Jefferson, 31 March
1781, Papers of Thomas Jefferson, 5:301; Nathanael Greene to Thomas Jefferson, 10 March 1781, Papers
of Thomas Jefferson, 5:111-112; see also NCSR, 14:421.
91
Nathanael Greene to Samuel Huntington, 31 January 1781, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 7:225;
Nathanael Greene to Joseph Reed, 18 March 1781, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 7:449.
92
Nathanael Greene to Abner Nash, 6 March, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 7:102.
93
NCSR, 24:364.
247
must have realized he would not see one.94 Thomas Burke succinctly captured the
essence of this problem in words written to the state’s Assembly in June 1781, shortly
after his gubernatorial term began. He opined that militia concerns should be the first
order of business the lawmakers take up, since the “short enlistment periods for which the
militia are called into service, render them inadequate either to defensive or offensive
operations and yet, a burthen almost insupportable to the people.” Notwithstanding
Burke’s entreaty to remedy such deficiencies, North Carolina took little action to do so.95
Some men would not even serve out short tours of militia duty. Desertion for a
variety of reasons was a common occurrence among southern militiamen, particularly
draftees, who were for the most part in the service against their will.96 Countless men
deserted because state officials were slow to provide them with promised recruiting
bonuses, while too many officers failed to check the widespread practice of leaving the
ranks without permission.97 Reports that men were “hiding themselves in the woods” to
avoid service were not unknown as early as 1778.98 Moreover, many civilians were
sympathetic to the plight of those who deserted and often aided or concealed them from
94
Nathanael Greene to Thomas Nelson, Jr., 10 August 1781, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 9:160.
95
Thomas Burke to the General Assembly, 29 June 1781, NCSR, 22:1033.
96
Nathanael Greene to Washington, 19 November 1780, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 6:487. Greene also
thought that the poor quality of clothing with the approaching cold weather also contributed to the desertion
of drafted men.
97
William Davies to Thomas Jefferson, 18 March 1781, Papers of Thomas Jefferson, 5:173-176.
98
John Butler to Caswell, 14 November 1778, NCSR, 13:278.
248
authorities bent on recapturing those absent from the ranks. Many court records show on
their dockets cases regarding harboring of deserters, which the state had made illegal.99
Upon assuming command of the Southern Department, Greene ordered North
Carolina militia General Jethro Sumner to “take the most effectual measures to collect all
deserters,” and to announce an amnesty to all those who would return to their
companies.100 Even with such measures, desertion remained problematic. Col. James
Martin’s unit of the Guilford County militia embodied in January 1781 to support
Greene’s army. After some difficulty providing arms for his men, Martin prepared to
join the Continental forces but news of the approaching British army “struck such a terror
on [his company] that some of that number deserted before the battle at old Martinsville.”
These men no doubt took their muskets with them when they fled. Often, militia
deserters when caught were made to enroll in a Continental regiment or state battalion for
lengthy tours as punishment. In the face of such incidents, Greene was often “vexed to
my soul with the Militia, they desert us by hundreds, nay thousands.”101 Before the battle
of Guilford Courthouse, Greene deplored the propensity of militia to desert at such a
crucial time. “Those who turned out as Volunteers begin to drop off by hundreds,” he
complained, “nor is it in the power of persuasion or threats to prevent it.” Around the
99
See for example Wilmington District Court Criminal Docket, 1778-1787 (Dist. Court Records, 12.009),
and Hillsborough District Superior Court Minute Docket, 1768-1788, Vol. 1 (Dist. Sup. Court Records
204.311.1), both in the N.C. State Archives, for cases of harboring deserters.
100
101
Nathanael Greene to Jethro Sumner, n.d., NCSR, 14:792.
Pension Declaration of James Martin, NCSR, 22:147; Minutes of the N.C. Board of War, 3 October
1780, NCSR, 14:403; Minutes of the N.C. Board of War, 13 November 1780, NCSR, 14:461; Nathanael
Greene to Abner Nash, 13 April 1781, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 8:89; Gen. Thomas Eaton to Greene, 4
April 1781, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 8:50; Gen. Thomas Eaton to Gen. Jethro Sumner, 13 April 1781,
NCSR, 15:438; Col. Charles Porterfield to Horatio Gates, 15 August 1780, NCSR, 14:558. Porterfield was
a Virginian but his letter and location imply that he was referring to N.C. militia; Nathanael Greene to
Henry Lee, 9 March 1781, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 7:415.
249
same time he advised North Carolina’s governor that “the desertions which prevail in the
Militia will, I am afraid, dwindle my force into a body too weak to act offencively. They
get tired out with difficulties, and for want of discipline bid defiance to authority. Every
effort to save a Country under such circumstances must prove ineffectual.” Those who
fled the field at Guilford a fortnight later were liable to be collected and forced to serve
twelve months in North Carolina’s newly-raised Continental battalions. By June 1781,
desertion was such a problem the state exempted from three months militia duty anyone
who turned in a man “delinquent from the militia service”—quite a reward considering
the state’s manpower difficulties at that time.102 Even more telling were the measures
adopted by General Sumner in July 1781, who in the Salisbury district found “great
deficiencies and desertions, which I have endeavored to stop by approving of a general
Court Martial[,] whereat two [deserters] were sentenced to be put to death, one of which
accordingly was shot, the other was pardoned.” Such draconian measures had little
effect, however, for the same night as the executions took place, Sumner reported
additional desertions.103
The popularity of militia officers among the rank and file of their men could not
be ignored by the Revolutionary leadership, and was considered by them to be a means to
halt desertion. One of the North Carolina congressional delegates, for instance, remarked
on the influence of General William L. Davidson at the battle of Cowan’s Ford, North
102
Nathanael Greene to Abner Nash, 9 February 1781, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 7:265; Nathanael
Greene to John Butler, 13 February 1781, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 7:284; Nathanael Greene to Otho
H. Williams, 13 February 1781, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 7:385; Greene to Pickens, 21 February 1781,
Papers of Nathanael Greene, 7:327; Nathanael Greene to Baron Steuben, 29 February 1781, Papers of
Nathanael Greene, 7:377; Nathanael Greene to Abner Nash, 6 March 1781, Papers of Nathanael Greene,
7:402; NCSR, 24:386; Henry Dixon to Jethro Sumner, 22 May 1781, NCSR, 15:464; Nathanael Greene to
Abner Nash, 6 March 1781, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 7:402.
103
Jethro Sumner to Thomas Burke, 14 July 1781, NCSR, 15:530.
250
Carolina in February 1781, and noted that after his death in battle that year, the effects on
the militia under his command would be injurious. “The fall of General Davidson has
left [his men] without a head in whom they have confidence as an officer.”104 Greene
took this into consideration when recommending officers for militia commands. After
Davidson’s death, Greene suggested that Col. Thomas Polk “be appointed to succeed
him. He has great influence in that quarter,” a quality certainly useful in recruiting.105
Persuasion was a key element. For instance, two Cumberland County, North Carolina
civil leaders petitioned Governor Nash in 1780 to appoint James Emmettt to the
colonelcy of their county’s militia regiment. In addition to listing Emmett’s military
qualifications for the position, the two petitioners advised the Governor that under
Emmett’s “direction we have reason to believe that the Militia of Cumberland might be
induced to render more essential services…than if headed by any other person. They
would gladly undertake and cheerfully execute every order he issued,” and perhaps stay
in the ranks.106 In June 1781, Gov. Nash similarly worried that with the resignation of a
militia commander there might occur a “disturbance among the men he brought for
Halifax district.”107 Greene warned Nash in June that “popular characters are not always
the best officers where they are more intent upon pleasing the people than discharging
104
William Sharpe to George Washington, 27 February 1781, Letters of Delegates to Congress, 16:750.
105
Nathanael Greene to the N.C. Legislature, 15 February 1781, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 7:291. Polk
was not appointed, to Greene’s dismay. See also Andrew Armstrong to Thomas Burke, 28 August 1781,
NCSR, 22:1047, for another report of the influence officers had on getting men to serve.
106
Robert Cochran and Edward Winslow to Nash, 19 September 1780, NCSR, 15:80.
107
Abner Nash to Richard Caswell, 10 June 1781, NCSR, 15:479.
251
their duty,” yet he could not ignore this as a factor in getting men to take the field.108 The
influence of popular or respected militia officers in getting men to turn out or to stop
desertion also reflects the localist outlook of many Carolinians, who preferred to serve
under trusted officers then knew well within the context of their communities.
Mutinous behavior was not the only worrisome trait of some militia units in the
southern campaign. The conflict in the south, notably in its last few years, was not only a
struggle between redcoats and Continentals, but a brutal, chaotic civil war as well.
Militia units on both sides, at times acting under the auspices of no legitimate civil or
military authority, perpetrated numerous outrages against each other,
“depredations…scarce to be paralleled,” as one Carolinian observed in 1781.109 Civilians
were not exempt from this illicit violence, which was often little more than the settling of
private scores. Brutalities committed by those ostensibly under the orders of civil
authority did little to support the legitimacy of North Carolina’s embryonic Whig
government. These unsanctioned actions of the part of militia units degraded their
morale and military effectiveness, squandered critical resources needed by military forces
within the state, and substantially added to the chaotic situation during the war.110
108
Nathanael Greene to Abner Nash, 9 June 1781, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 8:370.
109
Letter to Gov. Alexander Martin, 19 December 1781, NCSR, 22:602.
110
Treatment of the civil war in the Carolinas and associated militia atrocities has been most recently
explored by Wayne Lee in Crowds and Soldiers in Revolutionary North Carolina. See also Shy, A People
Numerous and Armed, 213-244; Clyde R. Ferguson, “Carolina and Georgia Patriot and Loyalist Militia in
Action, 1778-1783,” in Jeffrey J. Crow and Larry E. Tise, eds., The Southern Experience in the American
Revolution (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1978), 174-199; Robert M. Weir, “’The
Violent Spirit,’ the Reestablishment of Order and the Continuity of Leadership in Post-Revolutionary South
Carolina,” in Ron Hoffman, et.al., eds. An Uncivil War, 70-98; A Roger Ekirch, “Whig Authority and
Public Order in Backcountry North Carolina, 1776-1783, in Ibid., 99-124; Jeffrey J. Crow, “Liberty Men
and Loyalists: Disorder and Disaffection in the North Carolina Backcountry,” in Ibid., 125-178; Scott M.
Langston, “Negotiating the Boundaries of Power: Governor Thomas Burke as Mediator in Revolutionary
252
North Carolina militia troops “committed the most shocking cruelties and the
most horrid Murders on those suspected of being our friends that I ever heard of,” an
anguished Lord Cornwallis wrote in 1780.111 A well-known case is the ruthless treatment
of loyalist officers captured at the battle of Kings Mountain in October 1780, in
retaliation for the murders of Carolina revolutionaries in the backcountry. One of the
North Carolina Whig commanders, Isaac Shelby, recalled years later that the situation
required retaliatory measures to put a stop to these atrocities. A copy of
the law of North Carolina was obtained, which authorized two magistrates
to summon a jury, and forthwith to try, and if found guilty, to execute
persons who had violated its precepts. Under this law thirty-six men were
tried and found guilty of breaking open houses, killing the men, turning
the women out of doors and burning the houses. The trial was conducted
late at night. The execution of the law was as summary as the trial; Three
men were hung at a time until nine were hung.112
In June 1781, the British commander at Wilmington complained of “the inhuman
treatment imposed on the King’s friends on every occasion and by every party of militia
now in arms,” including “the deliberate and wanton murders daily committed.”113 In
response, North Carolina Governor Thomas Burke replied that “the war has unhappily
kindled the most fierce and vindictive animosity” between Whigs and Tories in the
Carolinas, and reminded the British officer that whether the war had “produced more
violence on one side than the other might probably prove a very unpleasant and
North Carolina” (M.A. thesis, University of Texas-Arlington, 2000); John S. Watterson III, “The Ordeal of
Governor Burke.” North Carolina Historical Review 48 (April 1971): 95-117.
111
Lord Cornwallis to Sir Henry Clinton, 3 December 1780, NCSR, 15:306-7.
112
NCSR, 15:109. See also Draper, King’s Mountain, 329-356, and Crary, ed., The Price of Loyalty, 239. It
should be noted that the Whigs here gave these proceedings at least a veneer of legality by holding “trials”
with magistrates.
113
Major James H. Craig, 82nd Regt., to Abner Nash, 20 June 1781, NCSR, 22:1024.
253
unsatisfactory Enquiry, but it is certain that many people have been killed by those whom
you are pleased to call the King’s friends.”114 A group of captured North Carolina Whig
militiamen in 1781 reported numerous outrages to civilians perpetrated by American
militia groups, including murder, arson and pillage.115 Moravian leaders in Salem
complained to Greene and others of “the great Excesses at all Times committed by the
Militia” for most of the war.116 Greene too noted that the “whole country is on danger of
being laid waste by the Whigs and Torrys, who pursue each other with as much relentless
fury as beasts of prey.” Whig militia units committed many of these atrocities, which the
government and army were largely powerless to prevent.117
Carolinians unfortunately suffered at the hands of the enemy and their own troops
as well. In December 1781, acting Governor Alexander Martin obtained news from
Wilmington of the “depredations committed by the Western militia upon friends and
foe,” which were “scarce to be paralleled.” The writer bitterly stated that these rapacious
soldiers were plundering the locals, impressing their fodder and slaves, and otherwise
creating disturbances. Declaration signer William Hooper’s home near Wilmington was
plundered and ransacked by British soldiers as well as Whig militiamen. Once Burke
returned to his post in 1782 he expressed his concern about “the Injurious and disgraceful
114
Thomas Burke to Maj. James Craig, 27 June 1781, NCSR, 22:1027.
115
Gen. Herndon Ramsey to Thomas Burke, 22 July 1781, NCSR, 22:550-551.
116
See Fries, Records of the Moravians, 4:1908, 1910, for a representative example.
117
Nathanael Greene to Samuel Huntington, 28 December 1780, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 7:9; see also
Nathanael Greene to Alexander Hamilton, 10 January 1781, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 7:88. See also
Gen. Allen Jones to the N.C. General Assembly, 27 June 1781, NCSR, 22:1031 for an incident in which a
Tory officer may have been murdered while in the custody of militia troops. Otho Holland Williams noted
that after the rout at Camden, fleeing North Carolina militiamen plundered from friend and foe alike on
their way home. See Williams, “Narrative,” 375.
254
behavior of our Militia” involved, and sought effective measures to punish those who
could be identified as offenders, who acted “Irregularly and oppressively against the
Inhabitants.”118
Residents of Salem and the other Moravian villages reported numerous abuses
during the war by Whig militiamen using their military service as a cover to commit
robberies and other acts maltreatment. In other cases, militia units (whether properly
raised or not) seemed to be more dangerous to the populace than the disaffected or the
British. In the Salisbury area, inhabitants complained that “Scouts of Light-horsemen as
well as foot, and oftimes parties of the most abandoned wretches among the people
formed themselves into small parties, and under the Specious pretext of hunting Tories
and out-lyers, delinquents, etc., have committed and perpetuated numberless barbarities,
Assassinations, Murders and Robberies throughout this whole district for upwards of
Two Years.” These backcountry men also complained that rogue Whig militia groups
abused noncombatants as well. “Numbers of persons such as Women and Children have
been tortured, hung up and strangled, cut down and hung up again, sometimes branded
with brands, or other hot irons in order to extort Confessions from them against their
Fathers, Brothers, or others.” Such incidents of the abuses committed by militia forces,
particularly from 1780 to 1782, reflect their lack of training, experience and restraint. Of
course, such renegades and their excesses were not sanctioned by state or even county
118
It should be noted, however, that the opportunity to plunder the Tories may have been a strong incentive
for Carolina Whigs to serve their militia tours. Thomas Burke to Alexander Lillington, 27 February 1782,
NCSR, 16:528; Alexander Lillington to Thomas Burke, 29 March 1782, NCSR, 16:569-570; Unidentified to
Alexander Martin, 19 December 1781, 22:602-603; Alan Watson, et. al., Harnett, Hooper & Howe:
Revolutionary Leaders of the Lower Cape Fear (Wilmington, N.C.: L.T. Moore Memorial Commission,
Lower Cape Fear Historical Society, 1979), 52-54; Rachel Klein, Unification of a Slave State: the Rise of
the Planter Class in the South Carolina Backcountry, 1760-1808 (Chapel Hill: University of North
Carolina Press, 1990), 104.
255
authorities; nevertheless, these outrages could have done little to engender support for the
cause of independence among many Carolinians, who doubtlessly failed to draw such a
distinction.119
While civilian and military leaders alike wrestled with a number of problems
related to arming, equipping and controlling militia units in North Carolina as the war in
the South intensified, often their largest concern was getting men to mobilize at all. “O
that we had in the field[,] as Henry the Fifth said, some few of the many thousands that
are Idle at Home,” Greene wrote shortly after he assumed command in North Carolina.120
While the early years of the struggle saw an unwillingness on the part of many
Carolinians to serve militia tours, this reluctance was much more pronounced as the war
dragged on, so that by June 1781 Governor Abner Nash had to inform the North Carolina
Assembly that “it has been found almost impossible to draw out the militia in any order
or just proportion.” This failure of militia regiments to mobilize and report for duty had a
profound effect on military operations. “The tardiness of the people puts it out of my
power to attempt anything great,” Greene concluded in a typical letter that illustrates how
a lack of troops influenced the abilities of Patriots to wage the war. Manpower concerns
even led some officers, though certainly a small minority, to advocate the raising of
“battalions of negroes” in the south to be comprised of armed slaves. The plan, not
surprisingly, was never adopted. While officers, legislatures and governors could call out
119
Petition of Inhabitants of Rowan County, undated, Grievances, Joint Papers, General Assembly Session
Records, April-May 1782, Box 1, N.C. State Archives.
120
Crary, ed., The Price of Loyalty, 61-62; Nathanael Greene to Baron Steuben, 3 February 1781, Papers of
Nathanael Greene, 7:243. The line is actually Westmoreland’s, in Act IV, Part iii: “O that we now had
here/But one ten thousand of those men in England/That do no work to-day!” Thanks to Greg Urwin for
this correction.
256
militia regiments and institute drafts, many factors conspired against them in their efforts
to deliver men to the patriot army.121
During the war years, all four of North Carolina’s chief executives (in addition to
its military leaders) received numerous reports of militia soldiers failing to turn out. This
was especially true starting in 1777, when the state began to seek large numbers of men
for temporary militia service in South Carolina. Typically, county or district militia
officers wrote to their superiors to report of mobilization difficulties or delays.122
Caswell thought that in general getting the men across the state to serve was difficult
“owing to individuals who have undertaken to find fault with the measures now
pursuing,” probably a reference to using the draft.123 Numerous reports of men averse to
service came to the attention of state authorities through the end of the war. From
Beaufort County, an officer reported in 1779 to Governor Caswell that he tried to get
“men raised to go into the service, but everything is done that can be invented to obstruct
that business in this County.”124 A militia officer from Hertford County also advised
121
N.C. House Journal, 23 June 1781, NCSR, 17:881; Nathanael Greene to Samuel Huntington, 5 May
1781, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 8:206-207; Nathanael Greene to Joseph Reed, 4 May 1781, Papers of
Nathanael Greene, 8:201; Alexander Hamilton to John Jay, 14 March 1779, Papers of Alexander
Hamilton, 2:17-18. Hamilton supported this measure to arm black bondsmen: “If we do not make use of
them in this way,” he wrote of the slaves, “the enemy probably will.” John Laurens proposed arming South
Carolina slaves to fight the British, but found little support in his state for such a radical plan. Congress
recommended in 1780 that South Carolina and Georgia raise several thousand black troops made up of
slaves, for which whom the owners would be compensated. See Greg Massey, John Laurens and the
American Revolution (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 2000); James Haw, John & Edward
Rutledge of South Carolina (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1997), 122, 165; and NCSR, 19:911-914,
where Laurens’ proposition is given. For Nathanael Greene’s endorsement of the plan to arm blacks, see
his letter to John Rutledge, 9 December 1781, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 10:22.
122
John Butler to Richard Caswell, 14 November 1778, NCSR, 13:278; Alan Jones to Richard Caswell, 7
August 1779, Preston Davie Collection, Southern Historical Collection, UNC, Box 2, #90.
123
Richard Caswell to John Ashe, 8 December 1778, NCSR, 13:322.
124
Thomas Bonner to Richard Caswell, 2 July 1779, NCSR, 14:138-139.
257
Caswell of his difficulties mobilizing his men, in 1780. He noted that “through a
multiplicity of difficulties and inconveniencies which naturally arise upon these
occasions amongst the militia, who are so unaccustomed to march into the field of Mars,
I have not been able to get them off so soon as I could have wished for.”125 General Isaac
Gregory of Pasquotank County reported his progress to Governor Nash in the weeks after
the fall of Charleston in 1780, from Camden County. “Some counties turn out very well,
and others seem something tardy,” he wrote.126 Caswell, who served as the state’s militia
commander in the Camden campaign, advised General Gates that “the militia are coming
in pretty fast, but I fear the number directed to be raised will not be completed by at least
one-third,” and could not be supplied at his camp for more than a few days.127
Particularly after the setback at Camden, and later when British troops entered the
state in 1781, reports of recalcitrant men failing to mobilize remained commonplace.
Perhaps they feared that with the destruction of Gates’ army their homes and farms were
dangerously exposed to British attack or Tory raids. In September 1781, militia
Brigadier General William Caswell reported to Governor Burke from Kingston of his
efforts to raise men, but he was “very doubtful few will turn out unless [by] a Draught.”
The proximity of the enemy at Wilmington may have kept many local men at home,
Caswell suggested.128 By the war’s last months, men were no more willing to serve than
125
Col. George Little to Richard Caswell, 30 March 1780, NCSR, 15:364.
126
Gen. Isaac Gregory to Abner Nash, 7 June 1780, NCSR, 14:842. Gregory commanded a militia brigade
at Camden and was bayoneted seven times there before falling captive to the British.
127
Richard Caswell to Horatio Gates, 20 June 1780, NCSR, 14:856.
128
William Caswell to Thomas Burke, 11 September 1781, NCSR, 15:641. William Caswell was the son of
Richard Caswell, three-time governor of the state during the war.
258
at earlier times. Perhaps sensing the end of the struggle and with the British threat
eliminated within their own borders, Carolinians might have been even more resistant to
perform militia duty than at any other time during the Revolution.129
Reluctance on the part of North Carolinians to leave their homes and farms for
militia duty was widespread and common throughout the war, and was typical of all of
the American states. There were few instances during the revolutionary struggle in North
Carolina of large-scale, timely and effective militia mobilization like that of the
campaigns of Moore’s Creek in 1776, and Kings Mountain in 1780. In fact, these two
bright spots in the state militia’s wartime history are rather conspicuous exceptions to an
otherwise lackluster record from 1775 to 1783. As military leaders consistently reported
instead, for a variety of motives a vast number of men tried to avoid serving in the militia
during the war, found it inconvenient to do so, or were persuaded by others to remain
home, even during times of crisis. It seems likely that, as Gregory Knouff has concluded
in his study of localism in revolutionary Pennsylvania, North Carolinians also “actively
pursued the conflict when it directly infringed upon their own communities, families and
livelihoods.”130 These reasons for not turning out made for significant military
difficulties and added greatly to the confusion within the state as men defied state laws
for service, left their tours at inopportune times, and even openly rebelled against those in
authority who sought to compel them to defend the new state.
129
Samuel Smith to William Caswell, 20 September 1781, William Caswell Papers, PC 412.1,
Miscellaneous Papers, N.C. State Archives; William Ferebee to Jethro Sumner, 20 February 1782, NCSR,
16:516-517. According to the state militia laws, each county was to have one company of light horse in
their militia regiment, but the difficulty in securing mounts and all of the necessary equipment for this type
of unit made it difficult or impossible for a number of counties to establish them.
130
Knouff, The Soldiers’ Revolution, 278. This was especially true with regard to the transmontane Indian
threat. See also Carp, To Starve the Army with Pleasure, 5-7.
259
Often, the threat of Tories kept militia members at home, either to protect their
property or because they were afraid to muster. Although British Major Patrick
Ferguson’s advance in the fall of 1780 with a Loyalist force into western North Carolina
provoked a major armed response from frontier Whigs prior to Kings Mountain, it also
induced many men to remain in Rowan County, and presumably other places, for their
own safety. General Greene later conceded that “there are many good Whigs in [North
Carolina], but I verily believe the Tories are much the most numerous,” which
doubtlessly made Whigs reluctant to march off to war. Not only did Tory activity tend to
cow reluctant rebels into staying at home, it also led others to switch their allegiance.
Captain William Armstrong recalled that after the battle of Camden, he had great
difficulty regrouping his Lincoln County militia. “I found but eight men who were good
and true, the rest had joined the tories. Such was the disaffection in that county at that
time.” During the summer of 1781, in Bladen County, hundreds of men did not “dare
move in behalf of their Country” on account of a strong Tory presence there.” Success of
British regular forces also intimidated patriot militia troops. Lord Cornwallis reported
that after the British dispersed the Whigs at Cowan’s Ford in 1781, the result “so
effectually dispirited the Militia that we met with no further opposition on our march to
the Yadkin, through one of the most rebellious tracts in America.” When Greene’s army
was nearby, Whigs had an easier time of turning out their militia units, but so long as
British arms ruled the countryside, mustering could mean property destruction,
imprisonment or death for Patriots who openly embodied. Indeed, with British forces in
the state that summer and fall, coupled with a lack of well-trained, properly armed forces
to keep them in check, many Carolinians were either captured and paroled, or they had to
260
“withdraw themselves to places of Safety to prevent the same fate.” This was
particularly common in the counties near Wilmington, and the lower Cape Fear Valley.131
Whig militiamen worried about the safety of their families during times of enemy
incursions, which led many to ignore calls to turn out for military service, and threats of
Indian attacks kept many western men close to home at several periods during the war.132
In 1780, Col. William Preston of western Virginia offered to send several companies of
his state’s troops to Surry County, North Carolina “to overawe the Tories in your County
& the neighborhood,” so that the Carolinians could do their militia service with Gates
“with more safety to their families & Property.” 133 Residents of Carteret County, North
Carolina petitioned the governor and council to allow its militia companies to serve
within that county, or “we shall be entirely disabled to withstand the weakest efforts of
our Enemy, and left at the mercy of the most trifling plunderers.” Again, as these
examples demonstrate, local threats served to reduce militia turn outs.134
General Greene too was troubled by reluctant militiamen as Cornwallis began his
invasion of North Carolina. “The people have been so harassed for eight months past and
131
Gen. William Davidson to Gates, 14 September 1780, NCSR, 14:616; Nathanael Greene to Joseph Reed,
4 May 1781, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 8:200; Nathanael Greene to William Davies, 23 May 1781,
Papers of Nathanael Greene, 8:298; Pension Declaration of William Armstrong, NCSR, 22:108; Thomas
Robeson to Governor Thomas Burke, 10 July 1781, NCSR, 22:543; Lord Cornwallis to Lord George
Germain, 17 March 1781, NCSR, 17:998; Nathanael Greene to N.C. Legislature, 15 February 1781, Papers
of Nathanael Greene, 7:290; Nathanael Greene to George Washington, 15 February 1781, Papers of
Nathanael Greene, 7:293; Thomas Robeson to Thomas Burke, 15 July 1781, NCSR, 22:547; John Ramsey
to Thomas Burke, 15 August 1781, NCSR, 22:563.
132
Draper, King’s Mountain, 172; Ramsey, The Annals of Tennessee, 261-272.
133
Col. William Preston to Col. Martin Armstrong, 18 September 1780, NCSR, 14:626-627.
134
Nathanael Greene to Samuel Huntington, 22 April 1781, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 8:131; Petition of
certain Inhabitants of Carteret County,” NCSR, 15:146-147; John Skinner to Jefferson, 11 April 1781,
Papers of Thomas Jefferson, 5:406-407. Skinner also reported that over two-thirds of these men were
unarmed.
261
their domestick matters are in such distress that they will not leave home,” he reported to
Congress, “and if they do it is for so short a time that they are of no use.” Even wellregarded militia general William L. Davidson had trouble collecting militia as the British
army chased Greene across the state in 1781. Despite using “all of the arguments in his
power to get the militia into the field,” the men had seen “so much service and their
families [were] so distressed that they were loth to leave home even on the most pressing
occasion.” Indian threats in western regions dissuaded many “Mountain Men” from
marching toward Greene “until the apprehensions of danger…may in some measure be
removed.” These two examples are more evidence pf the localist perspective held by
militiamen. In 1781, British commanders also recognized that minor operations in
various parts of the South assisted Cornwallis’ main thrust against Greene by “obliging
the Militia to return to take care of their own property.”135
In addition to concerns about domestic safety, men frequently avoided militia
service during times of pressing agricultural demands—the “busy season of the year.”136
Thus, the need for men to concentrate on individual, family, or community needs was
often more important than serving on campaign for months far from home. Early in
1776, Thomas Burke—then chairman of the province’s Committee of Secrecy, War and
Intelligence—reported that in the western militia districts, troops would not be called up
immediately as they were “inhabited chiefly by wheat farmers and if obliged to leave
135
Nathanael Greene to Samuel Huntington, 31 January 1781, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 7:225; Col.
Arthur Campbell to Jefferson , 4 June 1781, Papers of Thomas Jefferson, 6:80; William Preston to
Jefferson, 13 April 1781, Papers of Thomas Jefferson, 5:436; Lord George Germain to Sir Henry Clinton, 7
March 1781, NCSR, 17:990; Ichabod Burnet to Henry Lee, Jr., 2 February 1781, Papers of Nathanael
Greene, 7:234; Nathanael Greene to Thomas Sumter, 9 February 1781, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 7:267.
136
Thomas Jefferson to James Callaway, 16 April 1781, Papers of Thomas Jefferson, 5:464; Committee
Report, 25 March 1779, Papers of Henry Laurens, 15:72.
262
their crops before they can save that necessary Grain, a dearth in the next year could
scarcely be avoided.” He also noted that militia in the neighboring districts had seen such
long service in the field “it has become irksome and exceeding burthensome to them.”137
Rowan County militia officers sent a remonstrance to the General Assembly in April
1778, as spring plowing season was underway. “From the frequent calling for the
industrious yeomanry of this country into the field,” they proclaimed, “many great
inconveniences arise, one of which…is the hindrance of tillage and consequently a
scarcity of provisions.” Such shortages were more to be dreaded than reinforcements
sent South by the British high command in New York, the officers opined, and went on to
stress the need for a permanent force of regulars.138 Governor Caswell was convinced by
1779 that keeping militia troops “on foot” in springtime was detrimental to farmers in the
ranks, and should be avoided unless military circumstances dictated otherwise. The
timing of active military operations was particularly troublesome in 1781, since the
campaigns of Guilford Courthouse and Hobkirk Hill, both of which involved many North
Carolina soldiers, took place in the springtime.139 Mecklenburgers summed up the
problem succinctly in their late 1781 petition to lawmakers. The “repeated and large
drafts of Militia are extremely injurious to the culture and destroy the resources of the
country,” a charge many across the war-torn state would have no doubt supported.140
137
Thomas Burke to Charles Lee, 6 May 1776, NCSR, 11:296.
138
Petition of Rowan Militia Officers, 23 January 1779, Petitions, General Assembly Session Records,
April-May 1778, Box 1, N.C. State Archives.
139
Richard Caswell to Alexander Lillington, 13 April 1779, NCSR, 14:66; George Wesley Troxler, “The
Homefront in Revolutionary North Carolina” (Ph.D. dissertation, UNC-Chapel Hill, 1970), 12.
140
Petition of Inhabitants of the Salisbury District, December 1781, Joint Papers, General Assembly
Session Records, April-May 1782, Box 1, N.C. State Archives.
263
As Carolina and Continental officials discovered to their chagrin, much of the
militia’s discontent and reluctance to serve was encouraged and abetted by their own
local officers, who were quite often just as unwilling to turn out. This was a widespread
problem in the state. Many militia leaders refused to support the state’s war efforts, were
incompetent, or lacked sufficient resources to get men into the field. Others were
accused of “pursuing their own pecuniary views by fraud, bribery and partiality.”
Without the encouragement of their commanders, especially at the company level, it
should come as no surprise that many of those in the ranks sought to avoid the
burdensome duty associated with the militia as well.141
Examples of officers’ efforts to thwart the mobilization of militia units are
plentiful, and can be found even in the first days of the war. According to a 1777 report
to the governor, “recruiting service has been much discouraged in the back country by
some of the first Militia officers, notwithstanding which there are men to be got there at
this time, if proper officers with money were sent there for that purpose.”142 A number of
complaints against militia officers reached the General Assembly in 1778, to the point
that legislators prescribed a process for hearing such complaints on a local basis, to be
141
Archibald Maclaine to Thomas Burke, 9 February 1781, Thomas Burke Papers, Box 55.1, N.C. State
Archives; Petition of Inhabitants of the Salisbury District, December 1781, Joint Papers, General Assembly
Session Records, April-May 1782, Box 1, N.C. State Archives; Richard Caswell to Thomas Burke, 26
February 1777, NCSR, 11:397. See also NCSR, 11:443, and Richard Caswell to Thomas Burke, 20 April
1777, NCSR, 11:457, for several reports of Continental officers who refused to serve or act that year, or
whose conduct was deemed slow by state officials. In fact, by the end of 1777, the state legislature had
become so frustrated with the unwillingness of North Carolinians to serve with Washington’s army, it
resolved that any of the state’s officers who resigned from Continental duty would be held “incapable of
holding hereafter any office Civil or Military.” The resolution was repealed the following year. NCSR,
12:685.
142
William L. Davidson to Richard Caswell, 4 August 1777, NCSR, 11:557. See also the deposition of
David Jenkins, 29 March 1776, Revolutionary War Papers (Collection #2194), Southern Historical
Collection, UNC, microfilm, reel 1.
264
handled by the militia structure’s chain of command.143 Governor Caswell objected in
1778 that “many Militia officers are tardy in the discharge of their respective duties, and I
fear the influence of some persons, who have been throwing out conjectures and
observations to the disadvantage of the glorious cause of Freedom.”144 Shortly thereafter
he admitted “I am greatly chagrined at the conduct of our militia officers in not sending
out their men. I know they are shamefully deficient not only in numbers, but also in
Arms, accoutrements and clothing, but the leaders of the people in different parts of the
state, who disapproved of sending any Troops were the occasion of such a shameful
conduct in the officers.” This observation places the blame for the soldiers’ poor
showing on the militia’s leadership, not the men themselves.145 Along these lines, in
1779, the militia commander of the Wilmington district reported to Caswell that he could
get no returns from Brunswick County’s “Col. Wingate. He will not even condescend to
answer a letter, altho’ often wrote to. I believe it is long since he has called a muster. I
think it is high time that there should be notice taken of him, other wise we may exclude
the County altogether, and have nothing to say to it.”146 Although colonels were required
to make regular returns of their men, apparently the law could not be easily enforced.
The state struggled mightily to send militia forces to South Carolina as the British
began their operations there early in 1780, but as one general informed the governor from
the field, “You will see, Sir, by the return how backward the Colonels have been in
143
NCSR, 12:859.
144
Richard Caswell to John Butler, 20 November 1778, NCSR, 13:292-293.
145
Richard Caswell to Benjamin Lincoln, 13 January 1779, NCSR, 14:14.
146
Alexander Lillington to Richard Caswell, 5 July 1779, NCSR, 14:140-141.
265
turning out their Men and providing for them. The Duplin men have at this time neither
Cart, pot or any other necessary for marching.”147 An officer reported from Tyrrell
County in January 1780 that the newly raised men from that county would have marched
for South Carolina, but their commander “told them, as I am informed by the soldiers, if
they did [march,] they would never get their Bounty nor their rations, which put a stop to
their march, and now they won’t march until they get the Bounty.”148 Militia General
Isaac Gregory advised Governor Caswell “I am sorry the Militia that was drafted in this
Brigade hath delayed marching in the manner they have done. I have done everything in
my power to hasten them on. There is more trouble with the officers that is drafted to
march them than the men,” which boded ill for effective militia service.149
Other reports of misconduct by militia officers described two officers of the
Craven regiment, who in 1779 “appear to have discouraged service on several occasions
and intimidated the friends to the present government.”150 While Greene and Cornwallis
jockeyed around the Carolina Piedmont in February 1781, militia officers could still at
times be more a hindrance than a help. Matters improved little if at all in the ensuing
months. In June 1781, Colonel Thomas Harvey of Perquimans County was reprimanded
by the state’s lower house for neglecting to draft militiamen there for Continental service
of twelve months, and ordered a court martial for him as well.151 Col. Francis Lock tried
147
Alexander Lillington to Richard Caswell, 10 January 1780, NCSR, 15:317.
148
James Long to Richard Caswell, 17 January 1780, NCSR, 15:318.
149
Isaac Gregory to Richard Caswell, 8 March 1780, NCSR, 15:353.
150
NCSR, 22:956-957. The Council met at Kinston on 9 September 1779.
151
NCSR, 17:807-808.
266
to get militia from the Salisbury District in the field in August of that year, but could not
get the colonels of several counties to call out their men.152 General Sumner received a
report from one successful officer who managed to bring in 170 men for Continental
service in April 1781, but had no officers to assist him. “I am surprised to find the
officers of the district know so little of their duty,” the subaltern wrote disappointedly.153
From Kingston, militia General William Caswell found that “much confusion &
contention” in the militia was because the men “have not that Confidence in their
Officers as men going into service ought to have.”154 Even after officers took the field,
they did not always remain in the service. Earlier in 1781, for example, “the whole
Squadron of Light Horse under the command of Col. Guilford Dudly, except one private
man” mutinied. This included all of the officers as well.155
While some militia officers were clearly not up to the task of getting men to turn
out and march against the enemy, many of these leaders actively sought to avoid their
military duties. Many took advantage of provisions of the state militia laws to shirk their
responsibilities by hiring substitutes, in accordance with “An Act for raising regular
forces for the defense of this state and the neighboring states,” passed by the Assembly at
the May 1779 session at Smithfield. The law provided that any ten men of the militia,
including officers, who enlisted one man into Continental service for a period of eighteen
months or longer “shall during the time of such inlistment be cleared from all military
152
Francis Lock to Nathanael Greene, 10 August 1781, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 8:162.
153
Pinkeatham Eaton to Jethro Sumner, 13 April 1781, Preston Davie Collection, Southern Historical
Collection, UNC, Box 3, #126.
154
William Caswell to Thomas Burke, 4 September 1781, NCSR, 15:632.
155
Thomas Burke to the General Assembly, 7 July 1781, NCSR, 22:1039-1040.
267
duties or drafts whatsoever, except when the state shall be invaded, or in the case of
domestic insurrection.” Accordingly, if they decided to avoid serving in the war, militia
officers could evade their duties for a year and a half by finding a substitute under the
terms of this law, a provision many militia commanders were quick to take advantage of.
Thus, General Thomas Eaton found that “so many officers have taken shelter under the
act of the Assembly by hiring [substitutes] that there are not officers to transact the
business incident to a Draft.” General Lillington complained in late 1779 that “so many
officers have resigned and bought men in the eighteen months’ service that the duty of
raising men is exceedingly difficult, one half of the Companies being without a
commissioned Officer.” General Allen Jones sent a memorial to the state Assembly in
November 1779 in which he advised the lawmakers “that a majority of the militia
Officers in the Halifax Brigade have hired men into the Continental Service under the late
act for filling up our Battalions, and Consequently are not to be compelled to march out
of the state in any case whatever,” which impeded the raising of men “for want of
officers.” When militiamen saw as examples many of their own officers using the law to
avoid irksome service, it is hardly surprising that they too could not be readily induced to
take up arms.156
It seems likely that some militia officers refused to perform duties—such as
drafting or locating deserters—that would alienate themselves from their neighbors,
among whom they lived typically in small communities for much of their lives. Lt.
Edward Hall of the Perquimans militia, for example, apparently attempted to avoid the
156
Alexander Lillington to Richard Caswell, 18 December 1779, NCSR, 14:236-237; Allen Jones to the
General Assembly, 1 November 1779, NCSR, 14:351; Thomas Eaton to Richard Caswell, 21 March 1780,
NCSR, 15:360-361; NCSR, 24:254.
268
onerous duty of collecting deserters among the drafted men of his county by disobeying
his written orders to do so. Sent back to Perquimans in 1780 from Wilmington, from
whence the deserters left their company rather than continue their march to South
Carolina, Hall was charged with getting as many of these reluctant soldiers back to the
ranks as he could. As it turned out, however, Hall apparently did no such thing, “stayed
at home like a peaceable man,” and was court-martialed by his fellow Perquimans
officers for failing to rejoin his company and complete his assignment. Although Hall
petitioned the assembly to reverse the findings of the court, his plea was rejected.157
It is most likely that a number of militia officers sought to avoid service in the
field for the same reasons the lower ranks did. Few if any farmers wished to be disturbed
in their seasonal routines, while others tried to evade duty that was clearly odious and
without adequate remuneration. Others mentioned physical infirmities accompanied by
old age as reasons for quitting the service of the state, and no doubt many of these
complaints were valid. One of North Carolina’s militia generals, Allen Jones, noted in
1781 another reason for the reluctance of a number of militia officers to perform their
duties in the field against the enemy. In a reference to these leaders held as prisoners by
the British, Jones observed that “our Militia Officers have long languished in Captivity.
Congress knows nothing of them, and I have in vain endeavored to get our late Governor
to take some measures for their relief. This also has a bad effect on the Officers with us,
who dread taking the field because there is no Cartel settled as to them.”158 What Jones
refers to is the ambiguous position in which militia officers found themselves as prisoners
157
Petition of Edward Hall (undated) and Thomas Harvey to Thomas Benbury, 16 June 1781, Joint Papers,
General Assembly Session Records, June-July 1781, Box 1, N.C. State Archives.
158
Allen Jones to Thomas Burke, 4 July 1781, NCSR, 22:540.
269
of war, in that it was difficult to exchange them. British authorities sought to exchange
them for their own officers, but Americans were reluctant to switch British regular
officers for mere militia commanders, as the two were unequal in terms of experience and
value to their respective services. While Greene and other Patriots spent months working
out the intricate details of such arrangements with their British counterparts, many
Carolina militia leaders remained in custody, an uncomfortable existence to say the least.
The effect was that, as Jones reported, militia officers were wary of serving against
enemy forces, for if captured, they could not be assured of a speedy parole or exchange.
“With what assurenace will our Militia take the field, questioned the Board of War in late
1780, “when there is no probability of an Exchange should the fortune of War put them
in the Enemy’s power?” For similar reasons, many militia officers insisted upon acting
only with a state commission, even when drafted, because without one they would be
treated as privates if captured by the enemy.159
One of the primary impediments to getting militia companies, or individuals, to
march from their home counties was the failure of their officers to pay them promised
recruitment bounties promptly, a factor noted in numerous reports from the period.
Usually, the soldiers expected receipt of the money before they entered actual service,
something that the officers were often unable to do. This was a common problem for
cash-starved North Carolina. “How the Bounty is to be paid, or the men marched without
money, I know not” wrote Governor Caswell in 1779, in a typical comment.160 While
159
NCSR, 14:463; Graham, General Joseph Graham and his Papers on North Carolina Revolutionary
History, 55. For details on the cartel issues, see Thomas Burke to Nathanael Greene, 28 March 1782,
NCSR, 16:567-568, and Alexander Martin to Nathanael Greene, 12 May 1782, NCSR, 16:683-685.
270
militia service in times of peace did not usually involve the payment of bounties to the
men, several acts passed by the General Assembly during the war to raise militia troops
included bonuses to entice men to volunteer for service.161
Despite these enticements, however, confusion of efforts and the state’s poor
financial wherewithal frequently made the payment of the bounties difficult. In June
1778, Guilford County’s militia commander advised the governor that the while his men
were “embodying” for service in South Carolina, they “insist on their bounty before they
march out of state,” money the colonel did not have in hand. An almost identical report
came in from Bladen County at the same time, the commander of which also had no
funds to pay the men.162 The following year, similar complaints came to the chief
executive. In Wake County, for instance, seventeen men volunteered for service and
thirty had to be drafted, but “all were unwilling to march without their Bounty.”163 Later,
Wake County’s commander wrote Nash that the militia would march “with greater
Alacrity when the bounty is paid,” and in fact, a number of officers paid these out of their
own funds in order to get men in the ranks.164 Yet even with money in hand, bounties
160
Richard Caswell to Allen Jones, 5 July 1779, NCSR, 14:141. It should be noted that the same problem
concerning a lack of money to pay bonuses occurred in 1776 and 1777 as the state sought to raise its
Continental regiments. See, for one example, William L. Davidson to Richard Caswell, 2 July 1777,
NCSR, 11:506-507.
161
NCSR, 24:198, 254, 332, 339. Bonuses for joining the Continental service later became far more
generous, and included a slave and two hundred acres of land. See NCSR, 24:338. An act passed in June
1781 to draft militia for service with Greene’s army in South Carolina made no mention that these levies
would receive any bounties. NCSR, 24:404-405.
162
James Martin to Richard Caswell, 11 June 1778, NCSR, 13:159; Thomas Robeson to Richard Caswell,
14 June 1778, NCSR, 13:161. Caswell agreed that the men should be paid prior to marching into service.
Richard Caswell to James Richardson, 12 April 1779, NCSR, 14:65.
163
Mich. Rogers to Richard Caswell, 29 July 1779, NCSR, 14:178.
271
were at times not a sufficient enticement to make men leave their homes. Governor
Caswell noted that in 1779, “very large bounties have been offered, but to little purpose”
in getting two thousand militiamen to volunteer for service in South Carolina.165
The state needed considerable sums to pay these rewards. In the Halifax District
in July 1780, for example, four hundred drafted men were to receive $150 each and three
hundred volunteers were due $300 per man. The men who did not receive their bonuses
“make very heavy Complaints,” and were “fit to mutiny and Return home,” according to
an officer there, who added that “the men are fine men, full of spirits, Exceedingly
willing to march if they can only receive the bounty they were promised.”166 Advice
from officers worried that their troops would mutiny or desert without their promised
bounties were not uncommon, while at least one senior militia leader complained in 1781
that a number of Tories had enlisted that summer only to desert immediately upon receipt
of their bounty money. Alexander Lillington reported early in 1780 that his men expected
to have their bounties paid before they marched to the relief of South Carolina. He
recommended that the money be paid to the soldiers immediately “to keep them quiet,
and prevent desertion.”167 Surely, many of the militia soldiers knew full well the
hardships in store for them as they entered such arduous service, so the advance receipt of
these incentives must have been of paramount importance to them.168
164
Petition of John Justice, 23 November 1786, General Assembly Session Records, August-September
1780, Box 2, N.C. State Archives; James Hinton to Abner Nash, 9 June 1780, NCSR, 14:860.
165
Richard Caswell to John Rutledge, 12 July 1779, NCSR, 14:151.
166
Benjamin Seawell to Abner Nash, 26 July 1780, NCSR, 15:8-9.
167
Alexander Lillington to John Rutledge (?), 15 January 1780, Preston Davie Collection, Southern
Historical Collection, UNC, Box 3, #104. Lillington also noted that all of his men were unarmed.
272
It seems likely too that the condition of the American armed forces in camp and
field discouraged an untold number of North Carolinians from leaving their communities
to turn out for militia service. Such an army of ragged Continentals and militiamen could
hardly have inspired confidence in the Revolutionary cause among southern people by
the time war came to their states.169 If General Greene described his own Continental
forces in 1780 as “without Clothing, Tents and Provisions…without Discipline
and…addicted to plundering,” could the militia have expected any better while in service
with his command?170 Major John Armstrong’s report of the militia’s miseries in July
1781 is one of the most descriptive. “We are without money, cloathing or any kind of
Nourishment for our sick,” he stated, “Not one gill of Rum, Shugar or Coffey, No tents,
nor Camp Kettles[‘] Cantains, etc. No Doctor[,] no medisins…I am afraid that in a short
time [North Carolina] will have few men in the field by reason of the Shamefull neglects
of the State, we seem rather a burthing that a benefit to them, we are tossed too and fro
like a ship in a storm.”171 By the beginning of 1783, the militiamen at Halifax were
“entirely without camp equipage of any kind, and almost without Cloathes, and…without
that very necessary article[,] a blanket.” Numerous descriptions of the hardships of
militia tours can be found in extant records, and certainly awareness of these dreadful
168
John Butler to Richard Caswell, 20 January 1780, NCSR, 15:320; John Butler to Jethro Sumner, 1 July
1781, NCSR, 15:504-505.
169
Allan Kulikoff makes a similar point regarding Virginia that military failures and a lack of public
enthusiasm for the Whig cause may have been related. Kulikoff, The Agrarian Origins of American
Capitalism, 153.
170
Nathanael Greene to Robert Howe, 29 December 1780, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 7:17.
171
John Armstrong to Jethro Sumner, 1 July 1781, NCSR, 15:505.
273
conditions were well known to then men and their families at home, knowledge of which
may well have dissuaded scores of potential militia soldiers from turning out for tours.172
Whatever their reasons, it is clear that large numbers of men refused to serve
militia tours, and at times went to great lengths to avoid required military duty—even to
the point of armed resistance. Richard Caswell wrote of a dozen or so deserters in
Craven and Jones counties in 1779 who opposed any type of further service for the state,
“and bid defiance to the powers Civil and Military of the State.” He ordered state troops
to these counties to capture the brigands.173 Governor Nash learned in June 1780 that a
number of the drafted militia in the Edenton District were “lying in the woods and
Determined Not to march, but will Defend themselves to the utmost Rigger.”174 One
North Carolina officer reported to General Gates of his difficulties getting militiamen to
embody along the Pee Dee River: “the inhabitants of the East side of this River…have
refused to turn out in Defence of their Country, and have lifted Arms Against us.”175 In
the fall of 1780, as the British stood poised to invade the state near Charlotte, the Board
of War received reports of mutinous troops. John Penn, one of the board’s members,
responded shortly thereafter that because he was unaware of the militia’s complaints, he
would advise the commanders “to fix a time with them on the best terms you can,
172
A Crutcher to Jethro Sumner, 27 February 1783, NCSR, 16:942. Knowledge of the army’s conditions
must have led more than a few North Carolinians to avoid the Continental service as well.
173
Richard Caswell to John Heritage, 25 August 1779, NCSR, 14:198.
174
Thomas Benbury to Abner Nash, 12 June 1780, NCSR, 14:850.
175
Lt. Col. John Ervin to Horatio Gates, 2 August 1780, NCSR, 14:522.
274
provided the enemy leave the state or until we can call out a reinforcement.”176 So many
men had failed to turn out for service in the summer of 1781, the state’s lower house
recommended to the governor that he issue a proclamation “holding out grace and favor
to all delinquents under the several Militia Drafts heretofore made in this State releasing
them from all the pains and penalties by them incurred for such Delinquency,” if they
would simply embody. The state’s Council, however, advised the governor to issue such
a proclamation only if those delinquents would be required to serve twelve months in the
Continental Army, hardly an inducement to men unwilling to duty militia tours.177
Maintaining a credible force was critical to the rebels in both military and
political terms. Since British troops dominated much of South Carolina, followed by
their invasion of North Carolina, the American army was the embodiment of the
Revolutionary cause in the South; as such, it could risk battle only under the most
favorable conditions. Greene may have known this better than anyone else. “If I should
risk a General action in our present situation,” Greene advised General Thomas Sumter of
South Carolina in February 1781, “we stand ten chances to one of getting defeated, & if
defeated all the Southern States must fall. I shall avoid it if possible…” Several days
later, he reminded Thomas Jefferson that “the Army is all that the States have to depend
upon for their political existence,” and to Richard Caswell, then commander of North
Carolina’s militia, he wrote in a similar vein: “while there is an army kept in the field, the
176
Jethro Sumner to John Penn, n.d., NCSR, 14:780; John Penn to Jethro Sumner, n.d., NCSR, 14:781.
177
NCSR, 17:975; NCSR, 19:868.
275
hopes of the people are kept alive, but disperse that, & their spirits sink at once.”178 Yet
while Greene and others in positions of authority during the revolutionary struggle with
Britain were well aware of the need to field an effective armed force to deter enemy
efforts to crush the movement, doing so created huge logistical challenges, required
significant (and largely unavailable) financial and material resources in the state, and of
course, officers and men to serve in the ranks were in constant demand. Fulfilling these
needs was a monumental hurdle North Carolina rarely overcame, particularly with regard
to mobilizing soldiers. Chaos and confusion characterized efforts to raise sizeable
regiments of regulars, which were consistently unsuccessful, while the expedient of
relying upon the ill-equipped, under-strength militia to establish independence presented
innumerable difficulties for the state and its people.
Demands by the state for militia service could not have endeared it to the people,
and must have created feelings of ambivalence by many Carolinians toward the
Revolution as the war progressed. While many citizens in the state had opposed the
British government’s heavy handed actions before the war, and the Crown’s attempt to
put down the rebellion with force, the new revolutionary state made onerous demands of
its own in the form military service. The disorganized, confused nature of militia duty
not only added to the turmoil of the war, it disrupted the lives, livings and pursuits of
many Carolinians who served in the ranks. Resistance to this duty also demonstrated the
widespread reluctance or aversion with which many within North Carolina supported the
Revolution and the new state—if they did so at all. In fact, as will be detailed in Chapter
178
Nathanael Greene to Sumter, 9 February 1781, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 7:266; Nathanael Greene to
Nash, 9 February 1781, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 7:263; Nathanael Greene to Jefferson, 15 February
1781, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 7:290; Nathanael Greene to Caswell, 16 February 1781, Papers of
Nathanael Greene, 7:295.
276
6, the pervasive unwillingness of many inhabitants to serve in the militia for whatever
reason gave rise to one of the war’s most obnoxious features, as the constant need for
manpower to battle British and Tory forces led to what was likely the most oppressive
feature of the hostilities for the majority of Carolinians—the draft.
277
CHAPTER 6
“CIRCUMSTANCES OF GREAT OPPRESSION”: IMPRESSMENT AND
CONSCRIPTION
The War of American Independence created an incessant demand for troops,
weapons, provisions and supplies in quantities North Carolina quite simply could not
readily provide. This was to be the overarching theme of the state’s war effort, a
relentless need to bring soldiers into the field, keep them there and provide them what
they needed to fight the enemy and prevail in the struggle for independence. These
unremitting demands led to the two most burdensome intrusions into the routines of
Carolina inhabitants during “these troublesome times,”1 both of which produced
antipathy and resistance to Patriot civil and military authorities, and undermined support
for the new the state in general. Moreover, they added significantly to the debilitating
disorders within the state for much of the war years. Impressment, the act of seizing
property for public service or use, was a lawful yet deeply resented practice adopted by
North Carolina out of military necessity given the woefully inadequate logistical
apparatus the state could establish. Despite the legitimate basis for impressment, its
implementation during the war was subject to considerable abuse, was at times overly
broad in scope, and in the hands of some agents became a license to steal. Not only was
1
Alexander Lillington to Elizabeth Lockhart, 12 December 1779, in Sarah M. Lemmon, ed., The Pettigrew
Papers, 1685-1818, 2 Vols. (Raleigh: State Department of Archives and History, 1971), 1:12.
278
this practice vehemently opposed by merchants, planters and poor families alike, it was
employed during most of the conflict, so that it effected what must have been the
majority of Carolinians, whose anger was directed primarily at the state. Such a
widespread practice not only caused inhabitants to resist the state, it also led others to join
the enemy.2
For similar reasons, conscription also raised the ire of men forced to perform
compulsory military service, through the abhorrent process of a draft. Revolutionary
authorities relied heavily upon the practice in all theatres of the war, and several
American provinces used conscription dating back to the 17th century as well—including
North Carolina. Despite historical precedents, involuntary military service was certainly
an imposition upon many male Carolinians (and their families), and often met ardent
resistance. And just like men and women directed their ire toward governing officials
and their agents over impressment, so too did the draft cause similar disaffection and
hostility among men compelled to serve in the ranks, known as levies. This dual
opposition created significant difficulties for the state in forming the new government,
building allegiance to it, and defending itself from British and Tory enemies.3
State and Continental officials resorted to impressment early in the struggle for
independence, and prior to the adoption of the Specific Tax in September 1780, but it
became a widespread practice once the enemy campaigned actively in the south after
2
3
Ward, The War for Independence and the Transformation of American Society, 95-97.
Lee, Crowds and Soldiers in Revolutionary North Carolina, 168-170; Royster, A Revolutionary People at
War, 66-69, 134, 267-268; Fred Anderson, A People's Army: Massachusetts Soldiers and Society in the
Seven Years' War (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1984), 40-48; Douglas Edward Leach,
Roots of Conflict: British Armed Forces and Colonial Americans, 1677-1763 (Chapel Hill : University of
North Carolina Press, 1986), 15; Ward, The War for Independence and the Transformation of American
Society, 111-116.
279
1778.4 Confiscation of supplies by civilian and military officials both angered and
impoverished citizens, and surely did nothing to engender affection for the revolutionary
cause among enraged inhabitants, many of whom resisted impressment by hiding their
produce, livestock or goods. They often complained when, as all too often was the case,
they were given depreciated currency or certificates of dubious worth for their property,
which was frequently valued below the price “one Neighbor gives to another.”5 Many
times property owners were given no certificates or payment at all, and had to strive for
years to get redress from the state.6 Few things were exempt from confiscation during the
war: authorities seized not only guns, wagons and horses, but rum, sugar, coffee, paper,
canvass and salt as well.7 Moreover, many times impressment was used by men of all
ranks as a cover for plundering local inhabitants, which could hardly have endeared the
North Carolina government to its citizens.8
4
Lefler and Newsome, History of a Southern State, 235; “Resolves of Committee,” Surry County, August
1775, N.C. State Archives. General Greene’s Orders, 29 October 1782, Papers of Nathanael Greene,
12:121. Impressment can also include the forcible seizure of men to serve in the military, particularly in the
Navy, as was the case in the War of 1812. It is not used in this context here.
5
Matthew Pope to Jefferson, 31 May 1781, Papers of Thomas Jefferson, 6:53-54; Legislative petition,
Citizens of Berkeley County, Virginia, 4 December 1781, Library of Virginia, Reel 19, Box 26, Folder 21.
6
Petition of John Ray, Claims Papers, General Assembly Session Records, November 1786, Box 2, N.C.
State Archives.
7
Return of impressed items, Hertford County, NC, 10 July 1781, NCSR, 15:524; NCSR, 22:147; Nathanael
Greene to Robert Gillies, 9 January 1781, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 7:83. Some of the claims for
reimbursement for such impressed items were still being adjusted as late as 1787. See NCSR, 22:232.
8
Nathanael Greene to Marion, 4 May 1781, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 8:198-199; Address of Thomas
Burke to the General Assembly, 16 April 1782, NCSR, 16:7-8, 9-10; Thomas Burke to Alexander
Lillington, 27 February 1782, NCSR, 16:528.
280
As early as May 1776, impressment was in use by state authorities—and was
already subject to some abuse.9 To curb irregularities, in 1778 the Assembly regulated
the practice, and authorized state agents to grant certificates or warrants for goods
purchased. However, for those who refused to sell for current prices, these same agents
had “full power to seize the same for the use of the continent.”10 While Carolinians were
doubtlessly less than enthusiastic about the impressment of their property, it appears that
during the early years of the war, abuses were limited. Perhaps this was the result of
procurement officials having at least some means to pay for the goods required, and the
fact that the state did not have to materially assist in the subsistence of a large army
within its borders (or help South Carolina do so) until 1779. It is thus no coincidence that
once the British began their campaign in earnest to subdue the southern states by the first
few months of that year that impressment became more common and obnoxious to the
inhabitants, as state and national authorities struggled to keep the armies of Lincoln,
Gates and Greene supplied in the field.
American military reverses in 1780 not only gave effective control of South
Carolina to the British and resulted in the capture of thousands of American prisoners,
these enemy successes at Charleston and Camden also deprived the southern states of
irreplaceable military stores, provisions, horses, wagons, and other warlike materiel. All
had to be replaced in order to continue the revolutionary struggle, which meant procuring
these necessities by whatever means were at hand—including impressment. This
expedient contributed significantly to the confusion that reigned within the state as
9
Lee, Crowds and Soldiers in Revolutionary North Carolina, 156.
10
NCSR, 12:605.
281
authorities scrambled to obtain the various needs of the army. Impressment was subject
to abuse by overzealous commissary agents, as well as unscrupulous men “under the
pretense of seizing property,” who committed what amounted to outright theft. In many
cases, officials were simply single-mindedly bent on procuring whatever they needed
from the inhabitants, and forsook legal niceties, payments, and the objections of those
from whom they took supplies.11
It must be noted, of course, that impressment was resorted to in most cases
because supplies simply could not be obtained in more genial ways. The frenzied nature
of the state after the defeat at Camden made it difficult to enforce taxation laws, and
citizens were slow to pay the specific tax with which the army was to be supplied. “Gen.
Gates hath expected this State should wholly support the Army as to provisions,”
reported a hardened Continental officer in November 1780, but in “this we have
undeceived him.”12 A number of objections came too of cavalrymen turning their
famished horses loose into farmers’ fields of grain, without an offer of compensation.13
Salisbury residents complained that state quartermasters forced them to quarter soldiers
within their homes, and seized houses for military use, “in violation of the Constitution &
laws of this State.” These and other complaints became widespread in the Carolinas as
the war dragged on, and at times had the adverse effect of driving some citizens to
support the enemy.14
11
NCSR, 24:350, 351-352.
12
Alexander Martin to Abner Nash, 10 November 1780, NCSR, 15: 151.
13
Thomas Burke to the President of Congress, July 1780, NCSR, 15:771.
282
Civil and military leaders were usually wary of using impressment as a means to
supply the armies, but had few other realistic options by 1780. They feared alienating the
populace, or making the people reluctant to part with anything in the future. “People
harassed, oppressed and provoked by such unworthy treatment, though heretofore
extremely well affected, will, but too probably in despair, open their arms to any Enemy
who will promise them greater security,” observed Thomas Burke.15 Nevertheless, as
Burke found in the summer of 1780, “supplies were procured under circumstances of
great oppression, devastation and licentious outrage, nor was the least regard paid to the
Civil Magistrate, the Laws of the State or the rights of Individuals.”16 Nathanael Greene
regretted the difficulty of being “compelled to subsist ourselves by means so well
calculated to convert our friends into enemies.”17 Creating a procurement arrangement
that could provide a cover for abuses and break down military disciple was also to be
avoided. In October 1780, for example, the North Carolina Board of War ordered a
commissary agent to impress cattle if the owners were unwilling to sell, “but great care
must be used to comply with the act of the Assembly as nearly as you can.”18
14
Petition of Inhabitants of Salisbury, 19 April 1782, Joint Papers, General Assembly Session Records,
April-May 1782, Box 1, N.C. State Archives; Memorial of James McDonald, Joint Select Committee
Reports, General Assembly Session Records, November 1786-January 1787, Box 2, N.C. State Archives;
Senate Joint Resolutions, General Assembly Session Records, April-May 1783, N.C. State Archives; John
Sayle Watterson, Thomas Burke, Restless Revolutionary (Washington, D.C.: University Press of America,
1980) 153.
15
Thomas Burke to the President of Congress, July 1780, NCSR, 15:771.
16
Thomas Burke to the President of Congress, July 1780, NCSR, 15:770-771.
17
Nathanael Greene to an Unidentified Person, January 1781, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 7:175.
18
NCSR, 14:412.
283
The fine line Carolina officials walked with regard to this practice is seen in a
1780 letter the Board of War sent to Colonel Thomas Polk, a Mecklenburg County militia
officer and commissary agent. It ordered him to conform to the law with regard to
impressment of supplies and forage, but felt the need to hedge a bit on strict submission
to the rules. “We do not mean to fetter you on this Occasion,” wrote the Board, and
further reminded him that military necessity took precedence over the strict observation
of state law. “Remember that you are a Citizen of North Carolina, and that your first
duty is to save your Country. If we do not feed the army, they must provide for
themselves or be disbanded. The Consequences will be too dreadful to mention.”19 Later
that year, in November 1780, the Board moved to prevent impressment from alienating
some of its “well-affected people” in Orange County, whose corn and grain had been
taken for use by the army. This seizure prevented farmers from being able to pay the
state’s specific tax, which prompted the Board to order relief for those affected in the
form of vouchers with which to pay their taxes, and later expanded this to all counties.20
State officials also tried to encourage impressment of supplies from the disaffected
citizens of North Carolina, to lessen the blow on those who supported independence.21
The Board of War went to great lengths to try to make impressment as
unobjectionable as possible to Carolinians loyal to the state. It sought to curb the use of
overly broad General Warrants, which some held to be “unconstitutional, oppressive and
destructive to trade,” in that it gave commissaries too much latitude when searching for
19
NCSR, 14:416.
20
NCSR, 14:466, 477.
21
William Caswell to Thomas Burke, 27 August 1781, NCSR, 15:627.
284
goods.22 Need, however, often trumped constitutional fine points. By the end of 1780,
for instance, salt became extraordinarily scarce in the state, which alarmed the Board to
the point that something of an imbroglio developed between the Board and Governor
Nash over how to procure it. The former held that “the salvation of this State depends in
some measure on this Supply” of salt, which had to be procured if not with the credit of
the state then with impressment. “The Board will give sanction to any [method] which
shall tend to furnish the quantity [of salt] wanted,” it portentously advised the governor in
no uncertain terms, while the same day it directed a state agent to secure salt
immediately—“Impressment must be made use of,” if other means failed. To lessen the
blow on the citizenry, however, the Board advised agents first to impress the commodity
from “persons who are presuming to barter or sell the same for Provisions,” and from
“others who have apparently speculated in that Article [who] should by all means be
made Victims.”23
John Penn, a Board of War member, advised a militia commander in September
1780 of the immediate need for the militia to assist in procuring supplies for Gates’ army,
and instructed him on the method to be adopted. “You will try to purchase from the
Farmers,” he advised,” but if they refuse to sell, “you must then Seize both provision for
the Men as well as Forage for the Horse. Be careful to comply, as near as you can, with
the Act of the Assembly, both as to the Quantity you take and the Certificate you give.”
In January 1781, the Board advised a state militia officer “to be cautious of distressing
22
Joint Select Committee Reports, General Assembly Session Records, June 1781, Box 1, N.C. State
Archives.
23
NCSR, 14:473, 475-477.
285
the good people of this State but on the most urgent Occasion” as far as procuring
supplies through impressment.24 Alexander Martin found impressment to be “abhorrent
to every free mind and ought never to be practiced but in the last resource.” As late as
1782, with Greene’s army “in great distress” for want of food and on the verge of being
disbanded, the governor still cautioned supply commissioners that with regard to
impressment, “the Burthen may be as equal as possible” among the citizenry and that
they conform to the law in their actions.25
Yet despite the attempts by state and local authorities to make impressment more
palatable to the populace, such ameliorating measures were not always possible. A
January 1781 example demonstrates the priorities involved in procurement. Authorities
advised General Alexander Lillington that he should “on the first Appearance of the
enemy’s Landing anywhere in the Cape Fear or its Vicinity…seize all stores of Salt,
Rum, Sugar and other Articles necessary for the Army, in whatsoever Hands they may
be,” if the enemy appeared. Although the Board recognized the need to be “cautious of
distressing the good people of this State,” it regarded as a higher priority “the Wants and
Necessities of the Army, on whom the salvation of this Country chiefly depends.”26
Army officers also faced the difficulties of demanding supplies from those who
would not willingly sell them. A North Carolina militia officer, assigned by Governor
Burke to requisition wagons in August 1781, wrote back to the governor with a bit of
24
John Penn to Robert Mebane, 22 September 1780, NCSR, 14:639; NCSR, 14:487.
25
NCSR, 19:874; Alexander Martin to General Bryan, 16 August 1782, NCSR, 16:705. See also Joint
Select Committee File, General Assembly Session Records, April-May 1782, N.C. State Archives, in which
the Assembly learned that Tyrrell County militia soldiers had to be employed to compel residents there to
provide provisions for Greene’s army in 1782.
26
Board of War to Abner Nash, 7 January 1781, NCSR, 14:487-488.
286
incredulity at the request. “Please point out the mode on which you wish such a
requisition to be made,” he penned, “and order as many men from the Militia as may be
necessary to attend the Courts to put this into Execution,” obviously doubtful that
impressment could be successfully carried out without armed men to assist him.27 Others
conceded the practice was “disagreeable” to the people, who often times had already been
picked clean by troops moving through the state.28
The use of impressment during the turbulent war, during which time the priority
of the army’s agents tended to be that of getting supplies rather than the niceties of
keeping civilians at home content, created a disorderly overcast to North Carolina’s
already unstable situation. The authority to impress, as delineated and limited by the
state legislature, quickly degenerated into taking whatever was needed, whenever it was
needed. Unauthorized requisitions made without certificates become more and more
common, as Continentals and militia men assumed a license to demand and take what
they needed at will, which to civilians often looked very similar to outright plundering.29
Thus, John Ray advised the Assembly that in 1780 a party of armed militiamen that never
provided him with any certificate for what they took, a dubious seizure which may have
been completely unauthorized and a cover for theft.30 A 1782 backcountry legislative
petition enumerated abuses by commissaries and quartermasters upon the people. They
27
Hardy Murfree to Thomas Burke, 9 September 1781, Preston Davie Collection, Southern Historical
Collection, UNC, Box 3, #145; Robert Burton to Thomas Burke, 14 August 1781, NCSR, 22:560-561.
28
Thomas Donoho to Jethro Sumner, 7 August 1782 and 23 August 1782, NCSR, 16:637 and 643-644.
29
Petition of John Campbell, 23 August 1787, Joint Papers, General Assembly Session Records, November
1787, Box 1, N.C. State Archives.
30
Petition of John Ray, Claims Papers, General Assembly Session Records, November 1786, Box 2, N.C.
State Archives.
287
described “provisions and other property taken without giving any vouchers; Cattle,
Sheep and Hogs killed in the Woods without the knowledge of the owners; Horses taken
out of pasture & Stables in a clandestine manner by Soldiers & others, without leaving
any certificate of the deed.” Obviously, impressment agents acting in such a manner
were seeking to avoid ugly confrontations with property owners.31
In 1780, Horatio Gates received a number of complaints about these abuses, such
as that of William Hamilton, who grumbled about a number of men who “Fell to
searching My house Every Where and killing Fouls…and Tore Down A Stack of
Oats…then they Went off Carrying with them part of my pewter and table Furniture in a
threatening, insulting maner.” Likewise, several Orange County men gave sworn
accounts at the same time of a company of the state’s light horse that committed outrages.
“Without regard to the laws of humanity or the sacred rights of the citizen,” these
horsemen “wantonly and cruelly” took what they wanted and destroyed the rest,
including furniture, grain, sheep and other provisions. The state prosecuted a case arising
out of Gates County in 1781 in which a horse owner and his nephew threatened with guns
an overzealous commissioner trying to impress the beast, though no shots were fired.
Perhaps the turmoil and anxiety that ensued after Gates’ defeat at Camden several weeks
beforehand encouraged such highhandedness under the pretext of military need and
authority.32
31
Petition of Inhabitants of Salisbury, 19 April 1782, Joint Papers, General Assembly Session Records,
April-May 1782, Box 1, N.C. State Archives.
32
Petition of William Hamilton and Affidavit of John Latty and Others, NCSR, 14:602-603; Grand Jury
Presentment, 1 November 1781, Papers of James Iredell, 2: 312-314. By early 1781, state quartermasters
were empowered to impress articles deemed necessary for “the use of the army,” if those in possession of
288
An incident in June 1780 amply illustrates the abuse of impressment and is
representative of a number of complaints in the state during the latter stages of the war.
Militia General Alexander Lillington complained to Governor Nash of “the proceedings
of Toomes, the Continental Forage Master & waggon Master.” This man, Lillington
reported, “employs his Emissaries, sending them about after grain, Distressing the
Inhabitants in the most cruel Manner he can, without the least respect to Law.” One of
these emissaries was a former Tory named Maxwell, which must have added to the
people’s discontent at having to give up supplies involuntarily to a turncoat. This agent
told Lillington that he had been sent to gather corn, but upon being asked by the general
“upon what authority,” Maxwell “had nothing more to show but his Deputation as Forage
Master under Toomes. I told him that he was no way authorized to take my corn from
me or any other man’s,” and sent him away.
The next morning Maxwell came back with Colo. Washington’s Quarter
Master, with a Soldier Armed with nothing more than Orders to Take it.
Such proceedings I told them was by no means justifiable, & forewarned
them from Braking open My Barn, which they have done, & taken out
some Corn, & is to return for what they may want. I was very sensible
their lives was in my hands at the time they were committing this
atrocious act; but, Sir, as we have you to look up to as Father to the people
of this state, that justice shall be done, you will be pleased to send your
orders to Col. Washington’s Quarter Master to be put on the hands of the
Civil Power, as he may be made to answer for what he has done.
This letter shows that at least some procurement officials acted in an abusive manner, not
according to the law, and with dubious authority. Lillington’s recommendation to Nash
that the impressing agents be placed under civil, and not military, control touches on the
issue of the state’s legitimacy, for if the government allowed the army to roam the
such items refused to sell them, though they were to be granted certificates bearing interest by the
impressing agents. See NCSR, 24:382.
289
countryside and take what was wanted without proper warrants and with destructive
methods, the inhabitants were likely to avoid supporting it materially and in sentiment.
The flaunting of state laws by impressment officials did nothing to engender loyalty to
the state, which appeared powerless to enforce the acts of its assembly. If Lillington, a
general in the militia, was subjected to this level of exploitation, the mass of the common
people no doubt suffered even more.33 The Moravians in Salem, for example, reported
that in the fall of 1779, a wagon and two horses they owned were pressed into state
service for those drawing the boundary line between Virginia and North Carolina. “The
Commissioners had no right to press, but protests were of no avail, might made right,”
they noted resignedly.34
The litany of abuses and difficulties associated with impressment quickly led
many state leaders to deplore the practice, and it must have been politically rewarding to
do so. Politicians deemed it oppressive, due to the difficulties of collection and the
unequal burden it placed on the people. It was also counterproductive, since impressment
seemed to fall on industrious citizens who by their labors produced a surplus, which
became subject seizure. State leaders worried that this situation would tend to discourage
industry, and produce a serious scarcity of the necessities of life for the inhabitants.
While officials did admit that the state had a sovereign right to impress for its security,
most of them objected to the assembly’s authorization of this odious measure as the
primary means for providing for the army. Resentment such oppressive means could
create within the people toward the government and its authority, the potential to alienate
33
Alexander Lillington to Abner Nash, 4 June 1780, NCSR, 14:837.
34
Fries, Records of the Moravians, 3:1283.
290
many from the revolutionary cause, and to create further disorder within an already
chaotic state of affairs. Seizures also hindered trade, as citizens were reluctant to ship
their wares or produce in public for fear of impressment agents roaming about.35
An incident in Guilford County in 1781 is particularly striking in its illustration of
the abuses of impressment and the resentment it engendered. Philip Clapp of that county
advised that on 27 May 1781, he was at home “in the peace of God,” when Colonel John
Peasley of the Guilford Militia arrived, at which point the officer “did seize and bear off”
five of Clapp’s slaves, and brought them to his own residence. While the impressment of
slaves was certainly not unheard of, Clapp complained that Peasley did so “without law
or right,” and that Clapp “has never had any day in court either by Citation or otherwise
nor has any legal orders ever been given for said property to be taken or Confiscated.”
Clapp’s testimony implies that the colonel took the slaves to his own house for his
personal use, though this cannot be confirmed. Nevertheless, this “free born Citizen of
the State” certainly was enraged by the high-handed actions of a state officer, perhaps
becoming alienated from the state as well.36
In the summer of 1780, after the fall of Charleston, Thomas Burke noted the ill
effects of impressment, a mode of “great oppression, devastation and licentious outrage.”
As a result of the coercive taking of supplies (as well as quartering troops on civilians) he
found “every mouth filled with Complaints, every Countenance expressing
apprehensions, dejection, Indignation and despair,” which replaced the inhabitants’
35
Charles Johnston to Thomas Burke, 11 August 1781, NCSR, 15:600-601.
36
Petition of Philip Clapp, 15 June 1781, Senate Joint Resolutions, General Assembly Session Records,
June-July 1781, Box 1, N.C. State Archives. See also Caruthers, A Sketch of the Life and Character of the
Rev. David Caldwell, 203-206 for another Guilford County incident of the abuse of impressment.
291
former “animated zeal” for the cause of American liberties.37 Despite these objections,
the inability of the state to properly provide for the armies led to difficult choises to be
made. Thus, General Gates advised North Carolina authorities of the hard choice he
might have to make given the supply problems his army faced in September 1780.
There are but Two Methods of Supplying an Army with Forage and
provisions; One, by a Magazine of such being by the proper Authority
provided for them; the Other, by Their taking it with a Strong Hand for
themselves. The Former is the Mode they ever wish to take place; the
Latter, as Citizens and Soldiers, they wish never to be Obliged to follow—
but unhappily for them, it is almost the only Mode by which both Militia
& Continental troops have been supplied for the whole of the preceding
part of This Campaign.
Gates warned civil leaders that without immediate relief, he would have to depart the
state with his army for lack of supplies.38 The state’s quarter master general, Robert
Burton, told the governor in August 1781 that “there could not be greater unwillingness
in almost every man” to furnish supplies for the army, while noting that many were
hiding horses to avoid impressment.39 Burton also reported that one Warren County
horse owner, “unwilling to part with his Horse struck him with a whip” to drive him off
and thus avoid the loss of his property.40 Another man advised the Warren impressment
agent that “he would lose his life before he would lose his horse,” and that he would only
answer to the governor and council for his refusal to part with his equine property.41
37
Thomas Burke to the President of Congress, July 1780, NCSR, 15:770-773.
38
Horatio Gates to the Board of War, 22 September 1780, Horatio Gates Papers, microfilm, reel 12.
39
Robert Burton to Thomas Burke, 11 August 1781, NCSR, 15:603; Robert Burton to Thomas Burke, 10
August 1781, NCSR, 22:559.
40
Robert Burton to Thomas Burke, 20 August 1781, NCSR, 15:610-611; William Hunt to Thomas Burke,
20 August 1781, NCSR, 15:611.
41
William Hunt to Thomas Burke, 22 August 1781, NCSR, 15:617.
292
Much of the bitterness against impressment stemmed from resentment against the
abuses of the procurement agents within the state.42 It also came from antipathy toward
state officials who seized goods without any authority to do so, including the militia.
Several Edenton residents petitioned the state in June 1781 over “seizures…made of their
property…for the Public use.” They complained that officials carried out the process
“without making any previous attempt to purchase these goods from their Owners,” as
the law required, probably because they rarely had money in hand to do so.43 Others
simply had no authority at all to impress anything. Wilmington residents suffered the
behavior of “the Western militia,” which committed numerous “depredations…upon
friends and foes” alike while deployed nearby before and after the British occupied the
city late in 1781. These men allegedly carried off “as lawful plunder” slaves, salt, and
other movable property to enrich themselves rather than secure supplies for the state, and
gave no certificates to those from whom they stole. Even the town’s orphans “who are
intended to be hired out” were impressed. In the backcountry, Salem residents recorded
that in December 1778, a company of militiamen “tried to take blankets from [them] and
claimed to have a Press Warrant, but they could not show it and so they got nothing.”
Usually, these Moravians were not so lucky, as numerous records from their Surry
County settlements detail. Certainly such abuses did little to gain favor for the struggling
42
For numerous examples of improper impressment methods and military officers seizing property without
authority given by residents of Salem and the other Moravians settlements see Fries, Moravian Records,
4:1549, 1554, 1556, 1562, 1570, 1622, 1624, 1625, 1630-1, 1650, 1655, 1660, 1674, 1679, 1683, 1684,
1696, 1701, 1775, 1791, 1899, 1900.
43
Petition from Edenton, 6 June 1781, Joint Select Committee Reports, General Assembly Session
Records, June 1781, Box 1, N.C. State Archives.
293
state government, since abusive soldiers represented the state in the eyes of their
victims.44
Salisbury area citizens in 1781 complained of similar oppressive measures by
those who claimed to have authority to impress, many of whom had “little regard…to the
laws of this State.” The details of the abuses lodged within their legislative petition
provide an exceptional illustration of how onerous the reliance upon impressment by state
officials was to the populace, and is accordingly quoted from at length:
Several persons who are deputed to act this Business without any Warrant
or other power, but what they assume to themselves and without regard to
the poverty, inability or distress of the poor inhabitants, bring their
Waggons and Teams to the houses and plantations of those most adjacent
to them, and in a rude manner will load their Waggons with all such
necessaries as they want, such as corn, oats, flour, meal, and every other
article they want, and often not leave a bushel of any kind of grain to
support a starving Family, with a number of Children, and if after being
before rob’d, plundered and spoiled of their Beds and furniture and
reduced to the last extremity, they having but one poor horse or mare to
plow, or take a little grain to a mill, and but one or two Cows to give their
poor Children a little milk, notwithstanding such their distress, such grain,
horse or cow is taken from them, and killed and slaughtered for public use,
and it often happens that some of those employed in this Service are
persons of the worst characters, who, when on such Service, if they come
[a]cross a Saddle, bridle, pot, pan, Skillet, ax, a pot of Butter and such
articles, carry such away, under pretence of its being for public use; but
convert the same to their own uses or to the use of some friend; and many
other abuses of this kind so the poor, as well as those of more ability labor
under, and without any hopes of redress of such impositions and
grievances.
A similar petition from Salisbury around the same time also noted that the commissary
and quartermaster agents were “selected from the dregs of the people,” and rarely
regarded the state’s laws or “the principles of justice” when about their business “with a
44
Letter to Alexander Martin (unidentified. writer), 19 December 1781, NCSR, 22:602-603; Fries, Records
of the Moravians, 3:1254.
294
degree of insolence and licentiousness intolerable to freemen.” Such outrageous conduct
made impressment little better than being raided by their Tory enemies, and drove many
Carolinians—including some of these petitioners—to support Cornwallis’ army as they
traversed the state in 1781, or at the very least, accept paroles from the British out of
sheer hardship and desperation.45
These several examples describe officials attempting to procure much needed
provisions, supplies and warlike stores. Other abuses related to impressment were
committed by those unauthorized to do so, as a cover for criminal activity. Salisbury
District residents, for instance, complained in 1782 of the “cruel Murders, Robberies,
plunderings, and every other act of violence” committed by small groups of men
“oftentimes with their faces blackened and their Bodies otherwise disguised, armed and
accoutered.” These bandits plundered homes on the pretext of “searching for Tories, outlyers, Arms, Gunpowder and such like excuses.” They plundered money, furniture,
clothing, household items—“even the buttons out of our children’s sleeves.” The
petitioners also noted that against these outrages they had not “the least aid or protection
from either the Civil or Military powers,” which if true, may have significantly weakened
the allegiance of these men and their families to the new state, and called into question
North Carolina’s very legitimacy.46
45
Petition of Inhabitants of Rowan County, undated, Grievances, Joint Papers, General Assembly Session
Records, April-May 1782, Box 1, N.C. State Archives; Petition of Inhabitants of Salisbury, 19 April 1782,
Joint Papers, General Assembly Session Records, April-May 1782, Box 1, N.C. State Archives; Petition of
Inhabitants of the Salisbury District, December 1781, Joint Papers, General Assembly Session Records,
April-May 1782, Box 1, N.C. State Archives.
46
Petition of Inhabitants of Rowan County, undated, Grievances, Joint Papers, General Assembly Session
Records, April-May 1782, Box 1, N.C. State Archives.
295
Objections to impressment continued into 1783, with complaints about the state’s
Commissary General and its deputies. These men, according to a grievance heard by the
Assembly, exercised “unlimited powers,” and made requisitions on “men of little or no
property.” In reaction to this report and others a bill was offered in the Senate in 1782 to
abolish the state’s quarter master and commissary departments, but it did not pass. An act
was passed, however, in April 1782 for “restraining impressments,” which included the
elimination of overly-broad general warrants in favor of warrants for specific items.47
Governor Martin urged the commissaries to “appeal to the patriotism of the
Inhabitants…to make voluntary contributions…rather than make use of impressments,”
which he described as “abhorrent to me.” Nevertheless, he knew very well the alternative
if the people would not accept certificates from state purchasers, or contributions by
private individuals—“the last odious and disagreeable measure of impressment.”48
Nathanael Greene also worried about the injurious affects of impressment, as his
correspondence shows from the moment he arrived in Charlotte in 1780. This reluctance,
however, was tempered by an acute awareness of military necessity. He advised his
quartermasters and commissaries that supplies from the government were preferable to
seizing them from civilians, “but force must supply the deficiencies.” This was to be
carried out with as little burden as possible, however. Greene approved of giving the
people receipts for what was taken, fairly valued, with “great care to treat the Inhabitants
47
NCSR, 16:107, 153; NCSR, 24:417-419. In 1781, a North Carolina House of Commons committee
chaired by Nathaniel Macon concluded that the use of general rather than specific warrants was
“unconstitutional, oppressive and destructive to trade.” See NCSR, 17:826. Impressment by the army often
rendered citizens unable to pay the specific taxes. NCSR, 17:790.
48
Alexander Martin to General Bryan, 16 August 1782, NCSR, 16:703-705; Alexander Martin to the
Delegates of the Assembly, 23 November 1782, NCSR, 16:463.
296
kindly and not to impress but from absolute necessity.” With regard to any property,
“whether taken from Whig or Tory,” Greene advised one of his officers that “certificates
ought to be given, that justice may be done to the inhabitants hereafter.” Once fully
apprised of the deplorable state of affairs in the south, however, Greene seemed less
adverse to the use of impressment, although he did not suggest it as a primary tool for
procurement. “It gives me pain to be obliged to take private property, either contrary to
law or the consent of the owners,” he wrote in January 1781, but “remote evils must be
submitted to, to prevent immediate misfortune,” meaning the dispersal of his army.
Greene often told state officials in the Carolinas that his army had to collect subsistence
by force or disband, partly to prompt them into action and to justify his own.49
Indicative of Greene’s views on impressment and plundering are his orders found
in his headquarters’ orderly book of 1781. This record shows that Greene issued orders
in which he “prohibits in the Most Positive manner, the taking of any kind of Property
whatever, from any Inthabitant, but in a legal way; and by the proper Officer appointed
for that purpose.” Deviations from this order were to result in “severe Punishments.” In
an effort to maintain order and avoid alienating citizens he also proscribed the taking of
green corn and turning horses loose into grain fields. Later he ordered that “to prevent
the Troops from Plundering, and to discourage them from overloading themselves with
useless baggage,” his officers were to “inspect their Mens Knapsacks [and] to take from
them every article that may appeare to have been plundered.” The troops were to provide
49
Nathanael Greene to Thomas Polk, 9 December 1780, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 6:559; Nathanael
Greene to Samuel Edminson, 29 December 1780, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 6:602; Nathanael Greene to
Robert Gillies, 9 January 1781, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 7:83; Nathanael Greene to an Unidentified
Person, January 1781, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 7:176; Nathanael Greene to Andrew Pickens, 3
February 1781, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 7:241-242; Nathanael Greene to Thomas Sumter, 15 April
1781, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 8:101; Carp, To Starve the Army at Pleasure, 75.
297
“satisfactory proof, how [they] came by any suspected property.” Obviously, Greene had
learned from experience that his soldiers needed close watching with regard to plundering
and impressment.50
By the end of April 1781, having been in command five months and with two
major battles behind him, his views on supplying the army had tempered with experience.
He noted that “particular situations and particular circumstances often make measures
necessary that have the precious shew of oppression, because they carry with them
consequences pointed and distressing to individuals.” He regretted such incidents, “but
pressing emergencies make it political and sometimes unavoidable.”51 The general
concluded that “if the people have not the virtue and patriotism necessary for our support
we must do one of two things: either leave the Country or support ourselves by force.”52
He chose the latter option a few days later, when in light of the army’s “sufferings for
want of provisions,” he authorized foraging parties to seize beef and hogs near their camp
in South Carolina, though he did direct that such collections be made “in the most regular
manner,” in order to avoid if possible making enemies of the local inhabitants.53
Even after the British evacuated Charleston in 1782, the American army’s
troubles were not over with regard to provisions, and thus the specter of impressment still
hung over the inhabitants of the south. In February 1783, after the British had evacuated
Charleston, Greene had “been obliged to subsist the Troops at the point of the bayonet,”
50
“Orderly Book of General Nathanael Greene’s Southern Campaign from April 5th to September 4th,
1781,” typescript, Society of the Cincinnati Library. This document is not paginated.
51
Nathanael Greene to Thomas Jefferson, 28 April 1781, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 8:165.
52
Nathanael Greene to William Hort, 24 October 1782, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 12:106.
53
General Greene’s Orders, 29 October 1782, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 12:121.
298
and even then he worried that such oppressive means could not keep the army in the
south from dispersing. He believed that buying provisions was preferable to
impressment, in order to avoid injuring what he called “the temper of the people.” Years
of seeing his army’s sufferings and deprivations led him to conclude toward the end of
the war that impressments were “always painful to the people,” though more effective
means of obtaining supplies were often impractical.54
Thomas Burke deplored the exploitation associated with impressment, and the
dangers it posed to the state in terms of encouraging loyalty, maintaining public order,
and establishing legitimacy. He complained that impressment was not only resented by
the people but produced “much murmuring, indignation and complaint, and, I fear, [has]
even shaken the attachment of some of our very well affected Whigs.” He also assessed
what abusive military and state officials produced by their high handedness in seizing
supplies from an already distressed populace.
The Calamities of War are grievous enough even when mitigated by every
possible care and attention, but when acts of power are wantonly and
Insolently committed, and when persons employed in the exercise of them
are worthless, base and contemptible, they become too grievous for a
people to bear.
Burke concluded that “such abuse of office must, if continued, greatly prejudice any
cause and dispose the people to open their arms to an Enemy who offers them greater
security.”55
54
Nathanael Greene to Samuel Findley, 22 April 1783, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 12:633; Nathanael
Greene to Benjamin Lincoln, 2 February 1783, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 12:402; Nathanael Greene to
John Banks, 25 December 1782, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 12:345; Nathanael Greene to John Swan, 9
April 1783, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 12:595.
55
Thomas Burke to Horatio Gates, July 1780, NCSR, 15:769.
299
Burke thus encapsulated the difficulties of obtaining provisions from a citizenry
unwilling and often unable to provide them. These oppressive measures, which
continued as late as 1783, added to the miseries already endured by the inhabitants of
North Carolina, exacerbated the disorder within the state, and bred resentment against the
army officers empowered to enforce such unpopular measures. It seems likely too that at
least some Carolinians regarded a government, be it state or Continental, that could not
satisfactorily supply and maintain its own armed forces to defend the liberties of its
people without resorting to the burdensome expedient of impressment as unworthy of
their allegiance and support.
Despite the odious, oppressive use of impressment to procure supplies and
transportation, North Carolina was never able to support its soldiers in the field
adequately. This inability led the state to adopt oppressive measures such as impressment
and confiscation to meet the demands of war. The state’s powerlessness to defend itself
with men and gather supplies, to say nothing of making contributions to the common
defense, must have inspired little confidence in the Patriot cause among the citizery.
Moreover, these problems with provisions and the way they were procured contributed to
the chaotic situation within the state, especially during the war’s last few years.
Establishment of authority, order, and stability amidst such turmoil was difficult if not
impossible. In fact, the civil and military leaders trying to provide for the troops
exacerbated their difficulties by the very methods they adopted to solve their problems.
Impressment induced hordes of citizens, even those well-disposed to the Whigs, to refuse
to cooperate with commissaries and impressment agents or hide their possessions, rather
than accept as payment what they regarded a worthless script or valueless certificates and
300
receipts. No matter what rhetoric soldiers and politicians used during the war to convince
themselves and the public of the virtue and righteousness of the cause of liberty, surely
they must have recognized that heavy-handed methods of obtaining the sustenance to win
the war did very little to make North Carolina’s revolutionary government popular,
effective or stable.56
In addition to impressment, the most common cause for alienating a significant
portion of the state’s populace was the drafting of militia for involuntary service in the
field. For those who sought to sit out the war, or who had previously performed
voluntary militia service of some kind, being drafted (also known as conscription) was a
major intrusion of the state into their lives, and as such, certainly engendered animosity
toward the fledgling revolutionary government at a time when the government needed all
the support it could muster. Given the conscription’s compulsory nature, opposition to it
was a common feature among those selected for such duty. Drafted men were likely to
serve for extended periods of time, far from home and without their neighbors, unlike a
routine militia tour. Furthermore, those drafted would likely serve in Continental
battalions, or in state regiments.57
56
Carp, To Starve the Army at Pleasure, 81-82.
57
Lee, Crowds and Soldiers in Revolutionary North Carolina, 168-170; Royster, A Revolutionary People
at War, 66-69, 134, 267-268 (quote on page 67); Ward, The War for Independence and the Transformation
of American Society, 111-116. An excellent though overlooked study of drafting in America during the
Revolutionary War is John U. Rees, “’The Pleasure of Their Number’: Crisis, Conscription, and
Revolutionary Soldier’s Recollections,” parts I, II, and III, Association for Living History, Farm and
Agricultural Museums Bulletin, Fall 2003 (23-34), Winter 2004 (23-34), and Spring 2004 (19-28.) For
more details on the draft in the southern states in 1780 and 1781, see Wright, The Continental Army, 153165; Rankin, North Carolina Continentals, 135-136; John D. McBride, “The Virginia War Effort, 17751783: Manpower Policies and Practices” (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Virginia, 1977) 111; and
Kulikoff, The Agrarian Origins of American Capitalism, 154-162.
301
Opposition to the draft caused widespread bitterness all over the state.58 Drafting
was so unpopular that officials charged with carrying it out often designated the most
disaffected of their counties to be conscripted.59 Men feared being drafted, and went to
great lengths to avoid service, which did nothing to bring men into the ranks or bring
order to the war effort. The pietistic Moravians of North Carolina noted in 1781 that
“fear of being called into the militia has driven many to hide in the woods,” and even
their own brethren feared being forced to serve against their religious scruples at various
points in the war.60 Governor Nash, having seen the unhappiness of the state’s
inhabitants with the execution of a draft of militiamen during his tenure in 1780 and 1781
observed that the people “have been so harassed by perpetual Drafts, that I am convinced
it has been the most fruitful source of Disaffection among our Citizens.” He deemed the
draft a “disgrace,” and productive of “every kind of evil Consequence.” Unfortunately
for military leaders and the people of the state, North Carolina continued to make use of
the draft for its new levies well into 1782, but with consistently poor results.61
To a large extent, the draft was adopted in order to provide a substitute for a
regular army, and to bolster the state’s military organizations, which did a poor job
meeting demanding manpower needs. In most cases, members of a militia class balloted
for those to be drafted if a militia company had an inadequate number of men to perform
a tour. Provisions in state laws that allowed for drafting militiamen not only provoked
58
Capt. George Doherty to Jethro Sumner, 22 June 1781, NCSR, 15:490.
59
NCSR, 17:882.
60
Crow, “Liberty Men and Loyalists,” 155; Ward, The War for Independence and the Transformation of
American Society, 131-132.
61
Abner Nash to the General Assembly, 23 June 1781, NCSR, 17:882.
302
widespread resistance, but also weakened the allegiance of many inhabitants to the state
as it struggled to achieve its freedom, viability, and legitimacy. Unable (or unwilling) to
establish a permanent force of long-term enlistees, North Carolina instead made use of
conscripting men from each county’s militia companies.
The use of drafting as a tool for procuring military service from the populace
emerged early in the conflict. The state’s first militia law, enacted in April 1777,
included a provision that “all persons within the ages of sixteen and fifty shall be liable to
be drafted, and every person so drafted, obliged to serve or find an able bodied person in
room.”62 This measure was an early admission by lawmakers that perhaps getting men to
serve in the field willingly might be a challenge.63 In November 1777, the Assembly
passed an act to raise five thousand militia men from across the state, each volunteer to
receive a bounty of $50, and to serve for no more than twelve months. Officers were
authorized to draft men, however, if the requisite number from each county regiment
could not be raised through volunteers.64 The following year, the militia law was revised,
and a provision added that if a drafted militiaman failed to report for duty within five
days of having been drafted, he was “deemed a Continental soldier for one year.”65 Also
in 1778, the Assembly passed a measure to raise troops for three months to relieve those
Carolinians already serving in the field with General Lincoln, and to allow the county
regiments to draft men for such service “in case a sufficient number of volunteers cannot
62
NCSR, 24:3. An earlier measure to allow for drafting militia had been adopted by the Provincial
Congress at Halifax in May 1776, but was not widely used.
63
NCSR, 24:118.
64
NCSR, 24:128.
65
NCSR, 24:194.
303
be had.”66 Two similar laws containing conscription provisions were enacted in 1779,
and two more in 1780, again to help neighboring states that faced imminent invasion.67
Drafting was authorized in the state’s January 1781 militia act as well, which allowed
drafted men to hire substitutes in their stead.68
In January 1781, the state reduced the number of its Continental battalions from
six to four by an act which also sought to bring each of the four remaining organizations
up to full strength. These new levies were to come from the militia, if an insufficient
number of men stepped forward voluntarily to serve.69 This measure was unsuccessful,
so a similar law was passed in June of that year, which allowed men already in service to
be drafted.70 Also in June, the Assembly passed a bill to provide General Greene with
additional troops. The sole method of raising these men was to be a draft of one thousand
militiamen from the Salisbury District, presumably because that district was closest to
Greene’s army in South Carolina. A further draft of five hundred men was to be
completed at Hillsborough for the same purpose.71 Finally, in April 1782, the state’s
legislators enacted the last measure for raising troops, and again specified using a draft
because “the common mode of recruiting [was] found ineffectual.”72 Thus by the
66
NCSR, 24:198.
67
NCSR, 24:255, 262, 331-332, 340.
68
NCSR, 24:360-361.
69
NCSR, 24:367-368.
70
NCSR, 24:386. By 1782, the state forbad Frenchmen from being drafted as well. See NCSR, 24:634.
71
NCSR, 24:404-405.
72
NCSR, 24:413-414.
304
conflict’s end, North Carolina relied heavily on conscription to raise its soldiers. The fact
that so many drafts were called for testifies to the lackluster success such a mode of
raising men produced, and to the consistent unwillingness of the state’s citizens to
voluntarily leave home and bear arms for the defense of the state and campaigns against
the British.
While the overwhelming majority of North Carolinians found the draft to be
repugnant, many experienced military leaders supported this practice, or at least
recognized the unavoidable necessity for adopting it given the difficulties they faced
creating an army out of volunteers. Nathanael Greene had no objections to drafting men
for military duty, a stance he held during the entire war. In 1776, he regarded the draft as
a one of the “measures necessary for the preservation of the Rights and Liberties of
America,” and went on to state that “if the Troops don’t enlist the several Legislatures
must furnish their proportion by draught,” though he recognized that the states would be
reluctant to go that route.73
Once Greene arrived in North Carolina in 1780 and saw the pitiable condition of
his army, he was not hesitant to advocate drafting men without delay. “At the first
opening of the Assembly there should be a severe Law made against harboring Deserters;
without which I fear the Army will be little benefited by the drafts,” he recommended
after the 1781 battles of Cowpens and Guilford Courthouse had thinned his ranks.74
Several months later, he appeared even more convinced of this necessity. “Nothing but
73
Nathanael Greene to Nicholas Cooke, 29 November 1775, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 1:155-156.
74
Nathanael Greene to Richard Caswell, 11 April 1781, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 8:80; Nathanael
Greene to Thomas Sumter, 15 April 1781, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 8:100.
305
drafting can lay a permanent foundation for the liberties of America,” he opined, perhaps
not recognizing the irony of such sentiments.75 Greene believed the draft to be an
efficacious mode of mobilizing the large pool of much-needed men who were not in the
field, especially by the summer of 1781.
I have thought for a long time that the states have a great and sure resource
for the support of the War in the plan of drafting the Citizens for the
service. It operates as a tax and draws into the field an effectual support
for the Army…the importance of drafting, from the certain and speedy aid
it will give the Army, and the sure foundation it will lay for the final
establishment of our Independence let money matters go as they will,
makes me exceeding anxious for its being adopted.76
As he came to see, however, the several acts adopted by North Carolina that included
conscription as a means to raise troops proved ineffectual for the most part.
Numerous complaints circulated within the state from various counties regarding
irregular, unfair or burdensome drafting procedures, in the form of letters to the governor
in particular. These issues surely contributed to the disappointing numbers of men
procured for service in this manner, a problem consistent throughout the war. Even
during early attempts at conscription, the process earned the ire of some of the state’s
highest men. Continental Congressman William Hooper complained of the repeated
drafts of 1778 in harsh language. He noted conscription’s ill effects, which included
“fields robbed of their husbandmen, our Towns of their Manufacturers—Husbands torn
from their wives and Children who sought their daily bread from their personal labors
and industry, idleness and dissipation running riot in the land.”77 Jethro Sumner (then a
75
Nathanael Greene to George Washington, 22 June 1781, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 8:441.
76
Nathanael Greene to Thomas S. Lee, 21 August 1781, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 9:220.
77
William Hooper to James Iredell, 17 November 1778, Papers of James Iredell, 2:55.
306
Continental Colonel) advised Governor Caswell in July that between volunteers and
draftees he could almost raise the 3rd North Carolina to its proper strength at Halifax, but
some of the levies “were mere Boys,” and others should not have been received as
qualified soldiers. From the same camp, Colonel James Hogan also complained of the
quality of the draftees he received, a number of which were “infirm,” or had “sore legs
and ruptures which render them incapable of duty.” Caswell responded to Sumner a few
days later, and acknowledged that “in many counties a most scandalous abuse has been
made of the powers lodged with the people at large” in allowing those unfit for service to
be drafted in room of able men.78 No doubt these unqualified men were picked by local
officials who knew quite well that they would be quickly sent home as unfit. Such
conscription irregularities and frequent number of drafts led to “the justice of the
Government called into question,” as William Hooper concluded.79
By the fall of 1778, the draft still did not proceed smoothly. Even when drafted
men could be collected, as General Allen Jones did in November 1778, he could barely
get them equipped in time for service, “the space for drafting being too short.”80 Other
officers had much less success in getting draftees to report for their required tours of
duty. General William Bryan reported great difficulties that fall. Some of the levies
there “run clear off, and others lye off in the Rebellion and swears to kill any person that
shall offer to enlist them.” He reported that a collection of men previously balloted to
78
Jethro Sumner to Richard Caswell, 9 July 1778, NCSR, 13:189-190; James Hogan to Richard Caswell, 9
July 1778, NCSR, 13:191; Richard Caswell to Jethro Sumner, 12 July 1778, NCSR, 13:193.
79
William Hooper to James Iredell, 17 November 1778, Papers of James Iredell, 2:55. See also Crow,
“Liberty Men and Loyalists,” 125-127, for an example of drafting irregularities (in Anson County).
80
Allen Jones to Richard Caswell, 15 and 23 November 1778, NCSR, 13:280-281.
307
serve with Washington, along with some of those picked for service in South Carolina,
embodied along the border of Nash and Johnston counties and defied the authorities of
both venues. He was at a loss as to how he should proceed against “such lawless
people,” and feared for his life given the frequent threats by deserters to kill him. Even
those men he had been able to capture and jail had been broken out with the assistance of
their fellow reprobates.81
One incident lucidly illustrates not only the troubles with drafting men unwilling
to serve as soldiers, but also the process as well. In June, 1778, Captain Rhodes’
company of the Guilford County militia was “convened” for the purpose of procuring
men to go to the relief of South Carolina. On the day of the muster, not enough
volunteers could be found to make the company’s quota, at which time Rhodes’ called
for a ballot to decide on the men who would have to serve involuntarily. Two men were
chosen, but a court martial subsequently “cleared [them] from their draft under a pretense
that they had enrolled their names with some other Captain before the Day of balloting.
One of these men is one of the Majors of this County, the other a private person who was
never called upon to muster before that day.” Captain Rhodes was unsure if the court
martial was authorized to relieve the draftees from their lot, especially since he was
adamant that the two men lived within his district. Thus, it can be seen that not only were
draftees resistant to the draft, they also attempted by crafty means to avoid serving once
their names were balloted. Moreover, as this incident illustrates, some officers were just
as willing to finagle the system as common soldiers, whether as draftees or as members
81
William Bryan to Richard Caswell, 23 November 1778, NCSR, 13:295.
308
of courts martial. With such examples, it is no wonder many men of the lower ranks
refused to take the field after being drafted.82
It was clear by 1779 that volunteers would not provide North Carolina with all of
the men needed to serve as Continentals, or as part of the relief forces for South Carolina
and Georgia. General William Bryan blamed the problems on inexperienced officers,
and that the state laws were insufficiently severe to “compel men when drafted to turn out
and march, whereby seldom more than half the number ordered enters upon duty.”
Numerous reports reveal the shortage of willing men available within the militia
companies across the state. General Allen Jones’ brigade, for example, could not even
find two hundred volunteer militiamen in July 1779 from his entire district of several
counties. 83 Even “very large bounties” were only able to garner a small part of the two
thousand men called for by the legislature, which would thus require a draft from the
militia—no doubt a time-consuming process with uncertain results.84
Opposition to the draft went beyond individuals failing to report for duty. In
Tryon County, in western North Carolina, Governor Caswell ordered Colonel Charles
McLean to apprehend the delinquents from the county’s previous two drafts for men to
aid South Carolina. The force McLean sent to collect the draftees, however, was
repulsed by armed resistance, as was the next attempt as well. “Those persons that
82
Thomas Henderson to Richard Caswell, 18 June 1778, NCSR, 13:446-447. Militia officers also resorted
to drafting indentured servants when their manpower needs could not be met by other means. This
deprived servants’ masters of the investment they had made in the servants and their labor, particularly if
the bondsmen deserted the army and failed to return to their masters. House Joint Resolutions, Joint
Papers, General Assembly Session Records, April-May 1783, Box 1, N.C. State Archives.
83
Richard Caswell to Allen Jones, 7 July 1779, NCSR, 14:142-143; William Bryan to Richard Caswell, 27
April 1779, NCSR, 14:74-75.
84
Richard Caswell to John Rutledge, 11 July 1779, NCSR, 14:151.
309
formerly Stood out are now embodying Themsleves and Boast of their Great Numbers,”
the Colonel reported, possibly several hundred, who “boast they will Be masters of the
Country soon.”85 In the summer of 1779, Johnston County saw yet another anti-draft
insurrection, as did Edgecombe, Nash, and Dobbs, in the form of “people assembling in
an unlawful manner…to oppose the Laws of the State by refusing to be drafted, or
marching in case of being drafted, and entering into combinations to support each other
in these wicked and pernicious attempts.” The North Carolina Council’s records report
that these insurgents
assembled together and Assigned Article of Association or Inlistment,
wherein they had obliged themselves to prevent the Militia from being
drafted, and if drafted into Service of their Country and apprehended, to
release such drafts; that they defected thereby several of the Inhabitants
from their duty, threatened others with desolation or destruction; that
several warrants had issued from the Civil magistrates, which had been
treated with the utmost contempt, and the officers or justices grossly
insulted or abused; that they had lately shot at and wounded several
persons who were apprehending and Conveying to justice Deserters and
Harbourers of Deserters from the Continental Army.86
Caswell directed a militia force to move against these “traitorous” people, and authorized
the militia captain, if other more peaceful means failed to quell the rioters, to “fire upon,
and, at any rate, conquer and subdue them.”87 In some cases the draft made instant
enemies of the state. Governor Burke received the report in 1781 of English-born Joseph
Gleason, who arrived in North Carolina in 1771 and had “performed the Duty of a
Citizen until he was drafted” in 1781, at which point he “immediately afterwards joined
Lord Cornwallis,” then became “active and violent against the Whigs” as a Tory, in
85
Charles McLean to the General Assembly, 6 February 1779, NCSR, 14:261.
86
N.C. Council Journal, 3 July 1779, NCSR, 14:319.
87
Richard Caswell to John Heritage, 19 July 1779, NCSR, 14:169-170.
310
which role he committed many “cruel, wanton and severe Depredations…on the Good
inhabitants of this Country.” No doubt many others adopted the same response to being
forced to serve the patriot cause against their will.88
Once British forces under Sir Henry Clinton assumed active operations in the
Carolinas and Georgia by the beginning of 1780, manpower needs became more urgent.
Not only did North Carolina need to draft men to build an army to defend themselves,
they also needed to make the draft more efficient in the face of overwhelming enemy
numbers surrounding Charleston that spring. North Carolina’s Judge Samuel Ashe
recommended that “instead of drafting a few of the Militia, the whole Body of them,
without exemptions…ought, in my opinion, to take the field and be in force and readiness
to receive the Enemy.”89 As it was, however, the state could barley get out a significant
portion of the levies made by the various county militia regiments, not only in 1780, but
for the rest of the war. This situation was compounded by further resistance to
conscription. “The tumults in this part of the Country has been the cause of the drafts…”
a report from Duplin in 1781 noted, while in the backcountry, officers observed the
“desertions that frequently happen by reason they [force] a number of Toryes into the
Sarvis,” surely a dubious way of building a reliable fighting force to establish
88
William Caswell to Thomas Burke, 30 August 1781, Preston Davie Collection, Southern Historical
Collection, UNC, Box 3, #141; Court Papers, District of Edenton, 1757-1787, Criminal Court Records 141,
N.C. State Archives.
89
Judge Samuel Ashe to unknown, 29 May 1780, NCSR, 14:826.
311
independence.90 Governor Burke reminded the General Assembly in June 1781 that the
constant drafts of militia as adding to the confusion already so rampant in the state.91
Part of the objections men had to the draft was that it was often administered
unfairly. That there were numerous abuses on the part of county officials and military
officers with regard to the daft was no secret. A 1782 petition from the Salisbury District
bitterly denounced procedures by in that region of some officials, who it was claimed had
“grievously, injustly, and illegally wronged and oppressed” the people by conscripting
only the “poor and ignorant” within their jurisdictions, or “those against whom they or
their friends, and dependants, had the most trifling resentment or prejudice, as also to
screen and favour individuals from the Drafts.” This was done by militia officers
“without the least regard to any Military law of this State.” The petitioners also reported
that in advance of the draft, it was a common practice for officers to insinuate that those
they wished to see drafted were disaffected or outright Tories, which made it easier to
have them conscripted. Such irregularities led to protests, demonstrations and even
forced some of those improperly drafted to “seek for refuge amongst the Woods and
Mountains, or otherwise fly for shelter in some other State…and lurk about their homes
in the Woods and other secret places to avoid such unjust treatment.” Not surprisingly,
such resistance earned them the description of “Tories, harbourers of Tories, and avowed
Enemies to our Country.”
90
George Doherty to Jethro Sumner, 22 June 1781, NCSR, 15:490; John Armstrong to Jethro Sumner, 1
July 1781, NCSR, 15:504.
91
Burke to the General Assembly, 23 June 1781, NCSR, 17:881-882; see also Burke to the General
Assembly, 5 July 1781, NCSR, 22:1038.
312
Despite their efforts, these Salisbury area men could get no redress to for their
concerns, and they detailed the common offensive practices against them at length, in
language that may have reminded some assemblymen of the North Carolina Regulators’
complaints ten years beforehand.
When any favorite person—[an officer’s] Son, Servant, etc., happened
unexpectedly to be drafted, upon application to a Field Officer, he, upon
some pretext or other, Ordered a new draft to be made and the former to
be set aside, and then it was certainly to fall to the lot of some poor
ignorant person to be sent abroad, and in his absence his Family suffer
with hunger and other distresses. These injudicious, unfair and partial
ways of procedure…gave rise to several bad effects and disturbances
which have happened throughout the District of Salisbury: Many heads of
families and others throughout the District however determined to lives
obedient and submissive to the Laws of their Country and in Amity with
their Neighbors, have been from time to time and at all times, when an
Opportunity offered, repeatedly, unlawfully, and wrongfully imposed
upon, oppressed and aggrieved by the arbitrary and offensive conduct of
those who generally assumed to themselves such powers as we are certain
their Superiors were never invested with; neither could we see any legal
way or means left us to procure redress of those grievances, and frequent
application being made to the Officers of Militia, to Justices of the peace,
Attornies, and others, that no remedy could then be obtained to prevent
such abuses, or for those already committed.
Not only did such practices make a mockery of liberty and republican government, it
must have also weakened the support for and allegiance to the new state and its leaders
among those who suffered by the repeated offenses of its officers.92
By 1782, North Carolina still attempted to bring men into the field by the draft,
though these were only “partially and imperfectly furnished” due to imperfect record
keeping and “the frauds committed in substitutions,” while exemptions from the draft for
92
Petition of Inhabitants of Rowan County, undated, Grievances, Joint Papers, General Assembly Session
Records, April-May 1782, Box 1, N.C. State Archives. This lengthy petition is ten legal size pages of
complaints and details irregularities in the North Carolina backcountry.
313
those who caught deserters “introduced some shameful” abuses as well.93 1782 also saw
the state legislature try once again to complete their Continental battalions by drafting
every 20th man of the militia for eighteen months of service, “as [voluntary] enlistments
during the War cannot be obtained in this State so as to answer any General purpose.”
Draft officials were to be on the lookout for questionable practices among the people who
hired substitutes, all of whom were to be of proper age, in good health, and able to take
the field immediately.94
Nevertheless, Carolinians remained resistant to the draft well into 1782, as
numerous reports depict. Part of this unwillingness stemmed from the inability of state
and military authorities to arm and outfit them properly for service, which must have
acted to make men hesitate to enter the ranks willingly. No wonder then the “men come
in very slow and numbers desert,” as one officer from Bertie County reported in August
that year.95 The process of conscription was not facilitated by “the utter inattention of the
commanding officers” of several counties, who may have been sympathetic to the levies’
plight so late in the war, with British troops no closer to the state that Charleston.96
As the war began to draw to a close, Governor Alexander Martin sought to
expedite the process of getting conscripted men into the state’s regiments in order to
93
Thomas Burke’s message to the General Assembly, 16 April 1782, NCSR, 16:6-10.
94
Thomas Burke to Alexander Lillington, 7 April 1782, NCSR, 16:583; Alexander Martin to Robert
Morris, 22 June 1782, NCSR, 16:340-341; Alexander Martin to Robert Livingston, 24 June 1782, NCSR,
16:342; NCSR, 16:634; Alexander Martin to Brig. Generals of Militia, 1 September 1782, NCSR, 16:709.
95
Hardy Murfree to Jethro Sumner, 18 August 1782, NCSR, 16:641-642; Alexander Martin to Jethro
Sumner, 21 August 1782, NCSR, 16:642-643; Thomas Donoho to Jethro Sumner, 22 August 1782, NCSR,
16:643; John Armstrong to Jethro Sumner, 23 August 1782, NCSR, 16:645.
96
Robert Raiford to Jethro Sumner, 22 August 1782, NCSR, 16:644.
314
augment Greene’s army in South Carolina, but was anxious about its harmful effects. He
worried that the opposition to the draft “destroys all Civil Government,” and was no
doubt concerned about keeping order within the state. Martin thought active opposition
to conscription would foment “anarchy and confusion,” the result of which could be the
“unhinging [of] the Government,” which in light of the myriad difficulties the state faced
as the war ended, this was surely not an impossibility.97
Given the intrusiveness and persistence of these two onerous expedients in the
realm of mobilization and procurement, conscription and impressment doubtlessly had an
enormous impact on the lives of most North Carolinians during the Revolutionary
struggle. Resistance to them produced widespread disorders, resentment against the new
government, and surely weakened the allegiance of numerous inhabitants to the state and
its institutions responsible for these measures. Abner Nash’s observation that the draft
was a “disgrace,” productive of “every kind of evil Consequence,” and his conclusion
that impressment was “oppressive,” echoed the sentiments of many hard-pressed citizens,
some of whom were even pushed into the enemy’s camp as a result. Only with the
coming of peace, and thus an end to the incessant need for men and supplies, did the state
see the bitter opposition to these measures, and to a large degree, itself.
97
Alexander Martin to Isaac Shelby, 23 July 1782, NCSR, 16:696.
315
CHAPTER 7
“TO WEAR A NEW APPEARANCE”: FROM CHAOS TO CIVIL ORDER”
Many Carolinians observed that anarchy and confusion characterized a great part
of the state for much of the conflict. As detailed in previous chapters, this chaos had
many causes, including the operations of the British army, hostilities and depredations of
the loyalists, the numerous disorders associated with mobilization of militia and
Continental forces, and procurement of supplies, provisions, and other warlike stores.
These three burdens were significant, intrusive threats to the security of North
Carolinians, and the stability of the state. Large swaths of the state were not under firm
control by the revolutionaries, as open insurrections, plundering, murders and other acts
of violence hindered North Carolina from establishing its own authority, institutions and
legitimacy. The anarchy within the state made it nearly impossible at times for its
officials to raise troops, collect taxes, or perform any number of like functions
characteristic of a government. As Nathanael Greene observed in 1782, “in this
situation…it is difficult for Government with the best disposition to levy and collect
taxes,” and even more problematic for North Carolina, “still torn to pieces by little parties
of disaffected who elude all search.” Only when order, stability and effective
316
government returned to the state could a fixed government begin to take shape in North
Carolina.1
Thus, while Continentals and British redcoats met on the battlefields of the
Revolution to trade volleys and push bayonets, the war for most North Carolinians meant
something much different than set piece battles. Most of them did not serve in the state’s
battalions of regulars, nor did most Carolinians see action at Moore’s Creek, Camden,
Kings Mountain, Cowpens, or Guilford Courthouse—the major battles of the southern
theatre. Rather, for the majority of people within the state, the war instead was about
hardships endured at or near home in the form of small skirmishes, Tory attacks, house
burnings, whippings, and what Greene referred to as “the most horrid Murders and
plunder,” much of which the state was powerless to prevent.2 People on both sides were
often forced to leave their homes, sleep in the woods, hide their goods, or as in too many
cases, operate under the law of lex talionis in order to secure their own safety with equal
and direct retribution. Even state officials were accused of plundering both sides, or
allowed their militia soldiers to do so, reports of which could have done nothing to attract
the allegiance of the people to the state’s authority.3
In addition to the persistent concern over the Tory menace, almost all North
Carolinians saw the war significantly intrude upon their lives in the form of impressment
officials. These men, even when acting in a legitimate manner under the auspices of the
1
Nathanael Greene to Robert Morris, 9 March 1782, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 10:469; Horatio Gates
to the N.C. Board of War, 12 November 1780, Horatio Gates Papers, microfilm, reel 11.
2
Nathanael Greene to Robert Morris, 9 March 1782, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 10:469; Thomas Wade
to Nathanael Greene, 29 April 1781, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 8:175; Andrew Armstrong to Thomas
Burke, 28 August 1781, NCSR, 22:1047.
3
Thomas Robeson to Thomas Burke, 10 July 1781, NCSR, 22:543; NCSR, 17:816; NCSR, 17:689.
317
state or the Continental Army, were unwelcome visitors to hard-pressed farm families in
the midst of war, chaos, financial disorders, the state’s specific tax, and by the last few
years of the conflict, scarcity of all kinds of goods and property. While women, children
and many men as well did not serve in the ranks of military organizations, certainly the
vast majority of all of them suffered from agents bent on filling the army’s various and
sundry needs. As the war dragged on, the needs became more pressing, and as a result,
more intrusive and burdensome. For many of these families, perhaps an experience with
the impressment officer or agent was their primary encounter with the Whig government,
which could hardly have endeared the newly created state to them. The forced collection
of all manner of things by the state and the new national government as well was
oftentimes so poorly managed and unfairly executed as to contribute mightily to the
disorder and near anarchic conditions found in North Carolina during the war years.
From 1776 to 1783, military service was of course a burden endured by many
Carolina men. Even for those who volunteered, tours of duty were almost always marked
by hardships, as they were for draftees or those otherwise ordered by state officials to
serve in the ranks for some transgression or question of loyalty. The typical service for
Carolinians in the Revolutionary War was even more demanding due to the problems of
supplies, clothing, arms, food, and transportation. Most men doubtlessly wanted to be
somewhere else than in a poorly supplied camp, on a freezing cold march, or facing the
enemy as part of an ill-equipped army unit. When the state forced them to do so, the
bitterness and resentment of such an intrusion into their lives made for great confusion
and disarray within the army and the state, as men scrambled to avoid service, and in
many cases, became part of the numerous disaffected found all over North Carolina.
318
Perhaps the men asked themselves why they had to fight for a cause which made such
high demands upon their liberties and put them in harm’s way.
Thus, military service and impressment were for many North Carolinians the
war’s most oppressive and invasive features. Coupled with the violence and destruction
of warfare and Tory activities, as well as the financial woes of the struggle, Carolinians
endured years of trials, some of which came from the demands of the state, and others
because the state was powerless to prevent them. Though ultimately victorious by 1783,
the revolutionaries—and those who had opposed them as well—had little to celebrate
beyond the evacuation of the British from the south at the end of 1782, and the cessation
of loyalist attacks. For in addition to possessing a populace that included many
inhabitants who could not be considered friendly or supportive, North Carolina was a
scene of disarray and devastation from which it had to strive mightily to emerge.
By the last few years of the war, much of the state was marred by desolation and
disruption. Ruinous finances, devastated commerce, physical destruction and the
demands placed upon the people all served to create burdens bitterly resented and not
easily repaired. As the state moved from the ravages of war to the process of
reconstruction, Carolinians who surveyed the condition of their country saw a bleak
landscape beset by numerous difficulties. There is no shortage of contemporary evidence
of the ruined condition of the state, which strikingly demonstrates the difficult task of
rebuilding North Carolina. The state found itself by 1781 as a land “which once afforded
great abundance of provisions for its own inhabitants and a considerable quantity for
319
exportation…by natural casualties and the events of the war…reduced so as to afford but
a scanty supply for the inhabitants.”4
A December 1781 petition by backcountry inhabitants to the Assembly articulated
the dire condition in which they found themselves. These supplicants observed that there
is “scarce the shadow of civil government exercised in the state,” and that which could be
found was too much under the control of the “military power,” no doubt a reference to
the draft and impressment. Civil officials neglected their duties from disaffection,
“ignorance, inattention, or some other cause.” The men complained about the state’s
system of justice—it was “not duly administered,” and the laws when passed were not
properly promulgated. They pointed out the “deranged condition” of the state’s finances,
the large sums of money unaccounted for, many claims against the public going
unsettled, and that the “public treasury is exhausted.” After detailing numerous
shortcomings with the state militia system, these westerners ended by chastising the
legislators themselves for their paltry efforts. “We consider it a very great grievance that
at a time when the enemy were nearly or entirely expelled from the State and our
government in so Desperate a Situation, the legislature should fail to meet and deliberate
on those momentous affairs.” The petitioners were certainly correct when they surmised
that these grievances “are not common to this District alone.”5
4
NCSR, 12:837; North Carolina Delegates to John Laurens, 16 January 1781, Letters of Delegates to the
Continental Congress, 16:610; Crittenden, The Commerce of North Carolina, 116-154; Lefler and
Newsome, North Carolina: History of a Southern State, 236-237. By “natural casualties,” the N.C.
congressional delegates meant droughts and floods. Even as early as 1778, the state legislature learned that
“the Treasury of this State is at this time exhausted,” and its financial footing was already on shaky ground.
That same year a Moravian wrote that “the whole land cries for peace.” The amount of physical
destruction, though, seems to have been limited until 1780. Fries, Moravian Records, 3:1252.
5
Petition of Inhabitants of the Salisbury District, December 1781, Joint Papers, General Assembly Session
Records, April-May 1782, Box 1, N.C. State Archives. With regard to the failure of the Assembly to meet
320
Although certainly there were complaints of difficulties in the early years of the
conflict, reports increased when the British threatened the state from South Carolina, and
Patriot forces frantically began preparing for its defense. Even before the British
invasion of late 1780, one Carolinian wrote “I know the whole Country is worn out with
the War.”6 Early that summer, William Hooper described the eastern part of the state as
one of “want and barrenness,” and the people unaccountably lethargic.7 Records seem to
show that the real trouble started for North Carolina in the wake of Gates’ August 1780
defeat at Camden. Three weeks after the battle, Abner Nash warned of “the distress of
the country, and the dangers to which it is exposed, [which] call aloud for the most
speedy and decisive measures,” despite an “exhausted” treasury and dearth of “provisions
laid up.”8 “Far and wide the land is much reduced, partly laid waste, so that we can look
for high prices if not actual hunger, if God does not give Peace,” a Moravian recorded in
Bethabara.9 Other reports told of the western piedmont being “exhausted,” while near
Charlotte, there were “many abdicated Plantations, the Corn in the Fields standing
untouched.” General Gates wrote from Salisbury that indiscriminate abuses against the
in a timely way or at all, or to make a quorum, this was not an isolated incident. Cornelius Harnett, in early
February 1780, noted that “the General Assembly were called together by the Governor—but made no
house. After a Number of Members had waited ten or 12 days, they returned home. I am sorry to observe
my Countrymen do not pay that attention to public business which their constituents have a right to expect
from them.” Corneilius Harnett to Thomas Burke, 22 February 1780, Thomas Burke Papers, Box 55.1,
N.C. State Archives. Regarding late war financial problems, see Schoepf, Travels in the Confederation,
129-132.
6
Whitmill Hill to Thomas Burke, n.d., 1779, NCSR, 14:3.
7
William Hooper to Abner Nash, 7 June 1780, NCSR, 14:843.
8
Abner Nash to the General Assembly, 6 September 1780, NCSR, 15:76. Nash did state that the militia
was “numerous and high spirited” at the time, and that provisions were available, but more effective
measures to support the army were then needed.
9
Fries, Records of the Moravians, 4:1905-1906.
321
citizenry were perpetrated by tax collectors, and he expected as a result that “nothing but
anarchy will prevail” without some measures being adopted by the state to establish its
authority.10 These conditions were in addition to the turmoil in many areas of the state
caused by increased violence on the part of loyalists, emboldened by Cornwallis’
invasion.11
These were, as one Moravian put it, “unsafe times.”12 “O, my good friend, what
will this world come to, and what must be the fate of our poor State,” cried one
Carolinian in early 1781, “when those who have taken on themselves the Government,
pay too little attention to its welfare.”13 William Hooper described the state in early 1781
as “a Country on the verge of ruin.”14 Nathanael Greene could only bemoan the destitute
conditions in the state, to which he looked for so much of his army’s logistical support.
In December 1780, and into the first months of 1781, Greene reported on the situation
within his new department. He described the area around Charlotte as “in a great degree
laid waste” and “impoverished” from the movements and demands of the armies as well
as the struggle between Whigs and Tories.15 The country along the Pee Dee River, he
discovered, “is already laid Waste and in the utmost Danger of becoming a Desert,” with
only the “shadow of government” in many places. He blamed frequent call ups of militia
in the days after Camden, which produced great shortages of food and fodder. The
10
Horatio Gates to the Board of War, 12 November 1780, Horatio Gates Papers, microfilm, reel 11.
11
NCSR, Vol. XIV, 481.
12
Fries, Records of the Moravians, 4:1905-1906. The diary entry for this quote is of 26 February 1781.
13
B. McCullock to Jethro Sumner, 16 January 1781, NCSR, 15:419.
14
William Hooper to James Iredell, 13 February 1781, Papers of James Iredell, 2:209.
15
Nathanael Greene to Samuel Huntington, 28 December 1780, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 7:7-9.
322
region was characterized by “long tracks of barren land,” where “hundreds of families
that formerly lived in great opulence are now reduced to beggary and want.” Plundering,
robbery, murders and Tory violence also threatened “the depopulation of the whole
country,” as inhabitants sought to flee from the scenes of destruction.16
The war caused not only violence for individuals, it disrupted families,
communities, and institutions as well. Moravians recorded that February 1781 was
marked by “so much disturbance that the Brethren hardly dared leave their homes.”17
Greene too regarded the political system then in North Carolina as “confused” and
“perplexed.”18 Some counties could not collect their taxes due to the British invasion,
Tory violence, and the collapse of local government, particularly from 1780 to 1782.19
Greene tried to dissuade his wife from traveling to the Carolinas from Rhode Island to
visit him, as the state is “little short of a wilderness,” where “nothing but blood and
slaughter prevails.”20 Several months later he wrote his wife again, and warned her that
16
Nathanael Greene to Robert Howe, 29 December 1780, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 7:17; Nathanael
Greene to John Cox, 9 January 1781, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 7:81; Greene to Alexander Hamilton,
10 January 1781, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 7:87; Nathanael Greene to Catharine Greene, 12 January
1781, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 7:102; Fries, Records of the Moravians, 4:1669.
17
Fries, Records of the Moravians, 4:1780.
18
Nathanael Greene to Joseph Clay, 17 February 1781, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 7:300; Nathanael
Greene to Baron Steuben, 29 February 1781, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 7:374.
19
Petition of James Holland, 23 November 1786, Joint Select Committee Reports, General Assembly
Session Records, November 1786-January 1787, Box 2, N.C. State Archives; Report of the Committee
Regarding the Memorial of Sarah Roundtree, 15 December 1786, Joint Select Committee Reports, General
Assembly Session Records, November 1786-January 1787, Box 2, N.C. State Archives; “A Bill to
authorize and impower the County Commissioners in the Several Counties in this State to collect arrears in
Specific taxes for the Years 1780, 1781 and 1782,” (rejected) House Bills, , General Assembly Session
Records, November 1786-January 1787, Box 5, N.C. State Archives. Holland, a Superintendent of the
Specific tax in the Morgan District in 1782, furnished beef cattle to state troops by using his own financial
resources, but was unable to collect enough in taxes within the district to cover the advance. He was
reimbursed by the Assembly in 1787.
20
Nathanael Greene to Catharine Greene, 18 March 1781, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 7:446.
323
in North Carolina there were few places “but that you would need a guard to secure you
from the insults and villainy of the Tories.” In the days after the fight at Guilford, the
state was as “nearly as reduced as ever a State was in the universe.”21 North Carolina
was “a land of trouble and…shocking scenes.”22 The general concluded by the end of
March 1781 that “indeed the confusion which prevails in North Carolina puts almost a
total stop to all business. The Inhabitants are in the greatest distress and their calamities
call aloud for protection.”23
The word repeatedly used to describe the state by Greene and others during the
active campaigns of early 1781 was “exhausted.”24 The state was characterized by a
“Contempt for Authority and a disorderly indulgence of violent propensities,” Thomas
Burke wrote upon being elected governor in 1781, before calling for “the greatest
exertion of wisdom and vigor” to remedy these “evils.”25
Carolina leaders heard all sorts of reports to demonstrate the disorder so prevalent
in the summer of 1781, a “season of distress and danger.”26 Rumors of slave revolts
circulated within the state, along with reports of a British invasion in 1781.27 As he
21
Nathanael Greene to Catherine Greene, 18 July 1781, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 9:35-36; Nathanael
Greene to Joseph Reed, 18 March 1781, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 7:449.
22
Nathanael Greene to Catharine Greene, 30 March 1781, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 8:7.
23
Nathanael Greene to Joseph Reed, 30 March 1781, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 8:12.
24
For example, see William R. Davie to Greene, 3 April 1781, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 8:137.
25
Address of Gov. Thomas Burke, 29 June 1781, NCSR, 17:910.
26
Petition from Edenton, 6 June 1781, Joint Select Committee Reports, General Assembly Session
Records, June 1781, Box 1, N.C. State Archives.
27
Jean Blair to James Iredell, 21 July 1781, Papers of James Iredell, 2:266-267. Blair wrote that the
embodied blacks were officered by white loyalists. William Bryan petitioned the state legislature in 1783
for the value of one of his slaves who ran away to join other blacks in rebellion in July 1781 and was killed
324
ended his term as governor in June, Abner Nash lamented the “present disordered
condition of this unhappy state,” which he concluded began with the defeat at Camden.28
His successor, Thomas Burke, described the state a few days later as one without “the
habits of civil order, and obedience to Laws, changed into a licentious contempt of
authority, and a disorderly indulgence of Violent propensities. Industry is intermitted,
agriculture much decayed, and commerce struggling feebly, with almost insuperable
difficulties.”29 Greene congratulated Burke on his appointment as governor but reminded
him of the difficulties ahead. “It is a melancholy truth,” he warned Burke, “that
everything in the State has been in confusion, the powers of Government feeble, the great
departments in both the civil and military line deranged as well with respect to the modes
of conducting business as in matters of finance.”30 Matters improved not at all with
Burke’s capture by Loyalists under David Fanning in September 1781. Upon assuming
the role of governor in Burke’s absence, Alexander Martin informed the state Council
that he only reluctantly accepted the position “at this critical period, when our affairs are
so deranged and the wheels of Government clogged with so many impediments.”31
during its suppression. Although Bryan’s claim does not specifically state where the rebellion occurred, he
did note that the slave rebels committed murders and robberies, and based his claim for compensation on a
provision in a 1741 colonial law. Petition of William Bryan, House Joint Resolutions, General Assembly
Session Records, April-May 1783, Box 1, N.C. State Archives. See also Ward, The War for Independence
and the Transformation of American Society, 178, regarding a planned slave uprising in 1775 in North
Carolina.
28
Address of Gov. Abner Nash, 23 June 1781, NCSR, 17:881-882.
29
Thomas Burke to the General Assembly, 29 June 1781, NCSR, 22:1033.
30
Nathanael Greene to Thomas Burke, 16 July 1781, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 9:18.
31
Alexander Martin to the State Council, 5 October 1781, NCSR, 19:870.
325
Disorder promoted lawless behavior. Theft of all kinds, including slaves, was not
unknown, and men continued to disregard the state’s authority.32 It was a period when
“Anarchy and Confusion so much prevailed amongst us that the Authority of Law and
Order seemed at an End.”33 Robert Rowan, for instance, warned the governor in July
1781 that “if some means is not fallen upon to support the Civil Law in that County, the
peaceable Inhabitants must be under the necessity of removing themselves very
speedily.”34 Civil order was indeed difficult to maintain. Much of the “mob violence”
complained of in Salem in 1781 was caused by “a released[,] hungry militia”
uncontrolled by their officers.35 Hillsborough residents were “much disturbed so that
they were moving their property” to protect it from the Tories.36 John Ramsey, on the
Deep River nearby, also reported to Burke of the people’s “distressed situation,” which
was near “total ruin” and “confusion,” so much so that they decided to “withdraw
themselves to places of Safety” to avoid Tory depredations, particularly those of Colonel
Fanning.37
Civil institutions such as the courts were often disrupted during the later years of
the struggle, notably when British incursions coincided with their sessions. In the
backcountry, Surry County’s November 1780 court session was interrupted by the threat
32
NCSR, 16:78.
33
Petition of Inhabitants of Onslow County, undated, Governor’s Papers, General Assembly Session
Records, April-May 1782, Box 1, N.C. State Archives.
34
Robert Rowan to Thomas Burke, 13 July 1781, NCSR, 22:545.
35
Fries, Records of the Moravians, 4:1910.
36
Armand Armstrong to Thomas Burke, 20 August 1781, NCSR, 22:567. The letter implies too that the
inhabitants feared confiscation as well.
37
John Ramsey to Thomas Burke, 15 August 1781, NCSR, 22:562-563.
326
of a British advance. Salem Moravians heard from a traveler that the Surry court
“adjourned yesterday, and nothing was done, except a few absolutely necessary things.
No jury was chosen, there were scarcely twenty men present, and not a single lawyer.”38
In Warren County, the court of quarter sessions met only one day during its September
1780 session, just after Camden, and only two days of its February 1781 session, not
coincidently during Cornwallis’ invasion.39 Caswell County’s quarterly court had only
two very brief sessions in all of 1781.40 In Nash County, the county’s courts met briefly
in July 1780 as the state was involved with the Camden campaign, and held an even
shorter session in October 1780 after the battle. Likewise, just after Guilford Courthouse,
the court met for only one day in April 1781, and in July of that year, the quick session
saw only the recording of two wills.41 The British occupation of Wilmington during
1781 prevented the New Hanover County court and the Wilmington District court from
meeting there, so that many lawmakers called for a bill to allow the court to meet
anywhere within the county.42
Military operations surrounding the battles of Camden, Kings Mountain, and
Cowpens truncated the sessions of Lincoln County’s judicial sessions in the Carolina
backcountry. There was no July 1780 meeting, and October’s was very short given
38
Fries, Moravian Records, 4:1577, 1645.
39
Ginger Christmas-Beattie, Warren County, North Carolina Minutes to the Court of Pleas and Quarter
Sessions, 2 vols. (Forest Grove, OR: Ancestral Tracks, 2000), 1:15
40
Katherine Kerr Kendall, Caswell County, 1777-1877: Historical Abstracts of Minutes of Caswell County,
North Carolina, typescript, 2-10 (in N.C. State Archives).
41
42
Nash County Court of Common Pleas and Quarter Sessions, microfilm, c.069.30001.
NCSR, 17:948; Alexander Walker, Compiler, New Hanover County Court Minutes, Part 2, 1771-1785
(Bethesda, MD: Alexander Walker, 1959); Wilmington District Superior Court Trial Docket, 1772-1783
(DCR 12.025), N.C. State Archives.
327
Lincoln’s proximity to Kings Mountain. No court business was conducted in January
1781, when Cowpens was fought and British troops entered the state.43 The Edenton
District Court did not meet from November 1780 to November 1781. The May 1781
sessions was disrupted, probably due to Cornwallis’ march from Wilmington to
Petersburg, Virginia during that month. This same court failed to meet in May 1782 as
well, a time of increased Tory activity in many areas of the state. The Hillsborough
District Court did not meet at all in 1781,44 while the Salisbury District Superior Court
heard but one case between its sessions of March 1780 and September 1782, a period of
active British operations and loyalist violence all through the backcountry.45
One of the problems that exacerbated the disorder and confusion of efforts in
military affairs and in maintaining public order, especially after 1779, was the restricted
powers of the governor under the new constitution and through acts passed by the
Assembly during the war. This was partly a reaction to what many Patriots called the
abuses of power on the part of royal governors during the late colonial period, notably
William Tryon and Josiah Martin in the early 1770s. What Gordon Wood has called a
“Whig fear of magisterial power” led to the assumption of the responsibility by the
legislative branch of government for ruling the state.46 Perhaps in North Carolina, this
43
Anne W. McAllister and Kathy G. Sullivan, compilers, “Court of Common Pleas and Quarter Sessions,
Lincoln County, N.C., April 1779-January 1789,” Typescript, 1988 in the N.C. State Archives.
44
Hillsborough District Superior Court Minute Docket, 1768-1788, Vol. 1 (DSCR 204.311.1), N.C. State
Archives.
45
46
Salisbury District Superior Court Trial Docket, 1779-1784 (DSCR 207.322.4), N.C. State Archives.
Sheldon F. Koesy, “Continuity and Change in North Carolina, 1775-1789 (Ph.D. dissert., Duke
University, 1963), 285; Main, The Anti-Federalists, 139-142; Jackson Turner Main, The Sovereign States,
1775-1783 (New York, New Viewpoints, 1973), 188-195; Gaynard, North Carolina’s Revolutionary State
Government, 81-83; Gordon S. Wood, The Creation of the American Republic, 1776-178 (Chapel Hill:
328
was also coupled with the frustrations on the part of the Assembly with the state’s poor
performance in mobilization beginning in 1776. The state’s new constitution did not
allow the governor to convene the Assembly, even in time of emergency, and he could
only independently call out the militia when the legislature was not in session.47 William
Hooper’s sarcastic observation that the governor was left only with the power “to sign a
receipt for his own salary” was an exaggeration to be sure, but captures the essence of the
limits placed on the executive office by the 1776 constitution.48
The legislature’s attempt to bring order to the war effort was to some extent
counterproductive. As a result of the disastrous battle at Camden, the Assembly
established a Board of War at its September 1780 session, “for the more effectually and
expeditiously calling forth the powers and resources of this State, and disposing the same
in a manner as to enable the generals and commanders of the troops which shall be
employed against the common enemy to act with vigor and precision.” This commission
was given numerous powers to defend the state and coordinate its efforts, including the
powers to remove or suspend officers and replace them. The creation of the Board was in
effect the delegation of all of the Assembly’s martial powers into the hands of a few
selected men who, it was thought, could more quickly and efficiently manage the many
demands upon the state as the British threat loomed large after Camden. Perhaps it was
more of an abdication of power as well by assemblymen at a loss to successfully direct
University of North Carolina Press, 1969), 135, 148-150, 409. Wood argues that “the Americans’
emasculation of their governors lay at the heart of their constitutional reforms of 1776.”
47
The governor could, however, reconvene the Assembly to the same place from which it had previously
met, if it was in adjournment. See Caswell to the General Assembly, 3 May 1779, NCSR, 14:77.
48
Lefler and Powell, Colonial North Carolina: A History, 285; R.D.W. Connor, Revolutionary Leaders of
North Carolina, 19.
329
the state’s war efforts, since as was obvious to all, the contingencies of war changed
much more often than the assembly met. As is often the case, however, rule by
committee proved to be a great deal less effective and orderly than lawmakers had
anticipated, particularly under the rapidly increasing pressures of the war in the autumn
of 1780.49
General Gates opposed the Board of War as an interference with his role as
Southern Department commander, even in regard to control of the state’s militia forces.
Such meddling caused confusion of efforts, to be sure. “The Board of War are mainly a
Board of officers, and have no military authority whatever,” Gates declared to them, in a
tersely worded note.50 Perhaps Abner Nash’s persistent objections to the Board’s role
had an effect, for in January 1781, the Assembly replaced the Board with “a council
extraordinary” of three members “to advise the Governor in all cases whatsoever,” the act
for which granted wider latitude to the governor than the office previously enjoyed.
Nevertheless, North Carolina still had a governor with authority weakened to an extent
that effective wartime measures could not be speedily adopted and were overlapped by
legislatively created commissions which proved equally ineffective.51
Although the British had left Wilmington in late 1781, confusion and disorder did
not embark with them. In January 1782, Governor Burke told Greene: “I perceive the
state is in a very great derangement, and to reform it is an herculean task…I will
49
Lefler and Newsome, North Carolina: History of a Southern State, 246-248; NCSR, 24:355-357; William
R. Davie to Nathanael Greene, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 7:57.
50
51
Gates to the Board of War, 30 October 1780, Horatio Gates Papers, microfilm, reel 11.
NCSR, 24:378-379. See also NCSR, 24:379-380, for an act to grant the governor additional powers when
the assembly was not convened. Governor Martin faced these same limitation in 1782 as well. See for
example Alexander Martin to Edward Carrington, 9 August 1782, NCSR, 17:699-700.
330
immediately apply myself to restoring peace and Internal Security to this State.”52
Wilmingtonians complained that even though the Redcoats had left their town, they were
still subject to plundering from British ships or “piratical Cruizers,” and that the state was
powerless to defend them.53 Besides the brutality so common in many areas of the state
that year, there was also “great negligence and confusion” in tax collection, and the
“modes hitherto adopted” for collection meant that “individuals have been subjected to
great injustice and the public have been at inconceivable loss in the waste of supplies as
well as the expense of collecting and issuing.” Burke advised that “the situation of this
State, tho’ much improved since the last meeting of the General Assembly, is not yet
peaceable and happy. A considerable part of this Country is still infested by those men
who were so far abandoned as to attach themselves to the Enemy and become their
instruments in perpetrating the most sanguinary and inhumane outrages, to which many
good men have fallen so much lamented victims.” He did note, however, that “the
commerce and industry of the State revive with considerable vigor” due in part to his
prohibition on the impressment of merchant’s stock, which had to that point discouraged
many seaport traders from bringing in any imports for fear of confiscation.54
Later that year, 1782, Governor Martin noted that the Assembly did not meet for a
year “from the repeated internal commotions in the State and alarms from the disaffected
which had thrown the Government into such confusion, but these have partly subsided
52
53
Thomas Burke to Nathanael Greene, 31 January 1782, NCSR, 16:492.
Petition of Inhabitants of Wilmington and its Vicinity, undated, Petitions, General Assembly Session
Records, April-May 1782, Box 1, N.C. State Archives.
54
Thomas Burke to the General Assembly, 16 April 1782, NCSR, 16:6-10; Thomas Burke to the General
Assembly, 29 June 1781, NCSR, 22:1036. For the state’s commercial history during wartime, see
Crittenden, The Commerce of North Carolina, 116-154.
331
and the State begins to wear a new appearance.” He also mentioned the state’s “various
and perplexed accounts.”55 William Hooper deemed the war-torn state in 1782 to be
“wretched” and in a state of “anarchy,” though this may have been in part because of his
dissatisfaction with the state legislature.56 This deplorable condition was alarming, for
even though the British did not occupy North Carolina after 1781, they remained in
Charleston in 1782, and could easily sally forth to endanger the southern states. This fear
was constantly on the minds of Greene and other military and civil officers, especially
since these authorities recognized how “weak and defenseless” the states remained. They
were “torn to pieces by the ravages of the enemy and the depredations of the disaffected,”
with a “deplorable” army to defend them, and little prospect of relief.57
Even as late as 1783, the state still showed signs of disorder and devastation. In
May, Pierce Butler described all of the American states including North Carolina as
“exhausted” with regard to finances.58 Others complained of bad roads, an inability to
collect taxes in some parts of the state, and difficulties obtaining provisions. Greene
described the state in September 1783 as one of many misfortunes, in which “morality is
at a low ebb and religion almost held in contempt...Patriotism will have little influence
55
Alexander Martin to Robert Morris, 22 June 1782, NCSR, 16:340-341. As late as April 1782, the state
legislature still worried that Hillsborough might fall into the hands of the enemy and thus prevent the
assembly’s meetings there. NCSR, 24:448.
56
William Hooper to James Iredell, 8 April 1782, Papers of James Iredell, 2:336.
57
Nathanael Greene to John Hanson, 11 March 1782, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 9:481-483; Ichabod
Burnet to Charles Pettit, 12 April 1782, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 11:38-39. Greene held that many
Carolinians did not recognize that the British were still dangerous and had not given up the war. In April
1782, he concluded that “as danger retires exertion ceases” on the part of many of the Whig inhabitants,
and surely had North Carolina in mind. Greene to Richard Henry Lee, 25 April 1782, NCSR, 11:115.
58
Pierce Butler to James Iredell, 5 May 1783, Papers of James Iredell, Vol. II, 397. Mention is made in
the April 1783 House of Commons journal of an uprising of “rebel slaves,” but the year of this event is not
noted. NCSR, 19:258.
332
and government continues without dignity.”59 A month later, a rather thoughtful North
Carolinian in the backcountry compared the state to a “patient convalescing from fever,
who begins to be conscious of his weakness and still needs medicine and care.”60 This
same writer perhaps best summed up the state’s situation in late 1783, over ten months
since the British had evacuated Charleston, and after the Treaty of Paris had officially
brought the war to an end. He concluded that “the land itself, the people of property,
commerce, public and private credit, the currency in circulation, all are laid waste and
ruined.”61
Not only was the Carolina landscape affected adversely after years of warfare, the
inhabitants were as well. While Governor Martin wrote in early 1783 that “nothing now
remains but to enjoy the fruits of uninterrupted Constitutional Freedom,” many in the
state knew that much needed to be done to “heal the wounds of [the] bleeding Country.”62
The wounds were deep, and many still bled. In addition to invasions and insurrections,
impressments and drafts, the state had seen eight years of hardship, confusion, disorder
and bloodshed from the very start of the war for independence. Plots, riots, mobs
“combined together…for mischievous purposes,” courthouse disruptions, and
counterfeiting plagued the state repeatedly until the end of the war, and in some cases
beyond it.63
59
Nathanael Greene’s Journal, 3 September 1783, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 12:114-115.
60
Fries, Records of the Moravians, 4:1921. The Peace of Paris was signed on September 3, 1783.
61
Fries, Records of the Moravians, 4:1921.
62
Alexander Martin to the General Assembly, 19 April 1783, NCSR, 19:241.
333
During the last several years of the war, not a few Carolinians saw that the state’s
legislature was not much help in terms of bringing peace and stability to the land and its
institutions. Disputes within the assembly were not uncommon,64 and often its business
went on slowly—or not at all.65 On some occasions, weary members grew so desirous to
get home they failed to “come to any resolution” on key issues—notably those regarding
supplying troops in the field and raising troops.66 More than once a quorum was not
reached, to the point that a bill has been introduced in the House to enforce the
Attendance of the members, in January 1781.67 To be sure, British forces and the dangers
of Tory attacks kept more than one lawmaker at home for fear of capture, or destruction
of their domestic property. In June 1781 and February 1782, the Assembly required an
armed guard of troops when in session, which was quite a demonstration for all to see
that the new state government’s authority had yet to be firmly established.68 The
Assembly did not meet in the fall of 1782, which led Governor Martin to upbraid the
63
NCSR, 11:329-330; William Houston to Richard Caswell, 17 July 1777, NCSR, 11:523; R. Cogdell to
Richard Caswell, 29 May 1779, NCSR, 13:142-143; John Crawford to Richard Caswell, 11 June 1779,
NCSR, 13:158; Thomas Bonner to Richard Caswell, 6 July 1778, NCSR, 13:188; Alexander Martin to
Archibald Maclaine, October 1782, NCSR, Vol. XVI, 418-419; John Crawford to Richard Caswell, 11 June
1779, NCSR, 13:158; Fries, Records of the Moravians, 3:1188, 1325; William Boyd, History of North
Carolina, 2 vols. (Chicago: The Lewis Publishing Co., 1919), 2:3.
64
Samuel Johnston to Thomas Burke, 19 April 1777, NCSR, 11:454.
65
Abner Nash to the General Assembly, 25 August 1780, Joint Papers, General Assembly Session Records,
August-September 1780, Box 1, N.C. State Archives; Richard Caswell to Thomas Burke, 20 April 1777,
NCSR, 11:456.
66
Willie Jones to Abner Nash, 6 September 1780, Letters of Delegates to the Continental Congress, 16:3132; Richard Caswell to Patrick Henry, 3 June 1777, NCSR, 11:484.
67
Richard Caswell to William Caswell, 17 October 1784, William Caswell Papers, PC 412.1,
Miscellaneous Papers, N.C. State Archives; NCSR, 17:720; Fries, Moravian Records, 4:1691, 1704-1705,
1788. Two attempts were made to have the Assembly meet in Salem (November 1781 and February 1782)
but in both instances, too few delegates arrived to have a quorum.
68
NCSR, 17:798; NCSR, 16:272; Thomas Burke to Allen Jones, 23 March 1782, NCSR, 16:558-559.
334
members for failing in their responsibilities to fix upon a means of taxation, and to
support the army, which was in danger of “disbanding unless supported by you.”69 The
Assembly did not meet again in January 1783 as planned, partially on account of “the
poverty of some of the Members.”70 In fact, Martin had to resort to an unusual expedient
to assist the assemblymen. He noted later that year that when he sued one of his debtors,
“the money [awarded] is to be appropriated to the support of the delegates, who distress
me with their applications, and I am not able to relieve them.”71
Besides the assembly’s woes, other signs of discord were in plain site. At times
governors could not convene enough members of the State Council for meetings,72 while
on other occasions the governor did not have copies of the laws, and could not act
without them.73 Elections and appointments were often fraudulent or questionable, and
subject to disputes. “I can assure your Excellency, we have not the shadow of liberty
among us. The great object we are contending for, at the expence of our blood, our ruling
men have at present lost sight of,” one correspondent from Cumberland County advised
the Richard Caswell after reporting the details of irregularities among that county’s
69
Alexander Martin to members of the Assembly, 23 November 1782, NCSR, 16:463.
70
Alexander Martin to Delegates in Congress, 28 January 1783, NCSR, 16:732.
71
Alexander Martin to Thomas Burke, 24 August 1783, Preston Davie Collection, Southern Historical
Collection, UNC, Box 3, #164. Governor Nash also noted that in September 1780, just after the defeat at
Camden, he had trouble collecting enough members of his council to make a quorum. Abner Nash to the
General Assembly, 11 September 1780, Joint Papers, General Assembly Session Records, August
September 1780, N.C. State Archives.
72
Richard Caswell to John Williams, 10 July 1777, NCSR, 11:518.
73
Richard Caswell to Hezekiel Alexander, 15 September 1777, NCSR, 11:618.
335
justices of the peace.74 Similarly, a 1783 election in Wilmington was marked by
“violence…chicane, and brutality,” according to one witness.75
Certainly by the end of 1783 North Carolinians finally looked forward to a period
“when the noise of arms and War are no longer heard.” Governor Martin’s address to the
members of the General Assembly in April 1784 reminded them not only that the war
was over, but that many difficult tasks lay ahead. These included the defense of the state,
financial contributions to the Continental government, Indian affairs, western lands,
currency matters, and other issues. Martin struck an optimistic note in this address in
which he recognized (and hoped the legislators would too) “a glorious opportunity…of
cultivating the arts of Peace and good Government on principles of the soundest
policy…[for] bringing the State in some degree towards perfection.” In rather lofty
phrases he concluded
Now is the important moment to establish on your part the Continental
power on its firmest basis, by which the people of these States rose, and
are to be continued, a Nation. Now it behooves you to render permanent
the Security, and the honor of the State; to form such Laws, that public
Virtue maybe encouraged to diffuse its spirit through all ranks, and be
pleased with the Government which it hath erected that the guilty be
punished, and the just rewarded; that every Citizen enjoy these equal
rights promised him by the Constitution, and which God and nature has
given him. By these you will discover to the World the Excellency of an
American Republic, and evince that the Government of Kings is not
always necessary to make the people happy.76
Martin’s stylistic phrases may have inspired some of the assemblymen who heard them to
embark on the business he suggested, reconstructing the state. It would be a long,
74
Robert Rowan to Richard Caswell, 18 September 1777, NCSR, 11:626-631
75
Archibald Maclaine to George Hooper, 12 March 1783, NCSR, 16:945.
Alexander Martin to the General Assembly, 20 April 1784, NCSR, 16:34-39.
336
76
divisive process in the end. After years of violence, destruction, and all sorts of
disorders, many Carolinians would insist “that the guilty be punished,” and had varying
notions of just whom should be “rewarded.” While the governor hoped that the state’s
citizens would enjoy equal Constitutional rights, the meaning of citizenship had yet to be
defined, and would prove to be a contentious issue as the people of North Carolina
worked out their revolutionary settlement. Perhaps all of the state’s citizens would have
concurred with the sentiments of state senator Samuel Johnston, penned in 1783 at his
Edenton plantation: “To set our Affairs right must be a work of time.”77
To get their affairs in order, as Johnston suggested, would be no small task. At
the opening of the 1783 legislative session in April, Governor Martin addressed the
delegates exactly eight years to the day after the battles of Lexington and Concord, and
provided them with a brief set of recommendations and a summary of the condition of the
state. First he noted that the British, “after reiterated attempts to subjugate the Southern
States” were compelled to abandon them, and that King George III had recently
recognized the independence of the United States. After acknowledging the debt due to
France for that kingdom’s assistance in the struggle for American independence, Martin
turned to matters closer to home for the delegates. “Nothing now remains but to enjoy
the fruits of uninterrupted Constitutional Freedom, the more sweet and precious as the
tree was planted by virtue, raised by the Toil and nurtured by the blood of Heroes.” It
was now up to the legislators to “soften the horrors and repair those ravages which war
has made with a skillful hand, and thereby heal the wounds of your bleeding Country.”
77
Samuel Johnston to Thomas Burke, 9 August 1783, NCSR, 16:970.
337
He recommended an end to treason trials, and that an act of oblivion be passed in favor of
those who had refused to espouse the Patriot cause. He also recommended a measure to
“protect and guard our worthy and deserving officers from prosecutions of malevolence
and revenge, who in the path of duty for the public defence were compelled to act not
strictly justifiable by the rules of Law.” Martin followed this recommendation with a
report that the state’s captured militiamen had been successfully exchanged in a cartel
prior to the British evacuation of South Carolina, and that with regard to Indian affairs,
North Carolina and Virginia were working to secure a lasting agreement over land
boundaries and for “Peace and amity with us and our Inhabitants.” Optimistically, and
with quite a bit of deference to the legislative prerogative, Martin concluded that “Happy
will be the people, and happy the administration, when all concerned therein contribute to
this great end.”78
Martin’s suggestions of course were much easier presented than perfected. The
ravages of war plagued the state immeasurably by late 1780, to such an extent that civil
government within the state (and the south in general) operated with much difficulty and
irregularity, where it functioned at all. Numerous accounts by state and military officials
exist of the woeful condition of North Carolina with regard to its governmental
disruptions and abuses, all of which led to strident calls for both relief and correction.
This was of course difficult to accomplish when the conflict still raged. “Government is
infinitely more hopeless here than to the Northward,” General Greene wrote as the British
invaded the state in early 1781. “When I say here, I mean North Carolina, for in South
78
Alexander Martin to the General Assembly, 19 April 1783, NCSR, 19:240-243.
338
Carolina and Georgia, there is not the shadow of it remaining.”79 He added a few weeks
later that “This is a day wherein bold politicks and decided measures are necessary to
save a sinking state. The public treasury is empty and public credit in a manner lost.”
His prescription for the ills of state was a pragmatic one, though perhaps dangerous to the
people’s liberties. “In this situation power must supply the wants of other means:
otherwise the political machine will stand still; and this can produce nothing less than the
loss of your liberties. Therefore while the war rages in this quarter, temporary evils must
be submitted to, to prevent capital misfortunes.” 80 Later he noted this frustrating
problem of trying to establish stable civil government in the midst of war.
To attempt to regulate the disorders prevailing in the State by
constitutional and legal modes of Government will be tedious and
ineffective. The people cannot be got together to form a constitutional
body and besides their deliberations will be too slow for the critical
situation of this Country, and the emergencies of war are so numerous and
various that a Council can adopt measures better than a constitutional
power who are not at liberty to depart from the modes and forms
prescribed to them.81
In other words, in order to save the revolution from collapse, niceties surrounding
personal liberties and constitutional forms of government would have to be considered of
secondary importance in order to ensure the success of the revolutionary cause. This
attempt to bring North Carolina and the rest of the south under some level of civil order
rather than military control occupied Greene for his entire tenure as Southern Department
commander. “From the state in which I find things and the confusion and persecution
79
Nathanael Greene to John Cox, 9 January 1781, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 7:81.
80
Nathanael Greene to Abner Nash, 17 January 1781, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 7:137.
81
Nathanael Greene to John Wilkinson, 13 June 1781, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 8:386.
339
which I foresee, I could wish that Civil Government might be set up immediately, as it is
of importance to have the minds of the people formed to the habit of Civil rather than
Military authority,” he hoped in May 1781.82 A year later, he made a similar observation
to George Washington: “I am in hopes the southern States will emerge from that state of
confusion in which they have been for a long time, and that order and oeconomy will
prevail,” though a few weeks earlier he had described the situation within the south with
regard to their civil affairs as “deplorable.”83
Thomas Burke also recognized the dangerous situation in civil affairs. “The
extreme derangements in every department and the incredible imbecility of every power
of Government open me to the most gloomy prospects at my very entrance upon my
office,” he complained as he began his tumultuous single term as the state’s chief
executive in 1781, perhaps the nadir of North Carolina’s wartime fortune. “Civil
Government must be reestablished, and enabled to Correct and Restrain the most
licentious abuses which are now raging in this Country…in a word the Strictest attention
and most inflexible vigor must be applied to our affairs.”84 Prior to his governorship,
Burke noted that there was not “the least regard paid to the Civil Magistrate, the Laws of
the State or the rights of Individuals.” He found the agents of Gates’ army in particular to
be oppressive with their “gross insults to and violations of the Magistracy of the State.”
He observed that “people harassed, oppressed and provoked by such unworthy
treatment…will but too probably in despair open their arms to any Enemy who will
82
83
Nathanael Greene John Rutledge, 14 May 1781, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 8:256.
Nathanael Greene to George Washington, 12 August 1782, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 11:525;
Nathanael Greene to Joseph Reed, 27 February 1782, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 10:414.
84
Thomas Burke to Nathanael Greene, 4 July 1781, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 8:490.
340
promise them greater security.”85 The best way to retain the loyalty of the people and
win the war was to establish a strong, just, and effective civil institutions in order to show
the people they had much to gain in supporting it and ensuring its victory. Greene surely
concurred. Regarding the formation of civil government, he observed that “nothing
would tend more to strengthen our hands and confirm the people in our interest.”86 The
governor and the general struggled mightily in the months ahead to bring about this
order—no small task. “I perceive the State is in very great derangement,” Burke reported
in 1782, “and to reform it is a herculian task, which I tremble to undertake, tho’ I cannot
reconcile it to my republican principle to decline it.” In the end he may well have
regretted accepting the task.87
During the last year or so of the conflict, revolutionary leaders in the south
continued to write of the pressing need to reestablish civil institutions to bring order out
of chaos and to begin the rebuilding process. This was a serious concern to Alexander
Martin, who as governor in late 1782 confronted disturbances in the Cape Fear Region.
“I am sorry the Civil power is so feeble in Wilmington District, that it has no coercion
over offenders that strike at its very existence,” he wrote to Archibald Macliane, who had
evidently reported them to Martin. “I wish to know the facts, and if necessary, I shall
order a part of the Military of each County into that District under some proper officer to
85
Thomas Burke to the President of Congress, n.d., NCSR, 15:771. Burke complained of the
highhandedness of Gates’ impressment agents and commissaries operating abusively within North
Carolina. The context of the letter indicates that it was written in the summer of 1780, prior to the battle of
Camden.
86
Nathanael Greene to Thomas McKean, 17 July 1781, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 9:30.
87
Thomas Burke to Nathanael Greene, 31 January 1782, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 10:286. Not enough
lawmakers arrived in Salem to make a quorum.
341
aid the Sheriff in support of the Court.” Thus, as this situation indicates, the armed
power of the state was still needed to quell social discord in the fall of 1782.88 A similar
situation occurred in the state’s western reaches that year as well, associated with drafting
men for long-term military duty. “I am told that some disorderly persons have opposed
the Law for raising the eighteen months Men,” Martin advised Isaac Shelby, a prominent
frontier political and militia leader. “This opposition I am sensible you will endeavor to
quell, as it destroys all Civil Government. These persons must either consider themselves
subjects of the State or not; if not they are out of its protection [and] consequently ought
to be treated as rioters, or enemies to the Government. Your good sense will teach you
how to deal with these people, showing them the dangerous consequences should they
persists in the same of totally unhinging the Government, and reducing all to anarchy and
confusion.” The men who resisted military service in the summer of 1782, mentioned in
Martin’s letter, perhaps refused to do service far from home at a time when Indian
hostilities made them anxious for their own affairs across the Appalachians.
Nevertheless, their recalcitrance worried state authorities who still faced a Tory and
British threat.89
The reestablishment of civil order and effective government became of paramount
importance once the battles were over and it became evident that peace would soon
prevail. “National faith and equal Government are much wanting to render us a free and
happy people” and to create a “just and steady tone to government,” Greene observed
while recommending that “agriculture and commerce should be the first objects of
88
Alexander Martin to Archibald Maclaine, October 1782, NCSR, 16:418-419.
89
Alexander Martin to Isaac Shelby, 23 July 1782, NCSR, 16:696.
342
attention” of the new governments in the South, which would enable the people to pay
their taxes, for “wealth will give strength and security to Government. Without finance
all our buildings must tumble to the ground.”90 By the beginning of 1783, the general
became optimistic about the success of this process, which admittedly had just begun.
From his headquarters in the Charleston area, he wrote North Carolina’s Jethro Sumner
that “the Assembly of [South Carolina] have convened…and the people again begin to
feel the happy difference between military oppression and the mild operation of a free
Government. I hope the effects of this change extend through to your state, where peace
was much wanted.”91 Nevertheless, Greene recognized the enormity of the challenges
reconstruction presented to southern leaders as the war ended all over the devasted south.
“It is hardly to be expected that perfect tranquility can return at once after so great a
revolution: where the Minds of the people have been so long accustomed to conflicts and
subjects of agitation.”92
Like Greene, North Carolinians sought to establish stability through the
maintenance of order within its borders, as the government sought to curb the violence of
the war years, and the overall lawlessness that had taken root there due to the years of
chaos and hostilities, notably after 1779. With the British gone by late 1781, the Tories
defeated several months later, and scores of the disaffected banished from the state, the
military threat to North Carolina was largely quelled. This did not mean, however that
90
Nathanael Greene to Joseph Clay, after 29 December 1782, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 12:356.
91
Nathanael Greene to Jethro Sumner, 2 February 1783, NCSR, 16:931.
92
Nathanael Greene to George Washington, 29 August 1784, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 13:383. Greene
wrote the letter from Charleston.
343
matters within the state’s forty-seven counties in 1783 were totally pacific. In fact,
Carolinians continued to work to suppress disorders and violence of a non-military nature
for years after the actual war concluded in 1783, as can be seen in a number of acts.
A 1784 act to prevent horse stealing not only demonstrates the state’s resolve in
combating what in the eighteenth century was a very serious crime, often punishable by
death. The language of the measure indicates the lawlessness still present within the
confines of the state and on its borders. The bill reported the existence of “a banditti of
rogues…confederated to steal horses in the frontiers of this State, and the neighboring
States, and by shifting them from one to another pass them through many hands so
suddenly and secretly that when one is detected with a stolen horse they have witnesses
among themselves to enable the possessor to prove a purchase from a second, and he
from a third,” which allowed the original thief enough notice to “make his escape and
elude justice.” This practice, and the sheer number of “rogues” involved led the
Assembly to require that in the purchase of a horse every buyer “shall take a bill of sale”
for the horse, witnessed by at least one person and authenticated before a justice of the
peace, including information regarding the seller and the horse. “No person prosecuted
for stealing any horse, mare or gelding,” the act stated, “shall on his trial for the same be
permitted to give in evidence or alledge for his acquittal any purchase or swap, unless a
bill of sale or certificate of such sale or swap…was actually obtained.
In May 1784, the House of Commons received the petitions of “a number of the
Inhabitants of Wayne, Duplin, and Dobbs Counties, and a number of affidavits, with the
Copy of the Bill of Indictment found in the Superior Court of the New Bern District,”
against several criminals there including Rice, John, and Herman Bass and their
344
accomplices, all of whom appeared to be “guilty of sundry murders and robberies” in
1781, and were found to “still lie out and commit depredations on the inhabitants.” A
lower house committee resolved that “an Act of Outlawry should pass” against these
men, to include a reward of £50 for “apprehending and bringing to justice the aforesaid
persons or killing them in case of resistance.” However, in the November session of that
year, a bill to the same effect was rejected by the house despite significant support and
was not again presented.93 Nevertheless, the petition does point to ongoing civil
commotions in the eastern part of the state.
Although the Bass brothers seem to have gotten off easy, the state had little
reluctance in passing “An Act for the restraint of Idle and Disorderly Persons” in 1784, as
it became “necessary for the welfare of community to suppress wandering, disorderly and
idle persons,” perhaps dislocated by the recently ended war. This act was meant to
regulate people “who have no apparent means of subsistence, or neglect applying
themselves to some honest calling for the support of themselves and their families,” as
well as others “sauntering about neglecting their business, and endeavoring to maintain
themselves by gaming and other undue means.” These “persons of ill fame or suspicious
characters” could be fined, jailed, hired out or subject to corporal punishment, and were
barred from moving from county to county “without first obtaining a certificate from the
sheriff…or some justice of the peace” or militia captain in advance. While numerous
93
NCSR, 19:486, 488, 627-628, 835-836. The records do not show if these men were Tories, or simply
criminals.
345
Carolinians suffered economically from the wars effects, the act seems aimed instead at
criminals up to no good.94
A report of several “outlying Persons” in Duplin and Wayne counties who were
known Tories shows that these men were still active in early 1784. Although they were
known to have taken up arms to support the British in 1781, by the 1784, these men seem
to have been involved with criminal activity exclusively, at least by that point.
Nevertheless they were still at large.95 In fact, there was still enough resistance from the
disaffected in North Carolina, particularly with regard to legal actions against their
property, that the legislature passed an act in 1784 “for the more ready and effectual
execution of process…in cases where the sheriff or coroner may be resisted, and the
power of the county should be found insufficient for the purpose.” In such cases the
militia of one or more adjacent counties was permitted to assist the legal execution, and
“by force and stratagem to seize the persons as shall by any such depositions appear to
use force or threateneings against any civil officer in the execution of his office.”96
The fact that court officers were having so much trouble carrying out their duties
it was thought necessary that militia from neighboring counties to be ready to assist them
shows that there was disorder within the state at least as late as 1784, or the potential for
it. Yet after this year, very few cases surface in the Assembly records, which taken with
other evidence, seems to show that the chaos and confusion so prevalent during the war
years was for the most part well under the control of local and state authorities, if not
94
NCSR, 24:597-598.
95
William Dickson to Richard Clinton, 8 May 1784, Joint Papers, General Assembly Session Records,
April-June 1784, N.C. State Archives.
96
NCSR, 24:672-673.
346
eliminated. This surely came as a great relief to all Carolinians, who had endured so
much violence for years. It may also have made them look upon the state as the agent for
such change, and helped unite state and people as a result. True or not, the evident
eradication of hostilities and violent measures within a few short years after the war was
a key element in the state’s postwar settlement, and added to its aura of legitimacy.
The spirit with which this settlement and reconstructive process was achieved,
however, was very much a contested issue for Carolinians in the 1780s. The transition
from war to peace did not eliminate feelings of bitterness and resentment against the
British or the Tories, and as a result, many inhabitants who had supported independence
favored retaliation. They supported punitive acts against the disaffected, and refused to
recognize several peace treaty provisions favorable to the loyalists. They favored a peace
characterized by enmity toward their former foes, one based upon retribution. Not all
Carolinians of course sought vindictive measures after the war. Rather, these moderates
preferred to see a conciliatory policy of reconstruction as the basis for peace and
prosperity. While these men recognized that the Tory perpetrators of atrocities and
egregious crimes should suffer as a result of their deeds, and that some form of atonement
was perhaps necessary as part of the settlement, as a whole advocates of reconciliation
opposed punitive measures, though at first unsuccessfully. This inner conflict between
the call for vengeance and support for moderation shaped the postwar debate on the
nature of the revolutionary settlement.
347
CHAPTER 8
AN EXTREME VIOLENT SPIRIT: WAR, PEACE, AND THE POLITICS OF ENMITY
More than anything else, the struggle for American independence in North
Carolina was a civil war, especially after the British concentrated their Southern
offensive there in late 1778. This was not only a traditional military contest between
regular armies in the field, but a bloody internecine struggle marked by plundering,
property destruction, violence and murder as well. These concurrent conflicts created
great difficulties for Patriot military and civilian leaders in all of the nascent southern
states in their attempt to establish political legitimacy through the restoration of order and
stability.
The need to rebuild the state was of paramount importance for North Carolinians,
who recognized even before 1783 the necessity of ending uncontrolled violence among
the citizenry as the most imperative part of this process. Patriot leaders during this period
of emerging statehood, reconstruction and stabilization had to balance the need for an end
to violence as the war ended, with the strong desire among many Whigs to seek
vengeance and reprisals against their disaffected enemies. Moderates sought to limit the
retributive violence and calls for punishment during and after the war, and worked to
foster a spirit of conciliation in order to bring peace, prosperity and order to the state.
348
This was, however, a position not universally shared by all supporters of the American
cause, which frustrated efforts to insure leniency toward Tories as the state moved from
war to peace.
Many Carolina Patriots espoused harsh treatment of the loyalists within the state,
during and after the war. The Tory uprising that led to fighting at Moore’s Creek in
1776, fears of a major conspiracy in 1777, and the devastation and killings wrought by
British troops and their loyalist minions by the early 1780s, all combined to make
numerous Whigs eschew conciliation and forgiveness in favor of revenge and punitive
measures against their now defeated neighbors. The net effect of wartime violence and
cruelty was to embitter thousands of North Carolina Whigs, both civilian and military,
against the loyalists. Moreover, this animosity affected how many came to envision how
the post war years should unfold. Governor Burke’s 1781 observation—that “the
pernicious license with which the people in the Southern Counties have been pillaged and
persecuted, no doubt has rendered them vindictive and desperate, and we have very great
reason to apprehend the greatest Cruelties and devastation from their resentments”—
characterized how many approached the process of rebuilding and reordering the state.
For them, punitive measures and retribution were appropriate post war measures, a
position they held well into the 1780s.1 The continued presence of many loyalists both
during and after the revolutionary struggle became a thorny problem to solve. While
calls for punitive measures against them (and those who sought to return to the state after
1782) were common, some advocated policies of conciliation, forgiveness and
1
Thomas Burke to the General Assembly, 14 July 1781, NCSR, 22:1042.
349
moderation. How Carolinians resolved and balanced these conflicting positions was a
crucial part of the revolutionary settlement.
As part of the state-building process, one of the primary tasks North Carolina had
to complete from the conflict’s opening months was to define who was to be deemed a
citizen, how this was to be done and what would be the consequences for those who fell
outside this definition. This process recognized those who would be required to support
the state in terms of military service, taxes and providing necessary goods in the form of
provisions, arms, and other like items. It also determined who would benefit from
eventual victory. “Allegiance and Protection are in the Nature reciprocal, and the one
right should be refused when the other is withdrawn,” declared the state’s new
constitution, adopted in December 1776.2 Men who were considered citizens of North
Carolina owed it allegiance, as did those who resided within the state, freeholders and
those over the age of twenty, all of whom had to pay public taxes to be entitled to vote.
This was slightly different than those considered merely inhabitants, though the terms
were used interchangeably to a large extent in documents or private correspondence at
the time. Inhabitants included those who were not citizens—such as women, slaves,
indentured servants, and other non-taxpayers—or those who were not permanent
residents of the state, such as citizens of Great Britain who periodically lived in North
Carolina on estates they owned there. Britons would suffer for their adherence to the
Crown, in the form of banishment and loss of estates, as would the state’s own citizens
who refused to take an oath of allegiance to the newly created government. Additionally,
2
North Carolina Constitution, 1776, printed in Francis Newton Thorpe, ed., The Federal and State
Constitutions Colonial Charters, and Other Organic Laws of the States, Territories, and Colonies Now or
Heretofore Forming the United States of America (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1909).
350
this later group of men was subject to more severe penalties for their disloyalty, including
treason convictions and death. Thus, the issue of state citizenship was as important to
Carolina revolutionaries as to those who opposed them.3
Citizenship was vitally important for those who sought to remain within the state,
as it secured their rights to their property, and a degree of safety from vengeful neighbors.
The 1782 appeal of a number of backcountry men who had been loyalists during the early
years of the war illustrates the anxiety Carolinians felt with regard to issues of
citizenship. Although these men claimed to have returned to the Whig fold, had served
their tours in the militia and paid their taxes without objection, they advised the general
assembly that they were “not yet within the Protection of the laws of the State,” and
subject to all kinds of insults “to our Person and Property.” The resentments “reduced
[them] to the most abject Condition,” in which their “Poar Wives & Children have
scarcely Bread alone to subsist on.” Thus, for some at least, being outside the bounds of
citizenship meant real hardship and want, and political insecurity.4
The most common way of ascertaining who supported the Patriot cause within
localities across the state was by the use of oaths of allegiance, also known as “tests.”
Oaths documented one’s “submission to the new state; its imposition was a stern warning
3
Mathews, Society in Revolutionary North Carolina, 23; Lefler and Newsome, North Carolina: The
History of a Southern State,, 222-226, 428; Archibald Maclaine to George Hooper, 25 June 1784, NCSR,
17:149. For an overview of the several states’ treatment of loyalists, see Merrill Jensen, The New Nation:
A History of the United States during the Confederation, 1781-1789 (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1950),
266-281. Given the common eighteenth century restrictions and encumbrances upon women owning
property and voting in North Carolina, they were not considered citizens, nor were they required to take an
oath of loyalty to the state. Not until 1848 did women obtain limited legal rights to own property in their
own names in the state.
4
Petition of Inhabitants of Surry County, undated, Grievances, General Assembly Session Records, AprilMay 1782, Box 1, N.C. State Archives. It should be noted that this petition came after the British had
evacuated the state, and thus made the Tories vulnerable to the reprisals of their neighbors.
351
to behave well in the future.”5 These were typically administered by county courts,
justices of the peace or militia officers. Requiring citizens to swear allegiance in the form
of a legislatively approved oath began early in the Revolutionary period, and was
required until its conclusion. Many sought to avoid having to commit in such a public
manner.6 Although county court records show that a number of those who initially
declined to swear loyalty later reconsidered their positions upon threat of punishment,
many did not and suffered the consequences. Most of the milder punitive actions
occurred in the beginning of the war to about 1779, at which time harsher measures were
adopted.7
In an “Ordinance of Convention” in late 1776, delegates passed a punitive
measure requiring all those who had acted against the liberties of Carolinians “or abetting
the Enemies thereof” to swear allegiance to the new state. In many cases, courts required
those pardoned for prior offenses to give security “for their Good Behavior and
preservation of the Peace,” in addition to taking the prescribed oath. Those who refused
were declared incapable of exercising a number of rights and privileges, including
bringing lawsuits or making a defense against them, or purchasing or transferring any
5
Lee, Crowds and Soldiers in Revolutionary North Carolina, 166-168; Calhoon, The Loyalist Perception,
201-202; Michael Kamen, “The American Revolution as a Crise de Conscience: The Case of New York,”
in Richard M. Jellison, ed., Society, Freedom and Conscience: The American Revolution in Virginia,
Massachusetts, and New York (New York: W. W. Norton, 1976), 135-140.
6
DeMond, Loyalists in North Carolina, 154-156; NCCR, 10:476; NCSR, 11:363; NCSR, 24:11; NCSR,
22:138; Lee, Crowds and Soldiers in Revolutionary North Carolina, 166-168; Royster, A Revolutionary
People at War, 105-106. As DeMond, Mary Beth Norton and others have made clear, many loyalists left
the state rather than renounce their allegiance to Great Britain, and suffered significant losses of property.
Mary Beth Norton, The British-Americans: the Loyalist Exiles in England, 1774-1789 (London: Constable,
1974). With regard to the administration of oaths, in at least one instance, a North Carolina court doubted
its power to present the oath to those wishing to take it on constitutional grounds, but this was exceptional.
Archibald Maclaine to George Hooper, 8 October 1783, NCSR, 16:984.
7
Ward, The War for Independence and the Transformation of American Society, 35-39; NCSR, 22:920921, 922.
352
land. “Lands, Tenements, Hereditaments” were to be “forfeited to this State” as well.
Those refusing the oath had to leave the state and risk the loss of their property, though
early in the war loyalists were allowed time to sell off their property and even given
extensions to do so in some cases. On a stricter note, the state assembly declared that
those owing allegiance to the state who joined, assisted or abetted the British or other
“enemies of this State” if convicted would “suffer death…and forfeit his Lands,
Tenements, Goods and Chattels to the use of this State.” Those living outside the state
after 4 July 1776 were not to be considered citizens of North Carolina, and were subject
to the penalties assigned to those who refused to take the oath. By December 1777, all
males over the age of sixteen had to swear fealty to the state.8
The importance of oath taking entered other North Carolina laws as well, such as
the 1777 “Act for Establishing Courts of Laws and for Regulating the Proceedings
therein.” This law stated that the right to bring and pursue lawsuits was “suspended, until
the legislature shall make further provisions relative thereto,” and affected all those who
refused the oath, supported the British, or who removed themselves from North Carolina
to avoid military service. The law had a profound impact on land ownership within the
state, as it barred selling, buying, or transferring land by those who could not prove they
had taken the oath. Moravian leader Traugott Bagge wrote in 1778 that “a person who
had not sworn allegiance to the country dared not enter land, not even that on which he
lived; but one who had taken the Oath might enter the farm of a non-juror, of which some
availed themselves and turned the rightful owner out of house and home, and he had no
8
NCSR, 22:932; NCSR, 23:985; NCSR, 23:997-998; NCSR, 24:103; “Record of Salisbury Court of Oyer
and Terminer, March 1777, NCSR, 22:503, NCSR, 11:618. An act in 1777 prevented the disaffected from
taking seats in the Assembly, or holding any state offices.
353
redress.” Bagge concluded that the “land office in each County became a veritable
Inquisition,” an appraisal which hints at the vengefulness adopted by Whigs against those
who refused to swear their allegiance to the cause of America.9 These land offices had
been established to sell western tracts on order to finance the war efforts, but became an
opportunity of abuse against those whose loyalty was in question. The Moravians
themselves were frequently threatened by land hungry neighbors, bent on entering lands
within Wachovia under the pretense that the “brethren” were not oath-swearing citizens.10
Legislators began to enact strict measures to define citizenship in the second year
of statehood. In the fall session of the Assembly in 1777, they passed an act that declared
all persons “now inhabiting or residing with the Limits of the State of North Carolina,” or
those who moved there subsequently, “do owe and shall pay Allegiance” to the state.
Those who failed to do so, demonstrated by such acts as aiding the enemy, joining the
British forces, and “betraying this state,” were subject to the state’s treason laws, the
punishment for which was “Death without the Benefit of Clergy,” and confiscation of the
convicted party’s property by the state.11
The 1777 act also recognized a crucial difference among inhabitants. Those who
owed allegiance to the King of Great Britain were required to leave the state within sixty
days if they refused to renounce their loyalty (though the county courts were given some
9
DeMond, North Carolina Loyalists, 156; Fries, Moravian Records, 3:1203-1205. The full text of this act
is in NCSR, 24:48-75; the section on oaths is the last part of the law, CI. Traugott Bagge (1729-1800) was
one of the original settlers in the Moravian tract of Wachovia. Beginning about 1768, he became a
prominent merchant in Bethabara as well as a justice of the peace, and after the war served as a
representative from Surry County in the North Carolina Assembly in 1782. DNCB, 1:80-81.
10
Fries, Moravian Records, 3:1205-1206; 4:1561, 1570, 1592, 1679, 1798.
11
Gregory Palmer, Biographical Sketches of Loyalists of the American Revolution (Westport, CT: Meckler,
1984), 157; NCSR, 24:84-89.
354
discretion in allowing some to stay). Since as Britons they were not citizens of North
Carolina, they were not subject to be tried in the state for treason, unless they tried to
reenter the state later. The rationale for these measures was clear to the legislators: “it
becomes the duty of every Member of Society to give proper Assurance of fidelity to the
government from which he enjoys protection, and by their refusal to do so, the Voice of
Reason and Justice, confirmed by the Practice of all nations, proclaim that they should no
longer enjoy the Privileges of Freemen of the said State.” The act also stated that anyone
who did not take the oath could not keep their guns, and significant restrictions were
placed upon them regarding the disposal of their property, much of which would go the
state.12
Before 1780, at least some state officials and county courts seemed to be
reasonable with regard to the oath requirements, and enforcement of them. One example
illustrates the importance of the oath in North Carolina, but also shows its measured
application. Duncan Ochiltree of Mecklenburg County refused in 1777 “to take the oath
of fidelity to the State[,] where [up]on his refusal he has given bond and security to
depart the State in sixty days.” For some reason (the records do not indicate why),
Ochiltree had not departed the state by 1780, nor had he left Mecklenburg. However, he
was reported to have come under the protection of Cornwallis’ troops when the British
briefly occupied Charlotte in the fall of that year. Apparently upon Cornwallis’
withdrawal into South Carolina after the Whig victory at Kings Mountain in October
1780, he attempted to return to the Whigs a few weeks later, at which time North
Carolina Militia General Jethro Sumner considered him to be “a fallacious & dangerous
12
NCSR, 24:84-89.
355
man, having been at all times of Toryified principles, I think it proper to confine him to
the limits of the Camp…and to get him narrowly watched.”13 Ochiltree was still being
held under guard in mid-November, but was eventually released from custody and never
left the state. Why he was allowed to remain in the state after refusing to take the
prescribed loyalty oath and was considered a Tory is unclear, though perhaps if his
property was in fact confiscated and sold as the law required, state authorities might have
been satisfied.14
Other incidents demonstrate the importance of the loyalty oath to individuals and
their property. In June 1777, John Edgar Tomlinson, who had previously refused to take
the oath and as a result “had given bond and security to depart the State in sixty days,”
later, “praying to be admitted to take the oath by law required” was allowed to do so, and
suffered no further disabilities. Perhaps faced with the imminent loss of his property
Tomlinson had a change of heart.15 Others certainly took the oath with less than patriotic
motives. Some swore fealty only when it suited them. Archibald Maclaine in Wilmington
reported an instance in October 1783 in which “Mr. Gautier (who I believe has agreed for
the purchase of Mr. McGwire’s estate) applied to take the oath of allegiance,” without
which he would have been barred from buying McGwire’s property. It is unclear how
Gautier managed to avoid taking the oath until 1783.16
13
Richard Caswell to Whom it May Concern, 15 September 1777, NCSR, 11:618-619; Jethro Sumner to
Horatio Gates, 13 October 1780, NCSR, 14:692-693. Sumner noted that Ochiltree “presented me with [a]
Sketch of the Enemy’s lines and forces at Charlotte.”
14
“Opinion of Officers,” NCSR, 14:736.
15
NCSR, 22:921-922.
16
Archibald Maclaine to George Hooper, 8 October 1783, NCSR, 16:984.
356
Not everyone, however, was cowed into submission by the possible penalties for
refusing the oath. Assembly papers record that in Rowan County, the militia officer
responsible for administering the oath at a public meeting in 1778 encountered
difficulties doing so. When he read the oath to the assembled crowd, one of them
“huzzaed for King George, and called aloud to the rest to follow him, whereupon about
one hundred of the company, in a riotous turbulent manner withdrew, and would by no
means take the oath at the time,” nor would they do so on a subsequent day.17 In another
case, some Carolinians skirted the laws in order to gain pardon by taking the oath. In
New Hanover County in 1786, a number of magistrates previously suspended for suspect
wartime activities and barred from taking the oath “did in a sudden and precipitate
manner and without any previous notice go into the said court when there were but few
Magistrates on the Bench…and demanded that the Oath…might be administered to them,
which they were ready to take in order to enable them to act as justices, and the said oath
was accordingly administered and the said suspended Justices took their seats in
consequence thereof.” These men hoped to take advantage of a few sympathetic
magistrates in order to take the oath, which had been to that point denied them by the full
court.18
Numerous court records show the state’s insistence upon citizens taking the oath
and the penalties for those who failed to comply. In 1778, the Orange County court
appointed several prominent citizens to administer the oath to all free men in the county
17
NCSR, 12:862-863. Many of these men also refused to muster when called to do so shortly after this
riotous assembly.
18
NCSR, 18:151-152.
357
over sixteen years of age. Some men there were given “leave to go and come as other
good citizens” upon swearing the oath publicly in court, which seems to have had the
effect of demonstrating one’s loyalties to suspicious neighbors. 19 The court of Rowan
County, in the western backcountry, dealt with the problem of political dissent early in
the war, notably in the form of resistance among the disaffected to swear allegiance to the
newly-created state. At the court’s August 1777 session, for example, several residents
appeared “upon suspicion of being unfriendly to this State.” Most of the accused agreed
to take the oath rather than face expulsion, along with the loss of their property. A
prominent Currituck man was heard to say in 1780 that taking the state oath would be
useless—it “would be of no more service than swallowing a dumpling.” Later he too
took the oath “but for no other purpose than to save his property and prevent his being
hauled up and down the County,” which he declared “the damned Rebels had done for
three years before he would consent to take the oath.” Other men, as records show, also
resisted the oath initially. In 1777, William Giles and Nicholas White were ordered to
appear in court “to answer certain charges of disaffection to the determent of the United
States of America.” They were examined by the court, and required to take the oath.
They refused to do so and “were fined security” and had to enter to into bond “with
Condition to depart out of America within sixty days,” but after refusing, the court
ordered that the men “be taken into custody immediately by the Sheriff…and by him
safely kept until they shall be demanded by some Militia Officer properly authorized to
receive them,” after which they would be transported to New Bern, jailed, then “exported
19
Redden, Orange County, N.C. Abstracts, 1:2, 20, 23; Rowan County, Minutes of the Court of Pleas and
Quarter Sessions, microfilm; Pasquotank County, Minutes of the Court of Pleas and Quarter Sessions;
Mecklenburg County, Minutes of the Court of Pleas and Quarter Sessions; Cumberland County, Minutes
of the Court of Pleas and Quarter Sessions, microfilm.
358
to Europe or the West Indies.” After having some time to reflect upon their
transgressions while incarcerated, Giles and White agreed to take the oath and were
discharged during the same court session. While details vary slightly, cases like that of
Giles and White appear on court records from all over the state.20 The following year in
August, Rowan identified 577 people in the county who declined to take the oath, though
after this session, the issue of oaths rarely appears. By this time too the county’s jail was
so full the militia was called out to guard it, presumably filled with the disaffected.21
By 1780, however, there were few further instances of men taking the oath in
court during most county court sessions; rather, the emphasis seems to have been placed
on property forfeiture and treason cases. In some jurisdictions, the courts simply had the
militia company commanders or justices of the peace administer the oaths.22
Nevertheless, one’s loyalties during the war remained important, particularly as the
conflict drew to a close. The Assembly, in its spring session of 1782, heard from several
concerned citizens of New Hanover County (and perhaps others as well) regarding the
fate of those who had accepted paroles from the British during the redcoats’ occupation
of the Wilmington area, in return for being allowed to keep their property. A number of
these men—of “good families,” it was reported—were forced by the state to serve as
soldiers for twelve month tours as a consequence, even though they had not borne arms
against or actively opposed the Whigs. A joint committee was formed to inquire into the
20
Rowan County, Minutes of the Court of Pleas and Quarter Sessions, microfilm, August 1777 session;
Court Papers, 1777, District of Edenton, 1757-1787, Criminal Court Records 141, N.C. State Archives.
21
22
Rowan County, Minutes of the Court of Pleas and Quarter Sessions, microfilm, August 1778 session.
Wake County, Minutes of the Court of Pleas and Quarter Sessions, September 1777, December 1777,
September 1781, and December 1782 sessions, microfilm; Chatham County, Minutes of the Court of Pleas
and Quarter Sessions, August 1777, November 1777, August 1778 sessions, microfilm; Cumberland
County, Minutes of the Court of Pleas and Quarter Sessions, microfilm.
359
matter of state officers having taken paroles from the enemy. This committee seemed
willing to be lenient toward those officials, including militia officers and justices of the
peace, who had no criminal intent in taking paroles from the enemy. For example, in
1784, Benjamin Robeson, a justice of the peace of New Hanover County, was restored to
that office having been previously suspended from his duties for taking a British parole in
1781. The Assembly eventually determined that Robeson’s taking a parole was “the
consequence of an unvoluntary capture of his person.” William Branch, a justice of the
peace for Halifax County encountered similar difficulties in 1783 for a parole he took two
years beforehand. Although initially his plea for a return to his former office was
rejected by the legislature, he was eventually “freed from the Consequences of having
taken a Parole from the Enemy,” and restored to office. Despite Branch’s and Robeson’s
exoneration, the incident illustrates how Carolinians came to see those of suspect
allegiance, and the possible consequences of being declared disloyal.23
It may be that no group within the state anguished over the taking of the state’s
oath of allegiance more than the Moravians in and around Salem in Surry County, whose
pacifist scruples prevented them from swearing at all.24 Some of their non-pietistic
neighbors became uneasy at their status from the beginning of the conflict, in 1775.25
Some in this sect worried that taking the oath to North Carolina was “virtually the same
23
Petition of Inhabitants of New Hanover County, 9 February 1782, Grievances, Joint Papers, Joint Papers,
General Assembly Session Records, April-May 1782, Box 1, N.C. State Archives; NCSR, 19:17, 125;
NCSR, 19:664; Petition of William Branch, 2 May 1783, Senate Joint Resolutions, General Assembly
Session Records, April-May 1783, Box 1, N.C. State Archives.
24
Hunter James, The Quiet People of the Land: A Story of the North Carolina Moravians in Revolutionary
Times (Chapel Hill: Published for Old Salem, inc., by the University of North Carolina Press, 1976), 60-71;
Fries, Moravian Records, 3:1132, 1203-1204, 1205, 1207, 1234, 1254, 1255, 1262, 1263, 1275, 1281-1282,
1286, 1288, 1339, 1371-1372, 1383, 1385, 1387, 1393, 1401, 1427.
25
“Resolves of Committee,” Surry County, August 1775, N.C. State Archives.
360
as the renunciation of loyalty to the King” (which it was), from whom they received their
land grant in 1749. Although several acts were passed to allow Moravians, Quakers, and
other like-minded groups an alternative to swearing, there seems to have been some
confusion or resentment among many county and state officials during the war about the
status of the Unitas Fratrum, as they called themselves.26
The Moravians sent a number of petitions to the state legislature to avoid the oath,
and to “continue quiet and peaceable in the Places where Divine Providence has placed
us.”27 Some secretly took the oath to avoid trouble. In essence, the Moravians chiefly
feared losing their lands if deemed loyalists, and “no other abiding place can be expected
now” in the midst of war. In late December 1778, Surry’s senator, William Shepperd,
“hinted that our land would be taken from us and we would be driven away,” on account
of the issue of oaths and fealty. An incident in 1779 at Salem illustrates the nature of the
oath requirement. Several assemblymen stopped at the busy village tavern in January, and
“had much to say about the Test, because we had not taken it.” When pressed by several
brethren the lawmakers had to admit that “many who had taken it did…use it as a cover
for their evil deeds,” and became silent and friendly thereafter. In the end, the Moravians
did not lose their lands, though many Carolinians—including legislators—never regarded
26
Dorothy Gilbert Thorne, “North Carolina Friends and the Revolution,” North Carolina Historical
Review, 37 (July 1961): 323-340.
27
Petition and Representation of the United Brethren, Petitions, Joint Select Committee Papers, August
1778, Box 1, N.C. State Archives.
361
them as true adherents to the independence movement during the war years, especially
due to their refusal to perform military service.28
Once the war was over, many Carolinians still saw a need to have its citizens
swear fealty to the state, perhaps because there were so many of the disaffected in their
midst.”29 In the October 1784 assembly session, a Rowan County representative
“presented a Bill to describe and ascertain such persons who owe allegiance to this State,
and who joined and continued with the enemy during the late War, and who ought not to
be admitted as Citizens thereof.” This bill, which passed, was designed to exclude
“sundry persons” who “may be dangerous to the harmony of the community,” and thus in
the process of state formation and settlement had to be proscribed and punished.30 In
1785, the state enacted a bill that declared all persons who at any time after 4 July 1776
joined or aided the enemies of the state could not hold a North Carolina office, and those
who did so would be fined $500 if they tried to obtain such a position. Exempted from
these provisions, however, were those “good citizens of this State” who had been forced
to receive “protection” or parole from the British.31
28
Fries, Moravian Records, 3:1254-1255, 1263, 1282-1283, 1289, 1384-1385. At one point in 1779,
Bagge described the non-Moravian locals as “ignorant and malicious neighbors.”
29
Archibald Maclaine to Thomas Burke, 27 March 1782, NCSR, 16:248.
30
NCSR, 19:767; NCSR, 24:683.-684. A similar bill in 1784 to prompt the governor to issue a
proclamation requiring that “certain offenders” mentioned within it surrender themselves or risk being
captured or killed in the process was rejected by the legislature as being unconstitutional. It seems
however, that while some of the offenders mentioned within the bill may have been Tories at some point,
the men were primarily involved in criminal activities such as murder, robbery and assault, rather than
overt Loyalism. Joint Papers, General Assembly Session Records, October-November 1784, N.C. State
Archives.
31
NCSR, 24:732-733. A number of citizens, particularly in the Lower Cape Fear region and near Charlotte,
reluctantly accepted British paroles in 1780 and 1781 in order to protect their property while the enemy
invaded the state and occupied Wilmington. State authorities recognized that most of these people were not
362
Those who owed allegiance to the state but refused to swear allegiance could be,
and often were, found guilty of treason, or misprision of treason (neglect in preventing or
reporting a felony or treason by one who is not an accessory to it.) Treason was
punishable by death and forfeiture of property, per the state’s first act regarding this
crime, in April 1777. This did not apply to subjects of Great Britain residing in the state,
who could not be tried for treason because they owed no allegiance to North Carolina.32
By September 1780, some county jails were filled with those waiting trial for treason on
account of the strident efforts made by local and state authorities to round up suspected
enemies within their midst. That fall, the legislature enacted a measure to more speedily
handle these cases, part of which was to deny legal counsel “either for or against the
prisoner,” (though the accused could still defend himself) and to bar defects of form as a
defense. While some Carolinians saw such acts as unduly harsh or vindictive toward the
disaffected, others regarded them as necessary expedients in wartime to quell potentially
fatal dissent from those inimical to American liberties.33
Because parts of these laws were written so stringently, on a number of occasions,
individuals were forced to appeal to the legislature for mercy based upon special
exceptions.34 Martha Gilchrist petitioned the legislature to allow her husband Thomas to
be admitted to the state in 1778. He had left the state to take care of business matters
loyalists and had little real choice in the matter, and thus exempted them from the law so long as they took
no active part in the war on behalf of the British or Tory forces.
32
NCSR, 24:10-12, 85-89.
33
NCSR, 24:348-349. The following year, in 1781, a revised “Act for the More Speedy Trial of all Persons
Charged with Treason” did allow benefit of counsel to accused men. NCSR, 24:397.
34
Some people petitioned the governor directly, but these cases were typically referred to the Assembly.
See for example Richard Caswell to John Smith, 2 September 1779, NCSR, 14:203.
363
earlier in the war, and thus was deemed a non-citizen, but having taken oaths of
allegiance to both Georgia and South Carolina on his way home, and due to his wife’s
refined pedigree as well, Mr. Gilchrist was admitted to the state “with a full and free
pardon,” and suffered no loss of property.35 John Burgwin, a wealthy Wilmington
merchant, had to request permission of the Assembly to return to the state in 1779. He
had been advised in January 1775 to go to England for medical reasons, and did so, but
could not get back to America in a timely manner to take the oath. Some regarded his
action in leaving as evidence of an attempt to “avoid giving his assistance to the State,” a
charge which placed his estate at risk of being forfeited. His petition was eventually
successful, but he suffered other legal difficulties regarding the status of his citizenship
for years, including his right to sue for debts.36 The case of Thomas Barker of Bertie
County is similar to that of Burgwin. Barker had been active in colonial politics and
administration for years prior to the outbreak of revolution, and traveled to London in
1761 as representative agent of the lower house of the provincial assembly. At the
commencement of hostilities, Barker sought to return to America, but could not sail until
1778. He took the oath of allegiance upon arrival. Happily for Barker, his citizenship
was confirmed in early 1779, which averted the final sale of his property.37 Despite these
35
NCSR, 12:804-805.
36
Papers of James Iredell, 2:68n, 69; Donna Kelly and Lang Baradell, eds., The Papers of James Iredell,
Vol. III (Raleigh: Office of Archives and History, 2003), 186-187, 193, 203-204, 207-209. Burgwin went
to British-held New York briefly during the war prior to returning to North Carolina, a fact which if known
to Carolinians, may have made him even more suspect in their eyes. Lord George Germain to His
Majesty’s Commissioners, 29 May 1778, #1088, in Stevens, Facsimiles of Manuscripts in European
Archives relating to America, 11:1-2.
37
DNCB, 1:96-97.
364
happy outcomes, the law itself (especially the 4 July 1776 cut off date) was seen by
moderates sympathetic to the loyalists as unnecessarily proscriptive and harsh.38
The case of Robert Hogg demonstrates how the various citizenship and treason
laws and oath requirements were carried out, and what they could mean for those
perceived as opposited to independence. Hogg, a Cape Fear merchant and a twenty-year
resident of North Carolina, was a member of the Wilmington Committee of Safety in
1775, but resigned from the committee that year, “as he is going to the backcountry.” At
some point thereafter, he decided to go to England, and by late 1776 apparently refused
to take (or avoided) the required and newly-enacted oath to the state. He attempted to
sell at least part of his property before his departure, as was allowed by law. However,
by 1778 he returned to his old home in order to avoid the state confiscating the remainder
of his property and to recover that which had already been sold. He petitioned to be
readmitted to the state in January 1779. The House unanimously voted to allow Hogg to
be readmitted as a citizen, citing some evidence that he had given his agent in the state
authority to sell half of his property “in Defence of the American Cause.” Opposition,
however, surfaced in the upper house. The resolution in favor of Hogg and the others
passed the Senate, but only by a vote of 16-10. His opponents objected to his return to
the state as
when Mr. Hogg left this Country he was generally deemed unfriendly to
the public Measures of this & the United States; that he returned under the
protection of the King of Great Britain and hath not taken the Oath of
Allegiance to this State; and lastly because Mr. Hogg hath not shown or
offered in his own behalf any mitigating Circumstances to induce the
General Assembly to admit him as a citizen and restore him to his
property.
38
NCSR, 13:651; NCSR, 13:650.
365
Thus, Hogg’s intention in coming back from England, at least as some skeptical
Carolinians perceived it, was to regain his wealth, not to support the Revolution, which
was probably true.
Hogg’s business partner, Samuel Campbell, ran afoul of authorities as well, but
did not fare as well as his associate. He served as a loyalist military officer during 1776,
but after Moore’s Creek, took the state oath, kept quiet, and sought to avoid militia
service as long as possible. With the occupation of Wilmington by the redcoats in 1781,
however, he joined the enemy and later left the state for Charleston. Eventually he
moved to Canada, claimed losses of £2,000 in confiscated property, and never returned to
North Carolina.39 Another North Carolinian also did poorly when he petitioned the state
to be readmitted as a citizen. Thomas Bog left the state in 1779 for business purposes,
but having failed to take the oath of allegiance to North Carolina prior to his departure,
his actions looked suspicious to many lawmakers from whom he sought permission to
return in 1780. Bog’s request, written offshore from a boat in Edenton Bay, was
rejected.40
The treason laws and their penalties were taken seriously by North Carolina
courts and those charged with seeing the sentences put into effect. Although court
records are incomplete, evidence from the criminal docket of the Wilmington District
Court shows that the number of prosecutions for treason rose dramatically beginning in
May 1783, by which time the British had left the South and the Tory menace was under
39
40
DNCB, Vol. 1, 319; Palmer, Biographical Sketches, 136.
Petition of Thomas Bog, Miscellaneous Petitions, General Assembly Session Records, August September
1780, N.C. State Archives; Petition of Caswell County Residents, Petitions, General Assembly Session
Records, January-February 1781, N.C. State Archives.
366
control. In the early years of the war, few cases of treason or misprision of treason were
heard. In May 1783, the court heard twenty-six treason cases. In November, the court
considered ten treason matters. This trend continued until the end of 1785, at which point
no further cases were seen. It should be noted that many of these cases were discharged
with the defendants only having to pay a fine, rather than suffer banishment or harsher
penalties, which by the mid-1780s was probably seen as unnecessary.41
Not everyone got off so lightly. Particularly when the war entered a phase
characterized by much retributive violence in 1780, executions for those convicted of
treason were not uncommon. This was especially true of those captured in arms against
the state.42 Virginia militia commander William Campbell and his men surprised and
captured over a dozen unwatchful loyalists along the Dan River, including their Captain,
Nathan Reed. The captives were brought to Salem for trial and found guilty of various
crimes. Reed was offered clemency by North Carolina’s Col. Benjamin Cleveland, one
of the judges, if he would take an oath of loyalty to the Whig government, but refused.
He was consequently immediately executed.43 In other cases, loyalists were executed
summarily without trial, such as those found attempting to join Cornwallis during his
invasion.44 Frederick Smith of Fanning’s command was “tried, condemned, and hung”
for killing prominent Whig Andrew Balfour, all within the time of one court session at
41
Wilmington District Court Criminal Docket, 1778-1787 (DCR 12.009), N.C. State Archives.
42
NCSR, 22:196.
43
Larry E. Wise, Jr., “’A Sufficient Competence to Make them Independent’: Attitudes Towards Authority,
Improvement and Independence in the Carolina-Virginia Backcountry, 1760-1800.” (Ph.D. dissert.
University of Tennessee, 1997), 132-133.
44
DeMond, North Carolina Loyalists, 123.
367
Hillsborough, in 1783—quite some time after the hostilities had ended.45 In response to a
petition of some “fair Country women” on behalf of Middleton Mawbry, then “under
sentence of death in Wilmington Gaol” for treason, Governor Alexander Martin
responded (in the third person). “On cool deliberation, [he] is sorry to inform his
respectable and fair petitioners he cannot, consistent with the trust reposed in him, extend
the Mercy of the State to so great an offender.” The condemned, according to Martin,
was unworthy of clemency because he had not only “persisted in his adherence to the
enemy,” but was guilty of “industriously spreading disaffection among the ignorant and
fearful, basely committing ravage, robbery and murder.” Mawbry’s execution, he
concluded, was “absolutely necessary for their protection, preservation and the security
of the State.”46 In a separate letter to James Iredell, Martin explained that with regard to
Mawbry, he could “not extend mercy to him.” Although it appeared to the governor that
others of similar character had also committed “common atrocious offences,” Mawbry
seemed to have been singled out for judicial condemnation. “The justice of this country,
which has long been offended with impunity, should at this time receive some reparation,
to convince our enemies we have a Government, and will support it against all opposers
whatsoever.”47
A well know treason prosecution occurred in March 1782 at the Salisbury District
Superior Court, in which three loyalists were condemned—Samuel Bryan, John Hampton
45
Caruthers, Revolutionary Incidents: and Sketches of Character, 326.
46
Burke to the Sheriff of Rowan County, April 1782, NCSR, 16:270. The officers were exchanged.
Alexander Martin to Anne Hooper, et. al., June 1782, NCSR, 16:337-338; Alexander Martin to the General
Assembly, 21 April 1783, NCSR, 16:777.
47
Alexander Martin to James Iredell, 24 June 1781, Papers of James Iredell, 2:346.
368
and Nicholas White, all of whom served in arms with the British during the later years of
the war. These defendants were so notorious to backcountry Whigs that Governor Burke
had to protect the men with a military guard during and after the trial. William R. Davie,
John Penn, Richard Henderson and John Kinchen provided the defense for the accused;
the prominence of these attorneys may have to some degree kept public hostility toward
the defendants in check.
All three defendants were apparently known as decent men before the war, and
none sought to excuse their conduct in allegiance to the King. The charges against them
included taking a commission from the British; “levying war against the state” and its
government; providing assistance to the enemy and joining their armed forces; and giving
intelligence to the enemy for the purpose of betraying the state. The loyalists did not
deny that they had served the British—in fact all three had been active during 1780 and
1781, particularly at the battle of Camden, where a corps of Tories commanded by Bryan
fought on the British left. However, as the justices in the case acknowledged, these three
officers were not shown to have committed any offenses such as plundering, houseburning or murder, and only saw military action as part of legitimate loyalists units. Yet
even though these facts were established at trial, the men were still convicted by the
jurors of treason against the state, despite the defendants never acknowledging that they
owed allegiance to the state instead of Great Britain, or evidence having been presented
that the men committed any atrocities. Such was the enmity in the backcountry against
those who fought against independence.48
48
Cooke, comp., Revolutionary History of North Carolina in Three Lectures, 224-233; DeMond, North
Carolina Loyalists, 85-86; Troxler, The Loyalist Experience in North Carolina, 24; Thomas Burke to
Nathanael Greene, 9 April 1782, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 11:24-25; Blackwell P. Robinson, William
369
In addition to the punitive measures taken with regard to oaths and the various
treason laws, the North Carolina government enacted other debilitating laws against the
disaffected regarding their status as citizens of the state. Tories, for instance, were
ineligible to vote.49 Similarly, Tories could not hold office in the state. On 30 June 1781,
the lower house of the Assembly resolved that “no person within this State who has upon
any pretence whatsoever taken a parole from any of the Enemies of this State shall be
allowed to take a seat in this House.”50 Colonel Robert Irwin presented a bill
(unsuccessfully) in May 1783 “to prevent all persons who have withdrawn themselves
from this or the United States, and all persons who have gone over to the enemy or taken
any active part with the Enemy, from holding and office of Trust or profit in this State.”51
William Sharpe presented a similar bill to the House the following year, at which time it
passed.52 Thus in 1784, an assemblyman from Washington County was disqualified from
his seat after it was determined that during the war he “was attached and had
communication with the British Troops near the Great Pee Dee, in the year 1780,”
conduct that was declared “inimical, mean and servile,” and thus unworthy of a seat in
the House of Commons.53 In December 1785, the House Committee of Privileges and
R. Davie (Chapel Hill, University of North Carolina Press, 1957), 156-158. Soon after the trial the three
were pardoned by Governor Burke and exchanged as prisoners with the British in South Carolina. This act
of clemency was done for the utilitarian purpose of getting state officers out of British prisons, rather than
for the sake of leniency.
49
NCSR, 24:377.
50
NCSR, 17:916.
51
NCSR, 19:212.
52
NCSR, 19:767.
53
NCSR, 19:738.
370
Elections determined that James Terry of Anson County “at several times during the late
War [did] bear Arms against this States and did also voluntarily attach himself to the
British by moving with his property within their lines,” and was accordingly “unworthy
of a seat in the General Assembly.”54 In 1787, a bill was presented in the House to repeal
the law barring former loyalists from holding office, but it was rejected, the sentiments
within that body evidently still too much opposed to their former enemies to allow them
“political” mercy.55 These acts and limitations of citizenship were essentially barriers to
full membership in the polity, and an exclusion from society. Large numbers of
Carolinians were unwilling years after the fighting ended to let bygones be bygones;
instead they favored retribution and exclusion. “The State must then be,” Thomas Burke
had written earlier, in 1782, “what Civil Government must always Suppose it, Composed
entirely of Citizens who own allegiance.”56 By their behavior, the disaffected could be
seen as enemies and non-citizens, and could be excluded and punished accordingly.
Perhaps the extreme resentment against the Tories, and the attempts by some of
them to remain within the state after the war concluded can be best seen in the story of a
1782 court case in Bladen County, an area which showed evidence of much disaffection
during the Revolutionary struggle. The incident demonstrated the burning animosity
against the Tories, and how it affected the state’s system of justice as well, in what
became known as “the Bladen Riots.”
54
NCSR, 17:414. It is demonstrative of the Tory sentiments still in existence in 1785 that Anson voters
would elect a person to office with such an prominent loyalist background.
55
NCSR, 20:202.
56
Thomas Burke to Nathanael Greene, 28 March 1782, NCSR, 16:567.
371
During the August 1782 quarter session in Bladen, clerk of court John White was
accused of having “treasonable correspondence with the enemy and other crimes.” This
was a serious charge against a public official, especially since the threat from loyalists—
particularly on the Lower Cape Fear River—had not yet abated. One of those present at
the court session was attorney Archibald Maclaine, who disputed the evidence for this
accusation against White. Nevertheless, North Carolina Continental officer Robert
Raiford, whom the court called upon to give evidence in the matter, stated that through
hearsay he believed White was “a damned Tory.” Maclaine—who was defending a
loyalist—thought Raiford drunk, and took it upon himself to tell the sitting justices that
Raiford’s remarks were “highly derogatory to its Dignity, and that Rayford should be
reproved.” The court took no notice of Maclaine’s statement, possibly (as Maclaine
concluded) because of the presence within the courtroom of about thirty of the Raiford’s
supporters, who were armed and threatening. For these remarks, the unarmed Maclaine
was attacked in the courtroom by Raiford with a “horseman’s sword in his hand.” . This
was part of a general ruckus in the court, and no doubt was provoked by Maclaine’s
(alleged) remark in “open court that [loyalist Colonel] John Slingsby…was a better man
in his morals and principles than James Richardson Esq. Lieut Coll. of the County and
justis of the peace for this County and then on the Bench of Justis.” Such an
inflammatory remark must have enraged Raiford and his men, especially if they were
fueled by alcohol. Maclaine’s wounds were serious, and only the timely intervention of a
bystander saved him from the wrath of Raiford’s accomplices, who turned their attention
instead on White, who suffered several serious wounds.57
57
Affidavit of John King, 9 November 1782, House Papers, General Assembly Session Records, April372
As Maclaine sought treatment of his own wounds, he was advised by some of the
locals that he “must not appear [as attorney] for the tories there…in Bladen County,” a
lesson he no doubt had learned that day. Maclaine observed later that by the label Tory,
it was meant everyone these “liberty boys of Bladen (as they style themselves) choose to
brand with that epithet.” He also later admitted that he had received prior word that he
might be ill used by Bladen Whigs if he were to come to the court there and “appeared in
defence of any person who was called a tory.” These rioters, after breaking up the court,
proceeded to elect a new set of militia officers in an extralegal fashion, and went about
searching the vicinity for those they suspected of Loyalism.58
Maclaine concluded his recollection of the violent events by stating that
he left [the vicinity] conceiving that he could not consistently with his own
character, his duty to his clients, and to the laws and constitution of his
country, appear again in a court evidently under the direction of an armed
mob, [and] protested…in behalf of himself, his clients and all others
concerned against any further proceedings of the court until reparation
should be made to the injured and the laws restored to their full vigor.59
A number of Bladen Whigs took a different view of the “affray.” Several of them
(including prominent militia commander Thomas Robeson) informed the General
Assembly in 1783 that Maclaine was “an Enemy to the peace and Government of this
May 1783, Box 1, N.C. State Archives; Draft of deposition of Archibald Maclaine, 15 August 1782, House
Papers, General Assembly Session Records, April-May 1783, Box 1, N.C. State Archives. Raiford
admitted to being involved in the incident, and that he had to “chatise” Maclaine for “a public affront.”
Robert Raiford to Nathanael Greene, 3 December 1782, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 12:261. The battle
of Elizabethtown was fought on 29 August 1781, and saw the Whigs under Colonel Thomas Wade defeat
Slingsby’s force of loyalists.
58
Draft of deposition of Archibald Maclaine, 15 August 1782, House Papers, General Assembly Session
Records, April-May 1783, Box 1, N.C. State Archives; Alexander Martin to Nathanael Greene, November
1782, NCSR, 16:720.
59
Draft of deposition of Archibald Maclaine, 15 August 1782, House Papers, General Assembly Session
Records, April-May 1783, Box 1, N.C. State Archives.
373
State by his unwarranted abuses offered to this Court,” notably in all cases in which the
justices “differ in opinion from him in the construction of the Law and when the Laws do
not answer his immediate purpose.” Beyond these legalistic clashes, however, the
petitioners also protested Maclaine’s sympathies for “the disaffected,” for whom “he has
strenuously endeavored to support…by preventing many of them who were legally
draughted from serving fore the benefit of the Country by defeating the intention of the
Justices in expelling those persons who refused to take the Oath of Allegiance.” Thus,
Maclaine’s provocative attempts to protect the disaffected from compulsory military
service earned him the ire of county Whigs, who it seems did not contend that these hated
enemies of the state should be exempted from military duty.60
As it happened, Maclaine was not to see justice for his injuries. Eventually, the
“Bladen rioters” were tried and acquitted in late 1783, much to Maclaine’s disgust, as
apparently the judges refused to try them for assault and wounding, but on lesser charges
of rioting instead. “So much for judicial proceedings,” he observed, at least in cases in
which Whigs attacked Tories or their sympathizers. Perhaps he should not have been
surprised by the sentiments in that county. Bladen was home to a substantial number of
Tories during the war, and was the scene of much military action between Whigs and
Colonel David Fanning’s command. The numerous incidents of murder, plundering, and
house burning in Bladen right up until the time of the courthouse riots no doubt explain
60
“Petition of the Justices and others, the good People of Bladen County,” 1783, House Papers, General
Assembly Session Records, April-May 1783, Box 1, N.C. State Archives. This petition also states that
Maclaine made complimentary remarks about Col. Slingsby at James Richardson’s expense, which seems
to have sparked the riot.
374
why Patriots there were in no mood to tolerate Maclaine’s ideas about leniency and the
proper application of the law.61
Given that much wartime death and destruction was caused by the internecine
fighting between the North Carolina militia forces and armed Tory units, it is
unsurprising that the issue of how loyalists should be treated at the close of the war and
into the 1780s was quite significant for the state and its citizens. This applied to those
who took up arms against the state and others who merely refused to swear allegiance, or
who left the state rather than defend it. Most of the practices with regard to these
Carolinians who remained loyal to the King began early in the war and remained state
policy for a number of years. The reintegration of the loyalists into the North Carolina
polity and society was a painful and lengthy process. While certainly many of those who
did not support independence regarded the penalties for avoiding serving in the militia or
taking the oath of allegiance with hostility, many of the Patriots’ anti-Tory measures
enacted and enforced by 1780 were marked by the spirit of vengeance and punishment to
a degree not seen earlier in the conflict. Hostile Carolinians sought to banish Tories from
their state, seize and sell their property, and prevent them from enjoying the privileges of
citizenship. Others, however, supported a more conciliatory approach toward their
enemies, but with mixed results.62
61
Archibald Maclaine to George Hooper, 16 December 1783, NCSR, 16:990-993; Archibald Maclaine to
George Hooper, 23 December 1783, NCSR, 16:997; Alexander Martin to Nathanael Greene, November
1782, NCSR, 16:720; Nathanael Greene to Alexander Martin, 5 January 1783, NCSR, 16:723; Alexander
Martin to Nathanael Greene, November 1782, NCSR, 16:741.
62
For an introduction to the issue of North Carolina loyalist issues including reintegration, and opposition
to it see Troxler, The Loyalist Experience in North Carolina, 29-36; Calhoon, The Loyalist Perception and
Other Essays, 195-210; DeMond, North Carolina Loyalists, 168-168, 181-201; Jeffrey J. Crow, “What
Price Loyalism? The Case of John Cruden, Commissioner of Sequestered Estates.” North Carolina
375
For refusing to support the cause of independence and rebellion, many
Carolinians were forced by law to leave the state. Having seen at Moore’s Creek the
dangers of allowing the disaffected to remain within their midst, state authorities were
determined to see them expelled. This sentiment was first codified in 1776, and
reiterated in more detail by a November 1777 law “for preventing the dangers which may
arise from persons disaffected to the state,” and for defining treason. Due to the “critical
Situation of Affairs,” this act provided for two classes of people to be banished: those
who refused to take the oath of allegiance and those who owed allegiance to Britain, or
who “have traded…to Great Britain or Ireland within Ten Years last past.” Men whom
the county courts found to be in these classes had to leave the state within sixty days for
Europe or the West Indies. Those who returned would face treason charges. So many
persons came under the cloud of banishment that by the end of 1777, there were not
enough “Vessels to transport all such Recusants beyond Sea,” and others could not afford
to pay for expense of passage.63
Despite these problems, however, a number of North Carolina residents did in fact
leave the state, in some cases forced to do so by county and superior courts. Many of
them also felt threatened by their Whig neighbors as they prepared to leave their homes,
Historical Review 58 (July 1981): 215-233; Norman Risjord, Chesapeake Politics, 186-187, 196-201; and
Jackson Turner Main, The Sovereign States, 304-306, 316-317.
63
NCSR, 24:84-89; Rawlins Lowndes to Henry Laurens, 22 September 1778, Papers of Henry Laurens,
14:341. Many North Carolina loyalists went to St. Augustine in British-held East Florida, at least
temporarily. British records show that some loyalists who had to leave the state during or after the war for
their attachment to Great Britain continued to receive pensions from the crown as late as 1831. British
Public Records Office Treasury Papers (Miscellaneous), Box ER 17, file 44 (copies in N.C. State
Archives.)
376
though few reports of violence can be found.64 In 1777, wealthy merchant John Hamilton
asked Governor Caswell for assistance and protection for the numerous loyalists
transporting their property as they departed the state with him.65 The North Carolina
Gazette reported that Hamilton and his party “under the fatal Ministerial Delusion” that
they would one day return, eventually departed in October for Jamaica, having declined
to take the required oath.66 Others requested the assistance of the state to protect them
from being “molested while in the country,” and to give them security on the seas from
prowling privateers, as they made their way to the West Indies.67
While overt acts of violence against loyal Carolinians were unheard of during this
period of forced exodus, it was however a time of great hardship for them. Many of
those leaving were not active Tories in the field but “men of fair character and
inoffensive.” Nevertheless they were forced by unfriendly Whigs to quit their
communities for remaining loyal to Great Britain.68 A number of men left their wives
and families at their homes, as they set sail for England or one of the Caribbean colonies.
64
Palmer, Biographical Sketches of Loyalists, 118-119.
65
John Hamilton to Richard Caswell, 27 August 1777, NCSR, 11:596; Sir Henry Clinton Papers, Volume
27, item 41, William L. Clements Library University of Michigan; Great Britain, Public Record Office,
Audit Office, Class 13, Volume 36, folio 636. Hamilton later accepted a British commission in the Royal
North Carolina Regiment, a provincial battalion that saw considerable service in the South. Thanks to Todd
Braisted for providing me with copies of these documents.
66
The North Carolina Gazette, 31 October 1777, in NCSR, 11:790. Hamilton (who later took a military
commission from the British) and his brother later made a claim to the British government for almost
£200,000 in lost debts, land and other property after the war, which was supported by a letter from Lord
Cornwallis. See DNCB, Vol. 3, 16, and Lord Cornwallis to Lord Sydney, 26 April 1785, in
Correspondence of Cornwallis, 1:192-193.
67
68
James Buchanan to Richard Caswell, 22 September 1777, NCSR, 11:633.
Samuel Johnston to Richard Caswell, 1 October 1777, NCSR, 11:640; Petition of Archibald McKay,
1783, Joint Papers, General Assembly Session Records, April-May 1783, Box 1, N.C. State Archives.
377
Others sold off all their property as they departed.69 The North Carolina Gazette of 25
July 1777 reported that
a large Vessel from this Port has sailed, having on Board a great number
of Tories, with their Wives and Families, chiefly Scotch Gentlemen who
have refused to take the Oaths of Government to this State. They are
mostly Gentlemen of Considerable Property, which they have acquired in
America, and have it chiefly on Board, and chuse to risk every
Consequence rather than acknowledge the freedom of a Country which
has been so remarkable propitious to the People of their Nation.
This ship, and another from North Carolina, arrived in New York several weeks later, and
included on board Martin Howard, who had been the province’s prewar Chief Justice.
By the time Howard and his family landed at New York, he was “without provision of
any kind and with means so scanty as not to suffice to preserve him long from absolute
want.” William Knight, former comptroller of the customs at the port town of Roanoke
was also among these refugees, a “poor man almost destitute of means or subsistence[,]
leaving a Wife and Children behind him.”70
Loyalists tried to negotiate a settlement in which they could remain without taking
the oath. They met stiff resistance. In Cumberland County, for instance, justices of the
quarterly court were reluctant to allow men whom they had previously ordered to leave
the county to be “admitted as citizens” in 1778, even after they took the state’s oath of
69
Palmer, Biographical Sketches of Loyalists, 587; Will Williamson and William Todd to Richard Caswell,
8 October 1777, NCSR, 11:646-647; Cornelius Harnett to William Wilkinson, 13 June 1777, NCSR,
11:730. Williamson and Todd were actually jailed by Cumberland County officials for not leaving the state
within the time set by law.
70
North Carolina Gazette, 25 July 1777, in NCSR, 11:743; Papers of James Iredell, 1:454; Josiah Martin to
Lord George Germain, 15 September 1777, NCSR, 11:765-766; William S. Price, “’There Ought to be a
Bill of Rights’: North Carolina Enters a New Nation” in Patrick T. Conley and John P Kaminski, eds., The
Constitution and the States: the Role of the Original Thirteen in the Framing and Adoption of the Federal
Constitution (Madison, Wisc.: Madison House, 1992), 433-434. These loyalists managed to bring some of
their slaves with them along with other property. Martin Howard was eventually awarded £250 per year by
the British Parliament for his loyalty. DeMond, North Carolina Loyalists, 203.
378
allegiance.71 A number of these men were sent to Maryland or Pennsylvania and held
there in captivity, where they received little sympathy from those against whom they had
fought in 1776. The North Carolina delegation in Congress refused them permission to
be paroled to their homes, even if they gave security of their estates and property for
good behavior.72
The wartime feelings of enmity toward the loyalists, manifested in the state’s
desire to banish them, did not simply disappear once the fighting ended. A vindictive
reaction toward Tories remained, even upon the United States’ conclusion of a final
peace treaty with Great Britain. In April 1783, the state legislature passed an “Act of
Pardon and Oblivion,” which seemingly granted pardons to many of the disaffected. The
act, however, disingenuously excepted those who took British military commissions
during the war, those named in confiscation laws, and men who “attached themselves to
the British and continued without the limits of this state, and not returned within twelve
months previous to the passing of this act.” Since state law made it a treasonable offense
to return to North Carolina once banished, it is no wonder that few loyalists had returned.
It also exempted specifically from pardon anyone who had committed “deliberate and
willful murder, robbery, rape, or house burning.” Obviously, with the fighting concluded
71
Archibald Maclaine to Richard Caswell, 31 October 1778, NCSR, 22:769-770. Due to the judges’
reluctance to admit those loyalists who would take the Oath, Maclaine recommended that individuals so
denied should apply for pardon directly with the governor.
72
Farquard Campbell to Richard Caswell, 3 March 1777, NCSR, 11:403-405; Thomas Burke to Richard
Caswell, 2 March 1777, Letters of Delegates to Congress, 6:396. The state’s assembly also rejected an
earlier, similar plea.
379
less than a year beforehand, Carolina legislators had few intentions of exonerating their
American enemies.73
The pernicious nature of the act of oblivion was not lost on Wilmington attorney
Archibald Maclaine, who was generally sympathetic toward loyalists who had left North
Carolina but were not involved military actions against the state. He described the act as
“clogged with exceptions,” and snidely noted that it was supported by men with only
“common understanding.” He thought the exclusion to the act was supported by so many
lawmakers in order for them to retain their popularity with the people, bent on revenge.
Maclaine specifically noted militia General Griffith Rutherford as a “blood thirsty old
scoundrel.”74 Nevertheless, the law did go into effect and prevented the return of large
numbers of loyalists.
Shortly after the passage of this “Act of Pardon and Oblivion,” Governor
Alexander Martin issued a proclamation in July 1783, regarding loyalists who began to
reenter the state upon the cessation of hostilities without permission.
Whereas, divers ill disposed persons, late inhabitants of this State, or some
one of the United States, who withdrew from the same and attached
themselves to the King of Great Britain in the late war, or were expelled
for being obnoxious to the Laws, since the suspension of hostilities
between Britain and America, are daily intruding themselves in to this
State without any authority, under color of carrying on trade and various
other pretenses, to the great uneasiness and disturbance of the good and
virtuous Citizens thereof; that the public peace be supported, now happily
restored, and a general harmony diffused, I do further order and command
all such persons who have arrived into this State since the first day of May
73
NCSR, 24:489-490. The inclusion of Mallet’s name had been attempted the previous year in a similar
bill, but it did not pass. NCSR, 19:90. Andrews was one of Fanning’s subordinates.
74
Archibald Maclaine to George Hooper, 29 April 1783, NCSR, 16:956; Archibald Maclaine to George
Hooper, 19 May 1783, NCSR, 16:963; Archibald Maclaine to George Hooper, 12 June 1783, NCSR,
16:966.
380
last, or who shall arrive without having first obtained leave from the
executive, immediately to depart the same.75
Martin advised the commander of the New Hanover County militia regiment in 1783 that
several “Obnoxious Characters…who being inhabitants of this State [and,] refusing to be
under Allegiance to the same, withdrew and attached themselves to the late Enemy,” had
come to Wilmington. These men were to be removed from the state at once, the governor
ordered, obviously in no mood for leniency.76 Refusal to reintegrate the obnoxious
loyalists had widespread support, even in areas known to be sympathetic to their plight. A
number of citizens of Edenton, for instance, wrote in 1783 that they wished “proper
measures may be taken to guard against the evils that might arise from a return of those
Persons who withdrew themselves from a defence of the Country, and joined the British
in time of our distress.”77
Those who sought to remain in North Carolina had significant difficulties to
overcome in their efforts to do so if they were suspected enemies of the state. This can
be seen in the case of Ephraim Knight, who in 1781 petitioned Governor Burke for
release from his confinement. Knight had been arrested in Virginia for attempting to pass
counterfeit money there, but was released for lack of proof. Upon his relocation to
Halifax, he was jailed for the same charge, much to the distress of his wife and “seven
helpless Children, who are now suffering greatly.” The supplicant offered to give
sufficient bail in exchange for his good behavior, in order to be released from his “unjust
and unmerited confinement.” Burke, however, learned that Knight was then confined
75
Proclamation of Governor Alexander Martin, 28 July 1783, NCSR, 16:850-851.
76
Alexander Martin to Col. Henry Young, 7 December 1783, NCSR, 16:918.
77
Resolutions of the Citizens of Edenton, 1 August 1783, Papers of James Iredell, 2:431.
381
“on suspicion of being a Spy, employed by the Enemy,” and that there was proof of this
readily available. In his rejection of Knight’s petition, he stated
during the present times I shall suffer no suspicious Character to be at
large. The Calamities which the People of this Country have suffered in
consequence chiefly of having such Characters amongst them makes this
resolution necessary and Individuals who have behaved themselves in
such a Manner as to become suspected, must submit to confinement, at
least for their Conduct, so long as the Public safety requires it.
Knight might have deemed Burke’s action as spiteful, but the governor’s actions seemed
based more upon prudence than revenge.78
Another example of the difficulty for loyalists to remain within the state (or
regain admittance) and the bitterness against them is the case of James Kerr, of
Wilmington. Although Kerr and his family assisted the kin of Griffith Rutherford while
the latter was held a prisoner after the battle of Camden in 1780, the general was
unwilling to assist Kerr in his efforts to remain in North Carolina in 1783. Rutherford, by
then a powerful state senator from Rowan, refused to aid his Tory friend, and wrote to
him that Kerr should have taken his advice to support the cause of independence. “You
ware deffe to my advise at that time,” the marginally literate Rutherford scolded his
correspondent, and although he sympathized with Kerr’s separation from his loved ones,
Kerr’s “crimes” made it necessary. Kerr’s transgression was “one of the blackest of
crimes, that is High Treason and Perjury.” Apparently Kerr had written Griffin that he
hoped his friends could intercede on his behalf since his conduct surely would not
“excite” resentment against him. Rutherford quickly disabused him of that notion in his
78
Petition of Ephraim Knight and Gov. Burke’s response, 3 September 1781, NCSR, 22:589-509. Ephraim
Knight was eventually released from his imprisonment. In 1789, Knight was still living in Halifax County,
where records show he manumitted two mulatto slaves, Richard and Alexander, that year. See Victoria E.
Bynum, The Free State of Jones: Mississippi's Longest Civil War (Chapel Hill: University of North
Carolina Press, 2001), 11-28.
382
reply. “As an open enemy you must know that you deserve [no relief], for if a blast of
youre mouth Would have Annehelated the 13 United Stats We have a right to believe you
would have done it.” Rutherford finally advised Kerr to collect his family and go to
“Novescho where I understand the Royal Brut, of Brittan has made provision for all his
Loyalests in North America.” With that, Rutherford essentially advised Kerr that past
friendships would not erase transgressions during the war.79
In a similar vein, a number of Wilmington jurors expressed their views regarding
the state’s enemies and their presence within Carolina communities. These men
proclaimed that “it is Contrary to the Peace, safety and good order of the Government of
this State, that persons notoriously disaffected thereto should remain within the State, at
large, and without further Control on their Conduct than is imposed on the Good and well
affected citizens thereof.” The jurors went on to declare that those convicted of High
Treason “are unfit to become Citizens of this State.” It should be noted that these
sentiments came in 1785, long after the shooting had stopped.80
The state governors and the legislature received a number of petitions beginning
in 1781 from those who actively took the side of the British, but later sought to atone for
their disloyalty. In fact, Alexander Martin complained in 1783 of the number of
supplicants with whom he had to treat on such matters.81 Many of these petitioners
claimed that they were lured into enemy service, persuaded by artful and designing men,
79
Griffith Rutherford to James Kerr, 22 July 1783, Griffith Rutherford Papers, N.C. State Archives.
80
Report of A. Moore, Attorney General, December 1785, Joint Resolutions, General Assembly Session
Records, November 1786-January 1787, Box 3, N.C. State Archives.
81
Alexander Martin to the General Assembly, 14 May 1783, Joint Papers, General Assembly Session
Records, April-May 1783, Box 1, N.C. State Archives; Andrew Miller to Thomas Burke, 23 March 1783,
Thomas Burke Papers, Box 55.1, N.C. State Archives.
383
and retuned quickly once they had come to their senses. Three Duplin County men, for
instance, petitioned the Assembly in 1782 for clemency for their sons in a petition in
which they admitted their children had been “Deluded” into joining the Tories for two
weeks in arms. Although they sought to atone for their sons’ conduct with a tour of
militia duty, their plea was rejected.82 In 1784, Elizabeth Torence petitioned the
legislature to allow the return of her husband, who “by the persuasion and instigation of
the enemies of this country” joined the British. She claimed that he was “but a passive
offender against the laws of his country,” but the lawmakers rejected her supplication
nonetheless due to his involvement with the enemy.83 Likewise, William Field’s petition
was rejected in 1785. Field was a former Regulator from Guilford County who embodied
with the loyalists in 1776 prior to Moore’s Creek. After surrendering to state authorities
without seeing any action, he was imprisoned first within the state, then in Frederick,
Maryland. After being sent to the British Army, he accepted a lieutenant colonel’s
commission in that army “for subsistence,” he alleged. He was later paroled, and sought
to remain in North Carolina but suffered the forfeiture of his property due to his active
service with the enemy. The legislature rejected his plea for clemency on the grounds
that he clearly fell within the provisions of the state’s confiscations acts.84
82
Petition of David Williams, et. al., undated, Grievances, Joint Papers, Joint Papers, General Assembly
Session Records, April-May 1782, Box 1, N.C. State Archives. The committee of the Assembly who took
up this matter did, however, recommend that Col. James Kenan of the militia look into the matter, as the
three younger men may have been forced to serve more time than the law required.
83
Petition of Elizabeth Torence and related documents, Joint Papers, General Assembly Session Records,
April-June 1784, N.C. State Archives.
84
Memorial and Petition of William Field, May 1783, Joint Standing Committee papers, General Assembly
Session Records, November-December 1785, Box 1, N.C. State Archives; Petition of Lt. Donald Shaw, 25
November 1786, Petitions, General Assembly Session Records, November 1786, Box 1, N.C. State
Archives; DeMond, Loyalists in North Carolina, 235.
384
This punitive spirit went beyond 1783, as a number of the loyalists found out to
their frustration and bitterness. The fighting may have ended months earlier, but Whig
animosity toward the Tories subsided hardly at all. Thus, in November 1784, a bill
originated in the House of Commons (and later passed by the Senate) to “describe and
ascertain such persons who owed allegiance to this state and who joined and continued
with the Enemy during the late War, and who ought not to be admitted as Citizens
thereof.” In describing qualifications for citizenship, the writers of the bill were careful
to include a final section to make certain that nothing in it could be construed “to
encourage or permit the return to this State” any resident who supported the British in a
military or judicial capacity “and who have not submitted to the laws of this State before
the day of the ratification of the definitive treaty [of Paris, 1783].”85 Another bill offered
during that session “favorable to Refugees, banished Men, etc.,” was rejected.86
Several cases illustrate the difficulties loyalists had in returning to the state, either
to resettle there or to come temporarily to secure their property, as “the Tories [that] they
are not held in so high Esteem.”87 James Iredell also mentioned the lingering bitterness
which he called an “extreme violent spirit.”88 Archibald Maclaine reported in August
1783 in Wilmington of loyalists attempting to return to that seaport, but were met with
resistance from several men opposed to them. One of the loyalists included Merchant
John London, who was assaulted by “two ruffians [who] paid him a very uncivil visit,
85
NCSR, 19:455; NCSR, 24:683-684.
86
Richard Caswell to William Caswell, 3 May 1784, NCSR, 17:139-140.
87
Spruce Macay to William Harrington, 15 November 1784, NCSR, 17:181.
88
James Iredell to Archibald Neilson, 15 June 1784, Papers of James Iredell, 3:67.
385
and told him in express terms that if he did not return to the vessel, they would put him
out of existence.”89
Another case illustrative of the vindictive mood of North Carolina involved
Orange County merchant Ralph McNair, who sought to reenter the state in 1783, having
left it six years earlier with other loyalists. He was unsuccessful in his attempts, even
with a recommendation from General Greene attesting to his “good character.” Governor
Martin, however, gave McNair the unwelcome news “that the Treason Law of this State
prevents my granting you the passport & leave to return as you request.” Martin
reminded McNair that his own actions were responsible for the predicament in which he
now found himself.
It is not my business to criminate you on the part you have taken in the
late contest between Britain and America—but only suggest you have
been decisive in the choice. You have deserted the Country in which you
say you wished to have spent your days. What satisfaction can you have
in returning to her in her triumphant prosperity, when your late principle
desire is frustrated which was to subjugate her to British despotism? Let
your own feelings be the Judge.
Although Martin confirmed his own personal friendliness toward McNair from his
former acquaintance with him, he declared that while “I am still your personal friend…it
is out of my power to grant your request. An application must be made to the General
Assembly, who will consider your case, and perhaps will indulge your return, but of this I
am doubtful.” McNair’s land and other property had been confiscated during 1779 by an
89
Archibald Maclaine to James Iredell, 4 August 1783, Papers of James Iredell, 2:433.
386
act of the legislature in which he had been specifically named, though not all of it had
been sold by the time he appealed to Martin for reentry into the state.90
Such was the case of Dr. Daniel McNeill of Bladen County, who attempted to
return to the state in New Bern “after having committed divers treasonable Acts and
having fled for the same” in the summer of 1777. According to Samuel Ashe, one of the
judges in the matter, Dr. McNeill
upon the arrival of the British joined them, and behaved himself (as has
been said) in insupportable insolence, went off with the British and
returned upon the preliminary articles of Peace, and during the sitting of
the Superior Court at Wilmington, walked the streets with an air of
defiance.
The doctor was indicted and found guilty of “obnoxious behavior” at trial in December
1785. “The Court imposed a small fine and required him to depart the State in sixty days
and not to return ‘till the pleasure of the Assembly should be known thereon.”91
However, other reports of the trial emerged, in which the grand jury expressed doubt as
to how McNeill’s actions constituted a misdemeanor, but the judges ruled that “no
Sovereign State or Government was without a power to prevent its receiving injury,” and
90
Nathanael Greene to Alexander Martin, 11 October 1783, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 13:139;
Alexander Martin to Ralph McNair, 21 January 1784, NCSR, 17:10. McNair died in October 1784, just
after Greene wrote the letter on his behalf. A little over a year later his brother and executor, John McNair,
sought Martin’s help in settling the estate which consisted solely of “Debts in your State.” However, John
McNair had left the state in 1777 as well, and thus sought a pass for himself to enter the state and conclude
the legal matters with which he was concerned, since North Carolina’s anti-Tory legislation gave him
“uneasiness.” McNair’s anxiety was common among others who had fled the state during the war years,
and now feared the spitefulness of their former neighbors. No reply by Martin to John McNair has been
discovered. McNair’s heirs did in fact petition the Assembly as Martin suggested. Although the petition
was rejected in 1784 by the House, in November 1785, the state assembly enacted legislation to allow the
heirs of Ralph McNair (“three helpless orphans of tender age and in very distressed circumstances”) to
collect debts due to his estate. NCSR, 19:433, 505, 574, 577, 672, 770; NCSR, 24:263, 424, 761; John
McNair to Alexander Martin, 18 January 1785, NCSR, 17:427.
91
Judge Samuel Ashe to the General Assembly, 14 December 1786, NCSR, 18:137-139. McNeill raised a
large company of loyalist soldiers for the British.
387
that the return of McNeill was indeed a misdemeanor.92 More than a little opposition
arose to the verdicts by men who saw judicial misconduct involved, and accused the
judges of overstepping their bounds by pressuring the jury to find in favor of the state.
Archibald Maclaine wrote that “if the Judges can once mold Juries to their purposes, they
may take their vengeance on every person they may happen to dislike.”93
In late 1786, the house voted (49 to 22) on a committee report that the justices of
the court in the matter of Brice and McNeill committed no malpractice in handling the
cases. This vote can be seen as a referendum on the propriety of banishment, though
there was a constitutional element involved as well. The measure received the support of
90% of the frontier delegates, 89% of those from the backcountry, 71% from the
Albemarle region, and 70% from the Cape Fear. Opposition to the justices came
primarily from the coastal ports areas, where seven out of eight assemblymen (87.5%)
voted against the resolution. The Old Granville counties and the town of Wilmington
were evenly split. (Table 8.1)
92
Archibald Maclaine to Samuel Johnston, 24 December 1785, Papers of James Iredell, 3:181; NCSR,
18:214; NCSR, 18:214-215, 479; Judge Samuel Ashe to the General Assembly, 14 December 1786, NCSR,
18:139; Ashe, History of North Carolina, 2:46-47.
93
NCSR, 18:480.
388
Region
Yes
No
Albemarle
5
2
Coastal Ports
2
8
Cape Fear
7
3
Old Granville
6
6
Backcountry
17
2
Frontier
9
1
Table 8.1: Regions and vote on banishment, 1786.
By looking at the votes of delegates from individual counties and assessing the level of
disaffection in each, one can see that assemblymen from counties that were “Tory
infested” or highly disaffected strongly supported the banishment of their domestic foes.
(Table 8.2) Heavily Tory county legislators votes for the measure 9 to 2, and those from
strongly disaffected counties did likewise by a count of 11 to 2. These men evidently
sought to rid their communities of the biggest threat they had seen in wartime, and were
in no mood to be conciliatory even several years after the end of the fighting. Counties
with lesser levels of disaffection also approved the resolution in favor of the justices, but
with less support. Counties with limited disaffection voted for the resolution 17 to 11,
and Patriot-dominated counties voted 9 to 7. Perhaps these counties had less of a
389
vengeful spirit with regard to banishing Tories because they had seen less violence and
disorder in their communities as a result of the loyalists.
Level of Disaffection
Yes
No
Tory
9
2
Disaffected
11
2
Somewhat disaffected
17
11
Patriot
9
7
Table 8.2: Disaffection and vote on banishment, 1786.
Military service may also have played a role in how delegates voted on this issue.
Of those men in the House who had served in the militia, 80% favored the banishment
decision, as did nearly two-thirds of those who had seen no service and those who served
both in the militia and the Continentals at some point during the war. Only the delegates
who had been exclusively Continental officers opposed the justices, five to two (72%).94
The cases of Brice and McNeill were not resolved until December 1789, at which time
the legislature restored both as citizens of the state. 95 (Table 8.3)
94
95
The roll call is in NCSR, 18:428-429. The Senate also approved the resolution, but recorded no votes.
NCSR, 18:213-215, 217, 234, 477-478, 591; Richard Caswell to Dr. Daniel McNeill, 3 April 1786,
NCSR, 18:591; Josiah Martin to Lord George Germain, 15 September 1777, NCSR, 11:765-766. See also
Report of A. Moore, Attorney General, December 1785, Joint Resolutions, General Assembly Session
Records, November 1786-January 1787, Box 3, N.C. State Archives.
390
Military Service
Yes
No
Continental
2
5
Continental and Militia
4
2
Militia
21
4
None
16
10
Undetermined
2
1
Table 8.3: Military Service and vote on banishment, 1786.
As these examples demonstrate, victorious North Carolina Patriots had no
intention of allowing their domestic foes to remain in the state with impunity, or allowing
those who had fled during the war return uncontested. Although evidence shows that a
significant number of Carolinians left the state for good and resettled elsewhere during
the revolutionary contest, many sought to remain or return. The majority of the latter
faced significant opposition, particularly if they had refused to swear fealty to the state,
actively supported the British after 1775, or had committed atrocities against the Whigs.
Such enemies suffered banishment, persecution, and were oftentimes denied permission
to return. Yet, as many Tories and those who simply failed to defend North Carolina
would discover during and in the several years after the war, the state settled upon
another penalty for their disloyalty, through which the Whig government would not only
punish their domestic foes but support their military efforts as well.
391
North Carolina Patriots seized the property of those deemed enemies to the state.
This controversial practice began early in the war on a local basis,96 and by the summer
of 1776, the state began to order county authorities to make inventories of the property of
those suspected of opposing the American cause.97 More formally, a series of laws
known as “the confiscation acts,” passed the state legislature beginning in 1777, though
most sales occurred after 1781. Loss of one’s property was closely connected to rufasal
to take the state’s oath of allegiance, leaving the state rather than defending it, or being
convicted of crimes such as treason or misprision of treason. The confiscation of estates
was to a great extent a punitive measure, as lawmakers sought to show the disaffected the
consequences their actions, or to show disaffected “fence-sitters” what they had to lose if
they chose to support the British.
Confiscation acts also provided much-needed money for the state so that it could
purchase the necessities of war. Money obtained by this method in fact became a
significant source of revenue for North Carolina as it struggled to pay for its military
needs. By 1790, confiscated property sales amounted to £284,452, paid almost entirely
in certificates rather than specie.98 The state also accepted crops and other necessities as
payment for rented property that had been forfeited. In addition to land, commissioners
sold slaves, livestock, equipment and household items at auction, and were allowed a
96
The Halifax Committee of Safety passed a resolve in December 1774, against Andrew Miller, known to
be inimical to the American cause, in which his property was ordered seized. Pruitt, Abstracts of
Confiscated Loyalists Land and Property in North Carolina, iii; Surry County Safety Council to Martin
Armstrong, 5 July 1776, NCSR, 11:308; NCSR, 21:349.
97
NCCR, 10:554.
98
Connor, History of North Carolina, 1:409; Morrill, Fiat Finance, 36-37; Pruitt, Abstracts of Confiscated
Loyalists Land and Property in North Carolina, passim.
392
percentage of the sale price. Even the debts owed to loyalists who fell under the various
confiscation acts (especially merchants who left the state) were confiscated, so that these
debts would have to be paid to the state—another key source of revenue. In order to
create some sense of order in this process, state law mandated that only a commissioner
of confiscated estates or a county sheriff could confiscate property; military officers,
legislators, militia troops, and the like were not authorized to seize the property of the
disaffected or convert it to their own or immediate military use.99
Some evidence suggests that support for confiscation was not strong in parts of
the state most involved with trade, and where loyalists had been prominent before the
war. Using a roll call vote recorded on a House bill to “secure” purchasers of forfeited
estates in their property in 1786, it appears that the most support for the measure came
from the backcountry and the frontier regions, where many Whigs benefited from the sale
of their former neighbors’ property. Conversely, opposition came primarily from the
ports and coastal areas of the state, and the Cape Fear Valley region. Both of these areas
were home to many wealthy merchants before the war, many of whom declined to
support independence. Moreover, the Cape Fear Valley counties had been heavily
disaffected during the war. (Table 8.4) 100
99
Pruitt, Abstracts of Confiscated Loyalists Land and Property in North Carolina, iii-viii, 45,134.
100
NCSR, 13:988; NCSR, 18:399.
393
Region
Albemarle
Yes
3
No
3
Coastal Ports
1
5
Cape Fear
2
5
Old Granville
4
4
Backcountry
16
6
Frontier
9
2
Table 8.4: House vote on confiscated property, 1786
Although property confiscation punished the state’s enemies, the need for revenue
was certainly an important factor for the adoption of these laws. Proceeds from the sale
of forfeited estates went (in theory, if not always in practice) to finance the war effort.
The state eventually allowed payment for these properties to be made in part in various
certificates circulating within the state, which facilitated sales and may also have created
affinity for the new state government among those who benefited from such easy
terms.101
State officials were particularly concerned with the unauthorized seizing of
moveable property by military or impressment officials, as this acted to deprive the state
101
North Carolina Gazette (Hillsborough), 16 February 1786, and the New Bern Advertiser, 3 November
1785, (microfilm, N.C. State Archives); NCSR, 24:803. This provision received significant support from
all regions of the state, especially the frontier and backcountry.
394
of its property.102 Abuses and irregularities in the sale of loyalist properties were not
uncommon, as individuals sought to convert the value of the properties to their own use,
or sold loyalists’ slaves at public auction. In addition, the state had to pass an act in 1780
to counter examples of abusive confiscation agents who committed “unwarrantable
depredations” in the course of confiscating property. Apparently, the “poor” families of
those singled out for property forfeiture were in some case deprived of their kitchen
utensils, and even their wearing apparel.103 By the end of the war, however, the
moveable property of the state’s enemies was often confiscated in the field, for use of
military forces. Governor Burke, in an instance of makeshift confiscation, advised one of
his officers fighting the Tories in 1782 to “subsist your troops where it can be done
without opposition, on the estates of the disaffected,” though he warned the officer to
avoid abuses by the men.104
Few measures enacted by the state stirred up as much bitterness—even among
some of the Whigs—as did the seizure of property from the disaffected. As late as 1789,
forfeiture issues still created arguments, lawsuits and other entanglements in North
Carolina. However, many Patriots in the state certainly would have agreed with the
unsympathetic sentiments of Henry Laurens of South Carolina regarding confiscation.
“Hard undoubtedly such confiscations will be deemed and felt by the sufferers,” he
opined, “but America will plead example; wherever Britain conquered or imaginarily
102
Thomas Burke to Hardy Sanders, 5 March 1782, NCSR, 16:213.
Alexander Martin to New Bern Commissioners, 2 November 1782, NCSR, 16:451; Alexander Martin to
Griffith Rutherford, 8 December 1782, NCSR, 16:464; Alexander Martin to the Justices of Surry County, 7
June 1783, NCSR, 16:798; NCSR, 24:350-351; NCSR, 24:377.
103
104
Thomas Burke to Major Hogg, 13 March 1782, NCSR, 16:229-231.
395
conquered she sequestered, confiscated[,] plundered and what she could not carry off,
savage-like she destroyed.” In other words, as Britons, the Tories deserved such
treatment and American state governments were justified in adopting such measures
themselves. Only when the state finally entered the Union in November 1789 did the
issue fade from the public sphere.105
At the North Carolina legislature’s first meeting under the new state constitution
in April 1777, confiscation was introduced as a penalty for conviction of treason, the
punishment for which was death “and his or her Estate shall be forfeited to the State.”
Judges were permitted to allow “so much of the Traitor’s Estate…for the Support of his
or her Family,” if need be. Additionally, those men who refused to take the oath of
allegiance and suffered the penalty of banishment would have their property seized as
well for the benefit of the state, if they were unable to “sell and dispose” of it within three
months of departing.106 A similar law with provisions for property confiscation upon a
treason or misprision conviction, or refusal to pledge allegiance to the state, was also
enacted in the Assembly’s November 1777 session.107
105
Henry Laurens to Richard Champion, 10 August 1782, Papers of Henry Laurens, 15:559-562.
106
NCSR, 24:10-12. Although the language of this act implies that women could be guilty of treason and
punished accordingly, I have come across no instance of a female accused of, tried, or convicted of treason
in any record from this period.
107
NCSR, 24:85-89. Slaves fell under the definition of chattel. Misprision convictions led to the forfeiture
of only half of the guilty man’s property. Earlier in the session, a bill was introduced in the Senate to
confiscate the property of certain persons (unnamed) who “have wickedly and traterously aided and
assisted the Troops of Great Britain,” but it was rejected, perhaps due to its overly broad scope. See Senate
Bills, General Assembly Session Records, November-December 1777, N.C. State Archives. British
officials received a report in August 1783 that in North Carolina, some of the property of loyalists was sold
“on credit. Some was mortgaged to raise money for the state, some leased for years for the use of the state,
some remains unsold, and some settled to the use of the state.” “State of Loyalist Property in America,”
unknown author, in Davies, Documents of the American Revolution, 21:199-201.
396
The first specific confiscation act was also passed in the fall 1777 session, against
Carolinians who had “withdrawn…and attached themselves to the Enemies of the United
States of America,” as well as those who the legislature determined had left the state to
avoid defending “Freedom and Independence.” Thus, even those men who did not
actively take up arms or overtly support the British were subject to the loss of their
property, simply for leaving the state and failing to defend it. The assemblymen also
sought to confiscate the property of those citizens “who having been beyond the Bounds
of the United States at the Beginning of the present War,” failed to return to North
Carolina or any other state by 4 July 1776, unless they appeared before the assembly by
October of 1778 and proved they had not acted contrary to the interest of the new
government. This class of property owners was in effect assumed to be disloyal simply
for not returning to the state in a timely manner.108
In the April 1778 session, assemblymen found it necessary to enact legislation to
carry into effect the November 1777 law for confiscating property. It set up procedures
for confiscating and selling properties throughout the state, and in order to raise more
money, the act provided that debts due to those who left the state for failing to take the
oath of allegiance were also seized by the state, and were thus payable to it.109
In October 1779, the state passed another confiscation act to supplement the
original of 1777. This law appeared to be more punitive, as it specifically named those
who had “clearly incurred and become liable to” the 1777 Act, including many of those
who owned huge tracts of land within the state but lived abroad; a number of Scots from
108
NCSR, 24:123-124.
109
NCSR, 12:252; NCSR, 24:209-214.
397
the lower Cape Fear who had fought at Moore’s Creek; and merchants who formerly did
business within the state, the largest group of those named. These lands would be sold
and “converted to the use of the state.”110 Many of these men were British subjects, not
“traitorous” North Carolinians, which raised a number of objections in that the law would
allow for the seizure of property of those who owed no allegiance to the state.111
These acts set up the rationale for seizing property of the state’s enemies, and the
mechanisms to carry out the confiscations. They also engendered what would become a
seemingly endless number of pleas, petitions, and law suits by those who strove to
recover their property. While there was some sentiment in the state to use the
confiscation acts with moderation, others favored the laws in the name of justice and
retribution. In the June 1781 assembly session, for instance, the House passed a bill “to
Condemn the property of all Tories in this State that have embodied and plundered the
good Citizens thereof, and for subjecting such property to make retaliation to those
persons who have suffered by their depredations.” Not coincidently, the June session
was the first to meet since Cornwallis had invaded the state. In the end the Senate failed
to ratify the bill, but it nonetheless demonstrates some of the sentiments behind this type
of legislation.112 That year, however, a law passed that allowed those who had “been
heretofore in Arms” against the state but who returned and agreed to actively serve
110
NCSR, 24:263-268.
111
NCSR, 19:672-673.
112
NCSR, 17: 818.
398
eighteen months in state forces to keep their property. This was an indication of the
desperate need for men in the army, not a new spirit of conciliation, in 1781.113
In April 1782, as the struggle between Whigs and Tories raged within the state,
“An Act directing the sale of Confiscated Property” passed, which was to sell for the
benefit of the state “large and valuable tracts of land, as well as negroes and other
personal property, of persons who have left this State, gone over to the enemy, and joined
the same.” It listed a number of loyalists by name who fell under the act, much like that
of October 1779. This act also contained a provision that declared invalid “all bargains
and sales, wills and devices, made so as to interfere with this Act,” as apparently some
loyalists staged phony sales, gifts, or transfers in order to hide their ownership of
property.114
Even before the war ended, confiscation became a disputed, controversial issue,
though for a variety of reasons. In 1779, Mecklenburg County residents protested the
1777 Confiscation Act as “directly repugnant to the nature and intention of Confiscation.
The offender is very inadequately punished & the public in no sort indemnified for the
injuries it has sustained by his unnatural guilt.” The problems with the act, these men
said, was that “the Confiscated Estates are bestowed upon the Heirs of the Offenders, in
so full and perfect a manner that the guilty absentees may, in most cases, thro’ the
channel of their friends, enjoy them.” This negated the purposes both of “punishment
and indemnification,” and made the state virtual protector of the properties for the
loyalists’ children. They also objected to the state’s practice of short term leases of the
113
NCSR, 24:376.
114
NCSR, 24:424-429.
399
land, preferring instead to see “am immediate sale of those Lands…as it would put it
beyond the power of Intrigue to revest them in their former owners.”115 In 1784, James
Iredell noted that men who opposed the laws punishing “the Refugees” were “looked
upon by the Patronizers of those with a very hated eye.”116 Such was the nature of
revenge. Confiscated property was being sold as late as 1786, records show, and
commissioners (many of whom were also former legislators) were still active in
disposing of estates and handling the details of sales up to 1789, as numerous county
court records demonstrate.117
A number of loyalist claims made after the war illustrate the nature of
confiscation, not only the hardships associated with the process, but what it meant to be a
loyalist in the state during the war as well. Many loyalists with small landholdings
suffered confiscation, not just the owners of large estates. Numerous Scots suffered
property forfeiture in the wake of their defeat at Moore’s Creek.118 One departing
loyalist advertised his estate for sale in the North-Carolina Gazette of New Bern, in July
1777, evidently to sell it before it was seized. He listed not only his “pleasant and
valuable Plantation,” but his crops, livestock, tools, furniture, linens, china, hay, books,
and “three or four valuable Negroes.”119
115
“Petition of a Committee…of Mecklenburg County,” Petitions, Joint Papers, General Assembly Session
Records, October-November 1779, Box 1, N.C. State Archives. See also “Petition of Inhabitants of the
Salisbury District,” December 1781, Joint Papers, General Assembly Session Records, April-May 1782,
Box 1, N.C. State Archives.
116
James Iredell to Pierce Butler, 14 March 1784, Papers of James Iredell, 3:36.
117
NCSR, 21:155; NCSR, 16:175.
118
Palmer, Biographical Sketches of Loyalists, 33, 47, 85, 99, 133, 650.
119
Papers of James Iredell, 1:454.
400
Other losses were more substantial. Dr. Thomas Cobham, who sided with the
British, forfeited his shares in two sawmills, 1,350 acres of land and a 500 acre plantation
in the state.120 Arthur Benning, former sheriff of New Hanover County in the 1760s, lost
his property there, having served as a guide for the British 82nd Regiment when they
captured Wilmington in 1781.121 Three brothers in Mecklenburg County—John, Jacob
and Peter Blewer—lost hundreds of acres of land, some of which they had labored for
years to clear, when they joined the British in 1781 after refusing to serve in the Whig
militia when drafted.122
Eli Branson of Chatham County was an active loyalist, and raised men for the
1776 Moore’s Creek campaign. After that defeat he was forced to “hide in the woods for
the entire summer of that year.” He served with British troops in Pennsylvania in 1777,
but returned to the state the following year. The local Whigs must have been alerted to
his activities, for he was again forced into hiding until the British invasion of 1781, at
which point he joined Cornwallis and eventually surrendered with the army at Yorktown.
Over 800 acres he owned in Chatham was lost to the state as a result of his allegiances.123
William Brimage had been a Crown Prosecutor in Edenton and vice-admiralty judge, and
served in North Carolina’s First Provincial Congress in 1774 (although he later claimed
he had not stood for election). He refused the oath of allegiance in 1777, tried to flee the
state that summer, was captured at Ocracoke, and confined briefly in “a poisonous and
120
Palmer, Biographical Sketches of Loyalists, 163. Cobham’s award by the crown was £1,627 sterling, a
substantial sum.
121
NCSR, 22:837; Palmer, Biographical Sketches of Loyalists, 63.
122
Palmer, Biographical Sketches of Loyalists, 73.
123
Palmer, Biographical Sketches of Loyalists, 87. Branson was also a former Regulator. NCCR, 8:531.
401
noisesome dungeon” “for certain treasonable practices.” Brimage appears to have been
involved as a leader in the Llewellyn Conspiracy that year as well, for he was described
as “one of the Heads of these Cut throats.” He left the state in 1778. State officials
refused him reentry to reclaim his property in 1782 and perhaps afterwards, and
confiscated 640 acres of his land.124 Others who sought reentry into the state risked
violence by doing so. Alexander McAuslen, a refugee, went back to New Bern in 1784
to recover his previously confiscated property “but he was threatened by a mob and
forced to return to New York” empty handed.125
Several unusually large estates were confiscated by state authorities, no doubt
with an eye toward potential revenues. Connor Dowd suffered the loss of 7,000 acres in
Cumberland, although his wife was permitted by law to recover debts owed to him.126
Another large landholder was Sir Nathaniel Duckenfield, a British baronet and officer in
the Queen’s Regiment of Dragoons, who had served on the province’s royal council in
the years before the war. He left North Carolina just before the war, though his mother
remained there. His holdings in Bertie County, approximately 4,000 acres, were
confiscated and sold in 1778. Although the Duckenfield property was not the most
124
Richard Caswell to David Barlow, 27 July 1777, NCSR, 11:539; Palmer, Biographical Sketches of
Loyalists, 91-92; David Barlow to Richard Caswell, 28 July 1777, NCSR, 11:543; Robert Smith to Richard
Caswell, 31 July 1777, NCSR, 11:551; Allen Jones to Thomas Burke, 6 August 1777, NCSR, 11:561-562;
Richard Caswell to Cornelius Harnett, 2 September 1777, NCSR, 11:604; Nathaniel Duckenfield to James
Iredell, 13 February 1783, Papers of James Iredell, 2:375-376.
125
Palmer, Biographical Sketches of Loyalists, 521.
126
NCSR, 24:638-639; Palmer, Biographical Sketches of Loyalists, 230.
402
extensive in the state, their sale by the state brought in more money than any other
holdings sold during or after the war. 127
Henry Eustace McCulloh, an English-born royal official (custom’s collector for
the Port of Roanoke) in North Carolina for several years prior to the Revolution, owned
one of the largest landed estates in the colony, and was seemingly the most vigorous in
attempting to retain ownership of his property despite his residence in England.
Although he made claims to the Loyalist Claims Commission after the war, he also hired
a substitute to serve in the North Carolina Continental forces, in order to obtain the good
graces of that state. Most likely because he had left the state in 1773 and failed to return
by law, and due to his sizeable estate in the backcountry, his efforts to keep his land
failed. McCulloch was specifically named in the 1779 confiscation act, and that of 1782
as well, no doubt in part because his ownership of over 800,000 acres of land within the
state was simply too alluring for those legislators bent on punitive measures and revenue
to overlook. By 1783, Willie Jones of Halifax advised him that he should not expect to
recover any of his confiscated lands, slaves or other valuables, and that McCulloh’s
sizeable holdings probably contributed to the passing of various confiscation acts in the
first place. Iredell too advised his cousin that his “Estate being of consequence enough to
tempt both public and private avarice,” he should not expect success.128 Iredell warned
127
Palmer, Biographical Sketches of Loyalists, 221; DeMond, North Carolina Loyalists, 240; DNCB,
2:111; Nathaniel Duckenfield loyalist claim, N.C. State Archives; Nathaniel Duckenfield to James Iredell,
13 February 1783, Papers of James Iredell, 2:375-376. Duckenfield retained his commission during the
war but refused to serve against the Americans.
128
DeMond, North Carolina Loyalists, 159-160, 174-175; DNCB, 4:134; NCSR, 24:263, 424; Archibald
Maclaine to James Iredell, 14 September 1783, Papers of James Iredell, 2:445; James Iredell to Henry E.
McCulloh, 28 November 1783, Papers of James Iredell, 2:467-469. Iredell had urged McCulloh to make a
person appearance at the January sitting of the Assembly at Halifax in 1779, but McCulloh remained in
403
McCulloch not to be sanguine in his hopes for seeing the restoration of his property,
much of which had been sold by that time, “for I find it to be the sentiment of the most
moderate men, that those who have purchased under faith of the Acts of the Assembly,
cannot rightfully have their estates taken from them.”129 McCulloh was eventually
compensated by the British government in the amount of £12,047, but he had claimed
much more than this as losses.130
While many owners of large estates, such as McCulloh, vigorously employed
the legal means at their disposal to avoid having their property seized and forfeited, some
were not so well off and had to resort to other means to do so. A well-documented
incident in Hyde County illustrates what confiscation meant to those with only modest
fortunes. A number of violent men there who were known “Tory lyers out in the
swamps” confronted a party in May 1784 who came to survey confiscated land, some of
which was apparently owned by the angry assemblage. They were armed with clubs and
axes, and “swore in a Threatening manner,” stating that they “would not give up one inch
of the ground as long as there was one alive.” Around the same time, these men also
threatened to kill the county sheriff if he came to seize their goods. They “cursed and
New York. James Iredell to Henry E. McCulloh, 21 November 1778, Papers of James Iredell, 2:57; Henry
E. McCulloch to James Iredell, 7 October 1778, Papers of James Iredell, 2: 49-50.
129
James Iredell to Henry E. McCulloch, ca. 1 May 1783, Papers of James Iredell, 2:396; James Iredell to
Henry E. McCulloch, 7 July 1783, Papers of James Iredell, 2:420.
130
DNCB, 4:134. Another prominent landowner in North Carolina who saw thousands of acres confiscated
for the benefit of the state was Lord Granville, whose estate was part of the original grant of “Carolina”
made in 1663. For details on the confiscation of this property, see E. Merton Coulter, “The Granville
District,” James Sprunt Historical Publications, Vol. 13, No. 1 (Durham: The North Carolina Historical
Society, 1913) 55-56. Granville’s heirs appealed North Carolina’s 1782 confiscation of the property to the
U.S. Supreme Court, but the case was dropped because the appellants lacked an appeal bond in the early
nineteenth century. For another well documented case of confiscation of a wealthy North Carolina loyalist,
Thomas Macknight, see “The Case and Claim upon Government of Thomas Macknight late of Belleville in
North Carolina,” private pamphlet, London, 1781, Society of the Cincinnati Library; NCSR, 12:68, 145,
149; NCCR, 10:417, 575; Josiah Martin to Lord George Germain, 6 July 1776, NCCR, 10:655-656; NCSR,
24:263, 424; DeMond, North Carolina Loyalists, 68-69, 260.
404
damned the sheriff and all that was with him,” a witness later recorded, “and swore they
were a pack of thieves and robbers, and they would loose their lives before they would let
them have their property.” Another witness noted that these rioters had been “up in arms
since the beginning for the war…and are to this hour the greatest part been ordered out of
the State by the Legislative body in the year 1777 but never fulfilled the Intention of the
law, and Remained Sculking in the Swamp.” These men were “allwais a lawless set of
People and a newsense to Common Society.” While records do not indicate the eventual
outcome of this confrontation, it is certainly demonstrative of the tensions created by
confiscation, and the continued issue of Tory danger.131
The correspondence of Archibald Maclaine to George Hooper illustrates vividly
the punitive enactments of the state and its effects on Tories, or those of suspected
loyalty. Although Hooper’s responses have not been found, the Maclaine letters are
valuable for their frank depiction of the issues involved in banishment, and to a lesser
extent, confiscation. The Irish-born Maclaine settled in Wilmington in the early 1750s,
where after a failed mercantile venture, he became one of the most prominent attorneys in
North Carolina, and what might be called a conservative Patriot by the time of the
American Revolution, “firmly committed to the concept of law and order.” He was
several times elected to the state Assembly after 1781, and later supported the adoption of
the Federal Constitution. During the war, Maclaine became known for espousing
131
Affidavit of Dixon Bell, et. al., 1 November 1784, Joint Papers, General Assembly Session Records,
October-November 1784, Box 1, N.C. State Archives; Affidavit of Southy Rew, et. al., 1 November 1784,
Joint Papers, General Assembly Session Records, October-November 1784, Box 1, N.C. State Archives;
Affidavit of Dixon Bell, et. al., Joint Papers, General Assembly Session Records, October-November 1784,
Box 1, N.C. State Archives; “Hyde County List of Invalids above and under the Age of Fifty Years,” 16
February 1782, Troop Returns, Box 7, Folder 23, Military Collection, N.C. State Archives. With regard to
those who resisted sheriffs and other state officials in their duties the Assembly passed an act in October
1784 to allow the sheriffs to raise local militia forces to assist him. NCSR, 24:672-673.
405
moderation with regard to the issue of the loyalists, primarily those of the upper order of
society who did not take up arms against the state but instead left North Carolina rather
than submit to the Oath of Allegiance. Although he had no sympathy for the North
Carolina Tories who committed violent excesses during the revolutionary conflict,
Maclaine did in fact give support to his former friends and neighbors of a loyalist
persuasion who were peaceful and unoffending, yet were forced to leave the state and
suffer the loss of their property by the various confiscation and banishment laws enacted
by the state from 1776 to 1782.132
One such loyalist was actually his son-in-law, George Hooper, a prominent Cape
Fear merchant and clerk of the Wilmington District Court, whose brother William was a
North Carolina signer of the Declaration of Independence. Although George Hooper
managed to remain in the state for years despite his refusal to actively support the
revolution, no doubt due to increasing Whig pressure, he left the state when the British
evacuated Wilmington in 1781, and relocated to Charleston. He had already resigned his
court clerkship in 1780, and some inkling of his politics can be seen by his opposition to
the 1779 Confiscation Act. Maclaine advised Governor Burke that Hooper’s
“conduct…has always been inoffensive,” and hoped therefore that he would be entitled to
“some degree of future favor” upon the conclusion of hostilities. Hooper never took up
arms for the British, nor accepted a commission of any sort from them, but he attracted
considerable opposition in part because he was owed considerable money within the
state, his absence from which would (not coincidently) preclude collecting these sums—
132
DNCB, 4:166; DNCB, 3:199; Risjord, Chesapeake Politics, 93-94, 198-199; Louise I. Trenholme, The
Ratification of the Federal Constitution in North Carolina (New York: Columbia University Press, 1932)
36, 37, 39. George Hooper married Maclaine’s daughter Catherine (“Kitty”).
406
as his debtors surely knew. At that point, much of Maclaine’s efforts were devoted to
moderating the state’s efforts to penalize loyalists and to allow those who did not actively
engage in the hostilities to return home once more.133
Hooper was in Charleston by the beginning of March 1782, but was barred from
the business of trade, most likely as part of a conditional agreement he made with state
authorities in North Carolina in order to remove himself from the state. He apparently
petitioned his native state on some manner regarding either property or citizenship, but
did so as “a British merchant,” an identification which Maclaine believed placed him “in
a disagreeable predicament.” The elder attorney advised Hooper not to expect much
from Governor Martin (“his understanding is not of the first-rate”), who would not be
inclined to treat him as a British subject, which might mean that his chances of
recovering any of his confiscated property could be slim. At this time, Maclaine was
confident that the “moderation shown in the Southern States will greatly assist me” in his
efforts to ease the state’s restrictions on the disaffected. He also weighed the pros and
cons of Hooper coming to the next assembly to make a personal appearance to make his
case for leniency, but thought he might have to give bond associated with a recognizance,
“unless a general pardon should take place.” Maclaine was optimistic that at the next
sitting of the legislature, “every species of peace will be restored to the Country and its
Inhabitants, considered individually.” It was not to be.134
133
NCSR, 13:363; William Hooper to James Iredell, 13 February 1781, Papers of James Iredell, 2:208;
William Hooper to James Iredell, 17 February 1782, Papers of James Iredell, 2:330; John Mington to
Abner Nash, 8 June 1780, NCSR, 14:845; “Memorial of Merchants, Traders and Others Residing at Cape
Fear,” 2 May 1780, NCSR, 15:203-205; Archibald Maclaine to Thomas Burke, 27 March 1782, NCSR,
16:248-249; Archibald Maclaine to George Hooper, 9 February 1783, NCSR, 16: 935.
134
Archibald Maclaine to George Hooper, 7 March 1782, NCSR, 16:534-535.
407
Although there is an eleven-month gap in the chronology of Maclaine’s letters to
Hooper, his letter of early February 1783 shows that the latter was then still in
Charleston. Prior to this letter, the state passed (in April 1782) “an Act directing the sale
of Confiscated Property,” which named a number of loyalists, merchants and British
property holders within the state whose estates were to be “considered as absolutely
forfeited.”135 Hooper’s name, fortunately, was not on the list, which meant in effect that
he was not regarded by lawmakers as an offensive Tory unworthy of leniency. The
Assembly failed to meet in the fall of the year as scheduled, which Maclaine deemed “a
happy circumstance.” He advised his son-in-law that an act of pardon would have been
enacted, but it would have been “clogged…with too many exceptions,” though Hooper he
felt would have had nothing to fear, particularly with the anticipated conclusive peace
treaty soon to be signed between America and Great Britain. Maclaine assured Hooper
that he continued to press the cases of those who wished to return to the state. “I would
much rather have them among us in this stage of the war, than many that shall remain
nameless,” an obvious reference to North Carolina radicals and democrats he opposed.
He also warned Hooper of punitive efforts by some assemblymen to seize in South
Carolina and Georgia the property of those in Hooper’s situation, an effort unopposed by
Governor Martin, who against his better judgment, was “daliy doing imprudent things,”
and took “infinite pains not to offend anyone in whose power it is to contribute to his
continuance in office.”136
135
NCSR, 24:424-425;
136
Archibald Maclaine to Thomas Burke, 27 March 1782, NCSR, 16:248.
408
Later that month, Maclaine wrote again to Hooper upon receipt of the
encouraging news that the South Carolina legislature would adopt lenient measures with
regard to loyalists. Maclaine suggested that Hooper remain there, and become a citizen
of that state, as it “will probably pave the way for your return” to North Carolina. “What
is still more important,” he continued, was that “the moderation of Georgia and S.
Carolina will have a powerful effect upon our assembly; but what I depend on more than
anything else; an approaching peace, of which I have no doubt, will tend to hasten the
cure for all our political calamities.” Thus, Maclaine predicted that the treaty, once
signed, would enable the banished to return to the state without encumbrances or
liabilities, and that his correspondent “will have nothing to fear from this quarter.”
Events would soon show, however, that it would not be that simple.137
A few weeks later, in March 1783, Maclaine attempted to allay Hooper’s fears of
an act of banishment passing the assembly, with predictions of moderation.
That there are persons among us who would promote such persecutions, I
have no doubt. That there will be some of them ion the Assembly, is
highly probable; but I have not the least reason to believe that such a
scheme will be adopted. I have good grounds to believe that there will be
many sensible and more moderate men in the Assembly…of the most
violent of the men in power, those of any understanding are loud against
persecution.
Maclaine went on to warn him not to enter trade in his own name at such a sensitive time,
lest he be seen as a British merchant, and penalized by the legislature as such. He
woefully noted that too many of his political foes had obtained elected office, and “have
been busy poisoning the minds of the people.” “The Assembly is my grand dependence”
for obtaining Hooper’s ability to return home, he wrote as he ended the letter. In a
137
Archibald Maclaine to George Hooper, 25 February 1783, NCSR, 16:941.
409
similar fashion, he wrote several days later that “I have the most sanguine expectations of
a moderate Assembly, and you will be pleased to hear that is the general opinion in this
country.”138
But as the time for the legislative meeting drew nigh, the lawyer seems to have
had some doubts of what the assembly might be inclined to permit with regard to the
exiles. Maclaine advised Hooper to wait in Charleston, rather than appear at the
upcoming meeting of the Assembly, or seek judicial redress. He cited the case of Dr.
James Walker, who had recently appealed to be allowed to return to the state but was
refused by the legislature, despite numerous testimonials of his medical treatment of
Whig prisoners during the war. After humorously advising Hooper to have all the Tory
“refugees” in South Carolina to pray for his health so he would be sure to make it to the
Assembly (to which he had been recently elected), Maclaine became more serious. “My
reliance is on the Assembly,” he reported, “I have great expectations of a moderate one,
and from a thorough conviction that truth, justice and sound policy must at length prevail,
I do not fear of success,” though he was well prepared for the “little arts will be used to
defeat me.” Nevertheless, “I hope to resolve of your Assembly giving the banished leave
to return and [to] be heard [I] will be at Hillsborough,” where it was set to meet. “Absurd
as it is to try the guilty by the Legislature, it breathes some degree of moderation.”139
The state’s Assembly did in fact meet in Hillsborough that spring, in a session
that began on 18 April 1783, and elected Alexander Martin governor over Richard
138
Archibald Maclaine to George Hooper, 12 March 1783, NCSR, 16:944-946; Archibald Maclaine to
George Hooper, 24 March 1783, NCSR, 16:948.
139
Archibald Maclaine to George Hooper, 25 March 1783, NCSR, 16:951.
410
Caswell.140 Despite a lingering illness, Maclaine was able to attend, and admittedly
courted Martin from the outset. Although he predicted its failure, an act of “Pardon and
Oblivion” in fact passed. He was confident that with this act, “all who went away at the
evacuation of Wilmington may return in safety unless they may have done something to
exasperate the people, in which case there is no answering what violences may be
committed.” Hooper, of course, did not come under this latter classification. “I have not
heard a whisper of an act of banishment,” Maclaine continued, “and there is nothing else
that can injure you.” He recommended that Hooper prepare for his return, hopeful that
the war’s final treaty would “stop…all prosecutions and the principal questions will be,
whether the state will pay any regard to those [treaty] articles which Congress must
recommend.” Then, Maclaine recognized what would become a key factor in the state’s
revolutionary reconstruction regarding the provisions of the treaty. “Those who have
profited or expect to profit by confiscations, are for holding what we have got”—in other
words, not abiding by the treaty articles which would preclude further punitive
confiscations.141
Maclaine’s initial hopes for success in the legislature were dashed by early May.
“I attempted everything I possibly could to make some reform in our public affairs,” he
complained to Hooper, “but there are so many bad men in the Assembly, and so many
unconstitutional members, that it was beyond the power of any single man, and I was
very slenderly supported.” Maclaine thought that those inclined to support him preferred
to do so later, in order to “let the violent cool by degrees.” The most “violent” of these
140
141
Richard Caswell to William Caswell, 4 May 1783, NCSR, 16:958.
NCSR, 24:489-490; Archibald Maclaine to George Hooper, 29 April 1783, NCSR, 16:956-958. For a
detailed discussion of North Carolina and the Treaty of Paris, see Chapter 9.
411
men was Griffith Rutherford, a former militia general, prominent figure in backcountry
politics, and no friend to loyalists. Maclaine referred to the vindictiveness of many of the
legislators against their disaffected or loyalist enemies, and was unsatisfied with the final
version of the Act of Pardon and Oblivion: it was passed “to grant an act of pardon and
oblivion for past offenses.” Ostensibly, “all manner of treasons, misprision of treason,
felony, or misdemeanor, committed or done since the fourth day of July, seventeen
hundred and seventy-six, by any person or persons whatsoever, [were to] be pardoned,
released, and put in total oblivion,” but the attorney deplored the exceptions to
exoneration contained within the language of the law, which “includes almost everyone,”
and he doubted it conformed to the treaty. Maclaine referred specifically to the third
section of the act, which exempted from pardon all those who had accepted commissions
form the British, others who had committed “deliberate and willful murder, robbery, rape,
or house burning,” those named in previous confiscation acts, or those who left the state
and had “not returned within twelve months previous to the passing of this act.” This
later provision appeared to exclude his son-in-law from a pardon, but in a pique of
frustration Maclaine wrote that he would prefer to have him return—“I defy the devil to
injure you.” Having cooled down several weeks later, Maclaine reported to Hooper that
the act, with the exceptions, “in fact leaves you where you were.” Thus, despite
optimism at the opening of the legislative session, Maclaine admitted defeat with regard
to leniency toward the loyalists.142
142
NCSR, 24:489-490; Archibald Maclaine to George Hooper, 9 May 1783, NCSR, 16:962-963; Archibald
Maclaine to George Hooper, 9 June 1783, NCSR, 16:964-965; Archibald Maclaine to George Hooper, 12
June 1783, NCSR, 16:966.
412
Frustrated, Maclaine recommended that Hooper “become a citizen of South
Carolina,” which would at least allow him to recover his debts legally. He did, however,
warn him again not to identify himself as a British merchant in any petition for clemency
in North Carolina, for fear of injurious results if he did.143 Resentment was still high
against loyalists that summer of 1783, as illustrated by events in Wilmington in July. It
appears that Hooper briefly returned to the river port during that month, though he was
unable to visit with Maclaine. Hooper’s appearance (along with that of several others in
the town who were proscribed by previous legislative acts) provoked local authorities
into attempting his detention. They did not object to a brief visit by Hooper, but as one
official wrote to Maclaine, “as [Hooper] continued here some time, and others
(obnoxious) arriving, I am under the necessity, to avoid the appearance of partiality, of
including him” in his efforts to arrest the transgressors. Hooper left in time to avoid
being detained, but Maclaine was concerned that his name should be linked with others
who were offensive to the “scoundrels in the town,” and were forced to leave; he
promised to write to the governor to remedy any ill effects of the affair. The fact that
many citizens, including one of the town’s superior court justices, were favorably
disposed to Hooper but he was still unable to return to residence there suggests the level
of animosity others maintained toward anyone not seen as a firm Whig.144
By mid-August, Maclaine was again quite hopeful of “a favorable reply” from
Governor Martin with regard to allowing Hooper to return permanently to North
Carolina, and also believed, erroneously as it turned out, that the coming of peace might
143
Archibald Maclaine to George Hooper, 9 June 1783, NCSR, 16:964-965; Archibald Maclaine to George
Hooper, 12 June 1783, NCSR, 16:966.
144
Archibald Maclaine to George Hooper, 28 July 1783, NCSR, 16:968-969.
413
mean the end of property confiscation. He expected to get a pardon for him by October.
“Wickedness and folly,” he hoped, would soon end. He reported to Hooper that there
was still support for banishment in the state, and a “vindictive spirit” espoused by some
of the populace, yet others were not so ill-disposed toward Hooper and others of his sort.
A number of men, formerly opposed to reconciliation, now “declared against all violent
measures, and expressly said that they could not see why the absent might not return, as
well as many others stay here.” Still, he conceded that Hooper would most likely be in
Charleston for some time, and hoped he could make some money in commerce while he
remained there. Maclaine’s hope was that South Carolina’s moderation in dealing with
issues surrounding the Tories would have a “powerful effect” in North Carolina, as would
George Washington’s letter to Virginia Governor Benjamin Harrison, made public earlier
that year, in which he advocated “liberallity of Sentiment” in the post war period.145
An increasingly frustrated Hooper evidently wrote a harshly worded letter to a
Wilmington Whig in August 1783, but Maclaine intercepted it. “Nothing but a blind
resentment could have induced you to write it,” he advised Hooper, and added that had it
been received as intended it would have worked to prevent him from recovering his
property. Maclaine reported glumly that the sentiments of the Whigs toward those who
left with the British, as did Hooper, was unfavorable. In the state, “we have one
scoundrel who wishes to banish all the decent persons, and another who sports with the
feeling of humanity to satiate his revenge that you should execrate a whole people.” (One
of these men was surely Rutherford.) He deplored the “ignorance and violence of the
145
Archibald Maclaine to George Hooper, 14 August 1783, NCSR, 16:971; George Washington to
Benjamin Harrison, 30 April 1783, in Fitzpatrick, The Writings of George Washington, 30 April 1783,
26:99.
414
times, and the small portion of active virtue we have among us.” He urged Hooper to
keep his powerful feelings in check, and not to do anything to jeopardize his chances of
either returning to the state, or being able to remove all of his property to Charleston if in
the end he chose to adopt that course.146
Maclaine reported too that Governor Martin had issued a proclamation in late
July, which he described as “extremely confused” but made with the best intention. The
proclamation was issued in order to bring offenders not covered by the pardon to justice.
Although not a particularly vindictive decree, it was nevertheless clear in its intention to
prevent undesirable individuals from returning to the state without prior approval for
doing so. The chief magistrate commanded all civil and military officers of the state “to
use their endeavors to apprehend such persons of the above description that they may be
dealt with according to Law,” and all other citizens were required to assist them.
Additionally, Martin ordered all “such persons who have arrived into this State since the
first day of May last, or who shall arrive without having first obtained leave from the
executive, immediately to depart the same.” Maclaine interpreted the governor’s decree
to mean that “those who returned before the first of May, tho’ not permitted to remain,
cannot be subject to be removed, coming in since” that date, and only those who “were
expelled for refusing the oath of allegiance, can be prohibited from returning.”
Maclaine’s contorted interpretation was lawyerly and hairsplitting, as the proclamation
was clearly intended to prevent proscribed loyalists from reentering the state without
approval in advance, until the Assembly “shall please to determine on the subject.”147
146
Archibald Maclaine to George Hooper, 23 August 1783, NCSR, 16:975-977.
415
On 1 September 1783, Maclaine sent Hooper “a copy of the Governor’s
certificate,” which he thought might “answer your purpose,” though Hooper’s brother
Thomas was excluded from receiving a similar document. George Hooper, however,
seems to have been given leave to return to the state at least to present his case in person,
something of a good conduct pass. Despite such an indulgence, Maclaine was convinced
that the punitive spirit among the people remained largely unabated. “I am now firmly
persuaded,” the conservative Maclaine wrote “that nothing will quite the minds of the
violent people, who are endeavoring to establish their own power and their own interest,
but some act of the Legislature.” He observed that elected state officials were beholden
to “the mob,” and that only the British evacuation of New York and “the appearance of a
definitive treaty” would bring about recognition by North Carolina of the terms and
articles of that peace agreement. He ended his letter by advising Hooper that “the doubt
about the Governor’s future intentions with respect to you, arose from the following
paragraph[: ‘]Any thing in my power (when the minds of the assembly and the people at
large are somewhat cooled) consistent with the dignity of the State, shall be at your and
his service.[‘] No doubt Hooper too was less than encouraged by such qualified
remarks.148 Nor would he have been encouraged by Maclaine’s exasperated statement in
a second letter of the same date in which he wrote “it is even a doubt with me whether
147
Proclamation of Governor Alexander Martin, 28 July 1783, NCSR, 16:850-851; Archibald Maclaine to
George Hooper, 23 August 1783, NCSR, 16:977. On the reverse of the letter Maclaine copied the
Proclamation for Hooper.
148
Archibald Maclaine to George Hooper, 1 September 1783, NCSR, 16:979-980. Italics in original.
416
[Martin] intends granting you that favor” of a pardon, and again placed his reliance upon
the eventual definitive treaty once signed in order to relieve both Hooper brothers.149
In September, Hooper’s wife and daughter left Wilmington to join him in
Charleston. Meanwhile, Maclaine disdainfully reported numerous “commotions” in and
around the town by Patriots bent on persecuting those loyalists who chose to stay nearby,
“disturbances” led by “industrious” mob leaders throughout the month.150 A few weeks
later he reported hearing that the governor had received official notice of “the definitive
treaty,” but it was unconfirmed. Maclaine also noted men still leaving the state for
England, and others only then taking the oath of allegiance in order to purchase forfeited
property.151 By mid October Maclaine thought that Hooper could return with his
certificate—“all that is required of you, was a certificate that you were not affected by
banishment or confiscation.” However, in issuing the paper, Martin had “clogged” it
with “extraneous matter,” detailing Hooper’s circumstances as he left the state, “which
certainly has no good effect.” Maclaine obviously thought Martin’s extra verbiage would
confuse or alarm state officials or justices, and hinder Hooper’s safe return.152
As 1783 drew to a close, Maclaine still could not achieve his long sought after
goal of clearing Hooper’s return to North Carolina. “As to your removal here when your
affairs will permit,” he wrote, “I shall only say it will give me great pleasure, if the
temper of the times should allow, but not otherwise.” Clearly, Maclaine did not believe
149
Archibald Maclaine to George Hooper, 1 September 1783, NCSR, 16:981-982.
150
Archibald Maclaine to George Hooper, 29 September 1783, NCSR, 16:982-983.
151
Archibald Maclaine to George Hooper, 8 October 1783, NCSR, 16:984-985.
152
Archibald Maclaine to George Hooper, 13 October 1783, NCSR, 16:986.
417
the time was ripe for such a relocation. The governor did not harbor resentment against
Hooper, it seemed to Maclaine, but feared a political backlash and resultant loss of
popularity if he were to come out publicly in favor of any one perceived by the “people in
general” as being adverse to independence. This apparently dissuaded Martin from
favoring Maclaine’s machinations on Hooper’s behalf, particularly since Maclaine
insisted that Hooper’s return be made not upon the basis of any criminal wrongdoing for
leaving the state with the British. “I would not have it said that your conduct stood in any
need of a public interposition in your favor.” Hoping to sound cheerful at holiday time,
Maclaine offered his private wishes for Hooper and his family. “Whether you can be
soon with me I know not; but I am sure if I have life and health, I shall see you before
any long period.”153
In early February 1784, Maclaine was again hopeful for Hooper and other
refugees in South Carolina. “I am persuaded you will succeed,” and thought his allies in
the government would “be able to remove all difficulties” in the upcoming April session
of the Assembly. By the time the legislature met, Maclaine was a member from
Wilmington, and counted as his allies Willie Jones, William Hooper, and Samuel
Johnston. Those in the opposite camp were led by the “bloodthirsty” Rutherford,
Timothy Bloodworth, former governor Abner Nash, and William Blount, the latter two
men Maclaine declared to be “destitute of principle and swayed only by motives of
interest.” He feared that those loyalists who had been specifically named in a previous
confiscation act would in the end not get their estates back, but was more optimistic about
153
Archibald Maclaine to George Hooper, 23 December 1783, NCSR, 16:997-999 (italics in the original).
418
“the unoffending” British subjects, for he thought “the honor of the state is concerned in
the restoration of their property. Let the British government pay the others.”154
Once again, Maclaine’s hopes for a successful session evaporated once it began.
He complained of the efforts to pass a bill for selling confiscated property, which did not
pass, and a “bill of banishment.” This latter measure called for a long list of names to be
included—including both Hoopers, though he did note that many objected to the
inclusion of their names, including the state governor. The bill (“unconstitutional,” as he
put it) was in the end defeated in the Senate. He also concluded that a faction within the
House favored banishment and confiscation for personal pecuniary reasons. Some sought
to include the names of some very powerful, wealthy men to whom they owed money,
including John Burgwyn—“a dangerous rival in trade.” In the end, no banishment or
confiscation acts became law that session, but the attempts clearly worried the
conservative lawmakers. Maclaine resolved to stand for election to the fall legislative
session for the purpose of “preventing mischief” by those opposed to the loyalists, and
requested that Hooper send him proof of his South Carolina citizenship, “under the great
seal,” to use in his efforts to lift Hooper’s banishment. By the end of June the attorney
believed his son-in-law might accept a pardon from Governor Martin, which he seemed
willing to grant, though Maclaine still held that Hooper’s conduct and South Carolina
citizenship ought to have been enough to do the trick. Nevertheless, “the popular cry” of
those “violent men” inclined to punitive measures was still a considerable obstacle.
Vindictiveness was present in a number of these men, as he bitterly noted.
154
Archibald Maclaine to George Hooper, 4 February 1784, NCSR, 17:127; Archibald Maclaine to George
Hooper, 21 April 1784, NCSR, 17:134.
419
Perhaps it may be otherwise with respect to those who have had large
estates, which have been expressly confiscated by act of Assembly…there
is however some hope that where such estates belong to real British
subjects what remains unsold may be restored but this is a subject that was
very unpalatable last session [April 1784]; though every man of common
understanding sees that (exclusive of the injustice of such a measure) the
State never will be benefited by retaining those estates.155
He concluded that Hooper’s return would be proper, and cited John Burgwin’s recent
“unmolested” and “unquestioned” stay as proof. He added, however, that the governor
“wishes absentees to remain so, or if they do come, to stay no longer than may be
necessary to transact their business. You see what a poor thing it is.”156
In the summer of 1784, Maclaine began preparing for the fall Assembly session
set for New Bern, and reminded Hooper to send him citizenship testimonials. “I wish to
remove every difficulty that lies in the way of recovering your debts,” he added. He
wished to be prepared for another attempt to name Hooper in a banishment act, and
sought to obtain a pardon as well. In the end, Maclaine considered the session to have
been a mixed bag. He reported in a brief note to Hooper in early December an attempt to
“banish everyone comprised in certain descriptions,” but it failed. The assembly did pass
a confiscation act, another to “describe and ascertain such persons who owed allegiance
to this State,” and another to bar the disaffected from sitting in the assembly or holding
public office. Perhaps Maclaine considered any session in which Hooper’s name was not
mentioned in an act to have been a good one. However, as he reported to his son-in-law a
short time later, local justices were still charging men with misdemeanors for unlawful
155
Archibald Maclaine to George Hooper, 14 June 1784, NCSR, 17:144-146; Archibald Maclaine to
George Hooper, 18 June 1784, NCSR, 17:147-149.
156
Archibald Maclaine to George Hooper, 18 June 1784, NCSR, 17:151.
420
reentry into the state (though treason prosecutions seemed to have ended.)157 In late
1785, Hooper was still in South Carolina, though Maclaine was still guardedly optimistic
of his success in getting him back home.158
By 1789, Hooper and his family had returned to North Carolina with his property
largely restored, and had reentered trade once again in the lower Cape Fear River area.
Evidently, though the records are unclear, he was eventually allowed to become a
member of the polity once more, perhaps a sign that at least to some degree the spirit of
revenge had abated.159 Others too received acts of leniency from state officials and the
assembly, though considerable opposition to them and those perceived as loyalist
enemies had by no means dissolved. John Burgwin was able to reestablish his family and
commerce within the state after considerable difficulties. Others requested exemptions to
banishment or confiscation laws due to particular circumstances, and were in some
instances favored by the assembly. Thomas Gilchrist of Halifax, for example, ran afoul
of state authorities for his failure to take the oath, which he refused at first in order to
regain some property from a Virginia loyalist who had relocated to Bermuda. Gilchrist
followed him there, and upon successfully being paid, he returned to Georgia and then
South Carolina, where in both states he took the necessary oaths. As a result of the
petition of his wife in his own behalf did he obtain permission to return to the state during
157
Archibald Maclaine to George Hooper, 16 July 1784, NCSR, 17:155; Archibald Maclaine to George
Hooper, 1 December 1784, NCSR, 17:186, 188; NCSR, 24:661-664; NCSR, 24:683-686.
158
159
Archibald Maclaine to George Hooper, 25 November 1785, NCSR, 17:631.
NCSR, 21:290; DeMond, North Carolina Loyalists, 187. After a letter of Maclaine’s to George Hooper
of 25 November 1785, no further correspondence has survived. Although the DNCB states that Thomas
Hooper also returned to the state and had his property restored, Palmer lists a claim by Thomas to British
authorities for lost property in Wilmington, which implies that he remained a loyalist and did not return.
DNCB, 3:199; Palmer, Biographical Sketches of Loyalists, 400.
421
the war years.160 Marmaduke Jones, however, seems to have had an easier time during
the war with regard to his status. He was in London by the end of the conflict, attempting
to claim some inheritance, and encountered no difficulty returning to the state in 1784.
Perhaps he had sworn allegiance to the state earlier, although had British authorities been
aware of this, it is likely he would have suffered as a result.161
Cape Fear Merchant Peter Mallett, Jr.’s case was much more complicated.
Although Mallett had served on the Wilmington Committee of Safety in 1775 and as a
House of Commons delegate in 1778, he became suspected of Toryism by 1781 for
resigning his position as a commissary officer, a position which had placed him under
severe financial strain. He did, nevertheless, consent to continue to purchase goods for
the state’s military needs with public funds as a private citizen. Opposition to him
became so pronounced that he found it necessary to employ a guard at his Campbellton
plantation. When much of his goods were seized by Cornwallis’ forces in 1781, the state
refused him reimbursement on the grounds that the property had yet to be turned over to
army officials, and was thus his own private property. Enraged at such peevishness,
Mallett made the unfortunate decision to make a claim for his losses with the British,
which was granted. This tainted his identity as a supporter of the Whigs, and led to years
of legal difficulties for him, including a 1782 indictment for treason. In fact, he was one
of only three men exempted by name from the state’s act of pardon and oblivion of 1783.
In 1785, he was indicted in Hillsborough Superior Court for “becoming a nuisance to the
good citizens of this state,” though this indictment was quashed. Even though he was
160
DNCB, 2:298.
161
DNCB, 3:323.
422
eventually pardoned for his “folly,” Mallett struggled to regain his place within society
for years, despite having never accepted a British commission, or otherwise actively
oppose the state’s Patriots. His enormous mercantile fortune and debts due him from
Whig Carolinians may have been in part responsible for the enmity toward him.162
As the cases of Hooper, Mallett and others show, the failure to actively support
the state during the Revolutionary struggle could very well translate into significant
difficulties, even after the fighting had ended. Resentment against Toryism—or even the
appearance of it—led in many cases to tremendous hardships, often for extensive periods.
Men (and in some cases, their wives and children) were banished from the state, had their
property seized and sold, and were in numerous instances barred from returning to their
former homes. Others were convicted of treason, jailed, and in some cases, executed.
Some were summarily shot or hanged with little if any pretense of a trial or judicial
proceeding.
For many Whigs, the war’s aftermath would be one of a continued conflict with
the Tories and the disaffected, characterized by revenge, not forgiveness; by hostility, not
reconciliation; and by extremism, not moderation. Having lived through a terrible war,
their idea of forming a new state, rebuilding their communities and reshaping their lives
meant a North Carolina without the disaffected, their former enemies. It also meant not
only getting rid of them, it meant taking away from them all that was valuable in a what
James Iredell has called an “intemperate spirit.” Some of this hostility was based on
vindictiveness and some based on financial motives, yet what is clear is that a large
162
NCSR, 18:478-479; DNCB, 4:205-206; James Hogg to James Iredell, 17 May 1783, Papers of James
Iredell, 2:401-402, 402-403n; Papers of James Iredell, 3:90n; William Hooper to James Iredell, 17
February 1782, Papers of James Iredell, 2, 329-330; Hillsborough District Superior Court Minute Docket,
1768-1788, Vol. 1 (DSCR 204.311.1), N.C. State Archives.
423
segment of the people—perhaps a majority for several years—would not be content to
forgive and forget. That was how they envisioned their revolutionary settlement.
And yet, the circumstances of Hooper, Mallett, and Burgwin, demonstrate that in
North Carolina, at least some men experienced moderation if not forgiveness by some of
their countrymen. Hooper and Burgwin eventually returned to the state; Mallett was
pardoned despite earlier objections to his pleas for clemency; and there were in the minds
of some Carolinians extenuating circumstances that could absolve a man’s wartime
transgressions, if only in part. Once the fighting ended in 1783, a desire for peace, order
and stability among many within the state led to an end to physical violence and calls for
rejection of vindictiveness, though in regards to the latter, this was by no means
universal. Nevertheless, as will be shown in the next chapter, there existed within the
state a consistent call for moderation and reconciliation during and after the war years, an
appeal for social harmony that was just as much a part of the revolutionary settlement as
the punitive measures others chose to support.163
163
Of note, Dr. Pyle had even fought in arms against the Patriots, unlike Hooper, Mallett and Burgwin.
424
CHAPTER 9
“FROM PRINCIPLES OF HUMANITY AND VIRTUE”: MODERATION AND THE
REVOLUTIONARY SETTLEMENT
From his home in Edenton in June 1784, attorney James Iredell wrote a short
letter to his friend Archibald Neilson, a merchant and former secretary to the last royal
governor of North Carolina. An ardent loyalist, Neilson hastily left the state once war
seemed imminent in 1775. Having not heard from Neilson in some time, Iredell
welcomed the renewal of an interrupted friendship “between old Friends, however
separated by the war or political sentiments.” He lamented the vindictive spirit
demonstrated throughout the war years—and even since then—against those like Neilson
who remained loyal to the crown and had suffered so much because of it. Sympathetic
toward the plight of these numerous “Refugees,” especially those who “were not
remarkably obnoxious,” in his correspondence Iredell went on to articulate his views on
how the post war process of rebuilding the state and dealing with those who failed to
support independence should proceed.1
For James Iredell and a sizeable element of North Carolina’s leaders, a policy of
moderation would best serve the state as it struggled to overcome the devastation and
1
James Iredell to Archibald Neilson, 15 June 1784, Papers of James Iredell, 3:67-68.
425
disorders of the war years. This was particularly true with regard to reintegrating the
disaffected, many of whom remained in the state while others who had fled sought to
reenter. “No Man is either good or bad, merely for his opinions,” Iredell declared, adding
that in political questions there is room for almost an infinite diversity of
sentiment, among even the wise, as well as Men of little understanding—
and that no Man in a civil war is justly censurable for anything but
insincerity in chusing his side, or in fidelity in adhering to it, or in the
course of his political conduct deviating in any instances from principles
of humanity and virtue.
With a glance toward the future he continued with an expression of hope for conciliation,
tempered with the recollection of the bitterness the struggle had engendered. “I heartily
wish, that the termination of the war could have been followed with an oblivion of its
offences, tho’ I cannot but observe that it was conducted in some respects in such a
manner as too naturally to cause a deep and lasting resentment in many who have
particularly suffered by it.”2
Iredell articulated in this letter a view that many others in the state shared—that
the rebuilding of the state and the revolutionary settlement in it had to be based on some
degree of clemency, not vindictiveness. What was called for, these moderates and
conservatives argued, was reconciliation tempered by moderation, not extremism.
Carolinians who shared this view tried with varying success to mitigate the widespread
hostility against the disaffected in order to limit the wartime violence and chaos within
the state, and to bring peace, stability and prosperity to the post war years. As part of
their efforts, these men sought to avoid alienating the disaffected unnecessarily, and to
2
James Iredell to Archibald Neilson, 15 June 1784, Papers of James Iredell, 3:67-68. Iredell too suffered
as a result of the war. He was separated from his mother and brothers who remained in England, and was
disinherited for his support of the Revolution by a wealthy uncle who resided in the West Indies. See Don
Higginbotham, ‘James Iredell's Efforts to Preserve the First British Empire’, North Carolina Historical
Review, 49 (1972), 127–45.
426
mitigate the suffering of the families of those who opposed independence. They allowed
penitent Tories to rejoin the Whig polity in return for military service, and allowed select
others who had fled to come back to enjoy their estates once again—provided they were
not the “obnoxious” sort Iredell mentioned. Pardons were granted in some cases, and
clemency shown to many of those who posed no threat to the state’s well-being—“unless
they have done something to exasperate the people.” This moderating, conciliatory
influence was a key component in bringing order, tranquility, and stability to a weary,
war-ravaged North Carolina and was an essential part of the revolutionary settlement
there.3
Advocates of conciliation pointed to the necessity of ameliorating provisions in
law to prevent disorders within the state. These men sought to limit retaliatory measures
against their internal foes, partially as a way to control the chaos and destruction they
saw, but also as a way of placing the state in the position of a controlling authority. This
role would enhance the state’s legitimacy, attract the loyalties of the disaffected, and help
build the state in the post war years. One of the primary methods North Carolinians
employed to reach these goals was to attempt to treat separately those who warred against
the state from those who, while to some degree disaffected, posed little or no threat. This
can be clearly seen by the reluctance of Whig authorities to punish women and children
during and after the war. Women were not seen as combatants, were regarded as less
dangerous than disaffected men, and they were not required to take an oath of loyalty to
the state. As a result, they were not subject to various punitive acts and resolutions
passed during the war, and could not be punished by their provisions. By seeing to the
3
Archibald Maclaine to George Hooper, 29 April 1783, NCSR, 16:957.
427
needs of these destitute families, the state also could be cast in the role of protector and
provider, and hence convince at least the families of the disaffected that they had a
powerful interest in its success, and deserved their loyalty.
While many in the state sought to punish the disaffected by a variety of penalizing
measures, other Carolinians recognized that some scrutiny should be observed in
determining who was to be declared an enemy. This was necessary in order to maintain
public order, reduce lawlessness, and to enhance the legitimacy of the state as judicial
arbiter. Archibald Maclaine, for example, advised Thomas Burke in February 1781 of
the case of a “Mr. Young, of Georgia,” whose property had been seized by the Whigs.
Maclaine admitted that Young was a Tory, but that his property had been “carried off in
the night from his Plantation in a piratical manner, and every one whom these freebooters
choose to call a Tory may be used in the same Manner if they are to be both judges and
parties.” In other words, if the Tories were to be punished, it had to be done under
legitimate state auspices, not the caprice of local commanders or their men.4 Thomas
Burke also sought to make sure that the disaffected were handled firmly, but according to
the law. To Major Hogg, commander of the spring anti-Tory campaign in 1782, he gave
orders to this affect: “Subsist your troops where it can be done without oppressions, on
the estates of the disaffected. But to prevent those employed from committing abuses, it
will be necessary that nothing be taken from them without a particular account being
rendered to you.” He also ordered Hogg to “punish all acts of plunder of inhuman or
disgraceful violence,” and not to insult the families of the Tories. “The necessary
4
Archibald Maclaine to Thomas Burke, 9 February 1781, NCSR, 22:534-535.
428
severities I shall authorize and you will execute, I am persuaded, with sufficient vigor,
though with reluctance”5
From the first years of the conflict, some Carolinians sought to lessen the war’s
effects on non-combatants estranged from their cause. In July 1776, the Surry County
Council of Safety advised the local militia commander that regarding property of Tories
he was to confiscate their “moveable” property, while “observing in the mean time that
their families are supplied with the necessities of Life.”6 As noted earlier, the state’s
“Treason Act” of 1776 provided for the confiscation of property of those deemed
inimical to the cause of independence, but also included a provision that trial judges
could at their discretion “out of the estate forfeited by virtue of this ordinance, make such
provision for the wife and Children if any of the Criminal.” Most subsequent acts
continued this provision as well.7
A confiscation act of 1778 included the language that “whereas…many Absentees
from the State may have left fathers or Mothers in advanced age, and whose sole
Dependency for their Subsistence has been upon the Property and Filial Attention of their
Children,” provision was made to prevent these people from falling into a condition of
“the most abject Wretchedness.”8 The following year, a revised act specifically
5
Thomas Burke to Major Hogg, 13 March 1782, NCSR, 16:231. Burke had also recognized during the war
that correct behavior on the part of public officials toward the citizenry would prevent people from
attaching themselves to the Tories. John Sayle Watterson, Thomas Burke, Restless Revolutionary
(Washington, D.C.: University Press of America, 1980), 153.
6
Surry County Safety Council to Martin Armstrong, 5 July 1776, NCSR, 11:308.
7
NCSR, 23:998; NCSR, 24:348-349.
8
NCSR, 24:209-214.
429
exempted the dower property of wives and widows from confiscation.9 “We war not
against aged parents or against Women and Children,” protested a group of lawmakers in
1779.10 These sentiments can clearly be seen in a 1778 treason case from Washington
County, on the state’s western edge. The defendant was convicted of the charge, and the
court ordered that the sheriff should seize one half of his estate “for the use of the state,
and the other half remitted to the family of the [defendant].”11
Some of this sentiment was probably based on the desire of state authorities to
avoid having a large number of inhabitants destitute and requiring assistance from
already overtaxed local and state resources. This may be the case in 1780, when the state
Board of War ordered that when confiscating the “great quantities” of corn of loyalists in
Rowan and Mecklenburg, authorities were to leave enough corn “sufficient for the
Support of the poor women and Children who belong to those persons.”12 The North
Carolina government, however, certainly recognized the salubrious effects of leniency
with regard to dependents of Tories. The state senate observed in the summer of 1781
that the families of many Tories who had renounced their British allegiances and enlisted
in the state’s Continental forces were often “reduced to Poverty in consequence of the
Confiscation Act,” that body accordingly resolved that these families receive from the
local commissioners of confiscated estates “all Articles and Property of every kind
9
NCSR, 24:268.
10
NCSR, 13:992.
11
Hsiung, Two Worlds in the Tennessee Mountains, 26-27.
12
NCSR, 14:445, 469-470.
430
heretofore belonging to them.” This action not only encouraged the disaffected to join
the army, it was a mollifying gesture toward their families as well.13
Even as the war against the Tories heated up for state and Continental authorities
by the start of 1782, some provisions for the women and children of these foes seemed
necessary. A number of court cases show that when property confiscation was carried
out, courts ordered that sufficient provision should be made for the families of the
victims.14 Thus, although John Goodbread was found guilty of “treason and felony
against the State” in October 1782, his wife Mary was granted by the Rutherford County
court justices possession of two hundred acres of land, and “all the stock of horses, cattle,
hogs and household furniture that she is possessed of, 2 Negroes—woman named Nan
and a fellow named Lax.” Nancy Lawrence, whose husband had also been convicted of
treason by this same court, was given in 1783 a tract of two-hundred fifty acres and “all
of the moveable property belonging to [the] estate…according to a late act of Assembly
made for the wives and widows.”15
With regard to the families of those Tories who would not be reconciled, Burke
stated that they would be “moved within the Enemies Lines.” He hoped he would not
have to do so but if “it must be executed, I am in every way disposed to make it as easy
as possible in the execution. I am indeed distressed at having operations to carry on
13
NCSR, 17:865-866.
14
See for example the 1782 case of Joseph Dobson of Guilford County, given in Jane S. Hill, transc.,
Guilford County North Carolina Court Minutes (Greensboro: Guilford County Genealogical Society,
1999).
15
Pruitt, Abstracts of Sales of Confiscated Loyalists Land and Property in North Carolina, 119-120, 123.
431
against women and children.”16 Similarly, around the same time, Burke wrote to militia
commander Alexander Lillington that he found “the strict and vigorous execution of his
order relative to the removal of the families of such as have gone off with the Enemy
from the District of Wilmington may be attended with circumstances more severe in
some instances than he intended. If good policy requires those unhappy people to be
removed whose husbands and relatives are inimical to us, it does not preclude us from
doing it in the mode which may least expose those whose age, sex or condition may
intitle them to the regard of a generous humane people, which I hope shall always be
considered.”17 In his orders to Hogg prior to the start of this campaign to eradicate the
Tory threat along the Cape Fear, Burke advised him to punish all acts of plunder or
inhuman or disgraceful violence,” but that he was to take “particular care that the families
of those unfortunate people be not insulted or deprived of the means of subsistence.” 18
These men were not alone in these opinions. A number of women from
Wilmington petitioned Governor Martin and the state council late in 1782 not to seek
vengeance on the wives and children of North Carolina Tories, who rumor had it would
have only forty-eight hours to depart the state once ordered to do so. “It is not the
province of our sex to reason deeply upon the policy of the order, but as it must affect the
helpless and innocent, it wounds us with the most sincere distress and prompts our
earnest supplication that the order may be arrested, and the officers forbid it to carry it
into execution.” Many of these petitioners had themselves been forced out of their homes
16
Thomas Burke to Major Hogg, 13 March 1782, NCSR, 16:231.
17
Thomas Burke to Alexander Lillington, 2 February 1782, NCSR, 16:181-182.
18
Thomas Burke to Major Hogg, 13 March 1782, NCSR, 16:231; Andrew Armstrong to Griffith
Rutherford, 12 March 1782, NCSR, 16:538.
432
by the British in 1781, but the women insisted that “it is beneath the character of the
independent State of North Carolina to war on women and children.” In fact, many of the
women targeted for removal to Charleston due to their spouses’ attachment to the King
were “our old friends and acquaintances whose husbands, though estranged from us in
political opinions, have left their wives and children much endeared to us.” They
concluded that “the safety of this State, we trust in God, is now secured beyond the most
powerful exertions of our Enemies, and it would be a system of abject weakness to fear
the feeble efforts of women and children.”19
Despite indulgent provisions made for the relief of disaffected families, evidence
suggests that there were limits to which state authorities were prepared to go in their
treatment of this class of inhabitants. A number of cases demonstrate that particularly
obnoxious females suffered retaliation for their husbands’ actions, or their own. John
Murchison of Cumberland County, for instance, was an active loyalist from 1776. His
service took him and his wife Janet, to South Carolina, where he died of illness in late
1780. According to a claim she made for compensation after the war, Janet Murchison
was advised by North Carolina officials that she would be arrested as a spy if she
returned there. Forced to remain within British lines, her children had to be left at the
family’s plantation, and were unable to join her at Charleston for two years.20 In 1782,
Jean Rutherford petitioned the legislature for relief from the confiscation of her late
husband’s estate. He had joined the enemy and after capture was sent to Philadelphia,
but after being released died on the journey from New York to North Carolina in an
19
Petition of Anne Hooper, et. al., to Governor Martin, NCSR, 16:467-469. The petition is undated but
appears in the records of 1782.
20
Palmer, Biographical Sketches of Loyalists, 637-638.
433
attempt to regain his citizenship. Although she had the support of the Cumberland
County court, Mrs. Rutherford’s effort to retain part of the confiscated estate of her
husband upon which she depended for support was rejected by the Assembly in May of
that year.21
Jane Stanhouse also ran afoul of local authorities and received no ameliorating
benefits due to her sex. She operated a school of needlework for the children of the elites
in Cross Creek, having lived in the colony for fourteen years prior to the war. For hiding
loyalist refugees after their defeat at Moore’s Creek she was for a time apprehended by
Whigs, but soon fled the state upon hearing she would be subject to corporal
punishment.22
By the last few years of the war, North Carolina leaders believed that in some
cases, families of those fighting with British or Tory forces had to be uprooted from their
homes as a military necessity. In the fall of 1781, Governor Martin advised his executive
council that the state militia then in the field would probably “chastise the present
disaffection long prevailing in some counties of this State…but may not finally subdue
and extirpate it from the Country while the families of these armed villains are suffered to
remain among us uninterrupted, thereby nursing up serpents in our own bosoms for our
own destruction.” Martin went on to state that
Tho’ humanity feels for the distressed, and pleads the cause of poor
women and children, yet does not policy suggest and point out this
measure, tho’ rigorous, that they be banished from among us into the
British lines which will thereby draw away from us a set of men who so
long have eluded justice, and disturb the public Peace with impunity? In
21
Memorial of Jean Rutherford, Petitions, Joint Session Papers, General Assembly Session Records, AprilMay 1782, N.C. State Archives.
22
Palmer, Biographical Sketches of Loyalists, 818.
434
times of Peace such a measure may be violative of the Constitution which
deprives no person of Liberty or Property but by the law of the land; yet in
the tumult of War, the Civil operations of Law then too feeble in its
coercions, must cease for a moment till the Government be restored to
calmness.23
Likewise, the assembly in May 1782 requested that the governor, when sending captured
Tory militiamen to South Carolina for prisoner exchanges, also remove the wives and
families to within the British lines at Charlestown.24 This was a thorny issue, best
summed up by Thomas Burke who concluded in a bit of exasperation that “perhaps the
most humane as well as the most prudent Counsel would be to reclaim all that are
reclaimable of our ill advised and deluded Citizens and expel the incorrigible by force of
arms.”25
Despite these practicalities associated with loyalists’ dependents, other
conciliatory measures were adopted by the state in order to reduce the number of Tories
in the field against Whig forces. One such device was to lure them back to the fold by
offering pardons in return for military service. While a lengthy tour of duty—in some
cases, twelve or eighteen months—in the ranks of ill-clothed, poorly supplied Continental
or state battalions may not seem overly attractive, the alternative of property confiscation,
banishment, treason charges, and the sufferings of their families made atonement in the
form of enlistment a viable option for many of the state’s disaffected men.26 Governor
Burke’s goal was “to deprive the enemy of the advantages they derive from having a
23
Alexander Martin to the State Council, 5 October 1781, NCSR, 19:871.
24
NCSR, 18:99.
25
Thomas Burke to the General Assembly, 29 June 1781, NCSR, 15:498.
26
Burke’s address to the 1782 General Assembly, NCSR, 16:9; Fries, Moravian Records, 4:1576.
435
body of such men in the heart of the Country” who threatened the state. He wished to
make them “either Continental soldiers or prisoners of War,” and hoped that “on the
return of the soldiers [to their homes] their Country will be reconciled to them.” This
would also avoid the “dilemma of suffering numbers [of disaffected] to be executed
summa jure” for treason, the governor concluded.27
This assuaging expedient was adopted by Alexander Martin as well, acting as
governor in Burke’s absence, when the former issued a proclamation on Christmas Day
1781, in which he declared that those men who had “withdrawn themselves from the faith
and allegiance” of North Carolina, and who had joined the enemy forces would be
pardoned, provided that in order to “stay the hand of execution,” they gave themselves up
by 10 March 1782, and immediately enlisted in one of the state’s Continental regiments,
for a twelve month tour of duty. Those guilty of murder, robbery, and housebreaking did
not fall under the terms of this amnesty.28 Even before Martin’s proclamation, a number
of North Carolinians who had previously fought for the British sought to gain pardon in
exchange for military duty. “Having come to a proper sense of their duty and being duly
penitent wish again to be admitted to the Privileges of Citizens, many of whom are now
in the Continental Service,” the state senate in 1781, declared that these men—“many of
the families of which persons are reduced to Poverty in Consequence of the Confiscation
Act”—would be allowed to keep their property in return for their military duty.
27
28
Thomas Burke to Governor Matthews of South Carolina, 6 March 1782, NCSR, 16:217-219.
Proclamation of Alexander Martin, 25 December 1781, NCSR, 22:211-212; Alexander Martin to
Nathanael Greene, 10 February 1782, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 10:351.
436
Compared to banishment, property forfeiture, prison or death, this was certainly a
conciliatory solution.29
Upon Burke’s return he continued with this combination of recruitment and
leniency, “it being resolved that all of those people who were in Arms with the Enemy or
who committed hostilities against the people of this State under color of British authority
be made prisoners of War, except a few of the more atrocious, unless they will faithfully
serve twelve months in the Continental Line of this State.” Even after the March 10th
amnesty deadline had passed, Burke wrote that “such as are disposed to enlist may find
protection [and] even now will be deemed Citizens…in order that their families may be
protected in their absence.” He advised one of the state’s military officers that “except
[for] the very mischievous and atrocious, I wish to see very few submitted to the
Executioner,” a telling reminder of the alternative some Tories faced instead of
enlisting.30
A similar olive branch was offered later that year as North Carolina forces moved
into Tory strongholds to end their threat. Governor Martin reported that
By the advice of the Council a Proclamation will issue as soon as the
Troops arrive in the Settlement of those people [Drowning Creek],
notifying them such are citizens of this State to surrender themselves in
ten days, renew their allegiance, and serve twelve months, in the
Continental Battalions. On this consideration they will be pardoned and
restored to every privilege of Citizens; precluding those guilty of murder,
robbery, house burning, and crimes not justified by the Laws of War. On
their refusal, such as are taken will be considered prisoners of war
29
Senate Joint Resolutions, General Assembly Session Records, June-July 1781, Box 1, N.C. State
Archives; Hill, Guilford County North Carolina Court Minutes; Pruitt, Abstracts of Confiscated Loyalists
Land and Property in North Carolina, 115.
30
Thomas Burke to Major Hogg, 13 March 1782, NCSR, 16:229-231; Watterson, Thomas Burke: Restless
Revolutionary, 198; Thomas Burke to Nathanael Greene, 15 February 1782, Papers of Nathanael Greene,
10:370. This expedition was previously noted in Chapter 4.
437
(excepting as aforesaid) and liable to exchange…otherwise they will be
subjected to the penalties of the Treason Law.31
This latter proviso could mean capital punishment, as all then knew.
Even before the state formally adopted the policy of pardon for service, at least a
few military commanders in the field saw the policy’s benefit. Colonel Thomas Wade of
Anson County reported to General Gates in 1780 that he had received the surrender of
about one hundred of the “Outlying torys” of his county, the common men from whom he
obtained security, and enlisted them with his forces for three months military service.
Wade was optimistic that the Tories would faithfully adhere to their service, and that “if
by this method we Can make them useful members and Convince them of their former
conduct, it will in my Opinion be better than to Kill them.” But, he added gravely, “we
had to Kill a few Outliers, which Ansured a good End.”32
This ameliorative policy proved effective, although if state leaders sensed the
irony of having to fight a war for independence with their enemies in the ranks, they did
not record it. In late 1782, General John Butler reported to the Board of War “the Tories
are surrendering themselves to the Justices of this and adjacent counties [near Salisbury].
I believe they would be good Subjects, if they could be pardoned.”33 Judge John Williams
reported that after the end of Oyer and Terminer Court in January 1782, the court had
“pretty well delivered the Gaol, by trying some [men] and binding over to the Superior
Court the most exceptional characters and by inlisting into the Continental
Service…those less obnoxious.” From this report it would appear that some of those on
31
Alexander Martin to Governor Matthews of South Carolina, 9 June 1782, NCSR, 16:690.
32
Thomas Wade to Horatio Gates, 23 November 1780, NCSR, 14:751.
33
John Butler to The Board of War, 4 November 1782, NCSR, 16:663.
438
trial may have accepted the court’s suggestion of enlistment rather than face harsher
punishment.34 Hanging a number of traitors acted as an incentive for some of the
condemned to accept service in the state’s military forces. This can be seen as well in
Thomas Burke’s letter to South Carolina’s governor John Rutledge. In February 1782,
Governor Burke advised his counterpart that “we have executed some Traitors and Felons
at Hillsborough, and have some Prospect of recruits from our disaffected. I shall take
immediate measures for bringing them to a decision.” No doubt seeing some of their
disaffected comrades swinging by the neck made decision making easy.35
Burke also pardoned some men such as Henry Daniel, who “contrary to the laws
of this State” joined the British while they were at Hillsborough during the 1781 Guilford
Courthouse campaign. Daniel claimed to have been with the enemy only three weeks
before becoming “convinced of the Folly of his Conduct and being determined in Future
to behave myself.” He soon learned that clemency was contingent upon immediate
military service,36 as did “four men in Hillsborough under Sentence of death,” who were
“reprieved on Condition of their Inlisting for twelve months from the first of March next
into the Continental Line of this State.”37 This practice of enlisting Tories into
Continental service went on through the summer of 1782, and beyond.38 Only by the
early summer of 1783, does it appear that these enlistments were halted, as with the
34
Judge John Williams to Alexander Martin, 27 January 1782, NCSR, 22:610.
35
Thomas Burke to John Rutledge, 15 February 1782, NCSR, 16:511-512.
36
Henry O. Daniel to Thomas Burke, 19 August 1781, NCSR, 22:576.
37
Thomas Burke to Jethro Sumner, 26 February 1782, NCSR, 16:522; NCSR, 19:914-915.
38
Judge John Williams to Alexander Martin, 27 June 1782, NCSR, 16:345.
439
coming of peace additional troops were not in such high demand by the state or General
Greene.39
While state officials allowed some Tories the chance to redeem themselves by
serving in the armed forces, other Carolinians also demonstrated a moderating bent
toward restraint in dealing with the disaffected. This occasionally came in the form of
petitions of citizens, who requested special favors from the Assembly. In one instance,
dozens of inhabitants of the Hillsborough District petitioned the state legislature on
behalf of one Thomas Estridge, then “under Sentence of Death for High Treason.” The
signers urged pardon for him and those “unhappy Citizens who have been deluded by the
Artifices of the Enemy,” in the name of humanity. As the basis for clemency, the
signatories cited Estridge’s good character, and “Humane Treatment and Good Services
to our Citizens who had fallen into the Hands of our Enemies.” They also urged the
consideration of the condemned’s “Wife and a Number of Small Children,” who could
not be supported by the accused were he incarcerated or hanged.40 Even juries who
convicted men for treason afterwards suggested lessening the severity of the sentences.
Along these lines, in Salisbury in 1779, “several Petit Juries, who passed on [the] Trials”
of several persons “capitally convicted of High Treason,” recommended mercy for the
condemned.41
39
Alexander Martin to the General Assembly, 21 April 1783, NCSR, 19:245-246. It should be noted here
that Martin mentions daily prosecutions of the Tories in April 1783—four months after the British
evacuated their last post in the South, Charleston—surely a sign that a punitive spirit within the state was
still quite significant.
40
41
NCSR, 19:931-932. The petition is undated but by context appears to be from 1782.
NCSR, 14:340. It should be recalled, however, that not everyone approved of such leniency. Brigadier
General Allen Jones of the state militia wrote at the time “I make no doubt but hanging about a Dozen
[conspirators] will have exceeding good Effects in this State and give Stability to our new Government.
440
Clemency was another powerful tool employed by the state’s governor, assembly
and courts to reduce the bitterness between Whigs and Tories, attempt to pursue the
disaffected to seek a return to society, and to establish the state’s institutions as a
legitimate authority. Pardons rewarded those who returned to the North Carolina polity,
and served as examples to others the benefits of public penitence. Many of these were
reprieved, based on citizen petitions calling for mercy for their fellow citizens.42
Numerous prayers, petitions and memorials made their way to the state’s chief magistrate
and the legislature during the war, which demonstrate a moderating spirit among at least
part of the populace.43
Early in the war, pardons seem to have been considered based upon the
individuals character, particularly if reliable Whigs would vouch for them. Thus in 1777,
Alexander Martin (then a Continental officer) solicited clemency for Joseph Hughes, a
Moore’s Creek prisoner, so that he could be paroled to his home near Salisbury. “I do
not think him quite so capital offender as some of the captive Tories here, and would beg
leave to recommend him to such clemency.” It should be recalled that the Moore’s Creek
insurgents were in arms, in a regularly constituted army, and not committing depredations
against civilians, burning homes, plundering, and other outrages, and as such, state
officials may have been more inclined toward clemency.44 Other examples from the
struggle’s opening years exist as well. Militia Colonel Thomas Wade of Anson County
They seem to have been designed for this purpose by providence.” Allen Jones to Thomas Burke, 6 August
1777, NCSR, 11:747.
42
NCSR, 12:115-116, 268-269; Crow, "Tory Plots and Anglican Loyalty,” 1-17.
43
For Thomas Burke’s experiences with regard to clemency issues during his tenure as state governor, see
Scott Langston, “Burke as Mediator,” 43-79.
44
Alexander Martin to Richard Caswell, 20 April 1777, NCSR, 11:455-456.
441
recommended that the governor consider pardoning Lewis Lowery, a Tory officer who
had left captivity in Staunton, Virginia in 1777 to return to Anson, even offering to take
the oath. Although this was a violation of his parole, Wade suggests that Lowery be
granted pardon, since he “appears to have a desire to once more give his country
satisfaction of his sincere return to his duty as a subject of this State.”45 There were more
pragmatic reasons for pardons as well. May 1777 Senate records show that regarding
prisoners, senators were “willing that such as are desirous of becoming good subjects of
this state and members of society should have it in their power…to be immediately
enlarged and exert all their power by their good conduct to reconcile themselves to the
State and replace themselves, if possible, in the good opinion of their fellow citizens.”46
Support from Whig friends who testified favorably on behalf of the disaffected on
some occasions proved very valuable to petitioners. A number of citizens—including
several county militia officers and justices of the peace—signed a supportive petition in
1786 on behalf of Hugh Ross, in which they described him as “honest, harmless,
peaceable and useful” neighbor who left home with the enemy only because of the
“riposte of the Torys, [and] the Crualty of the American Army then [1781] then marching
from Salisbury.” Ross admitted that when the state was invaded by the British in 1781,
he was one of the “poor ignorant men” who left their farms and families to seek safety in
Charleston rather than remain at home. In his attempt to regain from the assembly lands
confiscated by the state in his absence, he cited his large family, poor financial condition,
and his peaceful conduct while in South Carolina in hopes of obtaining relief.
45
Thomas Wade to Richard Caswell, 5 September 1777, NCSR, 11:607.
46
NCSR, 12:91.
442
The
legislature eventually exonerated him in 1787, by an act in which Ross was restored to
his lands, or if sold, their monetary value.47
James Brown’s attempt to obtain leniency illustrates a salient feature of
clemency—North Carolina authorities believed that conciliatory measures would induce
others to return their allegiance to the state. Brown got one Stephen Cobb to write the
governor a letter for him, in which Cobb pleaded “If it’s your pleasure to admit him to
bail, I am induced to believe it will answer a good purpose, as I think it will bring over
several disaffected people in that Quarter to a sense of their duty” by the example.48 By
late 1780, North Carolina’s militia commander General William Smallwood urged the
state to issue a proclamation of amnesty for the Tories, “who, from their late Treatment
from the British, distress him by surrendering themselves daily, and he believes would
generally come in was their any encouragement.”49 To his commander, General Gates,
Smallwood wrote in October that “perhaps a Proclamation [of amnesty] would
effectually draw at this Crisis numbers from the British Interest, who perhaps might be
rendered hereafter useful to their Country.”50 Likewise, Col. Thomas Wade reported in
November 1780 that he had in custody Captain John Kimbrough, “of the Disaffected and
Deluded people of this Neighborhood,” who after “Lying Out” for two months
surrendered himself, and asked for the mercy of the state. “His coming in will be the
47
Petition of Hugh Ross, December 1786, Joint Standing Committee Papers, General Assembly Session
Records, November 1786, Box 2, N.C. State Archives; NCSR, 24:928; NCSR, 18:202. The bill for Ross’s
relief was presented in the House by William Wood, representative for Anson County. NCSR, 20:164.
48
Stephen Cobb to Richard Caswell, 15 August 1779, NCSR, 14:196-197.
49
NCSR, 14:459.
50
William Smallwood to Horatio Gates, 27 October 1780, NCSR, 14:712.
443
means of the Chief Outlyers in this County to Come in a few days time, I expect.”51
Governor Burke received from one of his militia generals the observation in the summer
of 1781 that many of the men who had joined the British garrison at Wilmington that year
“may be brought from him,” not be punitive measures but “by showing them Lenity…I
think most of them joined [the British] through fear.”52
Others were pardoned for what might be called good behavior. Captain William
O’Neal recommended a pardon for Dr. John Pyle and his son, both loyalists who after
having surrendered themselves to O’Neal’s militia force, “proved very faithful” attending
to the wounded of both sides in several skirmishes in the upper Cape Fear Valley.53
During Cornwallis’ invasion of North Carolina in 1781, he joined the British forces,
raised a large corps of Tories for service and was defeated in February 1781 in what is
now Alamance County. Pyle and his son helped care for the wounded after Guilford
Courthouse, was acquitted of treason in Chatham court, and was allowed to remain in the
state without the loss of his property.54
As the war dragged on, many Tories seem to have concluded that either they no
longer wished to fight the Whigs, or they lost hope in ultimate British victory, for by the
end of 1780 a steady stream of disaffected men began to seek clemency by contritely
claiming to have been deluded or led astray by the British or the loyalists. Several men in
51
Thomas Wade to Horatio Gates, 23 November 1780, NCSR, 14:750-751.
52
William Caswell to Thomas Burke, 30 August 1781, Preston Davie Collection, Southern Historical
Collection, UNC, Box 3, #141.
53
William O’Neal to Thomas Burke, 19 March 1782, NCSR, 16:244.
54
DNCB, 5:160.
444
Orange County in April 1782 petitioned Governor Burke that before the British arrived in
their neighborhood in 1781, they had been
good subjects to the State and always behaved consistent with the laws
thereof, but at that time, having no Army of this State or the United States
to fly to, did foolishly go to Lord Cornwallis and remained with him but a
very short time before we returned home, being convinced of our folly and
determined to act as good subjects to the State.
Several Orange County militia officers supported their petition for clemency by advising
Burke that while the petitioners were with the British they “did not act as bad men.”55
Archibald McKay (“being advanced in years”) wrote to the legislators in 1783 that
although he fled the state rather than swear allegiance to it in 1777, he was now
“convinced of the wickedness and folly of the enemies of this country, to seduce and ruin
the weak and unwary from their duty and Interest.” With contrition, he sought to return
to his Cumberland home and to “become a citizen of this free and Independent state.”56
Loyalist officer John Kimbrough also used this tact when he petitioned Governor
Burke in 1781 or 1782, “to release him from his parole so that he may return to his home
in order to provide the Necessaries for the Support of his family Who are reduced to the
greatest distress.” He admitted that he had been “unhappily, through Various
intimidations, led away and induced to act in a measure Contrary to the laws of the
State,” but was now “fully Convinced of his Error and Sincerely sorry for what he has
done.” Kimbrough’s process of obtaining a pardon was lengthy. He was jailed for some
time, and in 1786, the Senate received a “petition of sundry of the Inhabitants of Orange
and the adjacent counties” in his favor. The Senate resolved that Kimbrough “be released
55
56
Petition of Samuel Hawkins, et. al., 10 April 1782, NCSR, 16:276-277.
Petition of Archibald McKay, 1783, Joint Papers, General Assembly Session Records, April-May 1783,
Box 1, N.C. State Archives.
445
and set free from any further confinement.” The former Tory’s financial straits due to his
confinement were apparently a factor in the clemency grant too, as the senators “resolved
further, that in consideration of the distressed situation to which the wife and children of
the said Kimbrough would be reduced by the carrying the sentence aforesaid into
Execution, the said John Kimbrough be and he is hereby exonerated and forever
discharged from the Forfeiture of the one half of his estate, as incurred by the sentence
aforesaid.”57
Some errant Tories served due to fear, as Governor Burke learned in 1781. “A
great number of [Col. David Fanning’s] party stay with him because they dare not leave
him,” an army officer reported to him, with a recommendation for moderation.
There is a certain Edwards who commands a company with him mostly
from Hillsborough who [says that] every man [would] return home could
they only have assurance of not being hanged. I cannot for my part see the
propriety of refusing such pardon. It is certainly as easy to reduce the
number of our enemies by pardoning them than by killing them and much
better suited to our present condition.58
Brigadier General William Caswell believed the same thing. Regarding Craven and
Dobbs counties, he thought that “A [number] of those people who have been and are with
the British, would come in on some terms. Should your Excellency think proper to give
them any indulgence [I] think it would answer a good purpose.”59
A number of others during the last dozen or so months of the war petitioned to be
readmitted as citizens. These petitions usually employ contrite language, a promise of
57
NCSR, 18:99.
58
Andrew Armstrong to Thomas Burke, 22 August 1781, NCSR, 22:1048. Armstrong was a former
Continental officer who was then serving with the state forces.
59
William Caswell to Thomas Burke, 27 August 1781, NCSR, 15:627.
446
good conduct, and a request for clemency. “Sundry Inhabitants of the County of Surry”
made such an appeal in 1782, in which they claimed that inducements and threats made
by “wicked and designing men” led them to oppose American independence. “We
clearly found out our error and immediately withdrew ourselves from having any
Connection with so unwarrantable Proceedings,” and claimed to have turned out for
every call for Continental and State troops, “paid our taxes with Chearfullness, and in
short have submitted to everything ordered or done to us whether Lawful or not.” This
reads like the plea of men scared of their Whig neighbors, and anxious to avoid punitive
measures being taken against them. “We want words to express our Desire to be once
more admitted to the Priviledges of other Citizens in this State,” they concluded
plaintively, no doubt concerned about their property as well.60
As the war reached its conclusion, Governor Martin too saw some of the benefits
of reconciliation, although he was quite deferential to the Assembly on these matters. He
wrote at the beginning of the April 1782 Assembly meeting that “many of our revolted
Citizens having surrendered themselves to the Justice of the State, supplicate for mercy,
and offer to return to their allegiance; your interposition is necessary to discriminate the
classes of those deluded people who may be the proper objects of clemency.”61 The
following year he wrote in a similar vane: “Our late revolted Citizens who through
ignorance and delusion have forfeited their lives, but are endeavoring to expatiate their
crimes by new proofs of fidelity, have fresh claims to your clemency on this happy
60
Petition of Inhabitants of Surry County, undated, Grievances, General Assembly Session Records, AprilMay 1782, Box 1, N.C. State Archives.
61
Gov. Martin to the Assembly, 22 April 1782, NCSR, 16:297; NCSR, 19:260.
447
occasion.”62 A number of loyalists did in fact receive forgiveness or some other form of
favorable treatment by the state after the war. In June 1784, George Alston, a suspected
Loyalist who apparently departed Granville County at some point during the war,
petitioned the legislature to be removed from under the burdens of two confiscations acts
(1779 and 1782), in which he was specifically named. A joint committee of the
Assembly concluded that Alston ought to be readmitted as a citizen of the state, and have
his property restored, by action of the following legislative session.63
Not all Tories, however, were pardoned after petitioning for relief. Governor
Martin received a petition for relief from a Mrs. McLean, probably the wife of Major
Alexander McLean, a commissioned Loyalist officer from Cumberland County who
served with the British during the war. Martin declined to give a pardon to the major,
whom he described as an “unfriendly character” who had broken his oath of allegiance to
the state, and with others “withdrew and attached themselves to the late enemy during the
War.” Major McLean had tried to return to the state without leave of any authority to do
so, and as a British officer, was barred by the Treaty of Paris from doing so (even though
the state did not recognize its provisions). “Privately and without leave the Major
returned here, which to his former obnoxious disposition is adding insult to the
Government. He cannot therefore obtain your request to remain here, especially on
shore, as I am doubtful my authority could not protect him from an enraged, injured
62
Gov. Martin to the Assembly, 19 April 1783, NCSR, 16:773-775.
63
NCSR, 19:700; NCSR, 24:263-264, 424-425. Assembly records do not show that Alston’s case was
taken up at a subsequent session.
448
people.” Martin added that Mrs. McLean could stay in the state with “ample protection,”
as she had not violated any laws, oaths, or duties to the state. 64
Likewise, William Collson ran into resistance when he sought clemency from the
state in 1780. His case reflects the tendency of the legislature to reject leniency when
men had served the British or appeared to have done so. Collson alleged that he was led
“to withdraw myself from the Allegiance I owed to this state and go within the Enemys
lines,” a statement phrased to make him look like a victim. In his petition he stated that
he was now “convinced of the Folly and wickedness of my conduct,” and that he did not
bear arms against North Carolina. Nevertheless, his appeal was rejected.65
Despite the examples of continued hostility toward Major McLean and others,
evidence of reconciliation is apparent. The case of Duncan Ochiltree, described earlier in
this chapter, signals some degree of moderation, in that even though he refused to take
the oath and was suspected of strong Tory sympathies, he remained within the state. He
was living in Fayetteville by the end of 1786, and was apparently considered to be a
respectable citizen, for when the state General Assembly met in Fayetteville in November
1788, Ochiltree was nominated for the session’s clerkship.66 In the summer of 1784, he
noted that many Carolinians who had left with the British had returned—“even some of
those who were seen in a very unfavorable point of view are now regarded as citizens,
against whom there are no objections,” though those who had actively been in arms
64
DeMond, North Carolina Loyalists, 254; Alexander Martin to Mrs. McLean, n.d., NCSR, 19:942-943.
Given Martin’s references to the treaty, the letter must have been written after 1783.
65
Petition of William Collson, Miscellaneous Petitions, General Assembly Session Records, AugustSeptember 1780, N.C. State Archives.
66
NCSR, 18:406-407, 411; NCSR, 20:481.
449
against the Whigs were not included in this group.67 Maclaine and others who favored a
less antagonistic approach toward the disaffected must have been encouraged as well by
the case of Simon Cleary. In November 1784, Maclaine presented a bill in the Assembly
“to remove all disabilities from Simon Cleary,” who in 1775 inherited, along with several
others, his brother’s North Carolina estate in New Bern, the greater part of which was
subsequently seized by the commissioners of confiscated estates in Craven County. The
Cleary’s lived at the time in Ireland and England. Testimony convinced the
assemblymen that the Cleary’s had made several attempts to return to the state during the
war but were unsuccessful in doing so. They allowed them the monetary value of the
estate that was already sold.68 The act was amended in 1787 to include a provision
requiring the largest inheritor, Patrick Cleary, then still living abroad, to take the oath of
allegiance to the state of North Carolina. The 1787 bill passed the lower house 75-10,
with no regional pattern emerging on those who opposed it.69 This case suggests that
there was a spirit of accommodation toward those not deemed state enemies by 1784 that
had not existed earlier in the war.
This conciliatory spirit can also be seen in the opposition by some Whigs within
the state to banishment and property forfeiture of the loyalists. Carolinians with
reservations about these measures were at times accused of being Tories, or overly
sympathetic toward those who were. However, a number of Whigs regarded the forced
removal of residents and the confiscation of property as heavy-handed, too severe, or
67
Archibald Maclaine to George Hooper, 25 June 1784, NCSR, 17:149-150.
68
NCSR, 19:764; NCSR, 24:696-697. Benjamin Franklin supported the Cleary’s case. NCSR, 19:750-751.
69
NCSR, 24:889-890; NCSR, 20:239-240.
450
unconstitutional. Their voices called for moderation, measured responses to the problem
of loyalty, and for reconciliation as the basis for state formation and peace. Although
many prominent citizens fell into this camp, their efforts were often overwhelmed by
those they called the “democratic sort,” and others who held that banishing their enemies
and seizing their property to convert it for the war effort was proper and just. As a
number of citizens of Edenton wrote in the summer of 1783, the disaffected in many
cases were deserving of hard treatment, but in the wretched situation many of the Tories
found themselves in at the close of the war, “their situation now forbids Resentment. We
only wish that the Public in their Conduct towards them may be guided by motives of
Policy, not Revenge, which we think unbecoming of a generous People.”70
One of the most vociferous opponents of vengefulness in the postwar years was
Aedanus Burke, an Irish-born South Carolina jurist of moderate republican beliefs, who
also served in the state’s militia forces during the war and saw first hand the devastation
that resulted from the civil war in his adopted state. Burke’s writings, in which he plead
for moderation and reconciliation, were known to have circulated in North Carolina, and
certainly must have had some influence there as in his own state. Surely moderates such
as Iredell and Maclaine concurred with Aedanus Burke’s 1783 pamphlet entitled “An
Address to the Freemen of the State of South Carolina,” in which he concluded that “The
experience of all countries has shewn that where a community splits into a faction, and
has recourse to arms, and one finally gets the better, a law to bury into oblivion past
transactions is absolutely necessary to restore tranquility.” As will be recalled, North
Carolina passed an act of pardon and oblivion in 1783, but it contained numerous
70
Resolutions of the Citizens of Edenton, 1 August 1783, Papers of James Iredell, 2:430-432.
451
exceptions to its conciliatory provision, and as a result was objected to by those who
favored conciliation. Burke went on to say that vengeance was “worse than keeping up
the war: It would be carrying on hostility under the shape of justice, which is the most
oppressive, and of all other injustice, excites the greatest detestation in the most violent
factions and division.” What may be most remarkable about Burke’s sentiments is that
he saw first hand the repeated depredations of the British and loyalists in Charleston and
the Carolina countryside, and in his writings readily admitted their cruelties. Yet for all
that, the South Carolina judge still called for leniency: “it will put an end to silly
distinctions and faction; leave us at liberty to shake hands as brethren, whose fate it is to
live together; and it will stand as a more lasting monument of our national wisdom,
justice and magnanimity, than statues of brass or marble.”71
Some of those who opposed punitive measures against loyalists were merchants
and traders in the state’s ports and inland towns, who were concerned about the effects of
confiscation on North Carolina’s commerce. In 1780, the state legislature received the
“Memorial of Merchants, Traders and Others Residing at Cape Fear,” which declared that
the most recent confiscation act “greatly endangers the credit of this State as a
commercial Country.” Most merchants carried on trade with credit from abroad. These
men argued that seizing their goods would make it impossible to pay back their foreign
creditors, which would give to North Carolina a terrible reputation abroad, even when the
war was over. “What foreign merchant will hereafter give credit to an Inhabitant of
71
Archibald Maclaine to George Hooper, 9 February 1783, NCSR, 16:932-933; Leslie F. S. Upton, ed.,
Revolutionary Versus Loyalist: The First American Civil War, 1774-1784 (Waltham, MA: Blaisdell
Publishing Co., 1968), 127-136. In this pamphlet, Burke also warned his readers that property confiscation
by the legislature set a dangerous precedent for future assemblies. Robert M. Weir, “The Last of American
Freemen”: Studies in the Political Culture of the Colonial and Revolutionary South (Macon, GA: Mercer
University Press, 1986), 146-147.
452
North Carolina? If a State seizes upon private property, what man will hereafter be mad
enough to trust his property to that State?” The Act “will have the most pernicious
consequences on the public as well as the private credit of the Country.” The petition,
however, was rejected. Notably, it was signed by a number of men who had known
sympathies for loyalist friends, neighbors, and relations.72 Wilmington attorney
Archibald Maclaine, in 1782, again objected to “confiscating the Landed Estates of those
who live in the British dominions…and debt due to the British merchants.” The latter,
observed Maclaine, “will effectually destroy our Commercial Credit,” the former would
not punish active Tories within the state.73 The following year he introduced a measure
in the assembly to repeal past laws that tended to restrict foreign commerce, but it too
was rejected.74
Confiscating the property of those who refused to support the Patriot cause raised
legal issues among some Carolinians as well.75 In 1783, Maclaine successfully
introduced a bill “to enable the Judges of the Superior Courts…to review the judgments
had in the several County Courts against estates supposed to be confiscated and to
confirm or invalidate the same agreeable to law and to cause restitution to be made.”76
Even Governor Burke, who supported confiscation of loyalist property in general,
favored limits in its execution and proper authority for its practice. Such authority rested
72
“Memorial of Merchants, Traders and Others Residing at Cape Fear,” Miscellaneous Petitions, General
Assembly Session Records, April-May 1780, Box 1, N.C. State Archives.
73
Archibald Maclaine to Thomas Burke, 27 March 1782, NCSR, 16:247-248.
74
NCSR, 19:674-675.
75
Petition of William Aldridge, Senate Joint Resolutions, General Assembly Session Records, June-July
1781, Box 1, N.C. State Archives.
76
NCSR, 19:305; NCSR, 24:497-498.
453
with the legislature, not with local officials, whom he worried would act with too much
of a free hand. He informed one state official in 1782 that “it would be too arbitrary an
Act to authorize commissioners to seize property of such persons they may deem
disaffected, and our Government, which ought to be a Government of Laws, not of mere
power, will not tolerate such acts in the Supreme Magistrate.”77 Others objected to the
seizure of property of British subjects who did not actively participate in fighting the war,
and who owed no allegiance to the state. “To consider the former owners of British
property in a criminal point of view is absurd in the extreme,” Maclaine noted in 1783.78
In other words, British subjects—who by definition owed no allegiance to the state—
should not forfeit their property like those Carolinians who took the British side.79
State officials received a number of requests from individuals seeking to avoid the
confiscation of their estates, and were backed in some cases by prominent men who
opposed forfeiture measures. Benjamin Franklin supported the case of London merchant
Edward Bridgen, his friend whose property in North Carolina was seized and partially
sold off.
I had the pleasure of being acquainted with him in London before the time
of the Stamp Act; and during all my residence there, on which occasion,
and uniformly ever since, he was and has been a Zealous friend to the
cause of liberty and of America. While I was in France he kept up a
correspondence with me, and I had frequent opportunities of knowing his
kindness to our people who were prisoners in England, from the
Acknowledgements of those who escaped out of the Gaols and got to me
in Paris, by his Friendly Assistance. I therefore cannot but hope that the
Confiscation of his Estate in your Government may yet to be reconsidered,
and if possible reversed; for in some cases it may be generous and noble to
77
Thomas Burke to James C. Mountflorence, 17 March 1782, NCSR, 16:235.
78
Archibald Maclaine to James Iredell, 14 September 1783, Papers of James Iredell, 2:445-446.
79
Archibald Maclaine to George Hooper, 21 April 1784, NCSR, 17:134.
454
treat our Enemies as Friends. I hope we may never in any one instance be
justly chargeable with treating our Friends as enemies.
Bridgen’s confiscated property (or its value), including a town lot in Wilmington, debts
owed to him, and “his negroes,” was eventually restored to him by an act of 1785, though
many others in his predicament were not as fortunate.80
A number of other Carolinians opposed these measures as well. Rowan County
lawyer William Sharpe, a long-serving member of the Continental Congress, observed in
1782, “I think it would be happy for this State if all the confiscated property was in the
bottom of the ocean. It stands in the way of other measures for raising revenue, it
produces great speculation and I fear that in the end it will be unproductive.” Pierce
Butler, a South Carolina correspondent of James Iredell’s no doubt spoke for a number of
moderate and conservative North Carolinians when he observed in 1784 that he feared
“that the early pages of our history will be sullied by an unbecoming greediness for
property.” Others maintained that the confiscation process was for the most part a way to
financially benefit only a chosen few. Archibald Maclaine held that confiscation was
“for the purpose of enriching individuals.” These sentiments shed light on one of the key
issues regarding the matter of confiscation in Revolutionary North Carolina. As Sharpe
recognized, not only was this process a means of punishing those whom the state deemed
its enemies, it was also an important source of revenue for the state. While Sharpe
apparently regarded other means of raising funds for the state as more appropriate and
80
Palmer, Biographical Sketches of Loyalists, 91; Benjamin Franklin to Richard Caswell, 11 May 1786,
NCSR, 18:603-604; Benjamin Franklin to Alexander Martin, 5 August 1782, NCSR, 16:388-389; DeMond,
North Carolina Loyalists, 168; NCSR, 24:762; James Iredell to Henry E. McCulloh, 6 January 1785,
Papers of James Iredell, 3:116. Petition of Robert Palmer, Joint Papers, General Assembly Session
Records, November-December 1785, Box 1, N.C. State Archives. The act stated in its preamble that
Bridgen “is entitled to every indulgence of the Legislature.”
455
efficacious, North Carolina relied upon forfeited property sales considerably during and
after the war for its financial needs (and the issuance of paper money as well.)
Confiscation also served to instill within a large part of the population an allegiance to
the state, since the purchasers of the seized property not only had an opportunity to buy
valuable loyalist property now suddenly available, they were able to do so on generous
terms. Accordingly, the state must have been seen in a quite favorable light by those able
to obtain confiscated estates, moveable property and chattel, the prospect for which was
often not the case under royal government. Carolina authorities thus benefited from these
sales not just financially, but politically as well, by combining loyalty and commercial
opportunity to secure the allegiance of many of its citizens.81 The benefits of
confiscation became the chief stumbling block for those who sought to end the practice,
or at least lessen its effects. As Archibald Maclaine concluded in 1783, “those who risk
to retain that property which has been unjustly and impolitely confiscated to the use of
the public, will not be without strong arguments in their favor. Independent of the
devastation committed in the different states, the slaves taken away, and what is still
worse, those now detained [i.e., banished] from us, will operate as powerful reasons for
keeping what we have got.”82
One of the greatest advocates of moderation with regard to confiscation was
James Iredell, principally in the case of his wealthy loyalist cousin Henry E. McCulloh,
but others as well. As his 1779 legislative petition on McCulloh’s behalf shows, he
81
William Sharpe to Nathanael Greene, 8 August 1782, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 11:506; Archibald
Maclaine to George Hooper, 14 June 1784, NCSR, 17:144-145; Archibald Maclaine to George Hooper, 9
April 1783, NCSR, 22:624; Pierce Butler to James Iredell, 4 February 1784, Papers of James Iredell, 3:13.
82
Archibald Maclaine to James Iredell, 14 September 1783, Papers of James Iredell, 2:445-446.
456
sought an exemption for those not actively serving against America, and who did not owe
the state allegiance. He reminded the legislators that McCulloh left the state only to see
to the needs of his aging father in England, and at a time when there were no looming
hostilities. His petition urged the Assembly not to “inflict punishment where there has
been no crime.” Iredell’s memorial was rejected by the legislature in February 1779,
almost immediately after he presented it—a measure of the assembly’s opposition toward
leniency.83 “How deeply it is to be regretted,” Iredell lamented in a letter to his wife,
“that such care and caution are necessary to obtain justice, and that folly and private
interest bear so large a share in our public councils. Heaven grant an amendment of
them!”84 Additional petitions to the legislature on McCulloh’s behalf, as late as 1785,
were similarly rejected “by a considerable majority.”85
The banishing of individuals from the state was, like confiscation, an issue not
without its opponents. A number of Carolinians fell under the banishment laws
inadvertently, as they were out of the state when independence was declared for
legitimate reasons, not because they were Tories. Not only did those who challenged
banishment measures object on grounds that many citizens unjustly fell under the acts’
terms, many objected to the very propriety of the laws. “Banishment is a punishment
unknown to the Laws, and…no Judicial Power of this State have a right to adjudge the
same against any of the free Citizens thereof,” in the minds of one group that protested
83
Memorial of James Iredell on behalf of Henry Eustace McCulloh, 2 February 1779, Papers of James
Iredell, 2:74-78; James Iredell to Hannah Iredell, 4 February 1779, Papers of James Iredell, 2:79.
84
James Iredell to Hannah Iredell, 30 January 1779, Papers of James Iredell, 2:72.
85
James Iredell to Henry E. McCulloh, 6 January 1785, Papers of James Iredell, 3:116.
457
the practice to the Assembly after the war.86 Even some of the state’s judges were at
times doubtful of the expedient, although they may have been acting disingenuously in
order to avoid public censure. In June 1783, for example, several “obnoxious” North
Carolina Tories arrived in Wilmington from St. Augustine, including the notorious
Samuel Bryan, who had not only fought on the British side at the battle of Camden, but
had been condemned for treason before being exchanged in the prisoner cartel in South
Carolina. An observer reported that “the Judges, convinced that they had no power to
order them back, referred them to the magistrates, & the latter saw through the
evasion.”87 Others believed that some Carolinians, such as John Burgwin, were barred
from returning because he was a man to whom there were “large sums due” and “he is
looked up as a dangerous rival in trade,” especially by his Bladen County neighbors.
Thus, in some cases, vindictiveness went hand in hand with a desire to avoid the
repayment of debts or commercial competition.88
One of the most consistent voices of moderation and reconciliation with regard to
the problems associated with the disaffected in the south was that of General Nathanael
Greene. As overall commander of the military efforts in the Southern Department from
December 1780 to the end of the war, Greene was in a position not only to observe the ill
effects of punitive measures taken against the state’s enemies, he was also able to exert
86
NCSR, 18:477, 479-483.
87
Archibald Maclaine to George Hooper, 12 June 1783, NCSR, 16:967; Cooke, comp., Revolutionary
History of North Carolina in Three Lectures, 224-233.
88
Archibald Maclaine to George Hooper, 14 June 1784, NCSR, 17:145-146; Archibald Maclaine to George
Hooper, 9 April 1783, NCSR, 22:624.
458
significant influence over civil and military authorities in order to reduce the violence and
disorders of vengeful policies toward the Tories.
Greene came to understand the brutal nature of the internecine war in the lower
south during the early 1780s through the innumerable accounts of atrocities so common
in that theatre. Yet while some on the Patriot side called for vengeance and punitive
measures against the Tories, Greene instead advocated a moderate course of action
distinguished by humane treatment of and leniency toward these enemies as a way of
bringing order to the ravaged southern states, with justice administered by “Civil
Government,” not by vigilantes.89 Wayne Lee has recently written that the history of “the
war in North Carolina from 1780 to 1782 reveals a complex story of a society struggling
with the strains of war, hoping for restraint, fearing escalation, all the while trying to
bring together their cause to a successful conclusion.” Greene, without question,
exemplifies this characterization.90
And order was certainly much needed in the Carolinas. Loyalists and Patriots
frequently plundered each other’s homes, which not only resulted in lost or destroyed
property and destabilized the states, it “adds not a little to our difficulties,” Greene
complained.91 He deplored this all too common practice, which lasted until the end of
the war and served to provoke bitter feelings among the populace. Such vindictive
larceny was “very destructive to the morals and manners of a people…Indeed it is the
89
Nathanael Greene to Andrew Pickens, 5 June 1781, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 8:349-350.
90
Lee, “Restraint and Retaliation,” 165.
91
Nathanael Greene to Samuel Huntington, 28 December 1780, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 7:9; Lee,
Crowds and Soldiers in Revolutionary North Carolina, 180-185.
459
most direct way of under mining all Government, and never fails to bring the laws in
contempt.”92 As such, Greene sought to curb the practice among his own troops and the
states’ militia forces as well, as a way to establish order and just as importantly, to stop
alienating the disaffected in the department. “The practice of plundering” Greene sought
“to Check as much as possible,” in that it resulted in “ruinous Consequences,”
particularly when committed by undisciplined militiamen, who were often subject to less
severe discipline than regulars.93
In addition to plundering, the impressment of supplies by state and military
officials caused many inhabitants to become alienated from the revolutionary cause.
Greene sought to minimize the impact of impressment, to show the Tories that so long as
they remained peaceful, his army would handle them with fairness. While foraging, he
advised his officers, take “care not to distress the Inhabitants; and give receipts for what
is taken…all marading and plundering you will punnish on the spot with not less than
fifty stripes for each offence.”94 In another example, regarding the impressment of
dragoon horses, Greene instructed General Thomas Sumter to “give certificates for the
whole, whether taken from Whig or Tory and if any discrimination is necessary, [let]
Government make that hereafter.”95 Similarly, to his cavalry commander he wrote “don’t
92
Nathanael Greene to John Martin, 9 January 1782, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 10:173.
93
Nathanael Greene to Anthony Wayne, 9 January 1782, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 10:175; Lee,
Crowds and Soldiers in Revolutionary North Carolina, 180-185; Lee, “Restraint and Retaliation,” 168.
94
Nathanael Greene to Capt. Griffin Faunt le Roy, 25 December 1780, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 6:612.
See also Greene’s Orders, 16 August 1781, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 9:187, and Greene’s Orders, 27
August 1781, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 9:259, for his admonitions to the army against depredations
against civilians.
95
Nathanael Greene to Thomas Sumter, 30 April 1781, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 8:176-177.
460
neglect to take all the good horses you may come across; give receipts for all you take to
both Whig and Tories.”96 These instructions, of course, were not always complied with
in the field by commissary agents and quartermasters, but they do demonstrate Greene’s
philosophy of dealing with the enemy fairly and leniently, primarily so as not to alienate
them and drive them toward the British. Otherwise, as he well knew, “the Inhabitants
will become our enemies when the find they are subject to oppression instead of finding
protection.”97
In addition to his attempts to stop the looting of Tories and their families by
vengeful Whigs, Greene also strove to reduce the level of violence in the south directed at
those who refused to support independence. Such a policy, he hoped, would convince the
loyalists to abandon their support of the British. He sought “to soften the malignity and
deadly resentments subsisting between the Whigs and the tories, and put a stop as much
as possible to that cruel custom of putting people to death after they have surrendered
themselves prisoners.”98 These efforts were not only in the interests of reducing
violence, but would go a long way toward establishing order within the states, as well as
the legitimacy of the new revolutionary governments. As Greene noted to Griffith
Rutherford, a soldier not known for benevolent treatment of Tories, “it has ever been my
wish to avoid cruelty and the dignity of our cause requires that it should be marked with
96
Nathanael Greene to Col. Henry Lee, 25 June 1781, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 8:455.
97
Nathanael Greene to Isaac Shelby, 2 August 1781, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 9:127.
98
Nathanael Greene to Anthony Wayne, 9 January 1782, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 10:175.
461
humanity, justice and moderation.”99 Greene frequently advised his subordinates to put
an end to what he called “private murders,” by which he meant the killing of Tories
outside of the traditional limits associated with legitimate warfare. “I have, both from
motives of Policy, as well as humanity, opposed every measure all in my Power, which
had for its object, nothing but revenge and Persecution,” a clear statement of his principle
that such violence undermined civil and military authority, and served to increase chaos
and bloodshed certain to impede reconciliation with the loyalists.100
In Greene’s view, the most effective way to bring order and stability to the south
was to espouse restraint and adopt a conciliatory stance toward the disaffected of all
stripes, save only those who had committed the most flagrant abuses and barbarous acts.
He favored pardons for those Tories who took up arms against their Whig neighbors,
provided they had served in a military capacity, but not in the role of banditti or lawless
marauders. Regarding British and loyalist activities in North Carolina, especially around
Wilmington, Greene advised Governor Thomas Burke “to Strike at the root of the evil by
removing the British, and offer these poor deluded [Tory] Wretches some hopes of
forgiveness, and you will feel little injury from this class of People.”101 Greene
recognized that illegal acts of retribution, such as the aforementioned execution of several
Tory officers following the battle of King’s Mountain, only served to engender even
99
Nathanael Greene to Griffith Rutherford, 29 January 1782, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 10:277. For
Rutherford’s reputation, see Fries, Records of the Moravians in North Carolina, 3:1376.
100
Nathanael Greene to Gen. Alexander Leslie, 1 February 1782, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 10:295.
Leslie was the British commander in South Carolina during the end of the war. Pancake, This Destructive
War, 237.
101
Nathanael Greene to Thomas Burke, 12 August 1781, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 9:166.
462
more retributive violence.102 Greene instead called for leniency as a way to begin to
bring peace to the southern states, so that civil institutions might have a better chance to
be reestablished, including the courts and state assemblies. He consistently
recommended moderation to all who would listen, “as men may be often reformed by
soft means when persecution will only confirm them in their opposition.”103 Moreover, if
the disaffected could see that the budding revolutionary governments were acting in a
conciliatory manner toward them, it would clearly demonstrate that the southern states
were the safer, less costly alternative to support, rather than the British, whose garrisons
at Charleston, Savannah and Wilmington seemed only to perpetuate the destructive war.
Convincing the Tories that the Patriot side had more to offer them in terms of ending the
war and establishing order became a significant part of Greene’s plan to end the chaos in
the south and bring about a revolutionary settlement.
Greene certainly recognized that malice toward the disaffected was
counterproductive. “Cruelty always marks the authors with disgrace and is generally
attended with disadvantage…I would always recommend moderation, not from any
regard to the Tories but for our own sakes, cruelty being dishonorable and persecution
always increasing the number and force of our enemies.”104 Yet of course there was a
benefit to be derived from humane treatment of one’s enemies, as Greene admitted. Not
only would such behavior by the Whigs produce few benefits, it would also undermine
102
Lee, Crowds and Soldiers in Revolutionary North Carolina, 186-192.
103
Nathanael Greene to the Marquis de Lafayette, 9 June 1781, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 8:368.
104
Nathanael Greene to Griffith Rutherford, 20 October 1781, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 9:456-457.
For S.C. Governor John Rutledge’s harsh proclamation of pardon in 1781 for the disaffected in that state,
see Papers of Nathanael Greene, 9:458.
463
the efforts of the revolutionaries to establish their own civil institutions, tasks which were
made infinitely more difficult amidst these “miseries” of war. Greene advised Thomas
Sumter at the end of 1781 to leniently coax the Tories away from the British, “for though
we have great reason to hate them, and vengeance would dictate one universal slaughter,
yet when we consider how many of our good people must fall a sacrifice in doing it we
shall find it will be more in our interest to forgive than to persecute.”105 A few weeks
later he elaborated upon this theme to Sumter. “Go ahead with the good work of trying to
bring them in,” he encouraged the South Carolinian, as “it will save the lives of so many
people, and perhaps hereafter they may prove good Citizens.”106
While Greene advocated reconciliation with regard to the loyalists, this did not
necessarily mean forgiving and forgetting. He favored the policy of military service for
returning Tories as part of their atonement, which was especially necessary by 1782,
when recruiting efforts to get men to serve in the Continental battalions were floundering
all over the south.107 In the beginning of that year, Greene advised a subordinate that
“when you get into the lower Country you will invite all the people to join you, and such
as shall engage in the service under your command, afford them protection and
security.”108 This conditional approach held out the hand of peace, and also attempted to
make the American forces more formidable, though with limited success.109
105
Nathanael Greene to Thomas Sumter, 28 November 1781, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 9:634.
106
Nathanael Greene to Thomas Sumter, 12 December 1781, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 10:40.
107
Fries, Records of the Moravians in North Carolina, 4:1576, 1627; Greene to Francis Marion, 12
December 1781, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 10:38.
108
Nathanael Greene to Anthony Wayne, 9 January 1782, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 10:175.
109
Fries, Records of the Moravians in North Carolina, 4:1743.
464
Nevertheless, these repentant Tories made themselves “conspicuous and obnoxious to the
enemy” by joining Carolina units, a “divide and conquer” measure.110 It coincided with
his own policies expressed clearly the year before in a proclamation he issued to
backcountry South Carolinians.
Those who have been in the British interest and by their past conduct have
rendered themselves obnoxious to their Country have now an opportunity
in part to atone for their past conduct by joining the American Army and
manifesting by their future conduct a sincere repentance for what is
past…it shall be my study upon their behaving properly to afford them all
the security in my power from improper resentments and depredations of
individuals or plundering parties.111
Thus, if those who had opposed the revolutionaries abandoned their allegiance to the
Crown, Greene was willing to protect them from retribution at the hands of their former
Whig neighbors, an assurance without which the loyalists would have been reluctant to
accept Greene’s offer.
Having returning Tories enter the ranks to fight the enemy on behalf of the
American cause was, however ironic, an important but secondary benefit to Greene. He
was far more insistent that clemency would not only bring a successful conclusion to the
war more quickly, it would make for a smoother transition to peace once the hostilities
were finally over. “Principles of humanity as well as good policy require that proper
Measures should be immediately taken to restrain…abuses, heal the differences, and
unite the people as much as possible,” Greene suggested in the summer of 1781, referring
to both Whigs and Tories. He recommended that “all parties ought to be strictly
110
Thomas Sumter to Greene, 2 January 1782, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 10:152; Nathanael Greene to
Thomas Sumter, 8 January 1782, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 10:168.
111
Proclamation to the Inhabitants Upon the Saluda, 5 June 1781, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 8:349.
465
prohibited under the penalty of capital punishment from plundering and that no violence
should be offered to any of the Inhabitants let their political sentiments be as they may
unless they are found in arms,” although the general would consider armed men in
legitimately established units to be prisoners of war, not traitors. There were, as usual,
exceptions, but he insisted that punishments be handled by civil officials, not vindictive
men acting outside the bounds of authority. “The idea of exterminating the Tories is not
less barbarous than impolitick; and if persisted in, will keep this Country in the greatest
confusion and distress.” Greene knew that there would surely be opposition to his
conciliatory polices, “sensible [that] the most worthless part of the Whigs will think
themselves injured in being restrained; but I am perswaded in doing it you will do honor
to the cause of humanity and promote essentially the interest of your country.”112
This was not always easy to bring about in the field, as not all soldiers concurred
with Greene’s belief in pardoning the disaffected. Although in 1781 he had “given
directions…to all the militia officers to promise pardon and forgiveness to the tories that
will come in and give up their Arms,”113 this advice was often ignored. Greene received
word in the fall of 1781 that North Carolina’s General Griffith Rutherford was harassing
Tories and burning their homes. Unsure of the veracity of such reports, He wrote to
Governor Alexander Martin in October in response. “I hope the report is not true,”
Greene penned, “for this mode of carrying on the war is so cruel and barbarous that if
there were no other objection those would be sufficient. But the policy is not less
pernicious than the mode is savage.” He knew that such measures might harden the
112
Nathanael Greene to Andrew Pickens, 5 June 1781, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 8:349-350.
113
Nathanael Greene to Henry Lee, 29 July 1781, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 9:103.
466
hearts of the disaffected, rather than winning them over. “Driving away the Tories
without discrimination will render their situation desperate and make them from a feeble
and partial enemy [into] a firm and determinate foe….the infidelities of the Tories may
be sufficiently punished without having recourse to such desperate measures.”114
Shortly thereafter, a concerned Greene wrote directly to Rutherford, and
enunciated his thoughts on the treatment of Tories. “Persecution does but confirm the
cause it is meant to destroy; and therefore I think those measures highly unwarrantable
which carries the mark of cruelty and increases our enemies.” He reminded the militia
commander that “to detach the disaffected from the British interest is our true policy and
this can be done by gentle means only.” For those who resisted such methods, and
remained “stubborn and obstinate there is ways and means of bringing them to
punishment far more consistent with the dignity of the Government.”115 Greene meant,
of course, that loyalists must be countered by legitimate means (either civil or military),
not by wantonness and cruelty. A few months later, he continued to implore Rutherford
to adopt lenient measures to reconcile the disaffected in North Carolinian. “I have always
observed both in religion and politicks moderation answers the most valuable
purposes.”116
Greene was tireless in his efforts to convince authorities in the southern states to
win over the loyalties of the disaffected by eschewing harsh, punitive measures. He
strove to support efforts to offer leniency to all but the most ardent Carolina loyalists as
114
Nathanael Greene to Alexander Martin, 9 October 1781, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 9:438-439.
115
Nathanael Greene to Griffith Rutherford, 18 October 1781, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 9:452-453.
116
Nathanael Greene to Griffith Rutherford, 29 January 1782, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 10: 277.
467
“consistent with humanity and sound policy.”117 A few months later, he recommended to
General Anthony Wayne that he make a plan “for drawing off the disaffected from the
Enemy; granting such persons pardon as have not been extremely obnoxious. At any rate
hold out as much encouragement as you can, and treat those kindly who come over to
your party.”118 Such leniency as Greene recommended to these several officers would go
a long way toward bringing about peace, and an end to the disorders of war.
This is not to say that Greene was unmindful of the dangers Tories still posed for
the American cause, or that he sought to overlook their abuses. Instead, “I wish to show
them mercy but if they continue obstinate after all these favorable overtures they may
expect to suffer all the miseries that war can inflict.”119 Nor was Greene above
threatening the use of severe measures as a means of reprisal for British wantonness.
Writing on the subject of the “barbarous custom” of the British “burning houses &
desolating the countryside,” Greene proclaimed to the enemy at Charleston “I have made
it my study ever since I had the honor to command in this department, to conduct the war
upon the most humane principles, and it is my wish to continue to do so; but if your
people persist in the practice of burning, I will change the plan and let savage cruelty rage
in all the horrors of war.”120 Fortunately he did not have to resort to such extreme
measures.
117
Nathanael Greene to Thomas Sumter, 27 December 1781, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 10: 121.
118
Nathanael Greene to Anthony Wayne, 29 January 1782, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 10:279;
Nathanael Greene to Anthony Wayne, 2 February 1782, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 10:311.
119
Nathanael Greene to Thomas Sumter, 25 November 1781, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 9:627.
120
Nathanael Greene to Gen. Paston Gould, 9 November 1781, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 9:551.
468
Despite his many pleas, Greene was not uniformly successful in persuading all
civil and military leaders of the necessity of granting pardons to those Tories who sought
it. Greene had particular difficulties with North Carolina’s governors during the last two
years of the war, especially Thomas Burke. An exchange of letters between the two
regarding Greene’s attempt to arrange for a prisoner of war exchange, or cartel,
highlights the challenges faced by the general and others who sought to bring a close to
the chaos of war through lenient means of reintegration of the disaffected into society.121
Greene and Burke disagreed notably over the workings of a prisoner exchange
cartel in 1782. The governor wished to treat loyalists captured while under British arms
as traitors, and punish them accordingly. If convicted, these men could face death by
hanging, according to law. This was a long held position of Burke’s, who was of the
opinion as early as 1778 that those North Carolinians who took up arms against the state
in the service of the British should be subject to “municipal laws,” not to be treated as
prisoners of war.122 Burke’s stance with regard to this matter interfered with Greene’s
attempts to get Whigs released from British captivity in the Carolinas, many of whom
were held in appalling conditions on prison ships in Charleston Harbor. Greene
expressed to Burke his belief that “it is much better to effect the relief of our good
Citizens by considering the Tories prisoners of war, than trying them for treason, and
leave our best friends in captivity and distress.”123 In other words, by considering those
Tories captured while serving in a military manner as prisoners, they could be exchanged
121
Lefler and Newsome, North Carolina: The History of a Southern State, 256.
122
Papers of Nathanael Greene, 11:163n.
123
Nathanael Greene to Thomas Burke, 24 February 1782, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 10:406-407.
469
for captured Whig militiamen, but if the state tried and executed them they could not be
used in the cartel. Such harsh treatment would also inspire retaliation by the British and
Tories, adding to the chaos in the Carolinas and Georgia.
Burke’s response was somewhat unyielding. He reminded Greene of the many
“Outlaws” within North Carolina, “who have always become very dangerous Instruments
in the hands of the Enemy.” He refused to treat these Tories as prisoners of war, because
they would then be exempt from civil punishment, whereas the Whigs who did the same
thing would not be. The governor also predicted that if every Tory found under arms
could claim to be acting under British military authority when captured, such men would
then use this protection as a cover for their crimes and abuses. This would, of course,
“Increase our domestic Evils and distresses.” He continued
I intend to pardon all who should appear to me guilty of no Offence but
bearing Arms with the Enemy and Acting agreeably to the Character of
Soldiers, reserving them only as prisoners of War. But those who Should
be found to have Committed atrocious Crimes before adhering openly to
the Enemy, Or inhuman Barbarities such as the Laws of War will not
Justify, afterwards, I intended to resign Altogether to the Civil Magistrate.
These men, if convicted in a civil court, would face death. Burke also reported that
“Great Numbers [of loyalists] have Submitted themselves Voluntarily to the Civil
Magistrate and now…stand tryal for their lives.” These men, Burke had decided, would
be required to serve in the state’s regiments if not condemned by a court, unless they had
committed heinous crimes prior to their requests for pardons. He was also clear that “if
there be any people amongst us devoted to the Enemy, our Safety requires that they be
470
discovered, Secured, and finally removed. We cannot…be expected to let them remain at
peace in the heart of the Country.”124
In April 1782, Burke showed that he was willing to treat those captured in arms as
prisoners of war, if they “appear to me guilty of no offense but bearing arms with the
Enemy, and acting agreeable to the character of Soldiers.” He reprieved the cases of
three Loyalist officers on trial in Salisbury for high treason, after the court’s judges
advised him that the men were not guilty of murders, looting or other acts of barbarity.
However, Burke did advise Greene that he would order the removal of their families to
the British lines, as was typically the case with other loyalists. “This is a necessary, but
Severe Consequence of their being admitted on the footing of Prisoners of war and I
assure you, Sir, that no part of my duty gives me more sensible pain in the Execution than
this, because I foresee it must involve wretched mothers, and helpless infants in cruel
want and distress.”125 Doubtlessly, Greene did not regard Burke’s insistence upon
forcibly removing the families of loyalists from the state as a conciliatory policy.
Burke’s successor, Alexander Martin,126 was less opposed to Greene’s position
with regard to exchanging Loyalists and showing leniency than Burke had been, or at
least was more pragmatic. Martin reported to Greene in May 1782 that the three loyalist
officers in Salisbury, who by this time had been condemned to death under the state’s
treason laws, would not be executed “while our Friends are in Captivity,” for the “rigor
124
Thomas Burke to Nathanael Greene, 28 March 1782, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 10:549-551.
125
Robinson, William R. Davie, 157-158; Thomas Burke to Nathanael Greene, 9 April 1782, Papers of
Nathanael Greene, 11:24-25.
126
Martin had also acted as governor during Burke’s captivity, but was elected to that office in his own
right in 1782.
471
of Laws must give way to policy.” These men were by convention recognized as British
regular officers, and could be exchanged in the cartel for American officers. However,
Martin also advised Greene that with regard to other captured loyalist officers in the
custody of North Carolina, if the British refused to exchange them for Patriots held in
Charleston, then the “Treason Laws of this state are to have their full effect.”127 Martin
seems to have agreed with Burke regarding Tory prisoners, that is to say, they were
traitors subject to the ultimate punishment, even though many of them committed no
atrocities or other crimes. Only the loyalists’ value within the arrangements of the
prisoner cartel made Governor Martin decide not to punish the three officers at Salisbury
for the treason convictions. Greene later responded to Martin that mercy should be
shown to those who sought it from the Whig governments, so long as it did not leave
dangerous individuals within the states to continue to perpetrate violence and destruction.
“The interests of the Country will be promoted more by clemency than severity,” he
concluded.128 Nevertheless, Burke and Martin rejected Greene’s suggestions of leniency,
and used pardons primarily for the purpose of releasing as many of their own men as
possible from British captivity. Their willingness to grant pardons was thus for practical
purposes, not a significant philosophical alignment with Greene.
By the end of the war, Greene’s attempts to bring back the loyalists into the fold
seemed to have mixed results. One the one hand, he received some encouraging reports
like that of North Carolina General John Butler in September 1782 from Chatham
County, long an area of disaffection and Tory sympathies, that several loyalists had
127
Alexander Martin to Nathanael Greene, 12 May 1782, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 11:185-186.
128
Nathanael Greene to Alexander Martin, 27 June 1782, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 11:375.
472
recently “surrendered themselves prisoners of war,” with no reports of violence against
them there.129 Other reports were not so sanguine. By May 1782, Greene heard that
North Carolina legislature would not adopt moderate treatment of the Loyalists. With
regard to this state, a correspondent in Charlotte advised him that “I know not what laws
they will pass in favor of the tories, but they will be certainly unavailing; for the people
seem more than ever occupied with the idea of their distruction.”130
Yet for the most part, Greene’s advice went unheeded, North Carolina not
excepted, as the states actively pursued confiscation of loyalist property, refused to allow
many Tories to return to their states after the conclusion of hostilities, and passed
punitive legislation to the loyalists’ disadvantage.131 Nevertheless, in the interest of
peace and humanity Greene appears to have remained fixed in his ideas, expressed in the
summer of 1782, that “considering the frailties of human nature[,] charity and mercy
should be extended in all cases not opposed to the peace and safety of the people.”132
While a vindictive spirit held sway in many quarters of the state after the
Revolutionary War ended, a less punitive disposition among men was also found in North
Carolina as well. Those who favored conciliation worked to alleviate the disabilities
imposed upon their former loyalist neighbors, and looked for an end to violence and
disorder. These Carolinians were only partially successful in the 1780s. While some of
129
John Butler to Nathanael Greene, 13 September 1782, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 11:654.
130
Capt. Nathaniel Pendleton to Nathanael Greene, 1 May 1782, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 11:150.
131
Leslie Hall, Land and Allegiance in Revolutionary Georgia (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2001),
108-134, 160-174; Robert Weir, “The Violent Spirit: The Reestablishment of Order, and the Continuity of
Leadership in Post-Revolutionary South Carolina,” in Hoffman, et. al., An Uncivil War, 91-98; DeMond,
Loyalists in North Carolina, 158-169; Crow, “Liberty Men and Loyalists,” 125-178.
132
Nathanael Greene to Alexander Martin, 27 June 1782, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 11:375.
473
the disaffected were eventually allowed to return to the state, and for the most part
violence had ended by the middle of the decade, property confiscation continued almost
unabated until 1787, and the more “obnoxious” Tories would never return to North
Carolina. Nevertheless, the spirit of moderation influenced the state’s rebuilding efforts
as the war years faded into the past, and helped characterize the revolutionary settlement.
474
CHAPTER 10
“THE BLESSINGS OF PEACE”: NORTH CAROLINA’S INTERNAL
REVOLUTIONARY SETTLEMENT
“By divine providence[,] peace and harmony are once more restored in the state,”
at least as far as the North Carolina legislature was concerned in the spring of 1783.
During that Assembly meeting at Hillsborough, lawmakers received from newly
reelected Governor Alexander Martin a proclamation from the United States “in
Congress Assembled announcing and proclaiming a cessation of hostilities both by sea
and land.” This announcement was not that of a peace treaty, and did not eliminate the
potential dangers of the violently disaffected within the state. “Though we have heard of
the peace, yet the articles have not yet reached us,” wrote the governor at the time.
Nevertheless, it did signify that the Revolutionary struggle had entered its final phase. In
celebration, delegates appointed the 4th of July as “a Day of General Thanksgiving and
praise to Almighty God for the gratious Interposition of divine providence in behalf of
this Nation: that it hath pleased Him to deliver us from the Calamities of War, and Crown
our wishes with the Blessings of peace.”1
1
House Joint Resolutions, April-May 1783, Box 1, General Assembly Session Records, N.C. State
Archives; NCSR, 19:171; Alexander Martin to the N.C. Congressional Delegates, 30 April 1783, NCSR,
16:783; NCSR, 24:492; Alexander Martin to Brig. Gen. William Caswell, 4 May 1782, Misc. Papers,
PC.412.1, William Caswell Papers, N.C. State Archives.
475
Despite the joyful proclamations and statements of relief, the state was on the
verge of a major reconstruction effort. Though the guns had fallen silent and enemies
repelled or quieted, much rebuilding lay ahead that would take a number of years. As
North Carolina’s preeminent early twentieth century historian observed, “although the
year 1783 brought peace it was not unmarked by agitations.”2 The Reverend Frederic
William Marshall, proprietor and administrator of the Moravian settlements in Surry
County, encapsulated the issues vividly in an October 1783 analogy. “It cannot be denied
that this country is in the condition of a patient convalescing from a fever,” he wrote,
“who begins to be conscious of his weakness and still needs medicine and care. The land
itself, the people of property, commerce, public and private credit, the currency in
circulation, all are laid waste and ruined.” Just how the period of reconstruction would
conclude—and when—was a contentious, laborious process that would later be called by
historians the “revolutionary settlement.” This settlement, as it turned out, was a
reconstructive effort that focused on internal matters, rather than those of a national or
Continental perspective. A host of issues needed to be resolved within the state itself,
these became North Carolina’s almost exclusive priorities at the expense of matters or
interests involving all of the newly victorious states, a perception that came to
characterize its reconstructive years as a whole.3 Part of the settlement involved
rebuilding the state and an attempt to return the functions of government to an orderly
mode of operation.
2
Ashe, History of North Carolina, 2:23.
3
Frederic Marshall to the Vorsteher Collegium, 28 October 1783, Fries, Moravian Records, 4:1921.
476
One issue to be tackled by Carolina authorities involved their soldiers still in
captivity. Beginning with the fall of Charleston in 1780, many of the state’s men in arms
had remained in British captivity either in that city, or in St. Augustine. Some of these
men had also been captured at Camden, or in smaller engagements of 1781. They
languished in squalor, as the state tried to provide some support to them while they were
confined. British officials were largely unsympathetic with the plight of the imprisoned,
and did little to facilitate North Carolina’s efforts to help the captives. General Greene,
however, worked closely with governors Martin and Burke, and managed to get hundreds
of the state’s prisoners exchanged in late 1782, which freed them from their paroles. This
had the salutary and practical effect of relieving North Carolina of the burdens of
supporting the men while they were penned up, no easy task given the logistics and
monetary obstacles the state continually encountered. The release of so many state
militiamen and Continentals signified that some level of stability had begun to emerge in
North Carolina by that time.4
Other evidence pointed to the war’s end as well, and a transition to peace and
rebuilding. In May 1783, the state Senate concluded that “the necessity for keeping
Guards at the different Magazines of this State no longer exists,” and disbanded “the
Corps raised for this purpose.” Senators also decreed that companies of light horse need
not be kept in the several counties, owing in part to the expense, but also to the
4
Nathanael Greene to Thomas Burke, 29 October 1782, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 12:122-123; Lefler
and Newsome, North Carolina: The History of a Southern State, 256; NCSR, 19:870-871; Powell, North
Carolina: A Bicentennial History, 82. Burke was included within this parole, although “with difficulty” and
“after many shifts and evasions.”
477
diminished threat of Tory hostilities.5 The lower house authorized in 1783 the selling of
“certain Cannon belonging to this State now lying at Edenton,” another sign that they
expected no enemy dangers at that important commercial town.6 In a similar matter, the
assembly ordered that each county sheriff appoint commissioners to “collect and get into
their possession all the cattle, horses, arms, ammunition, wagons, cart, and all and every
other article of public property, which may be running at large or in the hands or
possession of any other person whatsoever,” other than confiscation commissioners.
These items were to be auctioned off for the benefit of the state, including “any public
arms or military stores at the district towns or magazines.” As late as 1787, the state
authorized county sheriffs to “take in possession, receive and make sale of all property
left by the British in this State during the late War,” six full years after the redcoats had
left.7
Part of the process of emerging from the war into a more settled society was to
rebuild the state’s infrastructure. Much of the state had been damaged or destroyed by
British and Tory depredations, and the pressing demands of the conflict prevented
Carolinians from maintaining public property. The postwar years saw a significant
interest in repairing these damages, and such matters frequently occupied the legislature.
As Governor Martin urged the Assembly in 1784, “the trade and navigation of this
country is of lasting consequence, and requires your immediate interposition and
5
NCSR, 19:197; NCSR, 24:464.
6
House Joint Resolutions, April-May 1783, General Assembly Session Records, Box 1, N.C. State
Archives.
7
NCSR, 24:495-496; NCSR, 20:237.
478
patronage. It is necessary that our rivers be rendered more navigable, our roads opened
and supported, by which the industrious planter may have his produce carried to market
with more ease and convenience.”8
Lawmakers in 1782 began the process of trying to locate a permanent capital for
the state in order to being some measure of stability and solidity to North Carolina and to
prevent the associated “great and manifest inconveniences which have arisen to the
public.” The meetings of the Assembly were held at a number of locations throughout
the state during the war. Although 1782 saw an act passed to fix a seat of government, it
was repealed the following year, as delegates could not agree on a mutually acceptable
place for their capital.9 Almost every legislature thereafter (and many beforehand)
debated this matter, without success until 1788, when Wake County was decided upon,
and not until 1791 was the precise site chosen—today’s Raleigh.10
A number of other legislative measures had a more widespread impact on North
Carolinians, as they began to rebuild. For instance, the government allowed town lot
owners in seaports additional time to make improvements and not risk forfeiture. The
assembly recognized the troubles in procuring “necessary materials for building, as well
as…many other unavoidable hindrances occasioned by the present war with Great
Britain.”11 Other measures were adopted for the purpose of better regulating towns,
especially with regard to improving commerce. These acts, such as the one in 1782 “for
8
Ashe, History of North Carolina, 2:29.
9
NCSR, 24:448, 510.
10
Lefler and Newsome, North Carolina: History of a Southern State, 259-260; Powell, North Carolina: A
Bicentennial History, 83-84; Powell, North Carolina Through Four Centuries, 211-213.
11
NCSR, 24:449-450. The act was renewed in 1784. NCSR, 24:598.
479
regulating the town of Edenton,” encouraged town officials to surround the town with a
ditch or fence, to erect “proper gates on highways,” and to keep bridges and streets in
“good repair,” in addition to building a public market house and a public wharf.
Additionally the act directed Edenton officials to “repair the court house and keep it in
order,” in that it had “been much injured, and is subjected to repeated injuries from the
want of proper care.” A separate act of the same session provided for the construction of
a prison in Edenton, as the lack of a gaol in the town (and hence the district) left “the civil
administration of justice … nearly at a stand, and the military service of the State greatly
retarded.” The war had seen the state’s commerce all but evaporate, so a number of
measures were enacted to stimulate trade. The legislators allowed for the creation of a
new ferry in nearby Washington, for “the encouragement of commerce and improvement
of the said town.”12
What emerges from state records, especially during the period 1782 to 1785, are
numerous attempts by the Assembly to encourage and authorize repairs and construction
of public buildings. These structures not only facilitated all kinds of public transactions
and jurisprudence, they would—when completed—symbolize the power and stability of
the new state; hence, assemblymen took up numerous bills to this effect, the majority of
which came in the war’s last few months, and immediate aftermath. In 1782, for
example, after noting that “the buildings on the town of Hillsborough are very much out
of repair,” the Assembly ordered that they be “immediately repaired” for the use of
public business.13 Special taxes or other measures were authorized by the government for
12
NCSR, 24:452-454, 455, 517-519, 531.
13
NCSR, 24:461.
480
the Salisbury, Halifax and New Bern districts, and for certain counties for repairing
public buildings such as gaols and court houses.14 In 1784, the court house in Salisbury
was so dilapidated, the state ordered a new one constructed in its place.15
War had either interrupted the building of many public facilities, or prevented it
altogether. Thus, the assembly authorized Anson County to decide upon a convenient
place to build a new courthouse, prison and public stocks in 1782 situated near the center
of the county.16 A similar act was passed in 1782 for Bertie County, where the prison
had burned, and one in 1783 for Wilmington, where the prison had also been “consumed
by fire.”17 Other measures relating to repairing, building or “compleating” public
buildings within the state were passed for Jones, Camden, Tryon,18 and many other
counties.19 The assembly noted in 1783 that “the town of Campbelton, in Cumberland
County, still continues in its former irregular form,” the result of “confusion occasioned
by the late war.” Commissioners were ordered to lay out proper streets, see to the repairs
of buildings, and to “lay out a square or squares for public buildings.”20
Not all enactments concerned government edifices. Caleb Grainger was
encouraged to “build a bridge over Smith’s Creek at the place where the late bridge
14
NCSR, 24:519; 522-523, 594, 698-699.
15
NCSR, 24:693.
16
NCSR, 24:464-465.
17
NCSR, 24:469-470, 520-522, 540-541.
18
NCSR, 24:471-473.
19
NCSR, 24:541-542.
20
NCSR, 24:513-517. This act also changed the name of the town to Fayetteville.
481
stood” in Hanover County, possible destroyed during the war.21 Numerous other acts
encouraged and facilitated trade and transportation through the building or rebuilding of
canals, toll-bridges, mills and roads. The state’s significant troubles during the conflict
with regard to transportation of military goods and provisions may have played a role in
the Assembly’s emphasis on these improvements.22 With these various acts, North
Carolina sought to place itself—literally—on a firm foundation, to promote commerce
and transportation, and to provide adequate public space for its courts, prisons, inspection
stations and other functions of governance. This construction did not happen over night,
as several counties and towns projects of this nature continued for years. These laws,
nevertheless, provided the beginning of creating a state of stronger, more fixed
institutions by the end of the 1780s.
Not only did the state need to look to the challenge of erecting buildings and
fixing roads, it had to function effectively as a state too, and perform activities for its own
maintenance and support. As General Greene observed in 1782, when the state began the
laborious process of reestablishing its institutions, “it is difficult for Government with the
best disposition to levy and collect taxes,” and even more so when threatened by an
internal foe.23 And much like building jails and customs houses, the ability of the state to
conduct its inherent activities would give it not only the stability it needed, but the
appearance of legitimacy necessary to ensure its survival and allegiance of the
21
NCSR, 24:462.
22
See for example NCSR, 24:634-635, 674-678; Ashe, History of North Carolina, 2:125.
23
Nathanael Greene to Robert Morris, 9 March 1782, Papers of Nathanael Greene, 10:469.
482
inhabitants. As the fighting ended, therefore, the new state was quick to ensure that it
carried out these duties, a sure indication that the chaos of the war had ended.
This process can be seen clearly in the realm of taxes, the collection of which
propped up the government financially, and gave the state legitimacy—after all, people
rarely pay tithes to an entity to which they have little or no allegiance. Numerous
resolutions and acts in the legislature concerned the collection of direly needed back
taxes, since the war had prevented this process in many venues across North Carolina.
Thus in October 1784, the Assembly moved to facilitate and improve the collection of
taxes, as the previous method was “found to be extremely irregular, inconvenient and
expensive, and large sums remain unaccounted for.”24 Likewise, a bill was introduced in
December 1785 to empower David Vance, former Commissioner for Burke County, “to
collect the specific supplies assessed upon the Inhabitants of the said County for the years
1780 and 1781, which have not already been collected.”25 Later during the session, the
sheriffs and commissioners of Franklin, Bertie, Wilkes, Rutherford and Mecklenburg
were also authorized to collect unpaid taxes for those years as well.26
In late 1786, Rowan County officials were still trying to collect back taxes from
the war years. The wife of the deceased tax collector for 1779 tried herself to accumulate
the taxes which had been difficult to collect due to the “Confused Situation of the State in
General and of that part of it in particular.” Her husband had been captured by the British
24
NCSR, 24:651.
25
NCSR, 20:14.
26
NCSR, 20:104.
483
during their invasion in 1781, and died in captivity.27 Also in 1784, the legislature
arranged for the collection of back taxes in Burke County for the year 1779, as the
county’s sheriff had been killed at the battle of Ramsour’s Mill in 1780 before he could
complete his collection.28 Even in 1788, the assembly authorized the former sheriff of
Anson County—site of continuous Tory/Whig hostilities—to collect back taxes, as far
back as 1779.29 All of these actions demonstrate not just that collection of taxes was
made difficult by the interruptions of the war, but that that the state sought solid ground
financially.
As detailed in Chapter 4, the conflict between Tories and Whigs that so
dominated North Carolina’s war years was bitter and widespread. A number of violent
instances occurred in which Whigs, usually acting within the scope of their militia duties,
crossed the line of legitimate force and had the pall of murder cast upon them, or so it
was construed by some Carolinians. To provide amnesty or pardon for these excesses
and protect them from criminal actions, the legislature was frequently called upon to take
up these cases and excuse their actions. In a sense, this process of indemnification of
Whigs was a part of the process of the state putting the war behind it. It allowed the
government to excuse some of the brutalities of the Revolution. The fact that these men
were charged with these improprieties suggests that at least some part of the polity
concluded their actions had been extralegal, or worse. Yet for the most part, the
27
Report of the Committee Regarding the Memorial of Sarah Roundtree, 15 December 1786, Joint Select
Committee Reports, General Assembly Session Records, November 1786-January 1787, Box 2, N.C. State
Archives.
28
NCSR, 24:633.
29
NCSR, 20:576.
484
petitioners were successful, and their exoneration was one part of North Carolina’s post
war settlement.
Matters regarding indemnification actually surfaced early in the war. In 1779, the
House passed a resolve in favor of western militia officers, Benjamin Cleveland,
Benjamin Herndon, and others, in which they recommended to the governor that he
pardon these soldiers “for killing Lemuel Jones and William Coyle, and for beating
James Harvell.” When the vote was taken, Colonel Cleveland—known as an ardent foe
of the Tories—was serving as a state Senator from Wilkes County at the time, and
Herndon later served in the Assembly as well.30
Later during the war, as more of these incidents occured, a growing effort
emerged within the legislature to protect those whose actions the propriety of which may
have been called into question. In June 1781, a bill was introduced in the lower house “to
indemnify all such persons as have put to death any of the subjects of this state, being
known & notorious Enemies & Opponents of the Government thereof.” It did not
become law, however.31 In 1783, the Assembly passed an act to “indemnify such persons
as have acted in defence of the State, and for the preservation of Peace during the late
War, from vexatious suits and prosecution.” The act stated that many people
in order to inforce and protect our present happy establishment and the
peace of the State, and to suppress and put an end to the war, apprehended
and put into custody and imprisoned, or caused to be apprehended, put
into custody or imprisoned, several criminals, traitors and others, whom
they suspected had, or might adhere to the enemies, were in open
rebellion, or might disturb the peace of the said State, or excite and
30
NCSR, 13:988; NCSR, 18:22; Joint Resolutions, General Assembly Session Records, October-November
1779, Box 1, N.C. State Archives; Samuel Ashe, Biographical History of North Carolina from Colonial
Times to the Present, 8 vols. (Greensboro, N.C., C.L. Van Noppen, 1905-1917), 5:71.
31
NCSR, 17:827.
485
promote evil designs against the same, and also seized and used horses,
arms, and other articles, and also impressed divers wagons, carriages,
horses, arms, provisions and other things essentially necessary for
supplying troops in the service if the United States, or of this State…either
for repelling the enemy, of their adherents, and carrying on the
war…entered into the houses and possessions of divers persons, and
committed sundry acts, while though not strictly agreeable to law, yet
were requisite, and so much for the service of the public, that they ought to
be justified by Act of the Assembly, and the persons by whom they were
transacted indemnified.
The act sought to dismiss prosecutions against those who committed possible excesses.
Accordingly the law stated that “all personal actions, and suits, indictments, informations,
and all molestations, prosecutions and proceedings whatsoever, and all judgments
thereupon…commanded or appointed to be done or executed in consequence of and
during the late war with Great Britain, and until the first day of May, in the year of our
Lord, one thousand seven hundred and eighty-three, in order to repell the enemy, carry on
the war, or preserve the peace, safety and independence of the State, shall be discharged
and made void.”32
Even after this 1783 measure, the Assembly still faced this controversial issue. In
December 1785, a legislative committee took up the petition of Philip Alston, a militia
colonel, justice and clerk of court from Moore County, a place heavily populated by
loyalists. Alston was involved in the wartime death of Thomas Taylor, who according to
sworn testimony was “an Enemy to this State, and was actually guilty of misprision of
Treason” when killed during an encounter with Alston. At the time of Taylor’s death,
Alston “commanded a Corps of Militia in the service of this State for the express purpose
of suppressing the Tories.” The committee of four, headed by prominent anti-loyalist
32
NCSR, 488-489.
486
Griffith Rutherford and comprised of two other militia generals, recommended that Col.
Alston be pardoned, and not tried in court. Governor Caswell did grant a pardon, but the
measure was not without dissent. John Hay of Sampson County, Archibald Maclaine of
Wilmington, Hugh Williamson of Edenton, and Enoch Sawyer of Camden County, none
of whom were from areas of significant Tory hostilities and depredations during the war,
entered a dissent in the record against Alston’s exoneration. These four men claimed that
Alston should have taken Taylor prisoner, rather than kill him. More importantly, they
averred that Alston should be tried in order to prove his case, and if he was in fact not
guilty of murder, he would be “acquitted on trial by the Laws of his Country and the
verdict of a Jury.” They opposed legislative and executive actions to grant clemency to
one who should be required to show evidence in his defense.33
William Linton also petitioned the legislature in 1785 for relief from prosecution
for “commanding the Murder of a certain Michael Quinn, a man whose conduct deserves
to be branded with eternal infamy.” Quinn was, according to Linton, “the least to be
regretted” of all those killed “without the aid of public authority” due to his Tory
activities. Linton denied the charges against him, for which he was to answer at Halifax
Superior Court, but did not attend due to “public opinion and passions” against him. His
petition to the Assembly asked that the recognizance bonds he forfeited by his nonappearance by paid back to him. The legislative committee that considered the petition
33
DNCB, 6:29-30; NCSR, 17:399-400; NCSR, 20:69; Committee report on memorial of Phillip Alston,
Joint Select Committee Reports, General Assembly Session Records, November-December 1785, Box 2,
N.C. State Archives. See also Robinson, A History of Moore County, North Carolina, 1747-1847.
487
fully exonerated Linton (despite “strong, and almost irresistible” proof against him, in
Iredell’s words), and ordered that he be reimbursed.34
The following year, the Senate took up the case of Alexander Shannon, who in
1781 was killed in Guilford County by a company of that county’s militia. Shannon, it
was reported, had joined the enemy and “had committed sundry Atrocious Robberies and
other Enormities on the good Citizens of this State,” and was allegedly a part of Tory
forces under the command of Col. David Fanning. Several men of the Guilford militia
company who were present when Shannon was “put to death” were “now liable to a
capital prosecution in the Courts of Justice for having committed an Act not justifiable by
the Laws of the Land.” These Whigs were “persons…recommended by a number of
respectable Citizens to the Notice of the Legislature.” One such Whig was Henry Reid,
who during the war had been “earnestly engaged in support of his country’s cause from
true patriot principles.” Reid implored the Assembly for an act of pardon, and as his
defense, used a line of reasoning common to others in his straits. “Perhaps the act was
not strickly consonant to the rules of law and perhaps would not be justifiable done in a
time of peace,” he wrote, “but in the emergency of the times, when the country was
almost drowned in the blood of her citizens by barbarous murders, not done by the British
but by the Tories, therefore this act was only a just retaliation.” While Reid expected that
he would be acquitted in a trial, he asked the lawmakers for clemency so as not to have to
suffer financial ruin by having to defend the prosecution. Upon motion of Griffith
Rutherford, all those present at the time of the killing of Shannon were recommended to
34
Petition of William Linton and committee report, Joint Select Committee Reports, General Assembly
Session Records, November-December 1785, Box 2, N.C. State Archives; James Iredell to Hannah Iredell,
25 August 1781 and 22 October 1782, Papers of James Iredell, 2:277, 359.
488
the governor for a full pardon for any charges of murder, manslaughter or “other Species
of Homicide.”35
As these cases and others demonstrate, a number of men who committed violent
acts of questionable legality sought protection from the state against prosecution. The
Assembly received petitions along these lines as late as 1790. In most cases, evidence
shows that the assembly did pardon them, which allowed the men to avoid trial. Some
regarded pardons as an unconstitutional legislative usurpation of the court’s role. No
doubt too, many Carolina assemblymen had no intention of prosecuting men whose
victims were the state’s dire enemies. As part of the post war settlement process,
therefore, they would not be made to answer for their excesses as the memories of the
war’s cruelties began to fade.36
A far less controversial means of allowing Carolinians to rebuild their country and
society in the 1780s was the granting of relief to numerous soldiers (or in many cases, to
their families) who had been killed, wounded, disabled or had otherwise suffered as a
result of their Revolutionary War military service in the state’s Continental or militia
units. There was an obvious need for this as demonstrated by the numerous petitions for
assistance by soldiers, their wives, or their neighbors, the majority of which came forth in
1781. Many petitioners sought relief first from their county courts, which often
forwarded the appeals to the Assembly with their recommendation.37 In addition, the
35
NCSR, 18:209-210; Petition of Henry Reid, 13 January 1787, Joint Senate Resolutions, General
Assembly Session Records, November 1786-January 1787, Box 3, N.C. State Archives.
36
37
NCSR, 20:149, 332; NCSR, 22:1, 4, 25, 27; NCSR, 25:101.
House Joint Resolutions, April-May 1783, General Assembly Session Records, Box 1, N.C. State
Archives.
489
legislature also sought to address the problem by a number of relief acts, the last of which
was in 1785. Part of the impetus for this last bill was Congress’ June 1785 resolution
“that it be and it is hereby recommended to the several states, to make provision for
officers, soldiers or seamen, who have been disabled in the service of the United States.”
This resolve also included militia soldiers for consideration of relief, and applied to all
who “have been disabled in such service, so as to be incapable of military duty, or of
obtaining a livelihood by labour.”38
The first of these laws passed in June 1781, styled “An Act to relieve all such
persons as are rendered incapable of Procuring themselves and families subsistence, by
reason of wounds received in defence of their Country.” Wounded or disabled persons
were to apply to their county courts for relief. The act was also meant to provide for the
widows and orphans of those who died in the service.39 This was followed by “An Act to
alleviate in some degree the Distressed Inhabitants of the several Counties in the District
of Wilmington,” in April 1782. The British occupation of Wilmington “hath ruined
many inhabitants of the district, and distressed all.” The act relived those who had fought
for the state of the requirement to pay the specific tax for 1781. Two years later the
legislators passed “An Act for the relief of such persons as have been disabled by wounds
or rendered incapable of procuring for themselves or their families subsistence in the
Militia service of this State, and providing for the Widows and Orphans of such as have
died.” The county courts were to certified those who qualified under the act, “who shall
38
Congressional Resolution, 7 June 1785, Joint Papers, November-December 1785, General Assembly
Session Records, N.C. State Archives.
39
NCSR, 24:409-410; Leora H. McEachern, compiler and editor, Duplin County Court of Pleas and
Quarter Sessions, Abstract of Minutes, 1784-1787, Part 1 (Kenansville, N.C.: James Sprunt Institute, 1978)
34.
490
have an allowance adequate to their relief for one year,” with the possibility of additional
assistance the following year.40 An act of 1783 concerned “making provision for the
poor…who are proper objects of charity,” though this relief was not specifically tied to
military service.41 Perhaps due to the large number of petitions coming in to the
assembly, in 1785 it passed “An Act for the Relief of the Officers, Soldiers and Seaman,
Who Have Been Disabled in the Service of the United States During the Late War.” This
act was based upon a recommendation from the Confederation Congress, and also
applied to militia soldiers. Officers were to receive an annual pension “which shall
correspond with the degree of their disability.” Non-commissioned officers and privates
were to get no more than five dollars a month.42
The state did not want for supplicants, even before the war ended. Joseph
Singletary, for instance, was allowed £20 in 1777, and £10 per year afterwards, for the
loss of an arm while in the state’s service. At least part of this money, however, was
never paid to him, for in 1784 the Assembly allowed him £24 “in full of what is due to
him…in the settlement of his accounts.”43 Soldiers’ dependents also sought help during
the conflict. Ann Glover petitioned the Assembly, in 1780. She was a widow of a North
Carolina Continental soldier, Sgt. Samuel Glover, a “Friend to the Cause of American
freedom and Independence” who had served three years in the northern theatre and
fought at Brandywine, Germantown and Stony Point before marching under the
40
NCSR, 24:568-569.
41
NCSR, 24:498-499.
42
NCSR, 24:735-737.
43
NCSR, 12:148, 309; NCSR, 19:442.
491
command of General Hogan “for the defense of the state of South Carolina,” during
which time a dispute arose over fifteen months back pay. “With poverty staring him full
in the face,” Sgt. Glover evidently acted as a leader of a number of “the common
soldiery” who protested at their lack of pay “cruelly withheld from them.” The men
refused to march when ordered to do so until paid in full, and for his role in this mutinous
affair, Glover was shot. His wife requested “Benevolence & Charity to her & her two
children.”44
Some citizens requested relief or assistance paying taxes when circumstances
related to the war prevented them from doing so. In February 1781, the legislature “read
the petition of Anne Christenbury sitting forth that her husband was taken prisoner [in
1780] at the defeat of General Gates…and praying to be released from the payment of
taxes…which her husband was subject to on the taxable property of his estate.” Her
application was approved without dissent.45 The Orange County Court recommended
David Anderson, “an indigent person,” for legislative charity, as he had been “wounded
and disabled in the service of the State” in 1782. A Senate committee recommended that
Anderson be exempt from taxes so long as he remained disabled. During the same
session, the senate allowed Elizabeth Forbes twenty-five barrels of corn for 1782 and
1783 “to enable her to support a numerous distressed family.” Her husband died of
wounds received at Guilford Courthouse the year before. Lewis Tucker was advanced
twenty barrels of corn in 1782, as he had been “wounded by the Tories.”46 John Benton,
44
Petition of Ann Glover, NCSR, 15:187-188. There is no indication that the Assembly approved this
request.
45
NCSR, 17:737.
492
“an unfortunate though a worthy and valiant soldier who from the consequences of a
wound [suffered] at the Battle of Utaw Springs is unable to Labour for himself and
Family,” was allowed £10 per year for five years, after which he presumably was on his
own. In 1783, “a poor widow” named Mary Hudson was granted £20 specie, as her
husband “was lately killed in the service of the State.”47 In an unusual instance, one
Rowan County veteran, perhaps severely wounded, was allowed “the sum of twenty-five
pounds specie yearly during his life.”48
By 1784, the number of these petitions received in the legislature was great
enough that two joint committees were formed to review them.49 One came from the
orphans of Daniel Sisk, “who was killed at the battle of Kings Mountain,” and were
allowed £15 for their “support and maintenance.”50 Jordan Lockhart was allowed £25 to
pay the doctors “for curing the wounds he received in an action at the town of
Beaufort.”51 The committee later recommended relief for two impoverished Bladen
County widows, both of whom lost their husbands in action during the war, and were
“allowed the annual sum of fifteen pounds for the term of three years.” Other widows
46
NCSR, 19:97-98; Petitions, Joint Papers, April-May 1782, General Assembly Session Records, Box 1,
N.C. State Archives; Grievances, Joint Papers, April-May 1782, General Assembly Session Records, Box
1, N.C. State Archives.
47
Senate Joint Resolutions, Joint Papers, April-May 1783, General Assembly Session Records, Box 1, N.C.
State Archives; Senate Joint Resolutions, Joint Papers, October-November 1784, General Assembly
Session Records, Box 1, N.C. State Archives.
48
Petition of “Mr. McLaine,” Joint Papers, April-May 1783, General Assembly Session Records, Box 1,
N.C. State Archives.
49
Senate Joint Resolutions, Joint Papers, April-June 1784, General Assembly Session Records, Box 1, N.C.
State Archives.
50
51
NCSR, 19: 482, 526.
Senate Joint Resolutions, Joint Papers, April-June 1784, General Assembly Session Records, Box 1, N.C.
State Archives.
493
were granted relief in like amounts, particularly if they had families to support.52 In one
unusual case, however, Mary Moody was allowed £50 for the support of her family “as a
reward for the spirited and extraordinary services of [her] husband in his lifetime
rendered to this Country on a variety of accessions, and particularly at the battle of
Guilford Court House in which he was engaged, he being then of the age of seventy years
and upwards.”53
The need to address such wants continued at least until 1787. In that year, the
House considered the petition of William Alexander, wounded during an expedition led
by General Rutherford against the Cherokees in 1776 at Seven Mile Mountain.
Alexander was “so disabled as to be incapable of labour, and he has a numerous family.”
He was allowed 1,000 acres of land in the western reaches of the state as compensation,
which he might have sold.54 At the same session, Margaret Balfour, the widow of militia
Col. Andrew Balfour, “murdered in his own house” by Tories in Randolph County in
1782, was allowed “a small annual sum” for the relief of herself and her daughter, and for
the education of her only son. This was done in part because the colonel “had
considerable demands against the State for supplies furnished the Army,” accounts which
had not been settled yet.55
In addition to these petitions for relief due to injuries from military service,
several claimants also sought governmental help due to redress damages from the state’s
52
NCSR, 19:580. One soldier was killed at Monmouth Court House in 1778, the other in 1780 at Camden.
See also NCSR, 19:596, 597.
53
NCSR, 19:596-597.
54
NCSR, 20:263, 450. The Alexander petition gives 1777 as the date for the campaign in which Alexander
was wounded, but Rutherford’s expedition was the year before.
55
NCSR, 20:263-264; NCSR, 22:194.
494
armed forces. John Copland of Bladen County, for example, “was an aged man” and
advised the Assembly that Griffith Rutherford’s troops had encamped at his farm while
on campaign against the Tories in 1782, and were “under the necessity to make use of
such articles as they was in want of for their immediate use and gave him a certificate to
protect him from the ravages of the army.” Copland complained in his 1786 petition that
he had been unable to “get any satisfaction,” and could not provide for his large family.56
William Courtney, a Hillsborough assemblyman, made a similar case in 1784. He
claimed that he had suffered “by our own army,” namely Gates’ troops after the battle of
Camden, who camped at his plantation where they “burned and destroyed all his fences,
pulled down many of his houses, cut down a large quantity of timber [and] destroyed a
fine orchard.” The soldiers also turned him out of his house and made it into a barracks
for their own use, while destroying his malt house and distillery.57
With several laws and the approval of numerous petitions, the Assembly sought to
provide aid to those who suffered by the war’s effects. The acts granted much needed
assistance to the destitute, and provided at least some benefits to the needy, help for
whom would otherwise have come from local jurisdictions or neighbors who were
already struggling to cope with the aftermath of war. Additionally, passage of these acts
placed the state in the position of benefactor to a large number of disabled men and their
dependent kin, to say nothing of the families of those killed, which made many
Carolinians reliant on the newly formed state for their survival. This may well have had
the effect of creating a bond of allegiance between the state and those to whom it granted
56
Petitions, Joint Papers, November 1786-January 1787, General Assembly Session Records, N.C. State
Archives.
57
Joint Papers, April-June 1784, General Assembly Session Records, Box 1, N.C. State Archives.
495
support. Moreover, the state’s willingness and (presumed) ability to provide such means
lent it some much-needed support for its claim to legitimacy during and after the war.
While matters such as relieving the distress of those who sacrificed during the
war, physically rebuilding institutions and structures in the various counties, and
indemnifying overzealous Whigs, were all vitally important to the postwar transition
from the chaos of war to more quiet times of peace, there were a number of issues of
even more weighty importance for Carolinians to resolve once they learned in April 1783
that King George III had acknowledged the independence of the United States. These
issues included the state’s relationship with the Confederation government of the United
States; the western lands of North Carolina and their ultimate disposition; the disordered
financial condition of the post war years; and the eventual adoption of the Federal
Constitution. Each of these matters in some way was influenced by the disruptive war,
and can best be discerned in that light.58
By the end of the war, the state’s financial health had suffered considerably. In
1782, a law was enacted to raise a revenue “for the Support of the Government,” which
was separate from the various acts regarding taxation for the purpose of collecting
military supplies, previously mentioned. A tax of “one penny specie on each pound value
of the taxable property in this State” was levied on the inhabitants, and a poll tax on those
whose taxable property was less than £100 in value. Given the “scarcity of gold and
silver coin,” up to three-fourths of the tax could be paid in certificates of various sorts or
articles such as linen, deer skins, bees wax, and provisions. Exemptions were made for
those in Continental service or men who had been wounded “in defence of this
58
Powell, North Carolina: A Bicentennial History, 80-81.
496
country.”59 Additionally, officials were appointed in 1782 to begin “liquidating the
public accounts of this state,” an early measure to try to bring some order to the state’s
chaotic finances.60
In 1783, the state legislature took up pressing financial matters again, in an effort
to address the long time problem of currency and debts, issues greatly exacerbated by the
pressures of the war. The financial difficulties North Carolina faced in the conflict’s
aftermath were in large part due to the diminished value of the paper currency and
certificates floating around the state, and the lack of specie to pay debts or engage in
trade.61 For a time, even some of the state’s own treasurers refused to accept some of the
certificates as payment of taxes due to its dubious worth, though this practice was
proscribed by the Senate in 1785.62 Consequently, the state established a “scale of
depreciation” due to the difficulty that arose “in the adjusting and settling debts and
demands, as well within the courts,” primarily from depreciation of the paper emissions
during the revolution. It was thus necessary to establish a “fixed and permanent
scale…for ascertaining the value of the same in future,” and estimating the paper’s value
in specie. The scale was to “be read in evidence in all the courts of this State, to liquidate
all debts and demands, and in entering up judgments thereon,” as a way to establish some
baseline for the currency’s value against hard money.63
59
NCSR, 24:438-439.
60
NCSR, 24:442-444, 499.
61
Petitions, Joint Papers, April-May 1782, General Assembly Session Records, Box 1, N.C. State
Archives.
62
Senate Joint Resolutions, Joint Papers, General Assembly Session Records, November-December 1785,
Box 2, N.C. State Archives.
497
Although this measure caused some confusion and opportunities for manipulation
by creditors and debtors alike,64 far more controversial (especially in the eyes of
conservatives) was the 1783 act that served to stay debt proceedings in court. “From the
great scarcity of circulating currency, many debtors have and may be distressed,” and as a
result, the law decreed that no suit was to be commenced for debt contracted before 1
May 1783 for the period of one year after the passing of the act, unless the debtor refused
to give security for the debt or threatened to leave the state to avoid paying the debt. This
was seen by its supporters—and debtors—as a way to give relief to those unable to pay
debts on time. Given the recent disruption of the war, and the state’s still precarious
financial situation, many held this measure to be a reasonable expedient for relief.
Creditors, however, viewed it as a dangerous threat to the traditional sanctity of contracts
and commerce, but did not have the strength in the legislature to block it.65
The Assembly passed two other measures designed to retire its debt, and place the
state on a firmer financial foundation. The first of these was the opening of a land office
in Hillsborough and several counties to redeem specie and other certificates through
“granting the lands within this State,” which “would not only redeem the specie and other
certificates due from the public, but greatly enhance the credit thereof.” These lands, for
sale at £10 per hundred acres, were for the most part in the frontier and transmontane
regions of the western part of the state, in what is now Tennessee. The state’s entry taker
63
Boyd, History of North Carolina, 2:7; NCSR, 24:485-488. The state courts later held that this scale could
be used only for debts contracted after 1777, when depreciation began.
64
65
Boyd, History of North Carolina, 2: 7-8.
Morrill, Fiat Finance, 20-23; Schoepf, Travels in the Confederation, 132; NCSR, 24:490-491; Edenton
Petition, November-December 1785, Box 4, General Assembly Session Records, N.C. State Archives;
“Instructions to Chowan Representatives…”, September 1783, Papers of James Iredell, 2:448-449; Boyd,
History of North Carolina, 2: 7; Risjord, Chesapeake Politics, 95, 104-105, 119.
498
was allowed to take specie, certificates of currency, “and all other certificates for
currency at the value ascertained by the scale of depreciation.” This facilitated sales in
specie-starved North Carolina, and although on the surface the bill seemed to allow
inhabitants other than the very wealthy to purchase land in the west, it was in effect a
measure to promote land speculation. Nonetheless, assuming the role of land provider
must have attached many Carolinians to the state and enhanced its legitimacy, at least
among those who benefited from the land’s availability.66
Land speculation was also tied in with the second enactment of 1783 to retire the
state debt, and to try to relieve the problems caused by the lack of specie. Despite the
massive depreciation of previous currency emissions, an act was passed to emit £100,000
in paper bills “for the redemption of paper currency now in circulation, and advancing to
the Continental officers and soldiers part of their pay and subsistence,” and was to be
redeemed by a property tax, and from the sale of confiscated property.67 The bill was
introduced by one of the state’s most active land speculators, William Blount, whose
purpose was to “furnish the resources for the new Western enterprise,” in which
speculators would buy up the land grants of the “debt ridden” soldiers. Thus, the paper
currency emission, also known as “fiat money,” in part would fund the speculation. This
66
Abernathy, From Frontier to Plantation in Tennessee, 49-54; NCSR, 24:478-482, 563; Masterson,
William Blount, 68-70; Boyd, History of North Carolina, 11-13; Morrill, Fiat Finance, 37-40; Boyd,
History of North Carolina, 12. The rise of the separatist movement in 1784 which ultimately led to the
“State of Franklin” suggests that whatever allegiance some frontier land buyers had for the state, it was
short lived.
67
Risjord, Chesapeake Politics, 97; NCSR, 24:475-478; Boyd, History of North Carolina, 2:4.
499
measure was opposed by conservatives, and may have led a number of merchants to
leave the state.68
Speculators such as Blount were not the only supporters of this bill. As one
traveling observer recorded at the time, the 1783 emission of £100,000 was done “to
remedy the oppressive lack of hard money.” The writer, Johann Schoepf, described the
situation in North Carolina at the time.
The gold and silver which was brought into the country during the war by
the British and French armies , and by the very profitable West Indian
flour trade, seems to be rapidly disappearing in trade with Europe. In
North Carolina there is almost no hard money now to be had, not that it
has all been sent out of the country, but because of the general dislike for
the new paper-money, in consequence of which everyone is disposed to
keep what coin he has as long as he can, and to get rid of the paper he
receives, or rather has forced upon him, as quickly as possible, from fear
that this, by precedent, will decline in value. Paper money is everywhere
taken squeamishly and unwillingly.69
Although “the paper money being supported by law, merchants and shop-keepers must
take it,” he also noted that this was not always the case. “In the middle parts of North
Carolina, about Hallifax and on the Roanoke, where the chief crop is tobacco which may
be sold for cash money at Petersburg, they refuse absolutely to give paper money any
currency.”70 Schoepf found too that “the people, disposed to idleness and good-living,
commonly buy more of the merchants, and in advance, than their labor amounts to. The
merchants are therefore obliged…to selling on credit, but they are in consequence
68
Masterson, William Blount, 68-70; Morrill, Fiat Finance, 31-32; Lefler and Newsome, North Carolina:
History of a Southern State, 267; Risjord, Chesapeake Politics, 179. It should be noted that Morrill
concludes that the state’s need for a circulating currency as a medium of exchange and the necessity of
retiring its war debt justifies the fiat emissions of paper money, and formed the basis of anti-federalism
there.
69
Schoepf, Travels in the Confederation, 129. The Moravians also observed that the French and British
armies “had brought in much hard money” to the state. Fries, Moravian Records, 4:1921.
70
Schoepf, Travels in the Confederation, 129-132.
500
involved in continual process at law and suits for debt.” Even so, without specie, paper
money was all that most Carolinians had to transact any kind of business, other than
credit. It was part of what William R. Davie called the state’s “unhappy attachment to
paper money…”71
In 1784, additional acts attempted to relieve financial woes created by the war. A
tax on imports “in aid of the Public Finances” passed in April. This included duties on
Jamaica rum and “all other spirituous liquors,” wines, gin, malt liquor, “cyder,” tea,
pepper, brown sugar, molasses, cocoa, and coffee.72 At the same time, lawmakers levied
a new tax for the support of the government, and to redeem old paper currency, to be paid
in specie or state currency, or soldiers’ bounty certificates up to half of the amount of the
tax.73 In October 1784, another tax was enacted for 1785 “for the redemption of
Continental money, old paper currency, specie and other certificates.”74 Similar bills
were passed in 1785, 1786, and 1788.75
Finally, the state again went back to the old but questionable expedient of
currency in 1785, the emission of £100,000 in paper money. These funds were “to be
applied to discharge part of the foreign debts due from the United States, and a part of the
current expenses of the federal government…[and] also to make provision for the civil
71
Risjord, Chesapeake Politics, 103; Schoepf, Travels in the Confederation, 131; Robinson, William R.
Davie, 213. The prevalence of the use of certificates is demonstrated by a report of the “General State if
the Treasury in Hillsborough District, April 1783,” which records that there was on hand £288,375 in
Continental currency, £203,163 in state paper, and £2,218,317 in certificates and warrants. General
Assembly Session records, April-May 1783, Box, 1, N.C. State Archives.
72
Lefler and Newsome, North Carolina: History of a Southern State, 270; NCSR, 24:549, 559-561.
73
NCSR, 24:556-557.
74
NCSR, 24:658.
75
NCSR, 24:731, 802-803, 952.
501
list of the government of this State, and for the redemption of certificates issued for
interest by the commissioners of continental loans.”76 Of this emission, £36,000 was to
be used to buy tobacco, which would be sent to Congress as the state’s contribution for
that year.77 This matter caused great debate both inside the legislative halls and among
the people. A group of petitioners noted that “there is not a circulating medium of
currency sufficient for the inhabitants to settle their small balances of domestic trade
between neighbors, or even to answer their daily expenses in market,” adding that North
Carolina had “no specie in circulation in this state, nor any staple commodities raised for
export whereby the inhabitants have the smallest probability of accumulating specie from
foreigners at present.” These men sought to advise the Assembly of the “distress that will
inevitably be the consequence of a non-emission of currency,” including the sale of the
property of many citizens “for their public taxes and private debts.”78
Henry E. Lutterloh of Wilmington, a former Continental Army officer, was
typical of many Carolinians across the state who supported the addition of more paper
bills to that which was already in circulation. He supported the measure in a memorial to
the Assembly in 1785, by reminding the Assembly “that this state[,] after the last war[,]
first began to issue a paper currency [1783], and by that mode, prevented many
difficultys, which for want of a circulating cash would have been equally felt like in the
other states, which now are obliged to follow our example.” He went on to convince the
delegates that more currency was needed at such a crucial time. “But yet the time of its
76
NCSR 24:722-725.
77
Risjord, Chesapeake Politics, 180.
78
Petition on currency, House Bills File, November-December 1785, Box 4, General Assembly Session
Records, N.C. State Archives.
502
circulation, and the great Demand in Trade for the same, are sufficient proofs that a still
larger supply is wanting…that the present distress of want of cash is great must be known
to every member of the honorable house and that a supply of more money is absolutely
necessary will be stated by many persons.”79
Of course, the 1785 emission bill was not without its opponents, especially those
with mercantile interests in the state. Residents of the inland river town of Washington
heard “with much concern” about the possibility of issuing paper currency, even the mere
report of which “has much injured the credit of the money now in circulation, put a total
stop to every kind of credit, and raised the price of produce as well as of goods at least
25% if paid in paper currency.”80 New Bern merchants also urged the Assembly to reject
such a bill. “Your petitioners conceive the further emission of paper currency would be
an injury to the state in general and particularly to the mercantile interest who having
large sums of money due them, will loose in proportion to any depreciation that may take
place.”81
Of the many appeals presented to the legislature that session regarding paper
currency and other contentious financial matters, one from an Edenton group may best
illustrate the conservative position of those opposed to paper emissions. These men were
“alarmed at the report that the assembly might issue more paper currency, and were
79
Petition of Henry E. Lutterlok, 10 November 1785, House Bills File, November-December 1785, Box 4,
General Assembly Session Records, N.C. State Archives; John C. Cavanagh, Decision at Fayetteville :
the North Carolina Ratification Convention and General Assembly of 1789 (Raleigh: N.C. Division of
Archives and History, 1989), 7.
80
Washington Petition, November-December 1785, Box 4, General Assembly Session Records, N.C. State
Archives.
81
Petition of the Merchants and Traders of the Town of New Bern, House Bills, November-December
1785, Box 4, General Assembly Session Records, N.C. State Archives.
503
“deeply sensible of the injurious consequences likely to ensue from such a measure.”
They had acquiesced in the previous emission of 1783 on the express condition that “no
more should be made, as they well knew the public confidence could not by any effort be
obtained” from more of the same. The Edenton men were
well aware of the temporary distresses of individuals arising from the
compulsory payment of many old debts, and would heartily approve of
any measure that could be adopted for their relief, if it was practicable for
the Legislature to interfere in the legal consequences of private Contracts,
by any means that would be attended with no injustice to either party…but
it would not be suitable…to provide for the careless or dishonest debtor at
the expense of the Creditor, by enabling the former to pay, and compelling
the latter to receive less than the real value of his contract.
They blamed the depreciation of paper currency on hoarding of specie among the people,
and these petitioners concluded that paper currency was “a quack medicine, to assuage
the symptoms, though it in fact increases the violence of the disorder.” Despite the
opposition to the 1785 emission, it passed in the Senate by a lopsided vote (see Table
10.1).82 Those lawmakers from counties that had been heavily Tory favored the measure
(21 to 1) far more than those counties with only limited disaffection. This may be due to
greater wartime destruction in the Tory counties, and thus a need for more paper currency
with which to keep the reconstruction process moving forward.
82
Edenton Petition, November-December 1785, Box 4, General Assembly Session Records, N.C. State
Archives; Lefler and Newsome, North Carolina: History of a Southern State, 234-235; Risjord,
Chesapeake Politics, 159. James Iredell and Samuel Johnston were two of the signers of this petition. See
also “Instructions to Chowan Representatives…”, September 1783, Papers of James Iredell, 2:448.
504
Level of Disaffection
Yes
No
Tory
9
0
Disaffected
12
1
Somewhat disaffected
20
15
Patriot
7
5
83
Table 10.1: Senate vote to emit paper currency, 1785.
With regard to military service, all but one of the categories shows significant support for
the 1785 currency bill. Those House assemblymen who served exclusively in the militia
favored paper money twenty to four, and those who had served in both militia and
Continental units all voted for the emission. The militia veterans’ support for the bill by
a five to one margin suggests their state-centered, localist perspective. Only those who
had not served at all divided closely on the measure, with a sixteen to fourteen split.
Many of this latter group who opposed the emission were involved with commerce and
trade. (Table 10.2)
83
NCSR, 17:406.
505
Service
Yes
No
Militia
20
4
Continental
5
3
Both Cont. and Militia
4
0
None
16
14
Undetermined
3
0
84
Table 10.2: Military service influence on House vote to emit paper currency, 1785.
With regard to a sectional pattern to the House vote on the £100,000 currency emission, a
divide appears between the backcountry, Cape Fear Valley and the frontier, all of which
supported the measure, and the Albemarle, which opposed it. Interestingly, the
coastal/ports House members supported the emission by a margin of eight to three. (Table
10.3) Thus, with regard to the emission of paper currency in 1785, a sectional divide
between the Albemarle Sound area and the western parts of the state can clearly be seen,
similar to Jackson Turner Main’s conclusion along these lines.85 It is also clear that the
war itself, in the form of disaffection, also significantly influenced voting as well, as did
the type of military service Assemblymen saw during the conflict.
84
NCSR, 17:406.
85
Main, Political Parties before the Constitution, 315.
506
Region
Yes
No
Albemarle
2
8
Coastal Ports
8
3
Cape Fear
8
1
Old Granville
10
7
Backcountry
15
1
Frontier
5
1
Table 10.3: Regionalism and House vote to emit paper currency, 1785.
While debtors and creditors battled throughout the 1780s over matters of finance,
stays, debts, currency and depreciation, between 1783 and 1789 over $15,000,000 in
nominal value of the state’s old currency was retired by the various measures employed,
including land sales, repudiation, and taxes, which meant that in excess of seventy-five
percent of the wartime currency had been withdrawn from circulation by late 1789, not
including that worn out paper which was lost, destroyed or had deteriorated by that point.
The sale of confiscated property—facilitated by the state’s allowance of certificates of all
types to be used in its purchase—added much needed revenue to the government coffers
by 1790, at which point these transactions ended. In addition, even though the land office
closed in May 1784 after “frenzied speculation,” the sales of western lands did in fact
507
reduce a sizeable portion of the state’s public debt. A total of 4,464,195½ acres were
purchased, with a value in certificates of £446,419.86
Western lands were the subject of considerable interest in the state. One of the
major questions of the postwar years was that of the disposition of the state’s vast amount
of “back lands,” an issue also tied in with paper currency and the development of
sectionalism and political factions in the aftermath of the revolutionary struggle. The
Carolina charters of 1629, 1663 and 1665 were often cited by contemporaries as the basis
of North Carolina’s land claims as far west as the Mississippi, and perhaps even the
Pacific Ocean. Either way, it was conceded by all that what is today Tennessee was then
part of North Carolina, and represented the latter’s most significant asset as it emerged
from the years of war, destruction, and debt. What was to be done with these vast
holdings related to the state’s relationship with the Confederation or national government
as well.87
The Confederation Congress, severely strapped for cash and trying to right its
unstable financial ship, looked to those states with western lands to turn over ownership
of them to the national government, which would sell those acres in order to pay off its
debts. Virginia and New York were implored by Congress to cede their vast holdings.
North Carolina too was “frequently pressed to relinquish control of the [western] region
86
Morrill, Fiat Finance, 23-24, 38-39, 94. Schoepf had observed in 1784 that “the new money was printed
on very thin paper, which the people believed was “selected on purpose” to disintegrate before it could be
redeemed. “This mistrust is proof that the people have not the highest regard for government.” Even so,
without specie, paper money was all that most Carolinians had to transact any kind of business, other than
credit. Schoepf, Travels in the Confederation, 130. See also a petition on currency, House Bills File,
November-December 1785, Box 4, General Assembly Session Records, N.C. State Archives, which
describes the paper money at the time as “much defaced, ragged and become unintelligible.”
87
Lefler and Newsome, North Carolina: History of a Southern State, 270.
508
beyond the mountains to Congress,” as she held so much land, where perhaps one-tenth
of her population lived.88
By the early 1780s, some state leaders suggested that North Carolina should give
up her claims to the western country for a number of reasons. By doing so, Carolinians
would reduce the state’s share of the national debt, which was considerable. The state
owed huge sums to the Confederation government—after 1780, it did not contribute
anything to the common cause due to the demands of the British campaign in the South
by that time. Some Carolinians also sought to escape the great expense of protecting the
western settlements from hostile Indians nearby . In addition, by 1784, there was the
possibility of a Continental land tax, which North Carolina would have to pay on the
western lands if it retained them; the less land it had, the less taxes it would have to pay
to the national government.89
There were a number of people living beyond the mountains who favored the
cession of lands. Part of this was due to hostility toward the eastern government, as a
result of the perceived neglect by the state for their needs, especially inadequate (or
nonexistent) military protection from the Indians. Westerners also complained that the
state had by war’s end created no court districts west of Morganton, which was east of
the Appalachians, a significant hardship to them.90 A number of inhabitants and North
88
North Carolina Delegates to Alexander Martin, 22 October 1782, Letters of Delegates to Congress,
19:290-291; Lefler and Newsome, North Carolina: History of a Southern State, 274; Ashe, History of
North Carolina, 2:34; Benjamin Hawkins and Hugh Williamson to Alexander Martin, 26 September 1783,
NCSR, 16: 888-889.
89
William S. Powell, North Carolina: A Bicentennial History, 83; Lefler and Newsome, North Carolina:
History of a Southern State, 274; Robinson, William R. Davie, 169; Boyd, History of North Carolina, 2:1213.
90
Lefler and Newsome, North Carolina: History of a Southern State, 274; Ashe, History of North
Carolina, 2:34.
509
Carolina land speculators “welcomed congressional intervention because they felt that
Congress had a better chance of negotiating further cessions from the Indians, and
terminating border warfare”—in other words, protecting their investments.91 Some
easterners too wanted to cede that part of the state, which as one of them thought, was
filled with “the offscourings of the earth [and] fugitives from justice,” people who were
“a pest and a burthen to us.”92
There was, as it turned out, a major impediment to giving these lands to Congress.
In 1780, a military reservation had been established in the western area “to be used as a
bounty for enlistments in military service,” and three years later the rest of the territory
(except that which was still considered to be Indian lands) “was made security for the
new state currency.” Thus, these many acres Congress had its eyes on were the basis of
the state’s most recent paper currency emission, and its veterans’ benefits.93 Other
objections to a transfer were raised as well. Many Carolinians thought it was premature,
especially given the state’s credit and financial woes, namely, its own debt. “Until our
own internal debt is paid, which is immense…this land seems to be the only proper
means by which this can be effected,” Alexander Martin concluded.94 Many held that no
transfer or cession should be made until the Confederation government agreed to offset
North Carolina’s debt by the amount it had spent for Indian campaigns, and the militia
91
Risjord, Chesapeake Politics, 225-234.
92
Lefler and Newsome, North Carolina: History of a Southern State, 275; Archibald Maclaine to James
Iredell, 22 December 1789, Gordon DenBoer, ed., The Documentary History of the First Federal elections,
1788-1790, 15 vols. (Madison : University of Wisconsin Press, 1989) 4:349-351.
93
Robinson, William R. Davie, 169; William S. Powell, North Carolina Through Four Centuries, 219;
Boyd, History of North Carolina, 2:12.
94
Alexander Martin to N.C. Congressional Delegation, 8 December 1783, NCSR, 16:919-920; North
Carolina Delegates to Alexander Martin, 22 October 1782, Letters of Delegates to Congress, 19:290-291.
510
aid for South Carolina and Georgia.95 As a result, North Carolina initially turned “a deaf
ear” to Congress, and refused to cede the land to the federal government.96
However, in April 1784, after Virginia had ceded its western lands to the new
United States, North Carolina made a conditional offer to cede its lands. As part of the
stipulations, land was to be considered “as a common fund for the use and benefit of the
whole nation,” any new state created out of the cession must have a republican form of
government, and if this territory ever became a separate state, it had to assume a portion
of the public debt in proportion to the value of the land it contained. Significantly, as it
turned out, the offer “terminated in one year if Congress did not accept the cession.”97
The measure passed 52-43 in the state house (Table 10.4.) Counties with a strong
wartime Tory presence opposed the measure, but those counties for which disaffection
was not as much of a concern favored it. Perhaps this was because many counties in this
latter group were in the west, where the land cession was more widely supported.
Conversely, representatives of the “Tory counties” of the Cape Fear River Valley had
little interest in western lands, and may have favored their cession to reduce the state’s
debt to Congress.
95
NCSR, XIX, 712-714; William S. Powell, North Carolina: A Bicentennial History (New York: W.W.
Norton, 1977) 86; Boyd, History of North Carolina, Vol. II (Chicago: The Lewis Publishing Co., 1919) 1314; Lefler and Newsome, North Carolina: History of a Southern State, 256; Robinson, William R. Davie,
170.
96
97
Robinson, William R. Davie, 169; William S. Powell, North Carolina Through Four Centuries, 219.
William S. Powell, North Carolina: A Bicentennial History (New York: W.W. Norton, 1977) 85-86.
Lefler and Newsome, North Carolina: History of a Southern State, 274 Ashe, History of North Carolina,
2:34.
511
Level of Disaffection
Yes
No
Tory
4
8
Disaffected
3
10
Somewhat disaffected
24
14
Patriot
9
5
98
Table 10.4: House vote to cede western lands to Congress, April 1784.
In a regional analysis, it is clear that the Albemarle and Coastal/ports areas supported the
cession of western lands to the Confederation government by a wide margin, with
opposition coming from the backcountry and the frontier. The Cape Fear Valley and the
Old Granville regions, however, were almost evenly split. (Table 10.5)
98
Robinson, William R. Davie, 169-170; NCSR, 19:643. It should be noted that when the matter of ceding
the land first came up at the April 1784 legislative meeting, William R. Davie, who opposed the measure,
moved to lay over the bill to the next session, but it failed 47-46, a very cl