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In September 1780, writing from Hillsborough, North Carolina, just one month after the disastrous defeat at Camden, Maj. Gen. Horatio Gates penned a disconcerted…
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Leaving Colonel Francis Lord Rawdon to command in the field from Georgetown to Augusta, Lt. Gen. Charles Earl Cornwallis, the British General Officer Commanding…
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In late June 1780 a messenger arrived in Charleston, South Carolina, with intelligence for Lt. Gen. Charles, Earl Cornwallis. The messenger, Capt. John La Boularderie…
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North Carolina’s Revolutionary Founders, edited by Jeff Broadwater and Troy L. Kickler (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2019) The Old North…
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Georgia’s fragile independence within the new American republic was shattered on December 29, 1778, when British troops attacked Savannah. Despite clear signs that the…
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During the American Revolution, Bergen County, New Jersey, was flooded with combatants from all over America, many of whom had never been to the…
On this week’s Dispatches host Brady Crytzer interviews JAR contributor Andrew Waters on the course of the campaign through the Carolinas, including Cowpens and other key…
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Besides dealing with events elsewhere, this article relates in particular the plight of the Carolina loyalists and the way in which British ascendancy in…
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The Road to Charleston, Nathanael Greene and the American Revolution by John Buchanan (University Press of Virginia, 2019) John Buchanan’s latest account of the southern theater…
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Jordi Ferragut Mesquida, better known by his anglicized name George Farragut, was the only known Spanish volunteer who fought under the American flag in…
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During the southern campaigns the British used two kinds of cipher, each kind being markedly different from the other. The First Kind of Cipher: The…
As Daniel Morgan collected his prisoners on the morning of January 17, 1781, he knew Charles, Lord Cornwallis, could not be far behind. “The…
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In this article I address the absurdity of Cornwallis’s decision to march from Wilmington, North Carolina, to Virginia and the light thrown on it…
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No British officer was more reviled by Patriots in the South during the American Revolution than Lt. Col. Banastre Tarleton. Based partly on fact…
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The October 7, 1780 Battle of Kings Mountain is likely familiar to those even casually interested in the American Revolution. For those who look…
If the headline of a January or February 1776 edition of any North American Tory newspaper read, “Norfolk, Virginia, Sacked by North Carolina and…
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Strong in the memories of North Carolina veterans of the Revolution were images of Tory (Americans loyal to the British government) terrorists, mounted on…
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On January 10, 1776, the British governor of North Carolina, Josiah Martin, then bobbing on the HMS Scorpion off Wilmington, appointed just over two…
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The American War of Independence produced many dramatic episodes, but none surpassed the campaign that Lt. Gen. Charles, Second Earl Cornwallis, conducted in North…
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One of the most enjoyable aspects of researching the history of the American Revolution is the process of looking beneath and/or beyond those events…
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Known primarily through a mix of fact and legend as the most notorious Patriot of the southern campaigns, Paddy Carr was also claimed to…
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On March 10, 1782, Colonel David Fanning led a band of vengeful Loyalists on a path of slaughter and arson in northern Randolph County,…
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I plan to write about how the Tory guerrilla David Fanning changed after being made a Loyalist Colonel and given his own red coat,…
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Had he made it through the war, John McClure’s name would likely draw equal fame and respect as the nation’s most celebrated southern patriots….
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When news of Lord Cornwallis’s surrender at Yorktown on October 19, 1781 arrived in southeastern North Carolina well into November, the war there did…
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On August 14, 1775 some North Carolina colonial men, possibly as many as four dozen or so, met at the Tryon County courthouse. That…
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Book Review: The First American Declaration of Independence? The Disputed History of the Mecklenburg Declaration of May 20, 1775 By Scott Syfert. Jefferson, NC:…
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It had been a tense three weeks in the Carolinas for General Nathanael Greene, the commander of the American southern army. In the wake…
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The city you probably never thought about for its role in the Revolution had a tremendously important role in the conflict. Boston, Philadelphia, Newport,…
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It was January 1776. In a bold plan hatched in London to end this rebellion, General Sir Henry Clinton was to sail from New…
The historical debate concerning the Loyalists in the Revolutionary South has generally focused on matters such as the Loyalists’ numbers and motivations. While these…
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On February 25, 1781, the Continental cavalry of Lieutenant Colonel Henry “Light Horse Harry” Lee’s Legion and Brigadier Andrew Pickens’s militia encountered several hundred…
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They say that history is written by the victors. Thus, the story of the American Revolution is largely one of heroic figures such as…
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Our spring break road trip concludes the same way as the major fighting of the Revolutionary War did — in the south. The first…
In late May 1775, the Scots-Irish settlers of remote Mecklenburg County, in the Carolina backcountry, received news by express messenger of the Battles of…
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Transportation in the eighteenth century was a major factor in the growth of economic activity in the colonial period. The most common transportation of…
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Read Part 1 The economic life of the Southern colonists was also most positive as the colonial period continued. Up until the end of…
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As the mid-eighteenth century arrived, life for the Southern colonists was the best that the British colonial experience could ever have yielded. In almost…