On August 14, 1775 some North Carolina colonial men, possibly as many as four dozen or so, met at the Tryon County courthouse. That is, they crowded into Christian (“Christy”) Mauney’s isolated log house at a country cross roads thirty some miles west of Charlotte. There they drafted and copied into the minutes a document […]
Book Review: The First American Declaration of Independence? The Disputed History of the Mecklenburg Declaration of May 20, 1775 By Scott Syfert. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2014. Paperback. $35.00. ISBN 978-0-7864-7559-9. Pp. x, 250. Index, bibliography, maps and illustrations. For more than two centuries, controversy has surrounded the issue of whether or not a group of […]
It had been a tense three weeks in the Carolinas for General Nathanael Greene, the commander of the American southern army. In the wake of General Daniel Morgan’s decisive victory at Cowpens on January 17th, 1781, General Greene moved to reunite his divided army. While Morgan’s 550 man light corps slowly withdrew northeastward into North […]
The city you probably never thought about for its role in the Revolution had a tremendously important role in the conflict. Boston, Philadelphia, Newport, and New York are well known for their Revolutionary War history. The smaller southern towns of Williamsburg, Charleston, and Savannah are also recognized for their Revolutionary significance. Yet one city stands […]
It was January 1776. In a bold plan hatched in London to end this rebellion, General Sir Henry Clinton was to sail from New York with 2,000 British regulars to the Cape Fear coastline of North Carolina. Meeting him in Brunswick, North Carolina with more troops would be naval commander Commodore Sir Peter Parker and […]
The historical debate concerning the Loyalists in the Revolutionary South has generally focused on matters such as the Loyalists’ numbers and motivations. While these are issues deserve study, one aspect of the Loyalists’ role in the southern campaign has received far less attention: that of leadership. The British government’s “Southern Strategy” depended to a great […]
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 loyalists commanded by Colonel John Pyle at Holt’s Race Paths in North Carolina. Pretending that he was British Lieutenant Colonel Banastre Tarleton, and his Continentals the similarly clad troops of Tarleton’s […]
They say that history is written by the victors. Thus, the story of the American Revolution is largely one of heroic figures such as George Washington and Patrick Henry and largely-than-life episodes, such as the winter at Valley Forge or victory at Yorktown. Because America won its independence from Great Britain, rather than lost the […]
Our spring break road trip concludes the same way as the major fighting of the Revolutionary War did — in the south. The first stop is New Bern, North Carolina, to stroll the garden paths and grounds of Tryon Palace, “the place where governors ruled, legislators debated, patriots gathered and George Washington danced.” Ninety minutes […]
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 Lexington and Concord that had occurred a month earlier. As one local militia leader named John McKnitt Alexander recalled, “We smelt and felt the Blood & carnage of Lexington, which raised […]
Transportation in the eighteenth century was a major factor in the growth of economic activity in the colonial period. The most common transportation of the day, and the fastest, was by horseback. As reported in 1779, a Whitmel Hill rode from Philadelphia to his home in Martin County, North Carolina in seven and one-half days. […]
Read Part 1 The economic life of the Southern colonists was also most positive as the colonial period continued. Up until the end of French and Indian War, when strict supervision began, the British had allowed the colonists a fair degree of freedom in all their economic endeavors. While the mother country had attempted to […]
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 every aspect of their lives, these peoples had achieved a standard of life not equaled even in the mature societies and economies of Western Europe. The evidence of details of the […]
