By RichaRd M. Ripley

Introduction. Early in the morning on January 17, 1781 at the battle of the Cow pens in South Carolina some 800 American troops under Brig. Gen. Daniel Morgan routed and defeated a British force of 1150 officers and men under Lt. Col. Banastre Tarleton. Morgan had selected the Cow pens area because it was familiar to the militia. In October, 1780, it was used as a camping ground prior to marching to the Battle of Kings Mountain. Morgan organized his troops to take tactical advantage of the local terrain and his knowledge of how Tarleton would react on contact. He located his forces in three lines; the first, a line of sharpshooters; the second, a line of militia units. The third and final included the veteran continental units. They would stay and block the attack. Morgan’s battle concept was that he expected Tarleton to make a direct attack on his front. He instructed the militia to fire two rounds and then withdraw to the left side, move back around the hill and be prepared to resume an attack around the right. He posted his cavalry in reserve behind the hill, ready to attack around the left side. He was prepared to make a double envelopment maneuver.

Tarleton received information of Morgan’s location at 3 o’clock in the morning. He raised his troops and by a forced march arrived at the Cow pens at 7 o’clock in the morning. His troops had been on force marches with very little sleep and no food for over 48 hours. They arrived, tired hungry and cold, in the winter weather. Tarleton did exactly as what Morgan expected him immediately attacked the American front; the militia fired two rounds and withdrew. The British, taking this as a route, attacked into the center and was immediately surrounded by flanking attack on both sides. The result was a complete destruction of the British. Tarleton escaped with a small reserve force. The British had lost over 800 men killed wounded and captured the American

casualties were including killed and wounded was around 100.It was the frontier militia assembling “when they were about

to be attacked in their own homes” who struck the blow that actually marked the turning point in the south. Late in 1780, with Clinton’s reluctant consent, Cornwallis set out on the invasion of North Carolina. He sent Maj. Patrick Ferguson, who had successfully organized the Tories in the upcountry of South Carolina, to move north simultaneously with his “American Volunteers,” spread the Tory gospel in the North Carolina back country, and join the main army at Charlotte with a maximum number of recruits. Ferguson’s advance northward alarmed the “over-mountain men” in western North Carolina, southwest Virginia, and what is now east Tennessee. A picked force of mounted militia riflemen gathered on the Catawba River in western North Carolina, set out to find Ferguson, and brought him to bay at King’s Mountain near the border of the two Carolinas on October 7. In a battle of patriot against Tory (Ferguson was the only British soldier present), the patriots’ triumph was complete. Ferguson himself was killed and few of his command escaped death or capture. Some got the same “quarter” Tarleton had given Buford’s men at the Waxhaws.

King’s Mountain was as fatal to Cornwallis’ plans as Bennington had been to those of Burgoyne. The North Carolina Tories, cowed by the fate of their compatriots, gave him little support. The British commander on October 14, 1780, began a wretched retreat in the rain back to Winnsboro, South Carolina, with militia harassing his progress. Clinton was forced to divert an expedition of 2,500 men sent to establish a base in Virginia to reinforce Cornwallis.

General Greene’s Strategy. The frontier militia had turned the tide, but having done so, they returned to their homes. To keep it moving against the British was the task of the new commander, General Nathaneal Greene. When Greene arrived in Charlotte, North Carolina, early in December 1780, he found a command that consisted of 1,500 men fit for duty, only 949 of them Continentals. The army lacked clothing and provisions and had little systematic means of procuring them. Greene decided that he must not engage Cornwallis’ army in battle until he had built up

GREENE’S SOUTHERN CAMPAIGN AND THE BATTLE OF THE COW PENS

A Major Revolutionary War Victory

Brig. Gen. Daniel Morgan

VOLUME 22 SPRING/SUMMER 2016 ISSUE 1

PAGE TWO RECALL

his strength, that he must instead pursue delaying tactics to wear down h is stronger opponent. The first thing he did was to take the unorthodox step of dividing his army in the face of a superior force, moving part under his personal command to Cheraw Hill, and sending the rest under Brig. Gen. Daniel Morgan west across the Catawba over 200 miles away. It was an intentional violation of the principle of mass. Greene wrote:

I am well satisfied with the movement. It makes the most of my inferior force, for it compels my adversary to divide his, and holds him in doubt as to his own line of conduct. He cannot leave Morgan behind him to come at me, or his posts at Ninety-Six and Augusta would be exposed. And he cannot chase Morgan far, or prosecute his views upon Virginia, while I am here with the whole country open before me. I am as near to Charleston as he is, and as near Hillsborough as I was at Charlotte; so that I am in no danger of being cut off from my reinforcements.

Left unsaid was the fact that divided forces could live off the land much easier than one large force and constitute two rallying points for local militia instead of one. Greene was, in effect, sacrificing mass to enhance maneuver.

Cornwall is, an aggressive commander, had determined to gamble everything on a renewed invasion of North Carolina. Ignoring Clinton’s warnings, he depleted his Charleston base by bringing almost all his supplies forward. In the face of Greene’s dispositions, Cornwall is divided his army into not two but three parts. He sent a holding force to Camden to contain Green, directed Tarleton with a fast-moving contingent of 2,200 infantry and cavalry to find and crush Morgan, and with the remainder of his army moved cautiously up into North Carolina to cut off any of Morgan’s force that escaped Tarleton.

Tarleton caught up with Morgan on January 17, 1781, west of King’s Mountain at a place called the Cowpens, an open, sparsely forested area six miles from the Broad River. Morgan chose this site to make his stand less by design than necessity, for he had intended to get across the Broad. Nevertheless, on

ground seemingly better suited to the action of Regulars, he achieved a little tactical masterpiece, making the most effective use of his heterogeneous force, numerically equal to that of Tarleton but composed of three-fourths militia. Selecting a hill as the center of his position, he placed his Continental infantry on it, deliberately leaving his flanks open. Well out in front of the main line he posted militia riflemen in two lines, instructing the first line to fire two volleys and then fall back on the second, the combined line to fire until the British pressed them, then to fall back to the rear of the Continentals and re-form as a reserve. Behind the hill he placed Lt. Col. William Washington’s cavalry detachment, ready to charge the attacking enemy at the critical moment. Every man in the ranks was informed of the plan of battle and the part he was expected to play in it.

On finding Morgan, Tarleton ordered an immediate attack. His men moved forward in regular formation, were momentarily checked by the militia rifles, but, taking the retreat of the first two lines to be the beginning of a rout, rushed headlong into the steady fire of the Continentals on the hill. When the British were well advanced, the American Cavalry struck them on the right flank and the militia, having re-formed, charged from behind the hill to hit the British left. Caught in a clever double envelopment, the British surrendered after suffering heavy losses. Tarleton managed to escape with only a small force of cavalry he had held in reserve. It was on a small scale, and with certain significant differences, a repetition of the classic double envelopment of the Romans by a Carthaginian army under Hannibal at

Cannae in 216 B.C., an event of which Morgan, no reader of books, probably had not the foggiest notion.

Having struck his fatal blow against Tarleton, Morgan still had to move fast to escape Cornwallis. Covering 100 miles and crossing two rivers in five days, he rejoined Greene early in February. Cornwallis by now was too heavily committed to the campaign in North Carolina to withdraw. Hoping to match the swift movement of the Americans, he destroyed all his superfluous supplies, baggage, and wagons and set forth in pursuit of Greene’s army. The American general retreated, through North Carolina, up into southern Virginia, then back into North Carolina again, keeping just far enough in front of his adversary to avoid battle with Cornwallis’ superior force. Finally on March 15, 1780, at Guilford Court House in North Carolina, on ground he had himself chosen, Greene halted and gave battle. By this time he had collected 500 Continentals and 3,000 militia to the 1,900 Regulars the British could muster. The British held the field after a hard-fought battle, but suffered casual ties of over one-fourth of the force engaged. It was, like Bunker Hill, a Pyrrhic victory. His ranks depleted and his supplies exhausted, Cornwallis withdrew to Wilmington on the coast, and then decided to move northward to join the British forces General Clinton had sent to Virginia.

Greene, his army in better condition than six months earlier, pushed rapidly into South Carolina to reduce the British posts in the interior. He fought two battles-at Hobkirk’s Hill on April 25, and at Eutaw Springs on September 18, losing both but with approximately the same results as at Guilford Court House. One by one the British interior posts fell to Greene’s army, or: to militia and partisans. By October 1781 the British had been forced to withdraw to their port strongholds along the coast - Charleston and Savannah. Greene had lost battles, but won a campaign. In so doing, he paved the way for a greater victory to follow at Yorktown.

Colonial Roots. An examination of the

American military during the colonial period must inevitably begin with a brief sketch of the origins of the institution of the English militia, for the militia was the cornerstone of England’s military structure and served a similar function in America. The founding principal was generally based on the principle of the Saxon fyrd that every able-bodied free male from ages sixteen to sixty should render military service. Each member of the militia was obligated to appear for training at his county or town seat a certain number of days each year, to provide himself with weapons and to hold himself in readiness for call in case of attack or other emergency.

The first colonists in Virginia (1607), Plymouth (1620), Massachusetts Bay (1629), and Connecticut (1636) brought English military traditions with them.

They also drew upon the experience of earlier English colonists in Ireland, protecting themselves from hostile natives by living within wooden forts and organizing themselves into a militia. The little trading post at Jamestown, to maintain the discipline necessary to survive in the Virginia wilderness, organized itself into a virtual regimental garrison within two years of its founding complete with companies and squads. Plymouth, in the advice of Miles Standish, its military advisor, formed four companies of militia to maintain order and patrol its borders. The larger and wealthier Massachusetts Bay Colony profiled from the experiences of the earlier settlers. In 1629 its first expedition left England for Salem with a militia company already organized and equipped with the latest weapons. Although standing regiments were not to appear in England until 1642, by

December 1636 Massachusetts Bay had grouped its 15 companies into three regional regiments. Other colonies followed suit: Maryland and Plymouth in 1658, Virginia in 1666, and Connecticut in 1672.

The constant threat of attack by Indian tribes and the danger presented by the Dutch on the southwest and the French on the north brought the colonies of Massachusetts, Plymouth, Connecticut and New Haven together in a common effort for protection in 1643. Representatives from each colony, meeting at Boston, drew up 12 articles of confederation that were ratified by the four colonies. Each member of the self-styled Confederation of the United Colonies of New England sent two representatives annually to determine the Indian policy, deal with foreign powers and settle differences among themselves. The Confederation was the first attempt at federalism in America. But Massachusetts dominated its affairs, and largely because of this, its activity virtually ceased after 1664, and by 1684 the union was terminated.

SPRING 2015 PAGE THREE

Colonial Militia in America— 1607-1774 —

By RichaRd M. Ripley

New England Militiaman

Training Days, such as this “first muster” in 1637, at Salem, Massachusetts, were required by law for colonial militias.

—National Guard Bureau.

Map of the early colonies.

PAGE FOUR RECALL

A Look at Colonial Militia. Many historians have tended to assume that the

colonial militia was a fairly static, unchanging, relatively uncomplicated institution: once it’s simply theory of organization has been described, there seems to be little need to study it further for signs of deviation or change as one would think, say political institutions.

It is not difficult to understand why the militia has been treated in terms of a relative sameness; one has only to read the laws to know the answer. In 1632, the Virginia Assembly told every man fit to carry a gun to bring it to church, that he might exercise with it after the service. One hundred forty years later, the legislature of Revolutionary Massachusetts ordered men between the ages of 16 and 50 to be enrolled in the militia, to provide their own weapons and equipment, and to be mustered and trained periodically by their duly commissioned officers. That is the same thing Virginia said if in a less sophisticated language. Note also that the Massachusetts law is identical to that of the early colonies, except that the age extended to age 60. During the colonial period the colonies passed some 600 laws relating to their militias, all with similar content and detail.

However, further study suggests that the early militia was a more complicated―and more interesting―institution, that it varied from province to province, that it changed through time as the military demands placed upon it changed, and that these variations and changes are important to understand the colonial militia.

Regional differences emerged fairly soon in the colonial militia. In the Chesapeake Bay area, a plantation economy based on tobacco took hold, leading to a rural settlement pattern. This meant that it took a broad geographic area to form a company, and a county normally had only one regiment. In New England, an economy based on trade and Puritan religious convictions led to a town-based residential system. With their denser population, the New Englanders could form more than one regiment in each county. The clustering of manpower and the cohesive atmosphere in the town community gave New England greater military strength. Pennsylvania remained an exception to the general pattern. Settled originally by pacifist Quakers, it did not pass a law establishing a mandatory militia until 1777.

Indian Warfare. Relations between the earliest English colonists

and the Indians were reasonably peaceful, especially in Plymouth Colony. But the colonists’ desire for more and more land made hostility inevitable. The Indian wars in Virginia in 1622 (in which 25% of the colonists were massacred) and 1644, and the Pequot War in New England in 1637 and King Philip’s War in 1675 began a pattern that was to continue on the American frontier for almost 250 years.

The Indians would attack white settlements, usually the smaller and more isolated outposts. The militia would gather to defend the settlements and to pursue the Indians deep in their own territory. Temporary detachments were used for sustained operations in the wilderness, minimizing the economic hardship on individual militiamen.

This was a very different type of warfare than was going on in Europe at the same time, and it meant changes in tactics and equipment. Body armor of metal and leather was fine for a European

battlefield, but it was a hindrance when chasing Indians through the woods and swamps of eastern North America. And European emphasis on drill and coordinated movement gave way to the individual initiative required for frontier warfare.

When immediate danger subsided as a colony matured, the standing militia remained active, although it tended to serve as an institution to train young men in the art of war, as a source of recruits or draftees, and as a law-enforcement agency. A supplemental institution emerged for most combat missions in the wars of the 1670s: hired volunteers to range the frontiers, patrolling between outposts and giving early warning of any Indian attack. Other volunteers combined with friendly Indians for offensive operations deep in the wilderness, where European tactics were ineffective. The memoirs of the most successful leader of these mixed forces, Benjamin Church, were published by his son, Thomas, in 1716 and represent the first American military manual.

By the end of the seventeenth century, the principal threat to the British colonies was changing. Europeans―French and Spanish―became the main danger. Virginia found itself so little troubled by the new threat, and her Indian enemies so weak, that militia virtually ceased to exist there for about a half century, a time when a handful of semi-professional rangers could watch the frontier. When the Tuscarora momentarily menaced Virginia in 1713, Governor Alexander Spotswood had little success in ordering out the militia. He then tried to recruit 200 volunteers from the counties along the frontier (“for those that are far enough from it are little inclined to adventure themselves”), but soon learned that frontiersmen were understandably reluctant to leave their homes in time of danger. Spotswood, finally convinced that he could not make war, made peace.

During the same period, the frontiers of Massachusetts were under sporadic attack by French supported Indians. After the loss of Deerfield in 1704, the colony developed a net of what has been called in another time and place, “strategic villages,” from Hadley to Wells in Maine, each protected by its own militia and augmented by provincial troops that used horses in summer, snowshoes in the winter, to connect the towns by patrols and to

conduct raids into Indian country. Clearly the New England militia was retaining much of its vitality.

The French and Indian War. The new European threat of the eighteenth century

called forth responses that went far beyond the original conception to militia. War against France and Spain required larger forces, serving for a longer time, and traveling greater distances. These were volunteer forces, paid and supplied, often armed and clothed, by the government. Regiments completely separate from the militia were raised for specific campaigns, usually lasting for six to eight months or longer. These units, called Provincials, were patterned after regular British regiments and were recruited from the militia, often during normal drill training assemblies. The most famous Provincials were formed by Major Robert Rogers of New Hampshire during the French and Indian War (1754-1673). His “Rangers” performed reconnaissance for the Regulars invading Canada and conducted occasional long-range raids against the French and their Indian allies, ranging as far as the Northwest Territory in what is now northern Michigan.

Indian Warrior

Virginia Militiaman

become more social than military organizations. They became the hallmarks of respectability or at least of full citizenship in the community. The training days were a highlight of the local social season where the community gathered, had picnics, and were seen by friends and political leaders.

The Seven Years or French and Indian War ended with the fall of Quebec in 1759. Finally, in 1763, following the Peace of Paris (1763), France was expelled from North America. Soon after, Britain established a stop line, which separated the Indians and New England. This was ignored by the colonies and westward expansion was soon to follow.

SPRING 2015 PAGE FIVE

Colonial Militia in the SouthBy John duRhaM

The Seven Years War in America was primarily an attack on Canada with New England supplying most of the provincial troops. Fighting ceased to be a function of the community as such and most volunteers were obtained from other than the local militia units. British commanders viewed the provincial units as generally suffering from low morale and slack discipline. But they were not militia units. The New England militia had not decayed to the extent that it had elsewhere. Later the battle of Bunker Hill would surprise the British as to how well these men could fight.

The militia companies tended in the eighteenth century to

The colonial militia in the south was relied upon for defense against the French, Spanish, or Native American attacks and for the suppression of any internal rebellion. The

militia was provided for in The Charters or Laws governing each colony. Most of these acts required that the militia hold itself in readiness until called into service by the government. When called into active service, the militiaman was often provided with weapons. But as the years progressed and individuals began owning their own weapons, such as hunting rifles, the militiamen were expected to provide their own. Many colonies had Provincial armories that stored government weapons which were issued to the troops when called into active duty.

Some of the significant action that the southern colonial militia were involved included: Queen Ann’s War, 1702-1713; Cary’s Rebellion, 1711; Tuscarora War, 1711-1715; the Yamassee and Cheraw Wars, 1715-1718; King George’s (Spanish War), 1739-1748; the French and Indian War, 1754-1763; the Cherokee Wars, 1858-1763; and the War of the Regulation, 1771.

Queen Ann’s War involved fighting between the British, French, and Spanish for control of the continent. The war began with a failed Spanish attempt to capture Charles Town. S.C. Next nearly 800 volunteers and Indians from South Carolina commanded by Governor James Moore, attacked Spanish-held St. Augustine in Florida in 1702. This expedition succeeded in destroying the vacated city, but was unsuccessful in capturing the impressive Fort Castillo de San Marcos. Many militia made up the troops in this campaign.

The Tuscarora Indians occupied eastern North Carolina. As English settlements began to encroach upon Tuscarora land, problems developed between the settlers, traders, and the Indians. This culminated in Indian attacks involving the massacre and torture of over 200 settlers in 1711. In 1712, a South Carolina militia force, commanded by James Barnwell, marched to North Carolina’s aid.

The force attacked and subsequently subdued the Tuscaroras and returned to South Carolina. The peace lasted but a short time, and, eventually, South Carolina sent James Moore with a force which included 33 militiamen, 300 Cherokee, 50 Yamassee, and about 500 additional Indians. Moore moved his army into the heart of Tuscarora country and attacked its main stronghold, Fort Neoheroka. It took three days to capture the fort. The Tuscarora losses included a total of 950 of their finest warriors. Moore losses included 57 killed and 82 wounded. This campaign destroyed Tuscarora power forever.

The Yamassee Indians had fled Florida to South Carolina in 1687. They lived a very peaceful existence for a time until traders

and settlers encroached on their land and caused the Yamassee to turn hostile in 1715, killing about 90 settlers. The Cheraws also joined in the hostilities. South Carolina was unable to crush the rebellion. They requested militia assistance from North Carolina and Georgia. The combined forces then defeated the Yamassee and forced them back to Florida where they were annihilated by the Creek Indians in 1733.

King George’s War began in 1740 and involved England, France, and Spain. In the Southern Colonies, Georgia troops under command of James Oglethorpe, Georgia’s founder, marched on St. Augustine with a force of 2000 men, including

soldiers, colonial volunteers, and Indians. The Spanish reinforced the town and Oglethorpe decided not to attack and returned home. In 1742, the Spanish launched a major expedition against Georgia and South Carolina, sending a 3000-man army against Oglethorpe’s

1000 men. The Spanish, employing a 36-ship navy task force, advanced to the harbor of St. Simons, Georgia, and landed. Oglethorpe, heavily outnumbered, surprised the Spanish by conducting a series or running attacks. He fooled several Spanish spies into believing that a large British fleet was enroute and was expected to land at any time. When several Carolina ships happened to sail by, the Spanish fled to their ships and sailed back to St. Augustine.

During the French and Indian War in the South, militia were constantly used by the colonial governments for defense against Indians, sending Provincial troops to assist in operations in the North, and preventing unrest among the slaves. In the last years of the French and Indian War (1760-1762), the Cherokee Indians waged continuous attacks against frontier settlers. At various times both North and South Carolina sent militia troops and rangers against the Cherokee with limited success. Finally, reinforced by a regiment of Scottish highlanders landing in 1762, the Cherokee were severely beaten. They sued for peace and ceded a large portion of Cherokee lands. This permitted settlement of the western territory to continue.

The War of the Regulation occurred in North Carolina in 1771. Militia and Regulators fought this war. When western farmers and settlers protested against the abuses by tax collectors and court officials, Governor William Tryon refused to act and connect the problems. These problems continued until violence erupted. An act was passed stating that the protestors were guilty of treason. Tensions continued to mount and finally Tryon called out the militia in the eastern counties. Armed and equipped, they were marched west to the Regulator country. A battle was fought in Alamance County between 1200 Militia and some 2000 Regulators. Undisciplined and poorly armed, the Regulators

Militia was key to survival of early settlers.

PAGE SIX RECALL

were completely defeated. Six of the leaders were hung, and the rest were forced to swear allegiance to the Government. Much has been said that Tryon’s performance in this campaign caused him to land the job as governor of New York. However, he had already been appointed to the position prior to the campaign.

John Durham has worked for several history museums and is

currently a historian and archivist for the N.C. Department of Archives and History. He is assigned to the archives military collection project. He has published several articles about North Carolina military history and is currently publishing a book detailing N.C. military history to 1861. He resides in Raleigh with his wife, Lynn, and son, Micajah.

NORTH CAROLINA’SColonial Era Military Records

Military recordsGeoRGe StevenSon

The overwhelming majority of the military records in the North Carolina State Archives are of a financial nature. They are not unlike bank

checks and the check registers in which they are posted. As a rule, one does not ask payees for the names of their parents, grandparents, spouse, children, or siblings nor for birthplace and date – and even if these questions are asked, it is unlikely that the information about kinship in the military records of North Carolina. If you are so fortunate as to find such data, celebrate. If you are not, be thankful that you can at least find evidence of an ancestor’s patriotic or military service when the colony or state stood in need of it.

Varying quantities of documents survive that relate to North Carolina’s military activities from the reign of Queen Anne through the twentieth century. The discussion of these conflicts and the records that resulted is arranged below in chronological order.the tuscarora indian War,1711-1715

An early morning massacre on 22 September 1711 precipitated a four-year war between the Tuscarora Indian nation and the colonists of North Carolina. By war’s end, Indian power in eastern North Carolina had been broken forever. The war was fought with considerable assistance from the neighboring colonies of Virginia and South Carolina – financial aid from the former and military aid from the latter. Although North Carolina raised a small militia force from time to time, the colony’s chief contribution to its own defense was to raise money and provisions for the small army of Yamassee Indians furnished by South Carolina. In 1712, the government of North Carolina imposed a levy of £5 and six bushels of corn on every tithable in the colony and a fourth of the wheat crop on every farm; a special property tax was imposed to raise additional cash.

RecordsTuscarora War records in the State Archives are chiefly lists of

colonists whose propertied estates were specially taxed to raise

money; of colonists who claimed reimbursement for military supplies (which implies but does not state military service); and of colonists who were levied for provisions and the amounts levied (“corn lists”). The records are found in two places: most are among tax lists in the Colonial Court Records series in the box Taxes & Accounts, 1679-1754, folders “Corn Lists:

n.d., 1715-1716”; “Claims 1713-1720”; and “Public Accounts: 1694-1739”. Financial in nature, the Tuscarora War records report the name of the precinct (now county); the name of the person; and the amount of the estate tax, number of bushels of corn, or value of other supplies furnished. Some few additional records of this nature are in the artificial collection called Albemarle County Records (although they relate chiefly to precincts in Bath County). Because they have become use-worn, the original have been withdrawn from researchers’ access and microfilm copies are provided in their stead.the spanish alarM, 1739-1748

What is known in other places as the War of Jenkins’ Ear (1739-1744) and King George’s War

(1744-1748) – or combined as the War or the Austrian Succession is known in North Carolina as the Spanish Alarm. Upon the outbreak of England’s war with Spain, North Carolina raised

This article includes pp. 355-366, extracted from North Carolina Research, Genealogy and Local History, 2nd Edition, 1996. Helen F.M. Leary, C.G., F.SA.S.G., Editor.North Carolina Genealogical Society, P.O. Box 1492, Raleigh, NC 27601-1492.

Permission to reproduce the pages was granted by Helen F.M. Leary, Editor; Mr. John M. Oden III, President, NC Genealogical Society; and George Stevenson, author of the book chapter. We thank them for their pennission.

This article furnishes a summary of military actions involving militia in North Carolina during the Colonial Period. Also it provides information concerning other records available at the Archives for use by a researcher.

A 1747 muster roll of soldiers from Carteret County during the Spanish Alarm. Spanish Invasion, 1742-1748. Military Collec-

tion, North Carolina State Archives.

four companies of 100 men each to join other colonial troops in the siege of Cartagena in present-day Colombia. One company, commanded by James Innes, set sail from the colony in 1740 and returned after two fever-ridden years with only 25 survivors. In addition to the 400 men raised for the Cartagena expedition, it was necessary for the colony to raise forces for the defense of its own coast – Spanish attacks in shipping and port towns were continuous from 1741 to 1748: the colony’s mercantile trade suffered a reduction of 75% during the Alarm; the town of Beaufort was taken and plundered in 1747; and Brunswick met the same fate in 1748. The Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle ended the war, both in Europe and America, in 1748.

RecordsA few muster rolls and troop returns of forces raised for the

colony’s defense survive; they form a minuscule part or a very large artificial collection of records brought together under the designation Military Collection in the State Archives. Within the Military Collection, records of the Spanish Alarm are labeled Spanish Invasion, 1742-1748. Virtually all are from the years 1747 and 1748. Most of these lists and returns were published, along with several related documents, in Volume XXII or The State Records of North Carolina at pages 262-286. Correspondence, orders of the governor-in-council, and legislative action concerning the war were published throughout Volume IV of The Colonial Records of North Carolina. (Both series and their four-volume index are cited in Selected References in Chapter 21.)

the French and indian War,1755-1763

The 1748 treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle that closed the War of the Austrian Succession ended the war in America but settled none of the rival claims of England and France in the colonies. Instead, these claims were disputed during a period of warfare that began in America in 1755 (in 1756 in Europe) and lasted until 1763. In Europe this struggle was known as the Seven Years’ War, in America as the French and Indian War. The British colonists in America and units of the regular British army, along with their Indian allies, fought the French and their Native American allies in the colonies and in Canada. A small number of North Carolinians saw action in Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, New York, South Carolina, and, of course, in North Carolina.

RecordsAlmost all of the original troop lists and pay receipts in the

State Archives concern service in the defense of North Carolina’s frontier rather than with service in another colony.

Military Collection. Frontier Scouting and Indian Wars, 1758-1778 (contains 19 documents relating to the France and Indian War).

Military Collection. Troop Returns: Militia, 1747-1754 and 1755-1773 (these two boxes include returns from many counties, naming the militiamen who made up the colony’s military strength. Some of the men may have been called up for duty during the French and Indian War but, with the exception of a 1763 Rowan County list, there is no indication on the lists themselves that this was the case. These militia returns were published in Volume XXII of the State Records of North Carolina on pages 306-399, and in some cases more accurately in Murtie June Clark’s Colonial Soldiers of the South [also cited in Chapter 21]).

Treasurer’s and Comptroller’s Records. Indian Affairs and Lands (the first box includes some few financial records that escaped notice when the artificial Military Collection was established. They date from the period 1756-1764 and consist of claims for goods stolen by the Indians; claims and certificates of service against the Cherokee nation; and expenses incurred in connection with treaty talks).

Treasurer’s and Comptroller’s Records. Military Papers (Box 1 includes a few accounts for military expenses of the war).

In addition to the above sources, correspondence, proclamations, orders, and resolutions concerning the war were published throughout Volume V and Volume VI of The Colonial Records of North Carolina.

The state’s Colonial Records Project copied British War office documents concerning North Carolina that are at the Public Record Office in London. A substantial amount of information about the colony during the French and Indian War can be found in these microfilmed records. They include correspondence between Governor Dobbs and Lord Loudoun (commander of the British forces in America) and between Governor Dobbs and Governor Lyttleton of South Carolina. One set of weekly returns for a small contingent of North Carolinians serving in Virginia is also among these records. The Colonial Records Project also copies the papers of Brigadier General Henry Bouquet that are in the British Library, London. Although they include no lists of North Carolina soldiers, the papers do illuminate the painful difficulty with which North Carolina raised troops during the war.

SPRING 2015 PAGE SEVEN

Portion of a corn list for Chowan Precinct, undated, “Corn Lists, No Dates, 1715-1716,” Taxes & Accounts, 1679-1754.

Colonial Court Records, North Carolina State Archives.

PAGE EIGHT RECALL

the War oF the regulation,1768-1771

As a rule, regulation movements (that is, private citizens banding together to regulate fellows of lawless disposition, disorderly lives, and evil conversation) often occur in sparsely settled areas. The distinction between attempts to be rid of small-time crooks on the frontier and similar attempts to remove dishonest officials in the interior is great. The former easily assumes a quasi-legal mantle that helps it win the approbation of established government; the latter constitutes an attack on established government itself, even though the battles are against offensive and offending officers of the law. In short, it is not advisable to send a posse to nab the high sheriff or waylay the King’s attorney. That, in effect, is just what the Regulation movement in North Carolina’s piedmont counties did.

Having tried the courts as a means of ending the extortion of excessive fees by public officials, the Regulators petitioned Governor William Tryon for redress in 1768. Tryon, in whom mercy appears not to have been a dominant trait, repulsed the petitioners. The Regulators then tried a show of strength by turning out a force of 3,700 men at a time when some of their leaders were to be tried in the Hillsborough District superior court on charges of inciting to riot. This force was overawed by the well officered detachment of 1,461 militiamen that Tryon called out to protect the court. The rebels went away in quietness – but they did not remain quiet for long. Jails in which Regulators were incarcerated were attacked by armed bands. Small mobs of them assaulted courts, interrupted their proceedings, and set up mock courts of their own in which they prosecuted absent officers of the law. When Regulators rioted at Hillsborough in 1770, William Hooper, later a signer of the Declaration of Independence but then one of the King’s attorneys, was “dragged

and paraded through the streets, and treated with every mark of contempt and insult.” Edmund Fanning, archenemy of the Regulators and great friend of Governor Tryon, was at the same time pulled from the courthouse by his heels and brutally beaten. To move from riot to wide-spread insurrection is but a step. The Regulators were ready to take that step by early 1771.

Governor Tryon met the threat of insurrection by offering a bounty of 40 shillings per volunteer militiaman. The force thus raised was molded into an infantry division supported by cavalry and artillery, baggage trains, and a mobile hospital. Well disciplined, well armed, and well commanded, Tryon’s miniature army squashed the regulators in the Battle of Alamance on 16 May 1771. For those who like to consider this battle the opening of the American Revolution, it may be well to point out that when that struggle broke out, hundreds of former regulators initially flocked to the King’s standard in opposition to the patriots.

The ruthlessness with which the regulators were put down was like a shock of cold water on the colony, but two valuable lessons were learned. When the state rebelled against the Crown four years later, the colonial leaders, many of whom had served with Tryon’s troops, knew they were in a life-or-death struggle, with no quarter given. They also had learned that in capable hands the militia could be forged into an effective fighting force.

RecordsMost records concerning the Regulation were sent by Governor

Josiah Martin to Tryon after that worthy had moved to New York (where he was Governor from 1771 until the Revolution). When Tryon’s house in New York was destroyed by fire, so were the records. There is no point, then, in trying to find the list of 3,000 Regulators who took the oath of allegiance after the Battle of Alamance, or most of the other records one would expect. With few exceptions, the remaining financial records of Tryon’s

Pay roll for a company of state militia during the War of the Regulation. War of the Regulation, 1771-1779, Box 2.

Military Collection, North Carolina State Archives.

An account rendered by Aventon Felps for the service of his company of scouts during the French and Indian War.

Frontier Scouting and Indian Wars, 1758-1788. Military Collection, North Carolina State Archives.

SPRING 2015 PAGE NINE

militia force (pay rolls, enlistment certificates, and warrants for commissaries’ claims). plus one journal and three order books of the 1771 campaign are now in the Military Collection under the heading War of the Regulation, 1768-1779. Shown is a pay roll taken from this series.

Numerous indictments for riot and assault during the Regulation period can be found in the Crown Dockets for Salisbury and Hillsborough Districts and some of the county courts; the careful researcher may be able to build a case for some of the accused persons having been Regulators, but it is well not to jump to conclusions. Additional information about the war is in the Governors’ Letter Books, the Governors’ Papers, and the General Assembly Records. Most of this material, along with reports and correspondence in the British Archives, was published in The Regulators in North Carolina: A Documentary History, 1759-1776, compiled and edited by William S. Powell, James K. Huhta, and Thomas J. Farnham (Raleigh: State Department of Archives and History, 1871).

the colonial and state MilitiaThe Battle of Alamance opened the eyes of colonial officials

to the benefits of a well-structured military organization. This new view of the potential uses of such a force was to serve them well during the Revolution and afterward. Before discussing the records of that war, therefore, it would be well to describe the organization of the colonial and state militia.

EligibilityThe militia was an armed force of able-bodied men within

certain age ranges who were subject to go into action when the colony and state needed to defend itself. Throughout the colonial period, men from 16 to 60 were liable for militia duty; for the first 30 years of statehood, the age range was 16 to 50; after 1806 it was fixed at 18 to 45, and since 1963 it has been 17 to 64. Certain categories of men were exempt from duty in the militia: county officials such as justices, coroners, sheriffs, undersheriffs, inspectors, patrollers, overseers of public works, public millers, and ferrymen; state officials of certain ranks; and members of select professions such as physician, surgeon, schoolmaster, and clergyman. Quakers were enrolled in the militia but were exempt from bearing arms either in muster or in warfare – they were required to furnish substitutes, and during the Revolution were subject to double or triple poll taxes. The categories of exemption were altered from time to time, and it is best to consult the laws in force at the time to determine if a specific man was exempt or not.

StructureThe militia was and is a home guard under command of the

governor. In the earliest days of the colony, governors held the rank of captain-general. Nowadays, they command under executive powers granted by the state Constitution. Originally, the militia was structured by county – each county regiment commanded by a colonel and subdivided into companies commanded by captains. The governor could and did impose further structuring of command levels when he was obliged to embody (or call out) the militia in the various wars in which it was needed. The first formal structuring of the colonial militia into brigades under command of a general officer occurred during the War of the Regulation.

When North Carolina found itself on the brink of revolution in 1775, both the royal governor and the patriots in the General Assembly vied for the loyalty of the militia. Governor Josiah Martin attempted to secure the militia by granting to men believed loyal to the Crown new commissions as colonels and

lesser officers in the militia regiments of their counties (thus replacing the old commanders who were being courted by the patriots). Some of the commissions tendered by Martin were accepted, and for the most part, it was these new officers and their men who responded when Martin called out the loyal militia in 1775. They, with the Scotch Highlanders following their own leaders (who also held special commissions from Martin), made up the counterrevolutionary force that fought bravely, but vainly, at Moore’s Creek Bridge in February 1776.

To counter Governor Martin’s plans immediately and provide for defense of the new state in future, the First Provincial Congress, sitting at Hillsborough in August 1775, created a two-layered military system that included:

At the lower level—the militia, which comprised by far the bulk of able-bodied men in the state. As before, each county formed one or more regiments commanded by a colonel and composed of four or more companies commanded by captains. The regiments in each of the state’s six districts (Edenton, Halifax, Hillsborough, New Bern, Salisbury, and Wilmington) comprised a brigade, each brigade commanded by a brigadier general.

It the upper level—regular army regiments, which were to be taken into the military establishment of the United States, the Continental Line.

A third military force was added, temporarily, and functioned well for the half-year or so it was needed. It was a select group of men able to band together and strike at a moment’s notice – the Minutemen. As an organized force, however, the Minutemen existed only from the autumn of 1775 through the spring of 1776.

As expected, North Carolina’s first two regular-army regiments were taken into the Continental Line in 1775. Eight more Line regiments were raised subsequently, but the system of short-term drafts (e.g., three-month, six-month, nine-month, etc.) made it difficult to keep the ten regiments filled up, for at the end of a soldier’s draft period, he normally decamped and headed for home, even if his regiment were on the verge of a pitched battle. Consequently, reorganization or North Carolina’s Continental Line regiments was sometimes dictated by the wholesale departure of draftees whose terms of enlistment had ended.

In May 1778, by order of the Continental Congress, the North Carolina Line was reconstructed, merging the first six regiments into three. In records created after May 1778, therefore, it is not uncommon to see references to the First and Sixth, the Second and Fourth, or the Third and Fifth Regiments, for that is how they were merged. The Seventh, Eighth, and Ninth Regiments were barely organized at all, even from the beginning; they were never properly manned, and were dismissed from Continental service in 1778. The men of’ the Tenth Regiment were dispersed among the reorganized First, Second, and Third Regiments.

The entire North Carolina Line was captured upon the fall of Charleston on 12 May 1780. This disaster, which coincided with removal of the seat of the war into the southern states, threw the main burden of the state’s responsibility for a fighting force onto the militia at a critical time. At the Battle of Guilford Courthouse (15 March 1781), when North Carolina militiamen faced some of the best soldiers in the world in General Lord Cornwallis’s British troops, a very large number of militiamen broke and ran. The circumstances of their fight are still debated by historians, but whatever they were, the Council Extraordinary of North Carolina sentenced 500 of the militiamen to a year’s service in the Continental Line for alleged cowardice. This action simultaneously recreated the North Carolina Line, which thenceforth survived, until 1783, as three tiny battalions. A

spirit of fair play to the 500 sentenced militiamen compels one to observe that those who were ordered into the command of Major Pinkethan Eaton, 140 hungry, ragged souls from Halifax District, completely redeemed the whole 500 by their gallantry and bravery at the Battles of Fort Grierson and Fort Cornwallis in Georgia during the last week of May 1781.

The Continental Line was disbanded after the war and the state militia was restructured. The brigades were sorted into divisions in 1793, and thereafter the colonels or the regiments were responsible for periodic reports to the brigadiers, who reported in turn to the major generals in command of divisions. The major generals returned reports to the state adjutant general, who consolidated all the reports into one annual statement delivered to the governor and General Assembly. Until 1840, resignations of militia officers were to be returned to the General Assembly; after that date, resignations followed the usual chain of command. Resignations found in the General Assembly records and some few in the Governor’s Office records were the basis for Timothy Kearney’s Abstracts of Letters of Resignation of Militia Officers in North Carolina, 1779 - 1840 (Raleigh: North Carolina Genealogical Society, 1992).

With the exception of a change in the eligible ages of militiamen in 1806, as stated earlier, the structure and function of the militia

PAGE TEN RECALL

remained essentially unaltered until the close of the Civil War, although there was some reorganization or unit designations during that conflict. Provisions for a militia were retained in the post war state Constitution of 1868, but the militia itself existed only on paper. In its 1876-1877 session, the General Assembly

established an inactive militia, and further provided for a State Guard to be made up of volunteers from the inactive militia, who then enlisted in the Guard for a term of five years.

In 1893 the name of the State Guard was changed to the North Carolina National Guard. During World War I, when the National Guard was mobilized and sent to Europe with regular United States Army forces, a state reserve militia was formed but was disbanded after the War. When the National Guard was again mobilized, in World War II, again a State Guard was created to replace it. This system remains essentially in force today – the State Guard replaces the National Guard when the latter is mobilized into federal service and sent outside the state.

Relevant militia records are discussed under the headings of the pertinent wars in this chapter. It will be sufficient to state that the major bodies of state-level records of North Carolina militiamen are at the State Archives in the Adjutant General’s Records, 1807-1950, and in the Military Collection. County militia records are discussed in Chapter 21.

Gallantry of 140 redeems alleged cowardice of 500

militiamen.

The Tuscarora Indian War of 1711-1712By RichaRd M. Ripley

The single greatest disaster to have befallen North Carolina was the Tuscarora War of 1711-1712. In a surprise attack that culminated in a protracted frontier conflict, the Tuscarora devastated white settlements in the Pamlico-Neuse region and raised serious fears for the continuance of English occupation in North Carolina. Only the timely arrival of outside help and an absence of unity among the Tuscarora enabled the colonists to survive the struggle and, ultimately, to defeat the Indians.

When Europeans first arrived in North Carolina, there were more than 30 Indian tribes ranging in size from a few hundred in the smaller tribes to several thousand in the larger tribes. The three largest included the Cherokee in the western mountains, the Catawba in the Piedmont, and the Tuscarora of the Coastal Plains. As the settlers moved westward from the coast, they came into contact with these tribes at different times, and, because of their location, the Coastal Plains Indians were the first to attract attention. In addition to the Tuscarora, the natives of this region included several small tribes that were important only because they existed at a time when the white settlers were also few.

About 1660, the Coastal Plains Indians numbered approximately 30,000. About a half century later, nun, smallpox, and intertribal warfare had reduced them to no more than 5,000, which was about the same as the white population at the time. In 1709, John Lawson published a detailed description of the Tuscarora and other North Carolina Indians. When Lawson prepared his account of these people, he little dreamed that he was soon to be victim of their cruel tortures. The Tuscarora, in Indian Skaruren meaning “hemp gathers,” the largest tribe numbered about 5,000 people. Lawson listed them in 170 I as having 15 towns and about 1,200 warriors. The Tuscarora Indians enter history in present eastern North Carolina between the Roanoke and Neuse rivers and were divided between the Upper or Northern Tuscarora, those living between the Roanoke and Pamlico Rivers, and the Lower

or Southern Tuscarora, found between the Pamlico and Neuse Rivers. At this time their territory embraced the country drained by the Neuse River and its tributaries, Contentnea and Trent, from near the coast to the vicinity of the present Wake County, and lands along the Tar-Pamlico River up to the Roanoke River. Their hunting area extended south to the Cape Fear River region. The present day cities of Raleigh, Smithfield, Goldsboro, Wilson, Rocky Mount, Tarboro, Greenville, and Kinston are located in former Tuscarora territory.

The tendency has been, in looking at the history of North Carolina, to represent the Tuscarora as a significant influence on the colony only in this brief interval of confrontation. What is wanting in this view is a full appreciation of the formidable power and strategic dominance of the Tuscarora and the apparent persistence of their historical aims over a period of more than a century, and the restrictions imposed by them on white settlement for over half a century prior to 1712. A closer examination suggests that the Tuscarora from 1654 to 1712 defined the limits of English settlement in North Carolina. There is also reason to suppose that this territorial restriction may have influenced the character of internal conflicts among the colonists, including the Culpeper Rebellion of 1677 and the Cary Rebellion in 1711.

The aims of Tuscarora policy appear to have been broadly persistent during the 130 years between their first contacts with the English and their disastrous defeat in the second phase of the war in 1712-1713. Sir Walter Raleigh’s Roanoke Island colonists found the Tuscarora locked in intermittent conflict with the Chowanoke, largest of the Algonquian tribe of the Carolina coastal plain. The Iroquois Tuscarora had at least two main objectives: (1) to absorb the Chowanoke or evict them from the valuable Roanoke-Chowan hunting grounds on the eastern perimeter of the Tuscarora domain; and (2) move toward the ultimate extension of Tuscarora influence to the Carolina sounds and seaboard.

races into open conflict sooner than might have been the case had one or both been satisfied with any kind of land.

The creation or separate and isolated areas of settlement can be traced in the actual movement of the Europeans southward. By 1675, colonists had already crossed over and occupied the south shore of Albemarle Sound. By 1691, others had settled along the Pamlico River, leaving between them and Albemarle Sound “about fifty miles or wilderness to pass through, without a human creature inhabiting it.” This wilderness remained unoccupied for many years. By 1703, other colonists had crossed over the Pamlico River and settled on the Neuse. This was the southern limit of settlement at the time, and the area above Cape Fear had become known as North Carolina to distinguish it from the Lords Proprietors’ land below Cape Fear known as South Carolina.

The relations between the white settlers and the Indians were not as sweet, peaceful, and friendly as many historians have pictured. The Indians from the very first resented the colonists’ encroachment upon their domain and used every means in their power to show this resentment, at times resorting to harassment and to out-and-out war. The Tuscarora had from the first watched the steadily growing settlements with distrust and had resented each movement into a new area. When the tide of civilization flowed into the Pamlico-Neuse region, they saw the handwriting on the wall. A more immediate cause might have been the founding of the town of New Bern in 1710 by Baron Christoph de Graffenried, the leader of a group of Swiss and Germans settling the area. To the Tuscarora, it was evident that they must make a stand or gradually be inundated, and by the summer of 1711 a decision was reached to destroy the whites.

Other factors entered into this decision by the Tuscarora. Perhaps nothing contributed more to their hatred and resentment of the settlers than the kidnapping and enslavement of their people, including children, by the whites. Close akin to this were the ill feelings and misunderstandings which accompanied the Indian trade. The Indians found that the white traders were cheating them in their trading activities. Certainly another fundamental reason for their decision for war was the indignities

SPRING 2015 PAGE ELEVEN

The Tuscaroras evidently welcomed the beginning of English settlement on Albemarle Sound in the 1650s. The land taken by the whites was purchased by them from other smaller coastal tribes on the margins of the sound and posed no problem for the Tuscarora further inland. It soon became clear, however, that the whites would not be able to expand with impunity into the Tuscarora interior. When several Quaker families attempted to settle in the southwestern comer of the Roanoke-Chowan region in the early 1660s, the Tuscarora attacked the squatters and drove them off.

Peaceful relations were formalized in 1672 when leaders of the Albemarle colony met with Tuscarora chiefs and reached an accord. Thereafter it was understood the Albemarle colony was to be the region bordering Virginia, which “on ye southern part is separated by Albemarle Sound and Chowan River.” Strictly construed, these limits made of Albemarle a reservation for white people, and such, in effect, it remained unchallenged for the next 30 years. The apparent unwillingness of the English to test again Tuscarora resolve reflected the relative strength of the two sides. The white population of 1,672 amounted to only a few hundred individuals, and it would be many years before it exceeded a few thousand. Tuscarora population figures, on the other hand, far exceeded these numbers. For many years, the colonists did not venture far from the coast, but they did gradually expand their occupation southward. Because roads were nonexistent, the settlers sometimes bypassed extensive areas to establish their homes on the banks of the next navigable stream that would provide them with a convenient means of transportation.

Because of this system of settlement, many miles of wilderness often separated a group of colonists from their nearest neighbors. As a result, the various areas of settlement, particularly those on the outer edge or white occupation, were more exposed to Indian attack than they would have been had the settlers remained close together. The loss of this strength of unity was especially dangerous in view of the fact the Indians usually occupied the land along the streams desired by the whites and for the same reason. This competition over these small areas brought the two

eaSteRn noRth caRolina indian and colonial SettleMent aReaS Approximate Locations of Tuscarora Towns/Forts Colonial Settlements A. Tosneoc D. Tunarooka G. Nayharuka J. New Bern K. Bath B. Konla E. Jounonitz H. Harula Tuscarora Reservation C. Noahunta F. Ucouhnesunt I. Cotechna L. Ooneroy M. Resoutskeh

PAGE TWELVE RECALL

and humiliations to which the settlers subjected them. The Tuscarora were a proud, dignified people unaccustomed to the condescending and often times insulting treatment they received at the hands of the whites.

The Indians, on the other hand, were not always without blame. Unfortunately, they acquired the vices of the white people more readily than the virtues. The Indians rarely stole from each other, but they saw no evil in taking the property of the colonists. Stealing the settlers’ hogs, household goods and food, accompanied with threats if the settlers objected, was typical behavior. By burning the woods on hunting expeditions near the settled areas, the natives destroyed desirable timber and, sometimes, the homes of the whites. The wrongs of the natives may not have been so great as the wrongs they suffered, but they did add to the growing antagonism between the two races.

By 1703, bad relations between the Indians and the colonists had become serious, especially in the Pamlico River area. Smaller tribes were becoming more and more aggressive. The Coree Indians had become so abusive in their conduct that the North Carolina government declared war on them. This was not an important war, but the Indians perceived that a far more serious one would follow. In the winter of 1704, there were widespread reports that the powerful Tuscarora were plotting with other nearby tribes to destroy the colonists. In the next few years relations became even worse, and the Tuscarora decided they would rather leave North Carolina than to live under the conditions that existed. In 1710, they sent an emissary to Pennsylvania asking permission to settle in that colony. They gave as their principal reasons for their request their desire to be able to move about freely and to hunt in the forest without the constant fear of murder or enslavement. The Pennsylvania officials agreed to permit the move provided the Tuscarora obtained a certificate of their good behavior from the North Carolina government. Their failure to obtain the certificate resulted in one of the greatest tragedies of North Carolina history. Unable to escape from oppression, the Tuscarora turned to violence on their oppressors.

During the summer or 1711, the inhabitants of North Carolina were far too plagued with rebellion, drought, and disease (smallpox) to observe the actions of the Indians closely. Further, the land areas of the lower Neuse and Trent rivers appear to have been opened indiscriminately to settlers in 1707 by virtue of an upheaval within the North Carolina government. Recall this was contrary to the agreement Albemarle made with the Tuscarora in 1672. The emergence of Thomas Cary as de facto governor in 1706 brought to power the land-hungry element in the Pamlico region who had been restrained heretofore by the more conservative Albemarle establishment. The Cary expansionists were soon turned out of power and crushed with an armed showdown, but their land policy had helped sow the seeds of a conflict that would almost destroy North Carolina. There had been one alarm during the summer when word spread that the followers of Thomas Cary were attempting to incite the Tuscarora to fall on the followers of Governor Hyde. This both Cary and the Indians denied, and it was quickly forgotten. While it was doubtful that Cary or any of his followers invited the Indians to take the warpath, there can be little question that the Indians saw the confusion the rebellion created. It was an opportune moment for them to strike.

The Indians began their plotting in complete secrecy, and until the moment they struck, no hint of their plans reached the settlers. The chief leader in the conspiracy was King Hancock, chief of the southern Tuscarora. Hancock was able to persuade the chiefs of six smaller tribes in the Pamlico area to join in the plan. These small tribes together had a fighting force of about 500 men. Hancock himself was able to furnish about 1,200 Tuscarora, although the greater portion of the Tuscarora under

the leadership of Chief Tom Blunt refused to join him. Hancock had also expected support from the Five Nations of the Iroquois, located in New York. However, this did not materialize. The plans of the hostiles called for the massacre of all settlers and the complete destruction of every plantation in Bath County. It was agreed among the conspirators that the attack would fall without warning at dawn on September 22, 1711.

What Tuscarora militants seem to have envisioned in 1711 was a quick strike against outlying white plantations aimed at blunting further colonization, an action similar to that of 1665 against Albemarle. Hancock probably assumed that a similar treaty, or a reaffirmation of the 1672 terms, might be arranged with the English once he had made his point by attack.

In considering Hancock’s perspective, it is important to bear in mind the Tuscarora were not a nation and probably not even a confederacy though colonial perceptions viewed them without any internal divisions. Tuscarora allegiance was staked firmly to the village level; however, a powerful chief might earn recognition as the leader over many villages in a given area or even over the whole tribe. Those villages north of the Pamlico River in 1711 adhered to Chief Tom Blunt, those south of the river to Chief Hancock, and some villages may’ have wavered between the two. Thus, Hancock’s plans bore no necessary relation to the villages allied with Tom Blunt, and it is unlikely that the northern Tuscarora were privy to Hancock’s intentions.

In devising his attack, Hancock may have projected onto the white settlements a political division parallel to that existing among his own people. He probably regarded Albemarle County as a separate colony from Bath County and seems not to have realized that an assault on Bath would necessarily broaden onto a conflict with Albemarle, let alone with Virginia or South Carolina. If true, all this was, of course, a misunderstanding of the fact that Pamlico and Albemarle settlers were under the same administration, however the reality in 1711 favored Hancock’s assessment. The Cary Rebellion had pitted Albemarle against Bath and had left the colonists of the two counties somewhat at odds with each other. It was by no means clear that Albemarle would rush to the defense of Bath County and, in fact, it did not.

In mid-September, 1711, as the Indian plans for attack were maturing, John Lawson together with Baron de Graffenried set out in a canoe to explore the Neuse River. A few days later they were seized by an armed force of Indians and carried to the nearby Tuscarora town of Catechna, Hancock’s town and the center of his conspiracy. John Lawson was executed while de Graffenried was spared. How Lawson was killed is unknown. One account says he was stuck full of small lightwood splinters and set gradually on fire, a method of execution that Lawson described in great detail in his publication on the history of North Carolina. De Graffenried was informed of the pending attack and was held for several days until the attack was completed.

On 21 September, 1,200 Tuscaroras together with 500 allies from the smaller tribes divided into small war parties and began their march to all points on the Pamlico, Neuse, and Trent Rivers and the Core Sound region. These little groups filtered into and around the settlements. At sunrise on the morning of 22 September 1711, the blow fell with a simultaneous attack. The Indians were well armed with guns and ammunition and made short work of those taken at the first surprise. Men, women, and children, regardless of age or condition, fell victim to their vengeance. Houses were pillaged and burned, crops were trampled and destroyed, and livestock driven off or killed. For three days the Indians burned, plundered, and killed with impunity.

At last, loaded with plunder and prisoners, the Indians withdrew to their towns. They had ki1led some 140 people and left many others dangerously wounded. They also took some

30 women and children as prisoners. The Swiss and Palatine losses were the heaviest. They accounted for about 70 of those slain in the massacre. The Indians spared the town of New Bern. From devastated Bath County went messengers to the Albemarle requesting immediate help. Albemarle County had emerged unscathed from the massacre, saved by the neutrality of Chief Blount and the Upper Tuscarora. Governor Edward Hyde immediately dispatched messengers to Virginia and South Carolina requesting aid, and began to collect a force to be sent to the beleaguered settlers on the Pamlico and Neuse Rivers. The Quakers, who formed a large portion of the Albemarle population, refused to bear arms, and the ill will that Cary’s Rebellion had engendered hampered North Carolina’s efforts throughout the entire Indian War.

By mid-October, plans for a counterattack on the Indians had been perfected. Thomas Pollock, as Major General of the North Carolina forces, had managed to raise 150 men to undertake the attack. These were dispatched to Bath Town and were to join forces with a group that had been raised on the Neuse and placed under the command of Captain William Brice. Brice, under orders from Pollock, marched his company of 60 men up the Neuse to an abandoned Indian village where the forces at Bath were to join him. The troops at Bath, however, refused to go out, and Brice found himself in Indian country with no support. Despite the lack of support from Bath, Brice continued to advance into Indian Territory until overwhelmed by at least 300 warriors. He was forced to fall back to his fortified plantation on the Trent River.

Here matters stood while North Carolina troops awaited aid from the neighboring colonies. Virginia, despite promises and much talk, never dispatched a single soldier to the aid of North Carolina. The plea to South Carolina was for Indian allies. In making this request, Governor Hyde was following an established policy of all European nations in America: the use of Indians against Indians. There were several advantages to this policy. The Indians were more effective than whites in lighting Indians since they were familiar with the combat tactics employed. It also relieved the whites of the hazardous task. At times, too, the practice served to divert native hostility that otherwise might have been directed against the whites. To gain the cooperation of the Indians, the whites played on the increasing desire of the natives for English goods. They purchased captured Indian enemies as slaves and also paid for scalps in order to encourage their allies to kill as well as capture.

Help soon came from South Carolina. Soon afterwards, an army moved northward under the command of Colonel John Barnwell. On the long overland march through the interior, many of Barnwell’s Indians deserted, but others joined him. Some had no weapons other than bows and arrows. When he reached the Neuse, far above New Bern, in late January 1712, his force consisted of 30 white men and nearly 500 Indians, mainly Yamassees. When Barnwell reached the appointed place, he found that the promised food, guides, and troops were not there. In fact, the North Carolina legislature had failed to take any steps to defend the colony. Disappointed, Barnwell pushed on to the Tuscarora town of Norhunta, or Norhantes, an open village with farms scattered over an area of several miles. About the village were nine palisade forts standing about a mile apart. Barnwell attacked the largest fort and within an hour the fort had fallen. Among the most desperate of the defenders were a number of women who fought with bows and arrows. Of the 52 enemy killed, at least 10 were women. Thirty were taken captive and the remainder abandoned the village and its forts, leaving behind much plunder that had been taken from the colonists. Barnwell’s casualties were 7 killed and 32 wounded. A more serious loss was

the desertion of many of his Indian who took their captives and plunders and slipped away. This was to happen frequently after every successful battle. Before leaving Norhunta several days later, Barnwell destroyed it and its forts and five nearby towns as well.

From Norhunta, Barnwell marched through the Tuscarora country to Bath Town on the Pamlico where he arrived on 10 February. On the way, he passed through a number of enemy towns and did considerable damage. Loaded with plunder, many of his Indians slipped away.

Late in February, 67 North Carolinians joined Barnwell. Their arrival increased his strength to 94 whites and 148 Indians. The new arrivals also created a problem, because they came without food, and the scarcity of food was already a matter of grave concern. Barnwell set out for Hancock’s town of Catechna, near the junction of the Neuse and Contentea Creek. The town was deserted, but the Indians had constructed a strong, palisaded fort across the river. Within the enclosure were 130 warriors, and a call had gone out for others to join them. On 12 March 1712, Barnwell attacked Hancock’s Fort, confident of taking it. Instead he found himself forced to agree to a truce. Prior to the attack, the Indians had brought some of their white captives into the fort. During the attack these prisoners were subjected to torture. To the attackers, only a few yards away, the screams of the victims were heart-rending sounds. To Barnwell’s shouted demands for the release of the captives, the Indians stated the attack must be abandoned or the defenders would die fighting and take their prisoners with them. Barnwell accepted the Indian demand on condition that 12 captives were to be released immediately and the remainders were to be brought 12 days later to a place near New Bern. At the same time the Chiefs were to come to discuss peace.

The day after the truce, Barnwell left Hancock’s Fort and marched to New Bern. The enemy failed to appear on 19 March, the day appointed for the meeting. Angered, Barnwell prepared to strike Hancock’s Fort again. On the Neuse River near the mouth of Contentea Creek he built Fort Barnwell. This was the base from which he planned to march once more against Hancock’s Fort.

On 1 April, a message came from Governor Hyde that much needed food and men were on the way. Without waiting for the arrival of the relief, on the night of 7 April Barnwell moved against Hancock’s Fort. The siege continued for 10 days, when on 17 April he unaccountably agreed to a conditional surrender of the enemy. Barnwell’s peace was made without the knowledge or approval of Governor Hyde. His casualties were light and “extreme famine” was the only excuse he gave for not fighting to the end.

Hyde, however, felt that hunger hardly justified the failure to pursue a victory that was only a few hours away. Hyde was particularly critical of Barnwell for not waiting for the relief that North Carolina had on the way. However justified he might have been, Barnwell was the subject of biller and widespread criticism in the colony he had done so much to help earlier, and the honors he expected were denied him.

The unpopular peace of Barnwell was not long lasting. Hungry and disappointed at the few scalps and slaves taken, the South Carolina Indians soon were ravaging through the enemy country. Barnwell and his Indians enticed a number of the local natives into Fort Barnwell under the pretense of peace. They were then seized and taken to South Carolina to be sold as slaves. This breach of the surrender terms embittered the hostiles, and they prepared for the warpath once again.

Soon after Barnwell and his men returned to South Carolina, the horror of Indian war once again swept through the Neuse

SPRING 2015 PAGE THIRTEEN

PAGE FOURTEEN RECALL

and Pamlico regions. The hostiles, hungry and seeking food, roamed the country taking what they wanted and destroying all else. Many of the inhabitants who ventured back to their plantations were killed. The wiser people returned to the security and confinement of fortified garrisons, but even they were not free from attack. Only the generosity of the people of Albemarle relieved a serious shortage of food in the stricken areas. Under these conditions, inhabitants began to leave the colony. Efforts were made to protect those that remained, but the efforts were not enough. Yellow fever added its horrors to the dreadful summer of 1712 in North Carolina. It claimed the life of Governor Hyde on 9 September 1712. With his passing, Thomas Pollock assumed the leadership of North Carolina as president of the council and commander-in-chief of the government.

Pollock made every effort to supply the garrisons in Bath County and to maintain the small forces operating there, but it was not enough. In June 1712, a request went to South Carolina to send 1,000 Indians with a few whites and a commander other than Barnwell. South Carolina assembled a new force commanded by Colonel James Moore. Anticipating this aid, North Carolina had already gathered a company of some 140 men on the Neuse River to join the South Carolina troops when they should arrive. This action proved unwise. Moore did not arrive for many weeks, and the North Carolinians, too few to attack alone, waited in idleness. Finally, in November, they disbanded and returned to their homes. Their only contribution had been to eat the food that had been sent to the Neuse for the coming expedition. As a result, when the South Carolina army arrived in December, North Carolina was again unprepared. In addition to 33 white men, Moore’s army consisted of 850 Indians. Among these were over 300 Cherokee and 50 Yamassee. The balance included warriors of some smaller tribes of the Carolinas. Among the officers was Colonel Moore’s brother, Captain Maurice Moore, with the Yamassee Company. To feed such a large body of men was no small problem. Because food was more plentiful in Albemarle County, the men marched there until adequate supplies could be shipped around to the Neuse.

There was another reason for diverting Moore’s force to Albemarle County. Fear persisted that the Five Nations and the Upper Tuscarora would join the enemy. Enemy captives had told Barnwell that the beginning of the war had resulted from prodding of visiting warriors of the Five Nations. They had taunted the Tuscarora over their failure to avenge the mistreatment of a drunken Indian by the whites. In the summer of 1712, information received from the Governor of New York showed that the French in Canada had persuaded the Five Nations to send warriors south to aid the hostile Tuscarora in their war against the English. This concern subsided the following autumn with receipt of information that the New York government had persuaded the Five Nations not to go south. They went to war against the French Indians instead.

The status of the Upper Tuscarora, however, remained uncertain. They had not joined the hostiles, but neither had they come to the aid of the whites. The government had attempted to persuade them to end the conflict by going to war against the enemy Indians, but they had not done so. King Blount came into the settlements from time to time to declare his continued friendship for the whites, and he alone of the chiefs of the Upper Towns was trusted. But he could speak for his town only. The government, nevertheless, sought to use his influence with the chiefs of the other towns to persuade them to join with the whites. It was hoped that their desire for the resumption of trade would be sufficient to win them over. The government, however, hesitated to force the issue for fear of driving them to join the hostiles while the colony was in such a weakened condition. The coming

of Moore and his army to North Carolina gave its officials the confidence they needed. On a visit to Governor Thomas Pollock, Chief Blount expressed his desire for the resumption of trade with his people. He was told that this could be done if they would bring in King Hancock and the scalps of the other hostiles. The offer was accepted after consulting Chiefs of the other neutral towns, and King Hancock was delivered and executed. Blount and his people were given until 1 January to bring in the enemy scalps. This allotment of time for the fulfillment of Blount’s agreement was permitted by the diversion of Moore’s troops to Albemarle County. If Blount succeeded, peace would have been won for the whites. If he failed, Moore could then move out to accomplish the same goal.

If the stay of Moore’s troops in Albemarle County solved one problem, it created another. At first his Indians were contined to a designated area where they consumed what food they could find. Then the hungry horde began to spread out over the surrounding country, killing cattle and taking corn. The people of Albemarle County became so disturbed that many of them seemed “more than ready to fall on the South Carolina Indians, than march against the enemy.” they were not only angry but worried. The danger of using Indians for purposes of war was clearly apparent. The little control that could be exercised over the Indians came from the authority of a single individual, their leader. Some of the more thoughtful people began to consider the possible consequences of the death of this single individual, Colonel Moore. Without a leader and made up of various tribes and language groups, his Indians would be unrestrained. Such a disorderly band could be as destructive as the enemy it came to fight. 1 January came and Blount had not brought in the scalps of the enemy. Moore then made ready to march against the hostiles.

By the middle of the month, food had been shipped around to Fort Barnwell, the supply base on the Neuse. On 17 January, Moore’s army, enlarged by the addition of some 85 North Carolinians, left Albemarle County to the great relief of its inhabitants.

After crossing over Albemarle Sound, Moore headed into the country of the Lower Tuscarora where the hostile Indians already had fled to the protection of their forts. Reports indicated the largest concentration of warriors was gathered in Fort Neoheroka, located on a branch of Contentea Creek, a few miles above Hancock’s Fort. Accordingly, Neoheroka was the destination of Moore’s expedition as it pushed forward through the harsh cold of winter. Progress was slow because of supply difficulties combined with bad weather and deep snow.

Fort Neoheroka was an irregularly shaped enclosure of one and one-half acres contained within a palisaded wall. Along this wall, at strategically located points, were bastions and blockhouses. Within the enclosure were some 20 to 28 bunkers connected by tunnels. The bunkers were constructed by digging large holes four to six feet deep into the ground and covering the holes with logs and earth. The bunkers provided protection and were used as dwellings. An enclosed tunnel led to a nearby branch of Contentea Creek. The tunnel furnished a way to obtain water and a means for escape. When Colonel Moore arrived before this impressive fortification, he began careful preparations to destroy it. About 1 March 1713, Moore laid siege to the fort. Three batteries were constructed nearby, and from the Yamassee Battery facing the fort a zigzag trench was dug to within a few yards of the front wall. This trench provided protective cover to allow men to approach and build a blockhouse and battery near the fort. Both of these structures were higher than the walls of the fort so that the enemy within might be subjected to direct fire. A tunnel also extended from the trench to the front wall so that it might be undermined with explosives. On the morning of 10 March, every

man was at his post when a trumpet sounded the signal for the attack. Three days later, Fort Neoheroka lay a smoldering ruin and the enemy acknowledged defeat. The enemy loss was around 950, about half killed and the balance taken into slavery. Moore’s loss was 57 killed and 82 wounded. With this one crushing blow, the power of the Tuscarora Nation was broken.

Following their defeat, most of the enemy Tuscarora who escaped fled north to New York to live among the Five Nations Confederation, which afterward became the Six Nations. Some thought was given to clearing the colony of all members of the tribe, but that was abandoned. First, there was not sufficient food to sustain a military campaign. Second, it was felt that some friendly natives on the frontier would protect the settlements against hostiles. For these reasons, a treaty of peace was finally concluded with King Blount and the Upper Tuscarora. By the terms of the treaty, Blount was acknowledged Chief of the Tuscarora and of all other Indians south of the Pamlico River. All who accepted Blount’s leadership became tributary Indians under the protection of the government or North Carolina and were assigned a reservation in Bertie County. All who rejected him were considered enemies of the government. These included only a small number of the hostile Tuscarora who remained in the colony and a few from some smaller tribes.

The war was not over, however, for at the time Moore was conducting his attack on Fort Neoheroka, the Machapunga and

SPRING 2015 PAGE FIFTEEN

Coree had been striking at the settlements along the Pungo River a short distance below Bath. At first there were only about 50 of the hostiles, but they proved to be an elusive enemy. A few lurked about Core Sound, but the balance hid out in the great Alligator Swamp, a vast and almost impenetrable region of lakes and cane swamps lying between the Machapunga River and Roanoke Island. From this hiding place, they raided the outlying settlements. In the spring of 1713, 20 settlers on the Alligator River were killed. A short while later, 25 more met the same fate on Roanoke Island. Many others were killed in frequent and less dramatic raids involving no more than two or three families. After their attacks, the Indians retreated back into their swamp world where it was almost impossible to follow them. Colonel Moore, with more than a hundred of his Indians, remained in North Carolina for some time in a futile effort to seize them. Blount and his Tuscarora finally came to the aid of the colonists and were more successful. By the autumn of 1713, they brought in about 30 hostile scalps. However, other warriors joined the enemy from time to time. This nagging problem had dragged on for almost two years when the government finally turned from a policy of extermination of the hostiles to one of peaceful agreement. On II February 1715, a treaty of peace was made with the surviving hostiles, and they were assigned a reservation on Lake Mattamuskeet in Hyde County. This was the final act of the Tuscarora War.

Drawing of the Battle of Fort Neoheroka, 1-3 March 1713.Original drawing is located with the South Carolina Historical Society, Columbia, SC.

PAGE SIXTEEN RECALL

The collapse of the Tuscarora in 1713 removed the last major obstacle to European expansion in North Carolina. The 60-year period that whites spent clinging to the northeastern area was then followed by a 60-year dash to the Appalachians and beyond. Apart from his own miscalculations, Hancock may have been undone by the failure of support from the Five Nations. Public life came virtually to a halt in North Carolina following Hancock’s initial assault, but his forces held the upper hand until the arrival of a large outside army four months later. Hancock accomplished much without the help that might have come from the Upper Tuscarora, the Five Nations, the French, or any other sources. There are many evidences of how serious was the real and potential danger that confronted English colonization in the South in 1711. Hancock was strategist enough to strike when the colonists were sharply divided among themselves and on the start of the harvest season, but he was not diplomat enough to build the kind of wide-ranging alliance that might have assured his success. Even so, his attempt brought North Carolina to the edge of fatal disaster.

Sources:Barnwell, John. “The Tuscarora Expedition. Letters of Colonel John

Barnwell.” South Carolina Historical and Genealogical Magazine. Vol. IX, No. 1, January 1908: 28-54.

Barnwell, Joseph W. “The Second Tuscarora Expedition.” South Carolina Historical and Genealogical Magazine. Vol. X, No. 1, January 1909: 33-48.

Clark, Walter. Indian Massacre and Tuscarora War 1911-13. North Carolina Booklet. Vol. II, No. 3, 10 July 1902. Capital Printing Co., Raleigh, NC.

Lawson, John. Lawson’s History of North Carolina. 1714. Harriss, Frances Latham, Editor, 2nd ed. Garrett & Massie, Publishers, Richmond, Virginia. 1952.

Lee, Lawrence E. Indian Wars in North Carolina. 1663-1763. A Publication of The Carolina Charter Tercentenary Commission, Box 1881, Raleigh, NC. 1963.

Parramore, Thomas C. The Tuscarora Ascendancy. The North Carolina Historical Review. The North Carolina Division of Archives and History, Raleigh, NC. Vol. LIX, No. 4, October 1982: 307-326.

Rights, Douglas L. The American Indian in North Carolina. 2nd ed. John F. Blair, Publisher. Winston-Salem. 1957.

Saunders, William L. Colonial Records of North Carolina. 1886. Vol. I, 1662-1712 and Vol. II, 1713-1728. Broadfoot Publishing Company. Wilmington, NC. 1993.

Styrna, Christine Ann. The winds of war and change: the impact of the Tuscarora War on proprietary North Carolina, 1690-1729. Diss. The College of William and Mary. 364 pages. 1990. Call number: Joyner Library, East Carolina University, NC. Stacks F257 S79 1990.

KING PHILIPKing Philip, the fighting mount of

Lieutenant General Nathan Bedford Forrest, gained for himself a place of honor among our famous war horses by faithfully carrying his master through many actions amid shot and shell. He was wounded while with Forrest near Ivey’s Farm on February 22, 1864.

King Philip had seen strenuous war service before he came into Forrest’s possession. During the siege of Vicksburg he suffered hardships within the Confederate lines, coming out very thin. After receiving special attention and being restored to good health, he was purchased by the citizens of Columbus, Mississippi, who presented him to General Forrest. Like General Robert E. Lee’s Traveller, he was a Confederate grey.

When in battle, King Philip seemed to catch the spirit of his master. Sluggish on ordinary occasions, he became greatly excited and was a quick to detect the presence of a bluecoat as any of Bedford’s riders. And he was always ready for action. Whenever he saw the enemy, he lay back his ears, threw up his tail, and, leaping forward rushed at them, snapping his teeth at anything blue, with a violent show of temper. The story is told of the fight at Murfreesboro in December 1864, King Philip was carrying his master in the thick of battle, travelling at a rapid speed and apparently touching the ground only when absolutely necessary. He seemed to realize the importance of getting the General to the proper spot. The staff was left far behind. Suddenly King Philip saw a whole front of tantalizing bluecoats. He bared his upper lip and prepared for an individual battle. It was all Forrest could do to hold him in place, as he reared and plunged and scattered mud.

King Philip was loved by all the men of Forrest’s command. They knew him as well as they knew the General.

Like General Forrest, King Philip survived the war, and was tenderly cared for as long as he lived; but his spirit seemed broken by the long days of peace. He suffered any indignity with resignation, and there were many. One day he was hitched to a lady’s buggy, which he drew through the streets of Memphis with indifference and the lumbering gait of a family horse. As he turned a comer he saw a squad of police a short distance ahead. The ladies saw the police. All King Philip noticed was a great deal of blue. In an instant up

went his tail, back fell his ears, open flew his mouth. Down the street he charged, the buggy bounding after him and the women screaming. The squad scattered, and King Philip was left on the sidewalk, his upper lip bared and quivering with disappointment.

When it was decided to erect an equestrian statue of General Forrest at Memphis, it was unanimously agreed that King Philip should be the mount to carry “Old Bedford” in bronze. Consequently, the sculptor, Mr. Charles H. Neihaus, made an intricate and detailed study of the size and conformation of King Philip before producing his model which was promptly accepted as being a wonderful likeness of both General Forrest and his famous fighting mount.

War between America and Britain had been raging since 1812, but was only after Napoleon’s death that the British Empire could unleash its full military might against the colonies. By mid 1814 British strategy turned towards the capture of the port of New Orleans.

The progress of the peace negotiations influenced the British to continue an operation that General Ross, before his repulse and death at Baltimore, had been instructed to carry out, a descent upon the gulf coast to capture New Orleans and possibly sever Louisiana from the United States. Major General Sir Edward Pakenham was sent to America to take command of the expedition. On Christmas Day, 1814, Pakenham arrived at the mouth of the Mississippi to find his troops disposed on a narrow isthmus below New Orleans between the Mississippi River and a cypress swamp. They had landed two weeks earlier at a shallow lagoon some ten miles east of New Orleans and had already fought one engagement. In this encounter, on December 23, General Jackson, who had taken command of the defenses on December 1, almost succeeded in cutting off an advance detachment of 2,000 British, but after a 3-hour fight in which casualties on both sides were heavy, he was compelled to retire behind fortifications covering New Orleans.

Opposite the British and behind a ditch stretching from the river to the swamp, Jackson had raised earthworks high enough to require scaling ladders for an assault. The defenses were manned by about 3,500 men with another 1,000 in reserve. It was a varied group, composed of the 7th and 44th Infantry Regiments, Major Beale’s New Orleans Sharpshooters, LaCoste and Daquin’s battalions of free Negroes, the Louisiana militia under General David Morgan, a band of Choctaw Indians, the Baratorian pirates, and a motley battalion of fashionably dressed sons and brothers of the New Orleans aristocracy. To support his defenses, Jackson had assembled more than twenty pieces of artillery, including a battery of nine heavy guns on the opposite bank of the Mississippi.

After losing artillery duel to the Americans on January 1, Pakenham decided on a frontal assault in combination with an attack against the American troops on the west bank. The main assault was to be delivered by about 5,300 men, while about 600 men under Lt. Col. William Thornton were to cross the river and clear the west bank. As the British columns appeared out of the early morning mist on January 8, they were met with murderous fire, first from the artillery, then from the muskets and rifles of Jackson’s infantry. Achieving mass through firepower, the Americans mowed the British down by the hundreds.

Pakenham and one other general were killed and a third badly wounded. More than 2,000 of the British were casualties; the American losses were trifling.

Suddenly, the battle on the west bank became critical. Jackson did not make adequate preparations to meet the advance there until the British began their movement, but by then it was too late. The heavy guns of a battery posted on the west bank were not placed to command an attack along that side of the river and only about 800 militia, divided in two groups a mile apart, were in position to oppose Thornton. The Americans resisted stubbornly, inflicting greater losses, than they suffered, but the British pressed on, routed them, and overran the battery. Had the British continued their advance Jackson’s position would have been

critical, but Pakenham’s successor in command, appalled by the repulse of the main assault, ordered Thornton to withdraw from the west bank and rejoin the main force. For ten days the shattered remnant of Pakenham’s army remained in camp unmolested by the Americans, then re-embarked and sailed away.

The British appeared off Mobile on February 8, confirming Jackson’s fear that they planned an attack in that quarter. They overwhelmed Fort Bowyer, a garrison manned by 360 Regulars at the entrance to Mobile Harbor. Before they could attack the city itself, word arrived that a treaty had been signed at Ghent on Christmas Eve, two weeks before the Battle of New Orleans.

The news of the peace settlement followed so closely on Jackson’s triumph in New Orleans that the

war as a whole was popularly regarded in the United States as a great victory. Yet at best it was a draw. American strategy had centered on the conquest of Canada and the harassment of British shipping; but the land campaign failed, and during most of the war the Navy was bottled up behind a tight British blockade of the North American coast.

If it favored neither belligerent, the war at least taught the Americans several lessons. Although the Americans were proud of their reputation as the world’s most expert riflemen, the rifle played only a minor role in the war. On the other hand, the American soldier displayed unexpected superiority in gunnery and engineering. Artillery contributed to American successes at Chippewa, Sackett’s Harbor, Norfolk, the siege of Fort Erie, and New Orleans. The war also boosted the reputation of the Corps of Engineers, a branch which owed its efficiency chiefly to the Military Academy. Academy graduates completed the fortifications at Fort Erie, built Fort Meigs, planned the harbor defenses of Norfolk and New York, and directed the fortifications at Plattsburg. If larger numbers of infantrymen had been as well trained as the artillerymen and engineers, the course of the war might have been entirely different.

Sea power played a fundamental role in the war. In the west both opponents were handicapped in overland communication, but the British were far more dependent on the Great Lakes for the movement of troops and supplies for the defense of Upper Canada. In the east, Lake Champlain was strategically important as an invasion corridor to the populous areas of both countries. Just as Perry’s victory on Lake Erie decided the outcome of the war in the far west,

Macdonough’s success on Lake Champlain decided the fate of the British invasion in 1814 and helped influence the peace negotiations.

The militia performed as well as the Regular Army. The defeats and humiliations of the Regular forces during the first years of the war matched those of the militia, just as in a later period the Kentucky volunteers at the Thames and the Maryland militia before Baltimore proved that the state citizen soldier could perform well. The keys to the militiaman’s performance, of course, were training and leadership, the two areas over which the national government had little control. The militia, occasionally competent, was never dependable, and in the nationalistic period that followed the war when the exploits of the Regulars were justly celebrated, an ardent young Secretary of War, John Calhoun, would be able to convince Congress and the nation that the first line of defense should be a standing army.

SPRING 2015 PAGE SEVENTEEN

January, 1815: The Battle of New Orleans

Andrew Jackson

PAGE EIGHTEEN RECALL

Schedule of Events9:00 a.m. - 9:30 a.m. Registration*

*Registration and Symposium will be in the Archives and State Library Building at 109 E. Jones Street in Raleigh. Free Parking is available in the parking lot directly across the street.

9:30 a.m. - 9:35 a.m. Welcome and Administrative Announcements

9:35 a.m. - 10:00 a.m. Business Meetings: President’s, Treasurer’s, & Membership Reports, Old & New Business, Election of Directors, Adjourn 1st Raffle

10:00 a.m. - 10:45 a.m. Dr. David LaVere, Professor of History, UNC-Wilmington: “The Tusca-rora War”

10:45 a.m. - 11:00 a.m. 2nd Raffle / Break

11:00 a.m. - 11:45 a.m. Jim McKee, Site Manager, Brunswick Town-Fort Anderson: “The War of Jenkins’ Ear”

11:45 a.m. - 12:00 p.m. 3rd Raffle

12:00 p.m. - 1:00 p.m. Lunch**Prior Reservation Required

ANNUAL MEETING AND SYMPOSIUMThe North Carolina Military Historical society

May 7, 2016Theme: “North Carolina’s Colonial Wars”

[Location: Auditorium, Archives and History Building, 109 East Jones Street, Raleigh, NC]

SPRING 2015 PAGE NINETEEN

Schedule of Events (continued)

$7 Lunch includes sub-sandwich, chips and drinkPayable at Reservation Desk (exact change please)Reservations must be made by Wednesday, April 27, 2016. To reservelunch, email the North Carolina Military Historical Society at ncmilhistsoc@yahoo.com OR call “Si” at (910) 897-7968. With eithermethod, leave your name, and number of lunches.

1:00 p.m. - 1:45 p.m. Scott Douglas, Site Manager, Fort Dobbs “As Two Brothers Falling Out:The Cherokee War on the North Carolina Frontier”

1:45 p.m. - 2:00 p.m. 4th Raffle Drawing / Break

2:00 p.m. - 2:45 p.m. Jeremiah DeGennaro, Site Manager, Alamance Battleground:“The Battle of Alamance”

2:45 p.m. - 3:30 p.m. John Mintz, Assistant State Archaeologist, NC DNCR: “Results ofRecent Archaeology at Alamance”

3:30 p.m. - 3:45 p.m. Final Raffle / Closing Remarks

4:00 p.m. - 4:30 p.m. Board of Director’s Meeting (Board members)

Administrative Notes:• Special Thanks to all the living historians and Historic Sites staff who shared displays with us

today.• Feel free to take breaks as needed. Enjoy refreshments in the refreshment area or meeting

room, but please do not take them outside of these two areas. Refreshments courtesy of Trudy Conrad.

• The NC Museum of History military exhibit “A Call to Arms” is open on the Third Floor of the NC Museum of History, as well as the new First Floor chronology exhibit containing military items. The Search Room of the State Archives is on the second floor of this building.

• Registration Table manned by MG Charles Scott, Gary Spencer, and John Winecoff.• Raffle donations received and tickets sold by John Winecoff [Drawings throughout the day]• NCMHS Board of Director’s Meeting immediately following adjournment of the symposium

(location: TBA)

PAGE TWENTY RECALL

dR. david laveRe

Dr. David LaVere teaches American Indian History at the University of North Carolina Wilmington. He is an award-winning historian, author and public speaker. Born in New Orleans, he served a hitch as a Marine Corps infantryman, and then earned a B.A. in Journalism from Northwestern State University in Natchitoches, Louisiana. Upon graduation, he spent five years in Dallas as an advertising copywriter. Discovering he enjoyed writing history more than writing ad copy, he returned to Northwestern State and earned an Main History, From there he went on to Texas A&M University for his Ph.D. in History where he worked with renowned historian Gary Clayton Anderson and specialized in American Indian history. LaVere came to UNC Wilmington in 1993 and has been here ever since, where he is now a Professor of History. LaVere has written seven books, most on American Indian history. His most recent, titled The Tuscarora War: Indians, Settlers and the Fight for the Carolina Colonies, was published in 2013 by the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Press. Besides books, he’s written numerous articles for Our State North Carolina magazine and for historical journals. LaVere often lectures around the state, giving talks about the history of North Carolina Indians. He has spoken at the Oxford Round Table at Oxford University, England on diversity in society.LaVere other books include: The Lost Rocks: The Dare Stones and the Unsolved Mystery of Sir Walter Raleigh’s Lost Colony (Burnt Mill Press, Wilmington, 2011); Looting Spiro Mounds (University of Oklahoma Press, 2007); The Texas Indians (Texas A&M University Press, 2004); Contrary Neighbors: Removed Indians and Plains Indians in Indian Territory (University of Oklahoma Press, 2000); Life Among

the Texas Indians (Texas A&M University Press, 1998); and The Caddo Chiefdoms (University of Nebraska Press, 1998). The Texas Indians won the 2005 Best Book Award given by the Philosophical Society of Texas and the 2004 T. R. Fehrenbach Award for Best Book on Texas History given by the Texas History Commission. Contrary Neighbors won the 2001 Oklahoma Book Award for Best Non-Fiction Book on Oklahoma History. He has been a contributing author to two Our State Press publications: North Carolina’s Shining Moment: World War II in North Carolina (2005) and North Carolina Churches: Portraits of Grace (2004).

JiM McKee

Jim McKee is a life-long student of history and a graduate of Greensboro College. He is Site Manager at Brunswick Town-Fort Anderson State Historic Site. His previous experience includes work with the National Park Service and the North Carolina Maritime Museum at Southport. He serves on numerous historic organization and battlefield boards, participates in living history programs throughout the Southeast and Mid-Atlantic, and is currently pursuing a Master’s degree from Southern New Hampshire University.

2016 Symposium Speakers (In the order in which they will speak)

SPRING 2015 PAGE TWENTY-ONE

Scott douGlaS

Scott Douglas was born in Ontario, Canada, but has resided in North Carolina for most of his life. After studying history at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, he has worked at several National Park Service, state, and privately owned historic sites in both Virginia and North Carolina. Scott has worked at Fort Dobbs State Historic Site since 2007 and has served as Site Manager since 2014.

JeReMiah deGennaRo

Jeremiah DeGennaro is the Site Manager at Alamance Battleground State Historic Site in Burlington. Originally from California, Jeremiah moved to North Carolina in 2006 as a graduate student in the Univeristy of North Carolina at Greensboro Public History program. He began his career with NC Historic Sites in 2008 at Bennett Place in Durham, and also worked as Assistant Site Manager at Historic Stagville in Durham. He has been selected as a participant for the Gettysburg College Civil War Institute, Yale Public History Institute, and multiple NC Museums Council conferences. He lives in Durham with his wife and daughter.

John Mintz

John Mintz is an Anthropological Archaeologist with the North Carolina Office of State Archaeology. He received his Bachelor of Science degree in Social Science with a concentration in Anthropology from Appalachian State University, and his Master of Arts in Anthropologyfrom the U niversity of Arkansas. He has been a professional archaeologist for over 30 years andhas undertaken extensi ve archaeological and archival research relating to battlefield studies throughout the Middle Atlantic and Southeastern regions of the United States. He served on the North Carolina Civil War Sesquicentennial Committee and his other research interests include economic anthropology, and the cultural intersection of prehistoric and historic period cultures.

PAGE TWENTY-TWO RECALL

Camaraderie and a love of history brought members of the Wilmington chapter together for a field trip on March 10. A two-hour drive brought us to the first destination, the Edgecomb County Veterans Museum in Tarboro, NC. We were astonished at the volume of artifacts in the building, which also contained a Resource Room with recorded interviews of local veterans, plus a large collection of military books and videos. The variety of items and methods of display, including more than a few dressed vintage mannequins exceeded our expectations. The fully restored jeep and WWII Harley motorcycle were of particular interest. A few steps across the street led us to a delicious lunch

Member News -NCMHS, Wilmington Chapter

l. laShley

in the quaint historical downtown area before we loaded up and headed for Wallace, NC. There we toured the Duplin County Veterans Museum, housed in an impressive 1894 Victorian mansion that was saved from demolition for a parking lot. Once again we were pleasantly surprised at the volume and variety of the collection. Both museums honored the military men and women who have served our country, each reaching back as far as the Civil War and continuing to present day. We thank the dedicated volunteers who preserve and safe guard these historic items for future generations. Without this tangible evidence, we are in danger of losing proof of the sacrifices made to maintain our freedom.

The North Carolina Military Historical Society sincerely thanks the North Carolina Society of the Cincinnati for their generous contribution in support of the publication of Recall. Their annual contribution to our Society helps bring this quality publication to you, our members. The information below comes from the Society of Cincinnati’s website (http://ncsocietycincinnati.org/).

Founded in Hillsborough, NC on 23 October 1783, and now headquartered in Raleigh, the North Carolina Society of the Cincinnati is one of thirteen such Societies organized in the closing days of the Revolutionary War by officers of the American army, whose descendants constitute the present membership. In addition to Societies in each of the original thirteen colonies, a fourteenth Society subsequently was organized in France. The Society is named for Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus, the legendary hero who

Thank You for your Support!!!laid down his plow to lead the army of Rome to victory and then, like George Washington, surrendered command and returned to his farm. President Washington was the first President General of the overall Society.

As the nation’s oldest hereditary military organization, the mission of the Society of the Cincinnati is to perpetuate the ideals of those patriots who, risking their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor in the struggle for independence, gave birth to the United States of America. The Society seeks to fulfill this mission through its financial support of a wide variety of historical publications, preservation efforts and educational projects relating to the Revolutionary War era. These include the distribution of the Society’s educational film “First in Victory, First for Independence: North Carolina’s Role in the American Revolution.”

The North Carolina National Guard Association (http://ncnga.org/) has also given a generous contribution again this year to support the workings of the North Carolina Military Historical Society. We are very thankful for their support and partnership in our efforts to preserve the Old North State’s military heritage!

The North Carolina National Guard Association (NCNGA) is a non-profit organization established 10 February 1960 to support

NORTH CAROLINA SOCIETY OF THE CINCINNATI

NORTH CAROLINA NATIONAL GUARD ASSOCIATIONthe active, separated, and retired members of the North Carolina Army and Air National Guard. The Association is governed by the Executive Council (board of directors) comprised of equal representation from each major command, the Air National Guard, and the retired group. The NCNGA garners support for the NC National Guard’s role in state and national security, and improves its members’ quality of life.

“I now know why men who have been to war yearn to reunite. Not to tell stories or look at old pictures. Not to laugh or weep. Comrades gather because they long to be with the men who once acted at their best; men who suffered and sacrificed, who were stripped of their humanity. I did not pick these men. They were delivered by fate and the military. But I know them in a way I know no other men. I have never given anyone such trust. They were willing to guard something more precious than my life. They would have carried my reputation, the memory of me. It was part of the bargain we all made, the reason we were so willing to die for one another. As long as I have memory, I will think of them all, every day. I am sure that when I leave this world, my last thought will be of my family and my comrades... Such good men.”

--authoR unKnown-- .

THE BROTHERHOOD

North Carolina Military Historical SocietyClass of Membership: ¨ ANNUAL ($20.00 a year) ¨ LIFE ($200 one time)

Amount enclosed: $_____________ for calendar year (Jan.-Dec. 2014)

¨ NEW MEMBER ¨ RENEWAL

NAME ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

ADDRESS ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

CITY ______________________________________________________________________________ STATE ___________________________________ ZIP _________

TELEPHONES: (Office)__________________ (Home) ______________________

Please make check payable to NCMHS and mail to: NCHMS, 7410 Chapel Hill Road, Raleigh, NC 27607-5096

SPRING 2015 PAGE TWENTY-THREE

Massachusetts and New York were fmally established on 21 and 22 July, when solid information was on hand. These were set, respectively, at 22,000 and 5,000 men, a total nearly double that envisioned on 14 June.

The “expert riflemen” authorized on 14 June were the first units raised directly as Continentals. Congress intended to have the ten companies serve as a light infantry force for the Boston siege. At the same time it symbolically extended military participation beyond New England by allocating 6 of the companies to Pennsylvania, 2 to Maryland, and 2 to Virginia. Each company would have a captain, 3 lieutenants, 4 sergeants, 4 corporals, a drummer (or hom player), and 68 privates. The enlistment period was set at one year, the norm for the earlier Provincials, a period that would expire on 1 July 1776.

Responsibility for recruiting the companies was given to the three colonies’ delegates, who in tum relied on the county committees of those areas noted for skilled marksmen. The response in Pennsylvania’s western and northern frontier counties was so great that on 22 June the colony’s quota was increased from six to eight companies, organized as a regiment. On 25 June the Pennsylvania delegates, with authority from the Pennsylvania Assembly, appointed field officers for the regiment. Since there was no staff organization, company officers and volunteers performed the necessary duties. On 11 July delegate George Read secured the adoption of a ninth company that his wife’s nephew had organized in Lancaster County. In Virginia Daniel Morgan raised one company in Frederick County, and Hugh Stephenson raised another in Berkeley County. Michael Cresap’s and Thomas Price’s Maryland companies were both from Frederick County. All thirteen companies were organized during late June and early July. They then raced to Boston, where their frontier attitudes created disciplinary problems.

The following is a description of the birth of the U.S. Army from Robert Wright, The Continental Army (Washington, D.C.: Center of Military History, 1983), pp. 23-24:

The June 14 date is when Congress adopted “the American continental army” after reaching a consensus position in The Committee of the Whole. This procedure and the desire for secrecy account for the sparseness of the official journal entries for the day. The record indicates only that Congress undertook to raise ten companies of riflemen, approved an enlistment form for them, and appointed a committee (including Washington and Schuyler) to draft rules and regulations for the government of the army. The delegates’ correspondence, diaries, and subsequent actions make it clear that they really did much more. They also accepted responsibility for the existing New England troops and forces requested for the defense of the various points inN ew York. The former were believed to total 10,000 men; the latter, both New Yorkers and Connecticut men, another 5,000.

At least some members of Congress assumed from the beginning that this force would be expanded. That expansion, in the form of increased troop ceilings at Boston, came very rapidly as better information arrived regarding the actual numbers ofNew England troops. By the third week in June delegates were referring to 15,000 at Boston. When on 19 June Congress requested the governments of Connecticut, Rhode Island, and New Hampshire to forward to Boston “such of the forces as are already embodied, towards their quotas of the troops agreed to be raised by the New England Colonies,” it gave a clear indication of its intent to adopt the regional army. Discussions the next day indicated that Congress was prepared to support a force at Boston twice the size of the British garrison, and that it was unwilling to order any existing units to be disbanded. By the first week in July delegates were referring to a total at Boston that was edging toward 20.000. Maximum strengths for the forces both in

June 14th: The Birthday of the U.S. Army

The North Carolina Military Historical Society7410 Chapel Hill RoadRaleigh, North Carolina 27607-5096or current resident

We have a very interesting Symposium coming up on May 7th. Note the Symposium location has changed from the Museum of History, across the street to the State Archives and History Building, with plenty of parking in the lot directly in front. Note that some of the stories contained

in this Recall relate to the Symposium theme “The NCC Colonial Wars”. I did this to give some stories we had with some information regarding the Colonial Era.

I want to express my appreciation to Rita Billings, my Recall production partner. She does a wonderful job in putting my drafts in final form for printing. The Society owes her for helping me from preventing Recall from

going down. She does it for free, saying it’s her patriotic contribution for the Military.

A little reminiiscing here- I have served as Recall Editor since 1995. The pay is lousy but I love the challenge and the pleasure it gives an old soldier, a veteran of WWII, Korea and Vietnam, to have a real purpose to continue research and study of Military History.

That being said, I need your help in obtaining stories for Recall. I enjoy writing stories for Recall, but I should not be the only source for articles. Please give serious thought to helping our excellent publication. My contact information is located in the “Contribute Articles to Recall” section.

Finally, this year take time to visit a Memorial Day program being held in your area. We all appreciate and respect the men and women who died to preserve our freedom.

EDITOR’S TACK ROOMBy Richard M. Ripley

Readers are invited to submit material to Recall. In choosing material for publication, the editor of Recall will give preference to articles of unusual significance and transcripts or abstracts of difficult-to-locate records.

Material submitted for publication will be reviewed by persons knowledgeable in the areas covered for validity, significance, and appropriateness. All material will be edited for clarity and conciseness. Manuscripts should be sent to the Editor at 4404 Leota Drive, Raleigh, N.C. 27603. Tel. 919-772-7688. E-mail: rripley@nc.rr.com.

Contribute Articles to Recall

NONPROFIT ORG.

U.S. POSTAGEPAID

CARY, NC 27511Permit No. 551

Photos, Interviews SoughtTo Document TarheelMilitary Experience

In 1998, the N.C. Division of Archives and History began Phase III of its effort to better document the state’s 20th century military experience. Previous phases have focused on the period from 1900 through the end of the Korean War. Though still actively collecting and preserving items from this era, the Archives is seeking to honor North Carolina veterans who served North Carolina and the nation from 1954 through the present.

The Military History Collection Project also is engaged in an extensive oral history program. People around the state are encouraged to tape interviews with veterans of all time periods and services for deposit in the Military Collection of the State Archives. If you have items to share, please mail them to or contact: Ken Simpson, Coordinator, Military Collection Project, North Carolina Division of Archives and History, 109 East Jones Street, Raleigh, N.C. 27601-2807; or call 919-807-7314.

In this issue …Greene’s SC and the Battle of the Cow pens ....................1Colonial Militia in America 1607-1774 ................................ 3Colonial Militia in the South ................................................ 5North Carolinas Colonial Era Military Records ...................6The Tuscarora Indian War of 1711-1712 ......................... 10King Philip .......................................................................... 16Battle of New Orleans .......................................................17Annual Meeting and Symposium Schedule of Events .....182016 Symposium Speakers .............................................. 20Member News - NCMHS, Wilmington Chapter ................22Thank You for your Support .............................................. 22The Brotherhood ................................................................ 22June 14th: The Birthday of the U.S. Army ....................... 23Editor’s Tack Room ........................................................... 24Contribute Articles to Recall .............................................. 24Request to Document Tarheel Military Experience ..........24