School History of North Carolina Part 22

10. What river was next crossed?

11. Describe the retreat further.

12. What did General Greene find it necessary to do to cover his retreat? Who commanded this detachment?

13. What river was crossed on February 13th, 1781? How many miles had Greene been pursued by Cornwallis? Can you go to the map and trace the course of this famous retreat?

CHAPTER x.x.xIV.

BATTLE OF GUILFORD COURT HOUSE.

A. D. 1781.

When the British commander found that General Greene was completely beyond his reach, he marched to Hillsboro and there erected the Royal standard. In consequence of his proclamations and the retreat of General Greene across Dan River, several hundred Tories collected under Colonel John Pyle and started to join Lord Cornwallis. General Greene sent Lieutenant Colonel Henry Lee across Dan River to observe them.

2. Pyle and his Tories supposing Lee's force to be British troops, drew near, uttering cheers for King George. Suddenly the bugles of the lighthorse sounded a charge, and Pyle and his men were furiously a.s.sailed. In five minutes ninety lay dead upon the ground, and nearly all the others were prisoners of war.

This b.l.o.o.d.y affair has been called "Pyle's Hacking Match."

3. Major Joseph Graham, with his mounted force, had just before captured a picket of twenty-five men a mile and a half away from Hillsboro. General Polk's militia were also in the same vicinity, and soon General Greene, having received reinforcements, recrossed the Dan and a.s.sumed a position on the Reedy Fork, a confluent of Haw River.

4. Cornwallis hearing of Pyle's disaster, left Hillsboro and moved westward to protect any Tories that might seek to reach him. The first time the two armies again saw anything of each other was at Whitsell's Mill. At that place Colonel Otho H.

Williams was posted with a body of light troops, which Lord Cornwallis attempted to cut off from the main body. He failed in so doing, but both armies were filled with admiration at a display of personal gallantry.

5. Colonel Williams had posted sharpshooters in and around the millhouse. These discovered a British officer approaching a ford below them, and saw that he was leading men and trying to cross the stream. Many deadly rifles were soon hurling their missiles around him, but slowly, and as if unconscious of being under fire, he crossed in safety. This intrepid man was Lieutenant- Colonel William Webster, then a brigade commander under Cornwallis.

6. On March 15th, 1781, General Greene being at the courthouse of Guilford county, learned that the British army was approaching on the Salisbury road. He hosted his men in three lines and awaited the enemy's arrival, who came on in fine style, but the first American line, composed of militia, giving ground, only the men of the gallant Captain Forbis, of the Hawfields, gained credit for their conduct. The British found stubborn resistance in the second and third lines, where the Continentals were posted.

7. It was a furious and b.l.o.o.d.y conflict, and such havoc was wrought in the British ranks by a charge of Colonels Howard and Washington, that Lord Cornwallis opened fire with his artillery upon his friends and foes alike, and thus checked this dangerous American movement. General Greene at length gave orders for retreat, and the field was left in the possession of the British.

8. British valor was never more splendidly exhibited than upon this hard-fought field. With less than half of Greene's force, they won the field, but the victory was too costly. At least one- fourth of the British force was dead and disabled, including the gallant Webster, the hero of Whitsell's Mill. General Greene, having halted close by the scene of conflict, returned three days later to again offer battle, but Lord Cornwallis was flying towards Wilmington for safety. He who had so long sought to bring on an engagement was now the fugitive.

9. General Greene followed in pursuit, but failing to overtake his foe, he turned his course and marched against Lord Rawdon, in South Carolina. He had redeemed North Carolina from the grasp of her foes, and went to confer upon the two other Southern commonwealths a similar blessing. No more British armies were to bring ruin and terror to any portion of North Carolina.

10. Lord Cornwallis hurried to Wilmington. His stay was short there, for turning north in the month of April, 1781, he marched his army, by way of Halifax, to Virginia. There, ere long, this great soldier was to close his career in America. He had, with a small portion of the British force under the command of Sir Henry Clinton accomplished more than all compatriots.

11. On September the 8th a brilliant battle took place at Eutaw Springs, in South Carolina, between General Greene's army and the British under Colonel Stewart. It was the hardest fought and best conducted action of the war. The three North Carolina Continental regiments, led by General Sumner, bore the brunt of the conflict, and were greatly praised for their gallantry.

About two thousand men each was the strength of the armies, and they lost twelve hundred in killed and wounded. This battle resulted in the retreat of the British to Charleston.

12. Governor Nash's term of office having expired, Thomas Burke, of Orange, became his successor. Burke was an Irishman by birth, of good family, well educated, and with fine abilities. He had been conspicuous in public affairs and had shown a warm devotion to the American cause. His home was in Hillsboro, which was then the capital of the State.

QUESTIONS.

1. Where did Cornwallis next go? What recruits were raised, and who was put in command? Whom had General Greene appointed to watch the enemy?

2. Describe the surprise and defeat of Colonel Pyle and his men.

3. Mention the movements of Major Joseph Graham. Of General Greene.

4. Give an account of the affair at Whitsell's Mill.

5. What special act of bravery is related?

6. What occurred on March 15th, 1781? Give some account of the battle of Guilford Court House?

7. How did the engagement terminate ?

8. What is said of the British victory? What did General Greene do three days later?

9. Where did he then go?

10. Where did Cornwallis carry his army?

11. Give an account of the battle of Eutaw Springs?

12. Who succeeded Governor Nash, and what is said of him?

CHAPTER x.x.xV.

FANNING AND HIS BRUTALITIES-- CAPTURE OF GOVERNOR BURKE.

A. D. 1781.

When Lord Cornwallis left Wilmington, on his way to Virginia, there were no British troops left in North Carolina except about four hundred regulars and some Tory recruits, which const.i.tuted the garrison of Wilmington. Major James H. Craig was in command there, having captured the place in the preceding January.

2. He had been trained to arms, and when General Burgoyne surrendered at Saratoga, was his Adjutant-General. He was skillful as a soldier, but utterly unscrupulous as to the means he used to carry out his objects. Seeing the British driven from almost all the State, he determined to ruin a people he could not subdue, and began to stir up a warfare of neighborhoods.

3. He found in David Fanning, of Chatham county, a powerful aid in his inhuman scheme. Fanning was a man of low birth, ignorant and unscrupulous. He was a good partisan guerrilla leader, being brave, enterprising and swift to execute. a.s.sociating with himself a small band of Tories, whose sole objects were plunder and revenge, he was for a time the terror of Chatham and Orange counties. Well mounted and well armed, and continually on the alert, these marauders made havoc of the Whig settlements, murdering, burning and destroying, unrestrained by any authority and with no sense of humanity. They did not spare even their own neighbors, many of whom they shot down or hanged at their own doors.

4. Many stories are told of Fanning's exploits, of his audacity, his cruelty, his arrogance, and his wonderful successes and hairbreadth escapes. Such a state of affairs existed at one time in the counties ravaged by his band that even the pitiless Colonel Tarleton deplored its continuance. Fanning was born in Johnston county about the year 1754, and was the vilest and bloodiest wretch ever seen in our limits, most richly deserving the punishment of the gallows. He continued his criminal courses as long as he lived, and was pardoned for a capital felony committed on the Island of Cape Breton not long before his departure from this world.

5. Fanning began his military operations by surprising a courtmartial in Chatham. His prisoners were disposed of by parole or sent to Wilmington. This was in July, 1781. His attack upon the house of Colonel Philip Alston, a few days later, was a more serious matter, for he encountered stubborn resistance and some loss before compelling the surrender of a force almost as large as his own, and protected by the walls of a large house. Four of the Whigs were killed, and those who remained alive were spared from butchery by Fanning only at the earnest appeals of Mrs. Alston.

6. Fanning's movements called for resistance, and Colonel Thomas Wade collected a force of more than three hundred men at McFall's Mill, in c.u.mberland county. These were speedily attacked and utterly driven from that portion of the country.

It was afterwards learned by the victors that Colonel Dudley's Chatham regiment of cavalry was disbanded, and Fanning immediately pushed on to Hillsboro. On the morning of September 12th, his force entered the town, and succeeded in capturing Governor Burke and several other prominent persons. *

*David Fanning gives the account of this affair as follows: "We received several shots from different houses; however, we lost none and suffered no damage, except one man wounded. We killed fifteen of the rebels and wounded twenty, and took upwards of two hundred prisoners; amongst them was the Governor, his council, and part of the continental colonels, several captains and subalterns, and seventy-one Continental soldiers out of a church. We proceeded to the gaol and released thirty Loyalists and British soldiers."

7. The bold marauders who had thus seized the Governor and capital of the State, at once started with their prisoners for Wilmington; but tidings of this exploit had reached a body of men who hastened to Lindley's Mill, on Cane Creek, to receive them. The Whigs, nominally commanded by General John Butler, were really directed by Major Robert Mebane in their brave and b.l.o.o.d.y reception of the Tories.

8. The Tory Colonel, Hector McNeil, leading the attack, was slain, and his followers driven back in confusion. It seemed that Governor Burke would be rescued and the whole Tory column captured when Fanning, ever fertile in expedients, discovered a ford in Cane Creek, and having crossed with a portion of his command, attacked the Whigs in the rear. This soon ended the battle, which was a b.l.o.o.d.y one to both sides.

9. About the same time with the capture of Hillsboro, a most gallant and successful attack was made upon the Tory stronghold at Elizabethtown, in Bladen county. There sixty Whigs, in the favoring darkness of night, fell upon and drove out a largely superior force commanded by Colonel John Slingsby. He and many of his men were slain, and Major Craig was thus confined in his fortifications in Wilmington.