Newspapers / The State’s Voice (Dunn, … / Aug. 15, 1933, edition 1 / Page 1
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^.IIBRARY ^ PAPER FOR THINKING PEOPLE -*'*? V' ’ " ?VV v ? -* ' ■«• f ' ■'1'^ " DU«N, n; c. AUGUST js; 1933 I have had brntsion to tease Edited Gifcy of the Raeigb Times two or three times in recent weeks, but this time I must seriously protest against mi» infurmatiori “heralded abroad in big columns. It was * only a short while ago that the Times carried a pro * test of the same kind against a western professor ofi, history who told a. group Jpfhis students .that John-, ston surrendered to Sherman at Italeigh. I conceive the blunders. in the fotjowingi clipping; from the Times far more, setfoias; they are matters of fundat^ meutal Importance. in'.tbe history of the State. ' ' •: *;• • *■! The Times articler. -‘V> Thousands arfe.reported to have been ak-^he celebration of the Battle of Moore’s Creek Bridge, nM the early and sanguinary eruption, of North Car olina which, led on to the:Reyolution, and ultl- - mate Statehood. , . >' iA' Without-ag much celebration as the. Battle of . .. Lexington which ushered jn jinned resistence to. . the British,-Moore’s Greek Bridge had* •really' 'V1; much more far-teaching results,. It developed.in-, , to a colony insurection -that carried so far %s to, cause the ouster cf a,Crown Governor. It brought - ion the Alamance disturbances.. It brought the _ . State in advance of a formal rebellion of the ,t American- colonies- into open revolt. ■ A$ a battle,. Moore’s Creek waas hi«itprii<2 but without significanee in itself- The Cape J!c*ar *.• section was loyal to Great Britain. It was, in ^ fact, Tory in-sentiment. At Moore’s Creek. the. loyalists marched stupidly into a trap and were y-;v all but massacred. . ..bapfr^i^^trail^ 7 ■. since1'forgotten" the cause Bi which their ffnces eesfcow gave up their lives. ... i. It would l>e difficult to write the same number of words embracing more historical errors... In the first place, the “early" sanguinary event of the Rev olutionary period in North Carolina was the battle tof Alamance, or the war of the Regulation. The revolution in North Carolina was well advanced when the Battle of Moores Creek Bridge was fought. Governor Martin had, in 1775, sent his family by sea from New Bern toNew York, had himself re tired-to Fort Johnston, at the mouth of the Cape Fear, and as early as July, 1775, had found his posi tion unsafe inthe fort and had retired to .the war sleep Cruiser. The very day of that retreat. Colonel Ashe, with 500 men burned Fort Johnston to the ground. Furthermore, the Hillsboro Congress, which met August 20th, 1775, afteir! burning a proclamation is sued by Governor Martin, proceeded to establish a provisional government for North Carolina, with Cor nelius Harnett at its head. The state was divided into six military dstricts and as far a# possible put upon g war footing. That was six months before the battle of Moore’s Creek Bridge. The War of the Regulation The Times article make# the Battle of Moore’s Creek Bridge precede the Battle of Alamance1, when, in fact, the latter preceded the former by five years. One of the questions of North Carolina history is whether to classify the War of the Regulators as a Revolutionary incident. The leaders of the later movement cooperated with Governor Tryon in sup pressing the Alamance rebellion. A great majority of the Regulators who remained in the affected section were Tories when the real revolution developed. But the leaders who co-operated with Tryon possibly did so with little zeal. Yet their leadership in the later devolution doubtless had its effect upon the sur viving Regulators, who feared, or distrusted any movement headed by their former oppressors under Tryon. Thus were the attitude# of the parties of the Battle of Alamance simply reversed in the Revolu tionary struggle, It may be concluded that the Regulation move ment vvas a revolutionary one, but was too early; while the former Regulators had the very incentive that the Scotch Highlanders had to abide by the Crown when the real revolution arose foifr .yeast i 1- V' — 'S-v—' --^'S later. The Scotch had been beaten at CuUodien in - . •. - .. . ..v „„ ... . f ^ . - ■■ • J745 and had been forced to swear eternal alteglahcV to the British Crown. Their coming,to America had jhot broken the force'of that oath. Moreover,^ speak ing 'fraeMc.&g they did, and nmroOned on the Western: slide Of fiid Cape IV, r, , they had -probably nof- dome into apy real intimacy w|th the leaders ip. th^CoJ ony. On “the other hand, =the .Regulators had been, beaten at Alamance -by eastern North Carolina torc hes .led by the later revolutionary leaders arid bad ben forced either tq flee, as dM-thousands of them, to the .western part, of the-state and to Tennessee, or to 'submit unqualifiedly to the terms of Clover nor Tryon, whom .they see- rwithih a few, weeks:. leaving the Province with the Expressed irearet of* such inen. as Richard Caswell. Thus, oues lesson in an, abortive .revolution and distrust outlie leaders in the Ireal revolutionary movement threw the remaining Regu lators into the' very same attitude toward the Revo-' lutiori as the. Scotch bore, and neither group can be. much blamed for that '■ * ■■ ittsr .^he Real Significance of Moored Thd edtiftf Of the Times says: “As’a battle Mqdre’e ‘Bridge i# what* lhakes' it of genuine historic interest.' As i see'ft'3hbre‘ woulcKprobably have |ieeij w> Pe' ' claratioh of Independence on July 4,' it tod . •■irqt been for the defeat of -the ih the fiiret place two thousand armed thenT under army, wag'vtift assured ol focal 'Jflntf Briff$h sdpplf<b~if they had got' poscssiOn of Wilmingtpn; Tt seems to be established^ that their march"Jo Wlkl mington was at the direction of General Clinton, who before sailing southward from Halifax, where the British army had retired from Boston, had sent olrders to the Scotch to meet him in Wilmington. As a matter of fact. Clinton sailed Into the Cape Pear but learning of the defeat of the Scotch de parted and sailed for Charleston, where only a few days before the Declaration of Independence he was defeated in his attack upon Fort Moultrie. flow The Colonies Would Have Been Divided To discover the real effects of a reversal of the outcome of the Battle of Moore’s Creek Bridge, con sider what the occupancy of Wilmington by an army of two thousand bold Scotch, later joined by a Brit ish fleet and land forces, would have meant. With supplies furnished by the British, against which there would have been no hindrance, the ill-supplied and short-term Patriots iof the State would have been no match for any such force. North Carolina would have been lost to the Colonies. That would have meant the isolation of South Carolina and Georgia. Therefore, it is rather safe to say that if there had been any Declaration of Independence at all on July 4, 1776, North Carolina, Georgia and South Carolina would scarcely hare participated dn the declaration. The Victory the Key of Revolutionary Success It is hard to conceive of a successful issue of the Revolution with the three southernmost colonies cut off from the ten more northern ones in the very outset Every phase of the revolutionary movement thence on would have been changed. There need have 'been no cheering victory at Fort Moultrie. Greene’s final effective tactics in the two Carolinas would not have followed. Something else as effective a 5 these might have occurred in the southern colo nies, but the whole course of events in the Carolinas and Georgia, and probably in the other ten states, would have been entirely different. In short, the British would have been nearer the subjugation of the colonies on July 4, 1776, than they ever ap proached. In short, the victor# at Moore’s Creek Bridge was a decisive battle, almost as much so as was that of Quebec in the. French and Indian War. The Attitude of the Cape Fear Section. !also of the geography , of ihe section itself.' Count _ Robeson Guilty out of the Cape Fear section. {There ~ is scarcely a da op ot- Robeson water drained' into ’ the Cape Feaf Rfver. The present Cumberland, Hoke, . ~ -Moore, Lee, Chatham, Randolph, Alamance, and part of Guilford, part of Bladen and Columbus; and . :4'.’; 'and Columbus 'are in iSe Little Pee Ii4e> or^litfmbesp f ' River,. area, pn tie east? of the .Cape: Feary^New ?■#£ . , ✓* ‘-t 'V. ♦ £**...-*- ft. - :V' ., • * VSjs* Hanover,. Pender,, partof Bladen, Sampson, EHiplih, fih' Harnett and bite of Wayne1 and Johnston;.'and south'- ■ *■> west Wake" comprise the CapeFear drainage^ hrea. * ••• t- *-• * >.<-i:m•"-} - ^ ’ Jr* * >* , : The Tory sentiment dominated only in Cuihber "landj Hoke, Moobe’fmd Lee,'the area of. Scotch set »• j,V f»f, yv/i• '< *. . .'AS-w;* “ ’ •> orir? ?n a rnAdfoftW l«-Y!VKnt»tnTV» Ilf ; .of, the failure of the Regulators’ War.: - •r* The very fact that 500 men would .join’ in fjjji.jgv* burning of Eort Johnston in July 1775,. seven months c, before the Battle of Moore’s Greek, fridge, is evl ■dench that thetfe .was a robust , revolutionary, senti- • . meat in the lower Cape Fear area. Infact, theTory ’ sentiment* seems . largely confined to the Scotch element of. Cumberland, Hoke; Northern Rpbesoh, v, , . Scptlaud^Moore, and L%«sa» the Aunties .now %&' ‘ ^ lam. mt ftdfeai, tpwbf ‘ sauipson. Pender, and New Han* 1 bver, earlier comers fbanthe gteafc immigratiS^a^^^# r ter-tMlodsen-,; .^ehepunaffected^si^iij^iig^l^g^^l^ltP®1^ feffl " was' a ■ • court;erdhere were One of my own Sampson county Tory. On the other hand,, m? ^derman ancestors liv ed right near the Mobfe’s Creek battle ground and, ’; the Revolutionary one of them is reported by tradi tion as participating in the’ tattle’ and- is actually listed among the soldiera following Washington later.; ’ The other six seem to have been Whigs, ar at least not Tories. If seven out of eight holds for the Samii eon-Pender area it is clear that the Whigs were largely in the ascendant in twootf the most definitely described counties of the Cape Fear section. And the very story that keeps alive the Tory con nection of that Dollar ancestor indicates! the pre dominance of the Whigs. He seems to have been a man of a fine sense of humor, as he told the joke on himself. So dangerous was it for a Tory to be seen in the Clinton section that he had slipped back ■s? -m 15C % me xory rorce« oy .rngnt and was sneaking along a lane. All aquiver lest 'he should be detected, when a yearling lying in a jamb of a fence raised up and ' bellowed-like as he passed, he threw up hi® hands • and blurted out: “I surrender” If this ancestor was a Scotchman or Scotsman, as the nativity of the Dol lar ship-master indicates as to the nativity of that family, I must somewhat modify my statement that the non-Mac Seoteh of the eastern area of , the Gape Fear section were not Tories. I think that true of the lower area of Sampson and Pender, but the Macs of the Culloden period had penetrated Sampson from Fayetteville and the earlier Scotch arrivals in . cen tral and upper Sampson may have 'been affected by the prevailing Scotch sentiments of the Gross Cree^ section. . * Senator Hoar’s Ignorance. z"1 I challenge Editor Gray to write an article, more comprehensive of errors than that quoted. ’. . ^ However, ignorance of Moore’s Greek Bridge was once almost universal. W)hen: Marlon Butler,: as senator, introduced the first bill in Congress for an appropriation for rhe improvement^, of the Battle Grounds at Mjoore’s Creek Bridge,; Senator-Hq*?, the scholarly Massachusetts senator .of that day., confess ed that he had never heard- of the-battle before. Yet there is . no compayisonin. the- signiticanoe of Lex ington and Moore’s Creek. But It is; time the_ latter is recognized in all its significance. i z'Zj&fr* HU ':U
The State’s Voice (Dunn, N.C.)
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Aug. 15, 1933, edition 1
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