The North Carolina Continentals

By Hugh F. Rankin

In this classic account of the Revolutionary War experiences of the North Carolina Continentals, Hugh F. Rankin traces the events leading to war in North Carolina and follows all the campaigns and battles in which the North Carolina Continentals took part--Brandywine, Germantown, Charleston, Savannah, Camden, Eutaw Springs, and others. He also provides descriptions of almost all of the significant personalities in the Continental Army. Originally published in 1971, this new edition contains a foreword by Lawrence Babits, introducing the book to a new generation of scholars and general readers interested in the Revolutionary War.

• Language: English
• Publisher: The University of North Carolina Press
• Release date: Jun 5, 2015
• ISBN: 9781469621579

Hugh F. Rankin

Hugh F. Rankin (1913-1989) taught history at Tulane University, where he was also faculty chair of athletics for many years. He wrote, cowrote, or edited sixteen books, including Rebels and Redcoats: The American Revolution through the Eyes of Those Who Fought and Lived It and Pirates of Colonial North Carolina.

Book preview

Chapter 1: War Comes to North Carolina

"… teizing and fretting the people here…."

In the years just before the outbreak of the rebellion in the American colonies, violence and civil strife were peculiar characteristics of a bitter political struggle. In North Carolina this struggle was particularly venomous for, it has been said, the colony contained a greater number of loyalists in proportion to its population than any other. Some Carolinians seemed to take the actions of Great Britain as a personal affront, and in 1774 Samuel Johnston had written from Edenton, The Ministry from the time of passing the Declaratory Act, on the repeal of the Stamp Act, seemed to have used every opportunity of teizing and fretting the people here as if on purpose to draw them into Rebellion or some Violent opposition to Government….¹

The Whigs, as the most rebellious element termed themselves, early began to take the initiative, so much so that Janet Schaw, a loyalist visitor was led to record a doleful lament in her journal: Oh Britannia, what are you doing, while your true obedient sons are thus insulted by their unlawful brethren; are they also forgot by their natural parents? But these true obedient sons grew weary of passively turning the other cheek and they too began to organize into a party of the opposition.²

The logical leader for these adherents to the Crown was the royal governor, Josiah Martin. The governor was a young man of thirty-six years, energetic and attractive, but possessed of a penchant for overenthusiasm, while his approach to political problems was seldom tactful or cautious. He seemed always to be chasing a will-o’-the-wisp, with the grass always greener in other pastures. Life, he seemed to feel, had been particularly unkind to him in distributing material wealth to less deserving individuals. Born in Antigua in 1737, he had entered the local militia at the age of seventeen and three years later had purchased a commission in the Fourth Foot Regiment of the regular army. By 1764 he had been able, through the assistance of his family, to purchase a lieutenant colonel’s commission in the Twenty-Second Regiment, but in 1764 he was transferred to the Sixty-Eighth, stationed in Antigua, at which place he had been appointed a member of the governor’s council. In 1761 he had visited the mainland where his uncle Josiah, for whom he was named, was living on Long Island in New York. There he met his cousin Elizabeth, and although she was five years older, he married her in that same year. The couple were to have eight children.³

Although Martin pleaded ill health as the reason for selling his army commission in 1769, a more likely explanation is that he was experiencing financial difficulties. Through the influence of his brother Henry, Josiah was appointed royal governor of North Carolina on December 14, 1770. It was not an appointment that would make a man wealthy, but Martin had his eye on a position that would, an additional job as agent for Lord Granville’s grant, comprising roughly about one-half of North Carolina.⁴

In general, North Carolinians seemed pleased with the appointment; Samuel Johnston wrote before Martin’s arrival, As we hear a very amiable Character of him [we] are not uneasy of the approaching Change. The new governor, complaining of his health, did not arrive in the colony until July 11, 1771. On August 12, he met his council for the first time and took the oath of office in the magnificent new governor’s residence in New Bern, constructed by his predecessor, William Tryon. Before his departure to assume his new appointment as governor of New York, Tryon talked with Martin, and it was he who probably suggested to Martin that he make a tour of the back country, the scene of the recent Regulator uprising. In the summer of 1772, in company with his family, the new governor toured the Regulator country, but in the light of later events, this trip was not as successful as he at first imagined.⁵

Martin’s gubernatorial difficulties began in his first assembly. When the legislature repealed a tax law of 1748, the governor vetoed the repeal on the grounds that the statute should be retained. In retaliation, Richard Caswell, Speaker of the House of Commons, advised the sheriffs not to collect the taxes; they obeyed the Speaker despite the governor’s proclamation demanding that the levies be collected. Martin refused to call another assembly until January, 1773, when the legislature, in a routine renewal of a court statute, attached a rider to the bill allowing the assembly to attach or confiscate the North Carolina property of nonresidents. When Martin refused to agree to the bill, the high courts of the colony did not sit, leaving the governor to struggle along with the emergency courts that he created under the royal prerogative. In March one visitor was led to comment: The present state of North Carolina is really curious—there are but five provincial laws in force through the colony, and no courts at all in being. No one can recover a debt, except before a single magistrate, where the sums are within his jurisdiction, and offenders escape with impunity. The people are in great consternation about the matter; what will be consequence is problematical.⁶

Faced with the prospect of a legislature that might become increasingly stubborn, Martin sought a more congenial climate. When he heard that the governor’s places in South Carolina and Virginia were possible vacancies, Martin dismissed both possibilities with the observation that the people of South Carolina were vain, luxurious, & pompous, to the highest degree. They are not less ostentatious in Virginia, so that in either place I should be exposed to expence…. His most promising rumor was that Tryon was not only ill, but was weary of the toils of government, and was entertaining thoughts of relinquishing the governor’s chair in New York. Martin wanted the position, explaining that the Climate of that Province is genial to my constitution & its vast emoluments would soon improve my future to the height of my wishes.⁷

There was another rebuff for the governor when the assembly met in December, 1773; that body refused to sanction an appropriation to meet the obligations of Martin’s emergency courts. The governor complained to his brother that the late Session of the General Assembly, abortive of every thing but ill humour & reproach of Government, hath left me to bewail, the wretched state to which its rank & unpolitical Councils have reduced this Country. Seemingly, he was now convinced that the Patriots, as he now termed the recalcitrants, would so inflame the people that rebellion was inevitable. He solicited his brother’s aid in seeking permission from Lord Barrington, secretary at war, to allow Martin to raise a battalion of Highlanders in the state, and to restore his old commission in the army for which I feel an inclination.⁸

At the same time that the December assembly was sitting, local events in Massachusetts were to affect not only that province, but all of the remaining colonies. A mob, masquerading under crude disguise as Mohawks, boarded British tea ships and threw some 342 chests of East India Company tea into Boston harbor. Parliament’s original Tea Act had not seemed to have had strong repercussions in North Carolina, but when subsequent coercive measures were passed to punish the Bostonians for their effrontery, the Carolinians began to argue that if such acts were allowed to stand, similar statutes might be applied to other colonies. And there were some who could see no end to the dispute between England and her colonies. Samuel Johnston wrote with sarcastic pen of a "Mr Pettigrew, who comes over for a Commission from the Bishop to prepare the Americans for death, and a World where they will no longer be liable to be taxed by a British Parliament…"⁹

There was an effective organization to maintain a measure of unity among the defiant North Carolinians. The December assembly, following the lead of Virginia, had selected a Committee of Correspondence composed of John Harvey, John Ashe, Cornelius Harnett, Robert Howe, Edward Vail, William Hooper, Samuel Johnston, and Joseph Hewes, possibly the most influential political leaders in the colony. As its mission, the committee was charged to obtain early information of any acts of the British government in regard to the colonies, and to correspond with committees of other colonies as to their plans of resistance. One of their first public statements was to declare that the cause of Boston was the cause of all, pledging their cooperation with the other colonies and asserting that a Continental Congress was an absolute necessity. Josiah Quincy, Boston patriot traveling for his health, passed through North Carolina in March and April, 1773. His observations on the North Carolina leaders with whom he dined on March 30, 1773, are worthy of notice: Dined with about twenty at Mr. William Hooper’s—find him apparently in the Whig interest,—has taken their side in the House—is caressed by the whigs, and is now passing his election through the influence of that party. Spent the night at Mr. Harnett’s, the Samuel Adams of North Carolina (except in point of fortune). Robert Howe, Esq., Harnett, and myself made the social triumvirate of the evening. The plan of continental correspondence highly relished, much wished for, and resolved upon, as proper to be pursued.¹⁰

From the Boston Committee of Correspondence came the declaration that their city was suffering in the common cause. The Wilmington area sprang into action, and within a short time a considerable sum was subscribed. … Parker Quince of Brunswick offered his Penelope, and a Captain Budd and his crew agreed to sail a cargo of provisions to Boston without pay. A committee composed of James Moore, George Hooper, Robert Howe, Archibald Maclaine, William Hooper, John Ancrum, Robert Hogg, and Francis Clayton supervised the collection of 2,096 bushels of corn, 22 barrels of flour, and 17 barrels of pork, which, although originally consigned to Salem, was eventually unloaded at Marblehead, Massachusetts.¹¹

The business was not without its humorous byplay. When the ladies of Edenton swore off tea and those of Wilmington burned theirs in solemn procession, Arthur Iredell commented in a letter from England:

Is there a Female Congress in Edenton too? I hope not, for we Englishmen are afraid of the Male Congress, but if the Ladies, who have ever, since the Amasoien ara, been esteemed the most formidable Enemies, if they, I say, should attack us, the most fatal consequences is to be dreaded. So dextrous in the handling of a Dart, each wound they give is Mortal; whilst we are so unhappily form’d, by Nature, the more we strive to conquer them, the more the Conquest! The Edenton Ladies conscious of this Superiority on their side, by former Experience are willing, I imagine to crush into Atoms, by their Omnipotency, the only Security on our Side, to prevent the impending Ruin, that I can perceive is, the probability that there is that but few of the places in America who possess so much female Artillery, as Edenton.¹²

By June, things had worsened to such a point that Martin was little more than a figurehead on the North Carolina political scene. Some, such as William Hooper, were in virtual rebellion against the mistaken policy of England. Hooper declared, The only appology I can find for them [the English ministry] is to charge the depravity of their hearts upon the weakness of their heads—Infatuated people! When Massachusetts and Virginia issued calls for a continental congress to meet in Philadelphia during September, the North Carolina Committee of Correspondence urged all southern colonies to follow the lead of Virginia and, if the governors refused to summon the assemblies, to form associations. Martin, knowing full well that the North Carolina Assembly would defy his instructions and elect delegates to a continental congress, refused to call the assembly into session. Colonel John Harvey, Speaker of the House, announced that if the governor persisted in his refusal to summon the legislature, a convention would be called. In July, a mass meeting in Wilmington, led by Cornelius Harnett, William Hooper, and Edward Buncombe, called for a provincial congress to meet in New Bern on August 23, 1774. The three-day session of North Carolina’s first Provincial Congress was presided over by John Harvey, who was named moderator. After resolutions critical of British policy (although including protestations of loyalty to the Crown), and of sympathy for the suffering inhabitants of Boston, the idea of a continental congress was proposed and endorsed. William Hooper, Richard Caswell, and Joseph Hewes were elected as delegates to the Continental Congress and invested with such powers as may make any Acts done by them or any of them or consent given in behalf of this Province, Obligatory in honor upon every Inhabitant thereof. Before adjourning, the delegates to the Provincial Congress gave Harvey the authority to call another meeting of the body when he deemed necessary.¹³

Royal government crumbled, weakened by the erosion of turbulent passions. As early as March; 1775, Martin heard of troop embodiments in New Hanover and Brunswick counties. In April his council deserted him. Yet he was optimistic because of the loyalist sentiment evident in the colony, although he was forced to admit that the movement of this part of the Continent, will be governed by the impulses of the people of New England.… On the other hand, Archibald Neilson and others who deplored the idea of the Carolinians taking their cues from the violence to the Northward,—the illiberal wild impolitic and profane violence, transacted there, can not be for Sacred Liberty—which induces only what is wise and Virtuous.—Now it is Folly, all madness and wickedness. … I am more and more convinced that there are many vile men in popular Consideration to the Northward; Hypocrites and traitors to the cause they ostensibly defend…¹⁴

Overestimating his powers of persuasion, Martin issued a call for the assembly to meet in New Bern on April 4. Once again John Harvey frustrated the governor by issuing a call for a provincial congress to meet in the same place on the day before the assembly was to gather, its declared purpose to act in union with our neighboring colonies, and to elect new delegates to the second Continental Congress. Only one of the assembly’s fifty-seven delegates was not listed among the sixty-seven members of the Provincial Congress. John Harvey, Speaker of the House, served in a similar capacity as moderator for the Congress. In their meeting Governor Martin was denounced; the right to petition the Crown for a redress of grievances was asserted; and Hooper, Hewes, and Caswell were re-elected as delegates to the Continental Congress. A Committee of Safety was created not only for each town and county, but for the colony as a whole. Harvey was authorized to call another provincial congress unless his present illness proved fatal. Under such a circumstance, Harvey’s authority was to pass to Samuel Johnston.¹⁵

For all of his faults, Josiah Martin was a courageous man. In his address to the assembly on Tuesday, April 4, he urged its members to resist the monster, sedition, who dared raise his impious head in America. So passionate were his words that one newspaper termed his address a high-flying, abusive, anti-American speech, in which he spoke hard things of all the colonies, congresses, committees, and people on the continent, except those of his own stamp, and begged of his assembly not to approve of sending delegates to the Congress in May. The governor’s words might as well never have been spoken, for the members of the assembly continued to discuss those matters with which they had occupied themselves the day before in the Provincial Congress, and voted a formal resolution voicing approval of the Continental Congress. Within four days an angry governor had dissolved the legislature, shortly after he had written Lord Dartmouth, secretary of state for the colonies, that government here is as absolutely prostrate as impotent, and nothing but the shadow of it is left. He concluded his dispatch with the prophetic warning that unless effectual measures such as British Spirit may dictate are speedily taken, there will not long remain a trace of Britain’[s] dominion over the colonies.¹⁶

Even before the meeting of the assembly, efforts had been made by the rebels to secure the powder supply within the colony. Militia units had been alerted to raise money for the purchase of powder and lead that they may be provided against the Incursions on the frontier which seems probable. The situation was only intensified when the news of the battles of Lexington and Concord reached New Bern on May 6. After this Samuel Johnston noted that Tom Polk is raising a very pretty spirit in the back country.… The rumor that the governor was planning to muster Negroes and Indians to his defense added fuel to the flames. Although Martin denied any such intentions, a number of Negroes were accused and punished, and armed bands of runaways were discovered hiding in the swamps and forests along the coast. In Chatham County a deep Laid Horrid Tragick Plan, Laid for distroying the Inhabitants of this Province without respect of persons, Age or Sex was put down by hastily raised light horse troops recruited from the militia. Such accusations led Martin to complain that he was not supported by a single man, an helpless and disagreeable situation that almost breaks my heart. Robert Howe seems to have assumed the direction of the militia. The entire colony took on a martial air as groups drilled to the unlikely rhythm of the thump of the drum and the scrape of the fiddle. Ridiculous as one such review appeared to Janet Schaw, she appended an ominous warning in her journal: But the worst figure there can shoot from behind a bush and kill even a General Wolfe.¹⁷

Yet despite these martial and even belligerent rumblings in the province, the North Carolina delegates to the Continental Congress felt that the colony had not shown the zeal or exertion displayed by other colonies who had taken an honourable share in the line of Defence armed and equipped to avert the Calamity, dreading a civil War as the most awful scourge of Heaven. … And, added Hooper, Caswell, and Hewes, North Carolina alone remains an inactive Spectator of the general Armament. Supine and careless, she seems to forget even the Duty she owes to her own local Circumstances and Situations.¹⁸

Governor Martin remained under the constant surveillance of the New Bern Committee of Safety. Not only the town’s militia company, but those of the surrounding country were embodied. On May 23, the local committee called on the governor. Abner Nash, according to Martin, their Oracle and a principal promoter of sedition here, came forward to request that the cannon usually before the governor’s palace and recently dismounted by Martin be returned to their original positions. Martin was furious, convinced that Nash used this demand as a mere pretext for insulting me. Yet he held his tongue. Apparently the governor’s explanation that new gun carriages sturdy enough to stand the salutes of the upcoming celebration of the king’s birthday were under construction satisfied the committee, for Nash led them away.¹⁹

This display of open resistance to matters even of a minor nature led Martin to conclude that he could no longer maintain the fiction of effective government in New Bern. Mrs. Martin, who expected a child soon, and the other children were placed aboard a small vessel and taken to the comparative safety of her father’s house on Long Island. Shortly afterwards a certain old soldier in Carolina on business reported to the governor that a sloop with a cargo of arms was on its way to Martin. Because, or so the governor reported, these arms would probably never reach him if unloaded in conventional ports, he decided to station himself in Fort Johnston near the mouth of the Cape Fear. With the aid of a few faithful servants he spiked the cannon and buried all ammunition and military accouterments beneath the cabbage bed in the palace garden. Then, with the announced intention of paying a visit to Chief Justice Hand, he fled to Fort Johnston, arriving at that post on June 2.²⁰

Fort Johnston offered little more protection than the governor’s palace; Janet Schaw declared that she could take this fort with a regim’t of blackguard Edinburgh boys without any artillery, but their own popguns. But there was the added protection of the Cruizer, an eight-gun sloop of the Royal Navy anchored in the Cape Fear off the post. Under normal conditions the fort was garrisoned by a housekeeping complement of twenty-five men, but desertions had reduced that number to less than half. The fort had been low on powder for some time, and Captain John Collet, the commanding officer, had been desperately attempting to supplement his supply from the Cruizer since early May. But Francis Parry, commander of the sloop, refused to part with more than two and one-half barrels because of the threats of the Carolinians that they would send a fleet of armed vessels down upon him.

Despite this depressing prospect, Martin decided upon an aggressive course of action. The majority of his council now ignored him, and only five attended his meeting within the walls of Fort Johnston on June 25. Although Captain Collet swore that his powder supply would not allow him to defend even his own artillery, the council went along with the governor’s optimism, authorizing him to issue militia commissions, recruit replacements for the garrison, and petition General Thomas Gage for funds with which to repair the fort. But in general, thought Martin, the council were afraid to take a becoming part, I firmly believe from apprehensions of personal insult. … As for himself, The situation in which I find myself at present is indeed most despicable and mortifying to any man of greater feelings than a Stoic…. And now, since the people of Mecklenburg had taken such a strong stand against royal government in their resolves of May 31, 1775, Martin felt that things were coming to a head and that the resolves surpass all the horrible and treasonable publications that the inflamatory spirits of this Continent have yet produced…."²¹

Martin was so isolated that he did not receive formal notification of the battles of Lexington and Concord until two months after the events, and by that time first impressions [had] taken deep root in the minds of the vulgar here. … To Lord Dartmouth he reiterated his conviction that he could raise a battalion of Highlanders within the colony and once again he requested the restoration of his commission. His enthusiasm seems to have been generated after Allan McDonald, a person of influence among his countrymen and husband of the famous Flora, had journeyed down to Fort Johnston with the proposal that a battalion of good and faithful Highlanders be raised among the recent arrivals of the McDonald and McLeod clans. The rising spirit of opposition seemed to stamp a note of finality upon any hope of negotiations. Now there were reports that armed bands were forcing people to sign the Association, and recruiting parties from South Carolina were enlisting men in North Carolina. Those who were suspected of contacting Martin had been branded as false and seditious incendiaries.²²

John Harvey had died in May, but Samuel Johnston seemed reluctant to exercise the authority that had passed onto him. Perhaps the explanation lies in a later letter of Joseph Hewes, who asked that he postpone the meeting until a complete journal of the proceedings of the Continental Congress could be laid before the North Carolina Provincial Congress. Then too, said Hewes, It will never do to harrass our people by calling them too often to meet in Convention.… In July, the Committee of Safety demanded that Harvey call an early congress, arguing that every passing day allowed the governor additional time in which to spirit up the back country or perhaps even the slaves, while at the same time he could be strengthening the walls of Fort Johnston. The reports of a slave insurrection only increased the fears of Martin’s influence.²³

These supposed activities of the governor posed a problem for the Wilmington Committee of Safety, especially since Fort Johnston constituted a bridgehead from which protection could be afforded for the disembarkation of troops sent from General Thomas Gage’s force in Boston. It was evident from intercepted letters that Martin was striving mightily to raise a force of sufficient strength to regain the province for his royal master. To prevent Martin from using available manpower and also to strengthen themselves, a number of seamen aboard the merchant vessels in the river who were familiar with the operation of artillery were seduced by the Carolinians through a five-pound bounty. Captain John Collet, who had succeeded Robert Howe as commander of Fort Johnston in 1773, was used as a justification for an attack upon the fort. The Wilmington Committee of Safety declared that he was readying the fort to receive expected reinforcements, that he was wantonly detaining merchant vessels when they applied for bills of health, he had constantly defied local magistrates, and he had embezzled government property. When the sheriff had served proper writs upon him for debt, Collet had replied with the shameful contempt of wiping his b-k s-de with them. And Martin later was to admit that most of these charges were substantially accurate. An attack on the fort was planned. Summons were sent out to all militia and independent companies to turn out to dislodge that notorious freebooter.²⁴

Robert Howe’s command of nearly five hundred militia and minutemen marched out of Brunswick on July 15. There was no attempt at secrecy. A letter signed by The People informed the governor that since it had been learned that Captain Collet intended to dismantle the post, they had come to take the cannon from its walls. There was little chance that the garrison could put up a respectable defense. Nearly the entire garrison had deserted, and Collet cried that he could not be expected to hold the fort with the three or four men that he could depend upon. Back in March Martin had informed Gage that the fort in its present state was indefensible against a force of any size and now declared it to be a most contemptible thing, fit neither for a place of Arms, or an Asylum for the friends of Government. The artillery was dismantled and placed on the beach under the protection of the guns of the sloop. All provisions were removed aboard a transport, while Martin remained aboard the Cruizer, my best asylum in the present time of Confusion in this Country. Between two and four o’clock on the morning of July 19, Howe began the destruction of the fort by firing the home of Captain Collet within the walls. After sunrise Martin looked on as a savage and audacious mob under the leadership of Howe, John Ashe, and Cornelius Harnett burned the fort and the surrounding buildings. On the following day, the Americans, parading under three British colors, put the torch to the remaining fortifications with a degree of wanton malice.²⁵

On August 8, Governor Martin, almost a prisoner aboard the Cruizer and reduced to the deplorable state of being a tame Spectator of Rebellion spreading over this Country, resorted to his pen and issued a lengthy document. In this Fiery proclamation he blamed the Committees of Safety, especially that of Wilmington, for leading the people of the colony onto the path of rebellion through the basest and most scandalous Sedition and inflamatory falsehoods. … Not only did he flay the Provincial Congress, but likewise the resolves of a set of people stiling themselves a Committee for the County of Mecklenburgh most traitorously declaring the entire dissolution of the Laws, Government, and Constitution of this country and setting up a system of rule and regulation repugnant to the Laws and subversive of His Majesty’s Government.… Even Martin must have realized that he was but whistling into the teeth of a whirlwind.²⁶

Samuel Johnston finally called for a provincial congress. It assembled at Hillsborough on Monday, August 21, 1775. Joining the delegates were Joseph Hewes, William Hooper, and Richard Caswell, who traveled from Philadelphia to lay before the North Carolinians the various resolves of the Continental Congress. Although there was a pressing need for action, Samuel Johnston sarcastically commented that We have more orators than men of business among us, which occasions great delays. This observation was proved when it was decided that the first order of business should be an answer to Governor Martin’s proclamation. Their resolution declared that the said Paper is a false, Scandalous, Scurrilous, malicious, and seditious Libel, tending to disunite the good people of this province, and to stir up Tumults and Insurrections, dangerous to His Majesty’s Government, and the safety of the Inhabitants.… The governor’s proclamation was ordered burned by the public hangman. Once Martin had been disposed of, a provisional government was established with a Council of Safety and a congress, with additional committees of safety in each military district, county, and town. On August 23, Maurice Moore, William Hooper, Robert Howe, Richard Caswell, and Joseph Hewes were named a committee to prepare an address to the people, stating the present Controversy in an easy familiar stile and manner obvious to the very meanest Capacity, calling upon them to unite in defense of American liberty.… There was need for such a statement, for the time had come to consider the problems of raising an army. It was not an unexpected development. Earlier Samuel Johnston had suggested that the principal concern of the congress should be the raising of troops.²⁷

In early June, in response to a petition from the Massachusetts Congress, the Continental Congress in Philadelphia had taken over the armed mob then besieging the British army in Boston. This move had been followed by the selection of the tall delegate from Virginia, George Washington, as General and Commander-in-Chief of the Army of the united Colonies and the resolve to raise a continental army of fifteen thousand men. On August 24 the North Carolina Congress had discussed, then pledged payment of its quota of the funds required for such a military force. Not until the last day of August did a formal resolution pass the body that one thousand troops should be embodied as state troops, with the expectation that eventually they would be absorbed into the Continental Line as stated in a June 6, 1775, resolution of the Continental Congress. On the following day, September 1, details were worked out so that the thousand men were to be divided into two regiments of five hundred men each, with the men stationed in the military districts of Wilmington, Salisbury, New Bern, and Edenton. Field officers for the First Regiment were to be Colonel James Moore, Lieutenant Colonel Francis Nash, and Major Thomas Clark. Robert Howe was to command the Second Regiment, with Alexander Martin as Lieutenant Colonel and John Patten as Major.²⁸

Provisions were made for local minutemen and militia, with one battalion of ten companies of fifty men each to be raised in each of the six military districts of Edenton, Salisbury, Halifax, Hillsborough, Wilmington, and New Bern. These men were to be uniformed in hunting shirts, leggings, or splatterdashes with black gaiters and were to be enlisted for six months. When called into service, they were to be subject to the same rules and regulations as the Continental forces. Edward Vail, Nicholas Long, Thomas Wade, James Thackston, Richard Caswell, and Alexander Lillington were appointed commanders of the various districts with the rank of colonel. Commanding officers, who were to rank below the comparable rank of minutemen, were also appointed for each county.²⁹

The colonel of the First North Carolina Regiment, thirty-eight-year-old James Moore, had long been prominent in the affairs of the lower Cape Fear. There is some evidence to suggest that he had served in the French and Indian War and that by the time he was twenty-eight he had been appointed a colonel in the local militia. In Tryon’s expedition against the Regulators he had served as colonel of all the artillery and artillery company of volunteers. He appears to have been a quiet sort of man, but when he did speak, he spoke with that authority that demanded attention. The perceptive but loyalist Janet Schaw noted that Robert Howe seemed to be intriguing for command of all North Carolina troops and, although he was a man to be feared, she went on to observe:

I wish he may get the command with all my heart, for he does not appear to me half so dangerous as another candidate, a Coll. Moor, whom I am compelled at once to dread and esteem. He is a man of free property and a most unblemished character, has amiable manners, and a virtuous life has gained him the love of everybody, and his popularity is such that I am assured he will have more followers than any other man in the province. He acts from a steady tho’ mistaken principle, and I am certain has no view or design, but what he thinks right and for the good of the country. He urges not a war of words, and when my brother told him he would not join him, for he did not approve the cause, Then do not, said he, let every man be directed by his own ideas of right or wrong. If this man commands, be assured, he will find his enemies work. His name is James Moor: should you ever here him mentioned, think of the character I gave him.³⁰

Moore’s kinsman, Robert Howe, was seven years older, a fine-living, proud man with a keen mind and a devilish sense of humor. As in Moore’s case, there is the possibility that he too served briefly in the French and Indian War. Twice he had served as commandant of Fort Johnston, 1765-67 and 1769-73, and he had been a member of the assembly since 1760. His name, according to Governor Martin, had originally been Howes, but now commonly called Howe, he having impudently assumed that name for some years past in affectation of the noble family that bears it, whose least lenient virtues have been ever far beyond his imitation. Janet Schaw thought him a flirt and something of a devil with the women. A man of many facets was this Robert Howe,

or as he is called here Bob Howe. This Gentleman has the worst character you ever heard thro’ the whole province. He is however very like a Gentleman, much so indeed than anything I have seen in the Country. He is deemed a horrid animal, a sort of woman-eater that devours everything that comes in his way, and that no woman can withstand him. … I do assure you they overrate his merits and as I am certain it would be in the power of mortal woman to withstand him, so I am convinced he is not so voracious as he is represented. But he has that general polite gallantry, which every man of good breeding ought to have….

Yet from the masculine viewpoint, the New Englander, Josiah Quincy, was fascinated by this most happy compound of the man of sense, the sword, the senate, and the buck. A truly surprising character.… He was formed by nature and his education to shine in the senate and the field—in the company of the philosopher and the libertine—a favorite of the man of sense and the female world, he has faults and vice—but alas who is without them.³¹

While Moore and Howe were readying their commands for possible military action, others busied themselves with potential political enemies. The loyalists, or Tories as they were derisively termed by the Whigs, were pressured to switch their allegiance, sometimes with tar and feathers as the primary instrument of persuasion. Yet, it should be noted that in the early days of the rebellion such persecution was usually reserved for the poorer sort, while those of gentility sought to protect themselves through argument. A number of loyalists fled to the protection of the Cruizer, there to be sustained by Captain Parry until they were able to gain passage on some departing vessel. The Regulators, supposedly of loyalist inclinations, and whose aid Governor Martin hoped to enlist against the rebels, were visited by agents of the Continental Congress, some of whom carried accounts of the battle of Bunker Hill as an illustration of the vulnerability of British regulars. Although some of these back-country men expressed apprehension in denying the oath of allegiance administered them by Governor Tryon, enough of them signed the test oath required by the rebels so that we apprehend no danger from them.³²

Recruiting officers fanned out through the colony. Moore sent Alexander Martin into Guilford Country and by October 4 the first company marched through the Moravian settlements on its way for training in the bivouac at Salisbury. Those who owned no arms were furnished with weapons purchased, by receipt, from the people of the neighborhood. Some recruiting officers were not above practicing a bit of chicanery in their recruiting activities in that they purposely neglected informing prospects that they were liable for service in colonies other than North Carolina. They were uniformed in hunting shirts and moccasins, some of which were acquired from the Moravians, who showed some reluctance in accepting the paper money issued by the Continental Congress, but dared not refuse, as that would have led to oppression and resentment. Moore was able to acquire some lead and gunpowder from the supply controlled by the Wilmington Committee of Safety.³³

In the meantime, the Continental Congress, acting on a report of a committee that had visited the army near Boston, reorganized the Continental army. There were some who feared the step. Samuel Ward of Rhode Island thought that the new alterations would be disgusting both to officers and men. To his brother he grumbled that under the idea of the new modelling, I was afraid that we should destroy our army. Southern gentlemen wish to remove that attachment, which the officers and men have to their respective colonies, and make them look up to the continent at large for their support or promotion. Under this new arrangement it was hoped that twenty thousand men could be maintained in the lines around Boston, while an additional five thousand could be dispatched upon an expedition into Canada. Four new regiments were to be raised for the defense of South Carolina and Georgia, while New Jersey was to raise two and Pennsylvania one.³⁴

The committee that had visited the Continental army had not been impressed by the caliber of the officers of that force, at least Thomas Lynch of South Carolina had not been. He held little respect for those Pittyfull wretches, and he suggested to Washington that he not suffer his new officers to sweep the Parade with the skirts of their Coats or bottoms of their Trowsers, to cheat or mess with their Men, to skulk in battle or sneak in Quarters. Perhaps it was because of the reported poor quality of the officers that, to attract better men, the pay of the lower three grades was increased; captains to twenty-six and two-thirds dollars, lieutenants to eighteen dollars, and ensigns to thirteen dollars per month. Henceforth each Continental regiment was to consist of 728 men, including officers, and was to be divided into eight companies. The complement of each company was to be a captain, two lieutenants, one ensign, four sergeants, four corporals, two drummers or fifers, and seventy-six privates.

Ration issues as established by Congress for men of the ranks were: one pound of beef, three quarters of a pound of pork or one pound of salt fish per day; one pound of bread or flour per day; three pints of peas or beans a week, or other vegetables in proportion (peas and beans cost six shillings per bushel); one pint of milk per day; one-half pint of rice, or one pint of Indian meal per week; and one quart of spruce beer per man, or nine gallons of molasses for each company of one hundred men per week. Each company was to receive three pounds of candles and twenty-four pounds of soft soap or eight pounds of hard soap per week.³⁵

From Philadelphia, Joseph Hewes urged that the North Carolina regiments be raised and uniformed as quickly as possible for he felt that the troops would shortly be taken into the Continental Line. He suggested that North Carolina follow the procedures that had seemed to work well for the troops at Boston—that the colony purchase cloth and have it made into uniforms, deducting ten shillings a month from each man’s pay.³⁶

There was a little popgun war going on down on the Cape Fear. The Cruizer was sending shot crashing toward the shore in retaliation for the rifle balls that the Americans sent winging through her rigging. On November 11 another sloop, the Scorpion, arrived to relieve the Cruizer. Governor Martin, however, refused to allow the Cruizer to leave, declaring that she was not seaworthy enough to make the voyage to Boston. It seems more likely that he was attempting to assemble all of the armaments possible, no matter what the ship’s condition. In fact, he had been begging Admiral Samuel Graves in Boston to send additional naval vessels to the Cape Fear to prevent smuggling of military stores into the colony, despite his conviction "that the time for restoring Lawfull Gevernment [sic] in this Province, by its own internal strength, is past and gone."³⁷

Shortly after the arrival of the Scorpion several field guns were sent down from Wilmington for James Moore to erect a battery at Brunswick. Still there was the lingering apprehension that this would not be enough. So strong was the fear that Martin’s two sloops would sail upriver to bombard and fire Brunswick that the Wilmington Committee of Safety sent a group into that town to place values on those buildings likely to be burned by enemy action.³⁸

Perhaps it was a growing concern about developments in North Carolina that led the Continental Congress to take action relative to the North Carolina troops. On November 28, 1775, after the usual debates, a resolution was passed: Resolved that the two Battalions which Congress directed to be raised in the Province of North Carolina be increased to the Continental Establishment, and kept in pay at the expense of the United Colonies for one year from this time, or until the further order of Congress, as well as for the purpose of defending the good people of that Colony against the attacks of Ministerial oppression, as assisting the adjacent Colonies.

In like manner, it was recommended that Pennsylvania and South Carolina send all the gunpowder they could spare to North Carolina, while the colony’s delegates in Congress were directed to purchase drums, fifes, and colors, and that all the gunsmiths and blacksmiths in North Carolina be immediately employed in the making of muskets and bayonets. Once the news arrived that their troops were on the Continental establishment, the Provincial Council decided that the Carolina soldiers should be dressed in something better than hunting shirts and splatterdashes. Cloth was ordered to be purchased and made into coats, waistcoats, and breeches, which, along with the haversacks and cartouches furnished the troops, were to be paid for by a monthly deduction of ten shillings from each man’s pay. This was but optimistic projection, for there were not even enough arms or sufficient ammunition to put the troops into the field.³⁹

Tension lengthened with the stirrings of the Tories in back-country South Carolina and when Virginia’s royal governor, Lord Dunmore, initiated military action to regain his lost authority. Emotions grounded in political passions are not easily curbed, and in North Carolina the Whigs began to act in a more belligerent fashion toward the loyalists. Some fled to Virginia and the protection offered by Lord Dunmore. Samuel Johnston, despite his own political leanings, was shocked at one instance of mob action. After a certain Abraham Pollock had been brought before the Wilmington Committee of Safety and had answered their questions to their satisfaction, some of the officers who had arrested him heard that he had spoke disrespectfully of them…. With a party of soldiers and such Scoundrels as they could prevail with to join, they broke into Pollock’s home, confiscated his liquor, and forced money from him when Pollock’s whiskey proved too little to slake their thirst. A short time later, at the courthouse, Pollock underwent a coating of tar and feathers while his wife, standing by, half naked… rent the Air with the most affecting Shrieks and Cries imaginable, at last quite exhausted she fainted and was carried home more dead than alive. Such incidents took the revolution away from political oratory into unpleasant domestic aspects, and it became evident that tar and feathers were no longer reserved for the poorer sort.⁴⁰

In the South Carolina backcountry, the loyalists, or Scovelites as they were called (after their leader) had arisen, attacked, and besieged the fort at Ninety-Six, but more important, they had also seized the powder stored in that post. The South Carolina Provincial Congress dispatched a punitive expedition under the command of Colonel William Richardson. In response to that colony’s plea for aid, North Carolina sent a detachment of between 160 and 200 Continentals: one company of the First Regiment under Captain George Davidson and a company of the Second Regiment under John Armstrong, the whole under the command of Alexander Martin. The North Carolina Continentals in this group had volunteered for service in this campaign. In addition there were 900 Rowan and Mecklenburg County militia under Colonels Thomas Polk, Griffith Rutherford, and Richard Caswell. And it should be mentioned that the Third South Carolina State Regiment (not yet on the Continental establishment) was composed of as many North Carolina recruits as those from South Carolina. A junction was made with Richardson’s force as they passed the Saluda River. Abandoning Ninety-Six, the loyalists under Joseph Robinson and Patrick Robinson fled into the Cherokee country where they, along with other loyalist groups, were captured. Actually the North Carolina troops were engaged in little more than rounding up scattered Tories although William, the son of Thomas Polk and considered a fine youth, was wounded in one of the few skirmishes. But at this time young Polk was an officer of a South Carolina regiment. On Christmas day, 1775, the North Carolinians were dismissed to return to their homes. This expedition, in reality, was little more than an exercise in marching, and is sometimes referred to as the snow campaign, because of an uncommon two-foot snow that fell during one thirty-hour period and remained on the ground for eight days.⁴¹

More alarming to North Carolinians was the situation in Virginia. Forced to flee the governor’s palace in Williamsburg, Governor Dunmore had taken refuge aboard the Fowey, a man-of-war in the York River. Gathering a following, he had led them on a series of raids and plundering expeditions. Even more disturbing was the report that Dunmore not only planned to arm the Indians but had issued a proclamation of freedom to those rebel-owned Negroes who came in and joined his force. One Philadelphian, quoted in a London newspaper, cried out that Hell itself could not have vomited anything more black than this design of emancipating our slaves. This sentiment was echoed in North Carolina, especially since an intercepted letter of Governor Martin’s had pointed out that since the Negroes in Maryland and Virginia outnumbered the whites, their employment in a military way would hasten the reduction of the southern colonies. And the Maryland Gazette noted that by the first of November Dunmore had enlisted some three hundred Negroes under Major Thomas Boyd. Termed the Royal Regiment of Ethiopians, they were uniformed in military garb with Liberty to Slaves emblazoned across their chests. Then there were reports that Dunmore had sent agents into the Albermarle region of North Carolina to incite the slaves to insurrection. After one traveler who had stopped overnight in Dunmore’s camp stated that the Virginia governor planned to march into North Carolina, Howe’s Continentals and the Edenton Minute Men were ordered to march into Pasquotank and Currituck. There they were to station themselves along the Virginia border, not only to oppose such a move by Dunmore, but to prevent the Negroes in the area from running away to join him. It was also suggested that they awe the inhabitants of the area, reported to be the most disaffected in the province.⁴²

Howe, although there is no evidence suggesting that he had been given proper authorization, wrote to Colonel William Woodford of Virginia offering the assistance of troops under his command. Although Woodford at first declined the offer, feeling that his own command could take care of the situation, the Virginia Convention countermanded his refusal to accept the aid of North Carolina. Only the 150 volunteer militia men from the Halifax District under Nicholas Long arrived in time to participate in the battle of Great Bridge, December 9, 1775, when Woodford’s Virginia Continentals and volunteers crushed a detachment of Dunmore’s army as they rushed across the narrow causeway crossing a swamp. The North Carolinians, it was said, who … were in the action … did honour to their country.⁴³

Five days later, when Woodford marched into Norfolk, he was joined by Howe and the 428 officers and men of the Second North Carolina regiment, along with several field pieces. By this time the North Carolina volunteers and militia men had been discharged and allowed to return to their homes. The intricacies of command seem to have imposed themselves with Howe’s arrival, for although he was not a Virginian, Howe, rather than Woodford, assumed the command of the the combined forces. Howe, said Woodford, mentioned to me in a very genteel manner his appointment by the Congress, & his Right of precedence by that appointment. Woodford assented to this arrangement, but continued as commander of the Virginia troops. Among the prisoners captured at Great Bridge were a number of British regulars who had been sent to gratify Dunmore’s Request as a Guard to his Person only. In the negotiations for a prisoner exchange, Howe demonstrated that he was no military novice and held his own with Dunmore as the flurry of notes passed back and forth.⁴⁴

Anchored offshore was the insolent little fleet under Dunmore’s command, the frigate Eilbeck, the Liverpool with twenty-eight guns, the Otter with sixteen, along with an eight-gun sloop and a number of small tenders. Howe refused to allow provisions to go out to the enemy vessels, some of which were crowded with loyalist refugees. All foraging parties attempting to come ashore were driven back by a heavy fire. Dunmore had frequently threatened to burn Norfolk, and now he announced that on January 1, 1776, he would begin a bombardment with that in mind. Howe requested more time to allow the evacuation of women and children. Dunmore refused, and Howe prepared to resist any attempt to carry the town, convinced that Virginia and North Carolina must stand or fall together, and then if they fall Norfolk will be the cause.⁴⁵

On New Year’s day, between three and four o’clock in the afternoon four British ships carrying over sixty guns moved in within range and began a seven-hour bombardment of the town. The North Carolina and Virginia Continentals were stationed along the shore. It was rough duty, some men having to stand duty for a forty-eight hour stretch. Even then there was a carefree air about the business. Some of Howe’s North Carolina sentinels, or so it was charged, deliberately drew the fire of the enemy as they stood on the wharves making lewd and obscene gestures in the direction of the British vessels. Late in the afternoon, British landing parties came ashore and fired the parts of the city that had escaped the bombardment. When the flames were at their height Dunmore, expecting that the fire would throw the American troops into confusion and panic, sent parties in toward the shore. One group managed to drag a field piece into the middle of town, but were driven back to their boats before they could gain a foothold. For raw troops, fighting in the midst of a holocaust of smoke and flame, the Americans did well.⁴⁶

The British kept up sporadic artillery fire until 2:00 A.M. on January 2, 1776. The fire burned for two days and it was said that four-fifths of the houses in the town were reduced to ashes. Shortly afterwards the Whigs, feeling that Norfolk was but little more than a nest of Tories, put the torch to all but twelve of the remaining buildings. Howe split his forces, stationing detachments at such strategic points as Kemp’s landing, Great Bridge, and Suffolk. Dunmore left the Chesapeake in February and it was later claimed that he sold a number of his Negro troops into slavery in the West Indies. He himself was to join the British force in New York. After the departure of Dunmore, and at the request of the other field officers, Howe went up to Williamsburg to advise the Virginia government concerning defensive operations.⁴⁷

The appreciation of the Virginia Convention sitting at Williamsburg had been expressed earlier in a resolution of December 22, 1775: Resolved unanimously, That the thanks of this convention are justly due to the brave officers, gentlemen volunteers and soldiers of North Carolina, as well as the brethren of that province in general, for their prompt and generous aid in defence of our common rights against the enemies of America and of the British Constitution, and that the president be desired to transmit a copy of this resolution to Colonel Howe.⁴⁸

And from Philadelphia came a glowing letter from John Penn: I have the pleasure to assure you that our Province stands high in the opinion of Congress. The readiness with which you marched into Virginia and South Carolina hath done you great credit.⁴⁹

The North Carolina Council of Safety seemingly felt that the events in Virginia held the key to the future for, despite the critical situation in their own colony, they addressed a letter to the Virginia Convention offering to allow Howe to remain in Virginia as long as needed, or until such time as North Carolina felt that she needed her troops for her own defense. In reply, the Virginians promised to release the North Carolina troops as quickly as possible, and at the same time praised Howe as a brave, prudent & spirited Commander. But North Carolina was to feel the need for troops much earlier than it had originally seemed to expect, and by February 18, 1776, the Virginia Committee had relieved Howe’s troops to return to their homes.⁵⁰

1. Samuel Johnston to Alexander Elmsley, 23 September 1774, Samuel Johnston Papers, North Carolina Department of Archives