Rangers Adrian and William are joined by Ranger Jason Howell from Moores Creek National Battlefield to discuss the 1776 Battle of Moores Creek Bridge in North Carolina.

William: Hey everyone and welcome to Southern War, a podcast about the Southern Theater of the American Revolution. I'm Ranger William from Overmountain Victory National Historic Trail.

Adrian: And I'm Ranger Adrian from Ninety Six National Historic site.

William: Together we will explore some of the well-known and not so known stories from the American Revolution here in the American South. Let's dive in.

[sounds of drums, muskets shooting, and horses]

Adrian: Thanks for joining us today and today we have special guest Ranger Jason Howell from Moores Creek National Battlefield in North Carolina, and I'm gonna let him tell you a little bit more about himself.

Jason: Yeah, I'm, I'm a Ranger here at Moores Creek National Battlefield, Umm and I was a I'm a U.S. Navy veteran I was on a submarine when I was in the Navy and I got my degree in history at UNCW and then I got a Masters in U.S. Military history at American Public University, or American Military University, I'm sorry, and I wrote my thesis actually on the Battle of Moores Creek Bridge, so that should help out with the day's topic.

William: Now how long have you been a, a Ranger there at Moores Creek, Jason?

Jason: Ohh, I've been here probably since ‘09.

Adrian: 14 years?

Jason: Yes.

William: So you're definitely someone who's we’ll say, well, steeped in the story, both academically and professionally. So when we're talking about Moores Creek, let's start out with kind of the basics here with where we are looking at. We mentioned that it's in North Carolina, but where in North Carolina is this site located today? But also in the American Revolution, where would this place have been known? How is this known then and now?

Jason: Um Moores Creek, probably during the revolution was not widely known. It was it set on a naval store plantation in New Hanover County. What is now today Pender County. And it I mean, and there was a road that ran through here and there was a bridge that ran over the creek and there was very few roads in North Carolina, very few roads to the coast and that's one of the reasons why the battle’s being fought here, because it was a road and bridge. Today, uh, you know Moores Creek, like I said, it's in Pender County. It's 23 miles above Wilmington, North Carolina, right here on the coast. So not too far from from the beach. If you, you know, if you ever want to come visit us. We're right here at the beach.

Adrian: Now, Jason, you said it was on a naval store plantation. What does that mean?

Jason: Oh yeah, uh naval stores, so. It's the lifeline of the British Navy. So you have your tar pitch and turpentine that is created from the sap of the long leaf pine and that helped, that went into actually help building ships as far as with the tar and the pitch, you would seal the hulls of the ships and stuff and grease the riggings. Turpentine was basically used for medicinal purposes and stuff like that, but it was all, you got all of that from the from the pine tree. Adrian: Alright, so very important, important place for anybody any big nation, really.

Jason: Yes, Great Britain. I think we we've determined that they got about 95% of their naval stores from North Carolina.

Adrian: Oh wow.

William: Wow.

Jason: So very important little colony during the American Revolution.

Adrian: So we've covered where it's at; when in the revolution is the battle at Moores Creek going to take place?

Jason: Sure. Um very early on. This is going to be February 27th, 1776. Four months before the signing of the Declaration of Independence. So very, very early.

William: Now, being that early in the American Revolution, and this is one of the points of why we talk about this being a podcast about the Southern Theater and not the Southern Campaign to take the focus away from that traditional 1780-1781 main British Army focus. But being this early in the war, this is prior to that time. This is prior to Lord Cornwallis, these British regulars being here in the American South. So who are some of the kind of the key players and influential leaders on both sides of this story?

Jason: Sure. Yeah, so, uh, you first of all, we'll start with the British side of things. Your your main player probably I would say it would be Governor Josiah Martin is basically the guy that gets everything going. And then you have a lot of key players and I mean this is a huge campaign. Martin would ask for actual British troops to come down. You have Sir Henry Clinton, who's on his way. You have Lord Cornwallis who is on his way over from Cork, Ireland. He's bringing with him 5,000 troops. They were all supposed to meet up here in North Carolina and bring about 10,000 extra guns to hand out to the folks of the North Carolina Backcountry. There's quite a few folks here that don't like the Patriots, and I'm not talking about the football team. Umm then the the boots on the ground here in North Carolina, the guys that are already here is you have Lieutenant Colonel Donald McLeod and you have General Donald McDonald, who would be overall in command. There's also another British Army officer who's already living here on half pay, basically retirement status, you have Alexander McLean and we could go on and on and on and on but I think we probably should stop there. It's probably enough. And then, of course, the the Patriots side of things, probably a little bit lesser known folks for many people, you have, I would say the main patriot leader would be Cornelius Harnett. And then from there, we're gonna drop down into, oh, you got Samuel Johnson. You have General Robert Howell. You got General James Moore. You would then have Richard Caswell, who's overall commander here at the Battle of Moores Creek and Colonel Alexander Lillington.

Adrian: That's a lot of people to remember.

Jason: That's a lot, yeah there. But this this huge campaign, you know, this is the first time this the British would attempt to invade the South. And I mean, you know, everybody looks at Moores Creek as kind of being this, the small little battle and it was, but it it's part of a much larger expedition and and has a has a pretty big impact. This little battle that we have.

William: Okay s we talked a lot about we have all these different commanders, a lot of moving parts, things that are happening; crossing the Atlantic, British plans trying to come into the coast in the South, what is gonna happen here? What is the story of the Battle of Moore's Creek?

Jason: Umm, you know, it's it's quite a long story, Will, it's this is a battle that had been brewing for about 10 years. Umm, there's much more going on here than just the battle itself. This is where North Carolinians have divided themselves on very firm sides and the British hoped to exploit that, you know, and I don't have to tell you guys this, but you'll listeners, they, you know, they probably don't realize the British are not sending large armies over here. They're sending just enough to prop up the Loyalist and the chief aim is to get those people who are going to be loyal to the crown to fight the war for them. So the British are looking for these opportunities and North Carolina presents a very interesting opportunity for Great Britain. Josiah Martin, the royal governor of North Carolina at the time, would lose control of the colony in 1775 early on. And when that happens, he basically writes the uh, he writes Parliament and say, hey, you know guys, he's saying, hey, send me 7,000 regular British troops with an additional 10,000 guns. I've got a large group of people here that don't particularly care for the Patriots, and that large group of people are, is not the Highland Scots that we talk about primarily, it's a group of people called the Regulators. There was a rebellion fought here early on in North Carolina, called the Regulator Rebellion. Um, only one battle, the Battle of Alamance, pitted backwoods farmers against the royal, then royal governor, Governor Tryon, William Tryon, I'm sorry I didn't mention him earlier, but William Tryon and his government. And everybody kind of looks at that, oh well, that's a royal governor. And you got all these poor backwoodsmen. They're fighting a royal governor, so therefore it has to be that these these backwoodsman are hardened patriots and the and they're not. They're good British subjects. They have been probably unfairly taxed by the local government and it keep in mind the local government, not parliament. And when they're unfairly taxed, there's this, it, I could go ohh all day about this little subject, but essentially what it comes down to is both sides really begin not to talk to one another and they take up arms and a battle is fought. And when that battle is fought, the royal governor and his army would win pretty handedly and to add insult to injury, after that battle is fought they deem all these Regulators as being outlaws and they're still made to pay taxes and without any representation in the colonial assembly, which is really odd because the Patriots here in North Carolina are telling Parliament hey, you can't tax us, we have no representation in Parliament. And the Regulators never really forgot that. And to divide it even more, Governor Tryon leaves. And when he leaves, he, insteps governor Josiah Martin in 1771, and Martin comes in and starts looking at the situation with the folks in the Backcountry, this Regulator rebellion, and Martin, and he, he he's completely night and day between Governor Tryon and Governor Martin. Governor Martin is by the book British law, like everything is by the book. You better show me policy, because that's what we're gonna follow. Whereas Tryon was ah I’ve got some things to do, but if I need to bend the law, I'll do it. And I think that's probably the reason why he got along with the Patriot leaders here in North Carolina so well, because he was the type of person that was, well, I need to get this done and I’ll kind of turn the eye on this type of deal. Whereas when Martin comes in and he starts reviewing what happened during the Regulator rebellion, he starts really cracking down on these patriot leaders saying, hey, you guys really did these backwoodsmen wrong. They shouldn't be called outlaws. In fact, I would suggest that you take the moniker of outlaw off their names and the, and the Patriots never really come off that. Which is gonna leave a bad taste in the the Regulator's mouth. And everybody knew what was going on here, even in way over in England. Everybody had heard about this Regulator rebellion, and no one wanted to come to North Carolina, so that would bring in your, your, your Highlanders. They start sending Highlanders in here because where do you send the people you don't want? The place you don't want to go. So you get a large influx of Highlanders starting in 1771 onward. So you got a bunch of a fresh new lot of Highlanders coming in. And when this happens, and when Governor Martin loses control of the colony in 1775, the large group of people he's talking about are the Regulators and these Highlanders are kind of like this icing on the cake. He's looking at, he says, ohh yeah, we've got Regulators, but we also have a large group of Highlanders that's been coming in and I think I can get them these guys on my side as well. And eventually the British will sign off on it mainly after the Patriots would attack Fort Johnston in the cap, in the mouth of the Cape Fear River. In July of 1775, the Patriots will attack this place in what is present day Southport, and when they do that, they the Patriots had attacked the government installation. And so, Governor Martin then declares war on North Carolina. And so after that happens, uh, the British kind of sign-off on this plan. They say, yeah, we'll send you some troops and and we really believe that you can get all these people together. So this plan starts to breathe. But the Patriots, they don't sit back. You know, they could be sitting back and just kind of maybe waiting in the wings, but they really started getting themselves prepared. They start developing minute men units as opposed to your militia. Your militia are typically men between the ages of 16 and 60. Your minute men are probably going to be between the ages of 16 and 25. Sort of going to be a lot younger. They're gonna get a little bit more training than your militia. Your militia gets, uh, probably three or four days a year. Whereas your minute men were to be trained for three weeks straight and then after that they were to meet once a month to to train and drill. And they were to carry their weapons and to be ready to go in a moments notice. So they would then also start developing their Continentals. There's the 1st and 2nd North Carolina that will be developed during between September 1775 and the Battle of Moores Creek Bridge, which occurs in February ’76. So you have all that being built up. And so there is a there's a, a time between 17, 1775 and 17, you know, the September ‘75 and ‘76 where the Patriots were training, and but the the Loyalists they went into hiding. They are not training, they're just kinda hanging out. Not really making themselves known. And eventually Governor Martin would call for them. Sometime in January, I don't remember exactly when, but he would call out for the Loyalists to to make their way to the coast. But before he had actually done that, General Donald McDonald, not to be confused with Ronald McDonald, he and Lieutenant Colonel Donald McLeod would come into North Carolina probably around September 17th, 1775. And they went into the Backcountry. But as they came into North Carolina, they actually come into the port of New Bern and tell the Patriots, hey, we're here to live with our countrymen. We don't want to cause any trouble. We were we are formally of the of the British Army, but we don't want to have any part to do with that. So you know, they're they're already coming in and telling lies, but the port authorities let them through and they go into the backcountry and they're starting to try to raise an army from the Highlanders and the Regulators. And so they're going around during this time and they're talking to Regulators and, or former Regulators and Highlanders, saying, hey, you know, the governor's gonna call on us pretty soon. And and there are some pretty big numbers, according to Donald McLeod of who he talked to. There's one number they said that he said that he had talked to a large body of Regulators, at least 3,000, that had agreed to to form. And he and several thousand Highlanders actually had agreed to form as well. But as things draw near to February, the only people to really show up in great numbers are your, your Highlanders. You're probably looking at least I'd say somewhere in the neighborhood of close to 2,500 Highlanders in Cross Creek, which is present day Fayetteville, and you're looking probably only about 200 Regulators. There had been a large body of Regulators that did turn out, but by a lot of accounts these guys went home when they saw the Patriots forming and moving towards the east. And so a lot of those guys went home and when some of them got to Cross Creek, they thought that Governor Martin would be there, but he was nowhere to be found. So even more of them turn around and go back home, leaving only about 200 Regulators or former Regulators there. And because they didn't really wanna be led by Highland officers. And so when governor or when Donald McLeod gets his troops together, he kind of splits him in half, leaving a part of his men in Cross Creek to defend the city because they would raise the royal standard above the above the city, and taking about 1,600 of his men and moving towards the coast, giving him a roughly around 1,400 Highlanders and 200 former Regulators who then move out. As he moves out, keep in mind we have the Continentals that have formed, um, Continentals under James Moore then Colonel James Moore, would move up from Wilmington, the 1st North Carolina, along with the Wilmington District Minutemen, about 1,100 troops would come up and meet General Donald McDonald just south of Cross Creek. And they had with them roughly about five artillery pieces. And they're just kind of waiting at the south of the city. And General Donald McDonald comes marching out and he sees them across this small creek. And they kind of stop and start sending each other messages, you know. And it was really kind of to buy time. General Donald McDonald is waiting till nightfall because he's actually spotted the Patriots with their artillery, knowing that he had no artillery of his own and he that he needed to preserve his force. He decides to evade that force in the middle of the night. And he started marching down a road which is the road that they're actually gonna travel down and actually fight that, fight the Battle Moores Creek on which is the Black River Road. And they get ahead of that group of Patriots. Now, when Colonel Moore wakes up and realizes that the Loyalists got ahead of him, he quickly sends word over to another minute men unit led by Richard Caswell, who's the principal commander at the Battle of Moores Creek, says, hey, you know, get to Corbett’s Ferry. Corbett’s Ferry is about 18 miles north of where the Battle of Moores Creek will take place. Get to the ferry crossing now. Ferry crossing is basically just the flat bottom boat that takes you from one side of the river to the other. So get to Corbett’s Ferry, burn the ferry crossing, and wait for the Loyalists there. Caswell has with him at that point around 800 men, primarily minute men, a few militia, and he actually gets to Corbett’s Ferry first. He gets to Corbett’s Ferry, burns the ferry crossing. Meanwhile, Colonel Moore will send Colonel Lillington and a portion of his minutemen down the Cape Fear River on rafts, about 250 men to come and support Colonel Caswell. They get off just south of Moores Creek, off the river, off the Black River, and they come up off the Black River and head towards Moores Creek, to actually come up behind Caswell, which is north of Moore's Creek at Corbett’s Ferry. General Donald McDonald has his men fanned out along the the two rivers, the the South and the Black River, looking for ways across both of them to get around the Patriots. And they actually find a place on the Black River, where they find an enslaved man who knows where a sunken skiff is. And when I say sunken it isn't… they had a hole in the bottom of the boat and they, the Patriots, had put rocks on the boat to sink it into the river. So the enslaved man goes down, takes the rocks off, brings the skiff up and General Donald McDonald starts ferrying his men across the Black River, 5 miles beyond Caswell's position. And Caswell didn't know what was going on, and so he's just kind of waiting there at the ferry crossing and then all of a sudden, he hears the bagpipes starting to play General Donald and his bagpipers and his drummers to the ferry crossing. So the Patriots are kind of just there, at the ferry crossing, thinking hey, the Loyalists are coming up to the ferry. And but they had the main force had actually got across the river and they were about to make another attack. Um at one point there, or somehow, Caswell realizes that he's about to be outflanked, and he leaves Corbett’s Ferry and he leaves it in a hurry and he falls back onto Moores Creek Bridge. And we know he leaves it in a hurry because the Loyalists capture several wagons, some of them with weapons. They capture about 23 Patriots, and Caswell will fall back onto Moores Creek Bridge. And it's once he gets to Moores Creek Bridge, Colonel Lillington had come up and had gotten to Moores Creek Bridge, and at that point they decided, hey, let's make a stand here. Moores Creek is very important because there's very few roads, Moores Creek is 10-feet deep in most places, the size of regulation basketball, so you're not wading across Moores Creek. And so they're gonna make this stand here so they start throwing up earthworks. And not only did they put up earthworks on the east side of Moores Creek, but they put up earthworks on the west side. The west side is the same side as the Loyalists would be on, the east side would be towards the ocean, toward where the Loyalists are trying to get. We believe, we don't know, there's not a whole lot of writing or thought out there as why Caswell did that. We believe that Caswell did that to deceive the Loyalists. There’s not a whole lot of information as to why he did that. Caswell never writes down “Oh yeah, I did this to deceive,” we just don't know. We can kind of gather that that's probably what's his plan. But he places them on the west side and on the east side is where the battle, you know, where they're gonna take up and defend themselves. But they start building these earthworks probably on the 26th of February. Late in the afternoon, the Loyalists would have camped about 6 miles north of this position here at Moores Creek Bridge, and they send a Loyalist courier down. This courier is a well-educated man and he comes riding into the Patriot camp, and on the west bank mind you, about 6 o'clock that afternoon or 6:30 in February. So, you know we're here in the South. About 6:30 in February is dark, so the only things that he sees, um, is the Patriots on the west bank. And he describes hey, there's earthworks there, and there's about 1,000 men because by that time with Caswell’s force and Lillington’s force, we're looking somewhere around 1,000 Patriots given the various different accounts that I have. But they, they're all camped on the west bank that night. And so the Loyalist courier sees them on the wrong side of the creek, um, and kind of not very well-defined earthworks, but some earthworks, umm, and he leaves after that he actually delivers a message for Caswell and his men to surrender. Caswell, of course, says no. But he takes back the information that he gathered and he gives it to General Donald McDonald. Now from what I can gather, is he probably doesn't really give it to McDonald more so that he gives it to Donald McLeod. Um, McDonald had become sick and from what I can tell, very ill. A lot of the Loyalists, or at least most of them, had no tents to sleep under. They were just basically sleeping out and, you know, under the stars. And it had been raining for a couple of weeks, so they're probably sick and and and cold and and everything else. And General Donald McDonald's probably about 70. So he come down with something as something like pneumonia from what I can understand, umm from what little bit of account that I do have, umm. And so McLeod takes this information and decides to make a night march. He decides to start marching about 1:00 AM because seeing the opportunity of the Patriots on the west bank with their back to the water, he feels that he can come down here and surround the Patriots, somehow get a group of men behind the encampment to cut off the bridge, he can capture the Patriots here at Moores Creek and and and alleviate that army in front of him and then make his way to the coast. Umm, so he starts marching and he gets down here and he actually sends a group of men around the backside of where the Patriot encampment was, towards the bridge crossing. Meanwhile, the forces, they kind of, they spread out into two units: one led by Donald McLeod, and the other led by Alexander McLean, another former British Army officer. And they start leading their men into the encampment on the west bank. And they're creeping through the woods. It's probably about 4:00 o'clock in the morning and they can see campfires still burning, lights flickering, maybe some tents here and there, and and once they get into the encampment, they realize there's no one there. The Patriots have actually fallen back onto the east bank into the earthworks they had uh built the day before. And now why did they do that? Maybe they heard the Loyalists coming. We don't know. One of the things that we do know is that there was a sheriff that would go on trial after the Battle of Moores Creek Bridge, the Duplin County Sheriff. He was he got in trouble for being a go-between. He would go to Loyalists and say, hey, I know where the Patriots are, how much money you got? Then he turned around and go over to the Loyalists, hey, you know? And so he was basically playing both sides. So it's it's possible that the sheriff tipped off the Patriots. But either way, the Patriots would then follow would fall back into the east side on the east side of Moores Creek, into the earthworks. And so when the loyalists get there, they're creeping through and they don't find anybody in the encampment and all of a sudden out towards where the bridge is, they see muzzle flashes and shots, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. The Loyalists that went to secure the bridge had actually seen some Patriot sentries which is your guards. They're there at the bridge and they shoot at these Patriots, and the Patriots run off up this causeway behind them and to the commander at the bridge, a Captain Campbell, would explain to him, hey, we saw some sentries on the other side. We shot at them. They ran up this causeway. They're in... from what I can gather, like I said, there's very little evidence out there, but we we believe that they thought these Patriots had set up a kind of a rear guard or a kind of a, a way to kind of allow them to know that, hey, the Loyalists had got there, but the Loyalists decided that, hey, there's just a very few Patriots probably left. Looks like they left their encampment, kind of in disarray, looked like they got out of here in a hurry so they start forcing men across this bridge. But the problem is with Moores Creek Bridge at this point, the Patriots have dismantled it, at least a portion of it. And then they greased the girders with soft soap and tallow to make it difficult to cross. They eventually get about 50 men across and once they get 50 men, they feel that's probably enough. Lieutenant-Colonel McLeod is across the creek with his men, and so he charges up this narrow causeway and they and they charge headlong into the Patriot position. They probably run about 100 yards up this causeway and all of a sudden the Patriots just opened fire, a devastating fire. Not only do the Patriots have 1,000 men with muskets, but they have anywhere from 2 to 5 artillery pieces. And at this point blank range it's it's very deadly. Some of the stories that come out of that is that McLeod gets back up to his knees after the first volley rings out and he orders his men forward and then another volley rings out and the initial charge is all but over. The Loyalists would fall back on to the bridge, umm, rally up again, try to force themselves across the bridge and come up and take the Patriot position. They actually try this four times to no avail and eventually after probably about 40 minutes or so, they decide to kind of figure out a another way across the creek. Realizing there was no other way across the creek they head back to General Donald McDonald. McDonald orders his men to go inland to get away from the Patriots. Hopefully the British Army would be here. The British Army should have been here. They were supposed to be here in mid-February, but this is 1776 and no one's got a cell phone. General Donald McDonald can't call up Sir Henry Clinton, “Hey, man, what's going on? Umm, you know where you at?” Because both units, both Sir Henry Clinton, coming from Boston with his 2,000 men, he'd been delayed by storms in Virginia. Lord Cornwallis had also been delayed by storms coming out of Cork, Ireland, and neither one of them were gonna be here in time. Clinton doesn't get here until March. Cornwallis don't get here until I think it's May even that he arrives in, actually arrives in North Carolina. But the plan was for the Loyalists to try to get away and and kind of wait it out for the the British Army to get here. And the battle would be over relatively quickly. Some accounts have it as as less, as as 3 minutes. You'll hear if you ever come visit the park, it'll say by some accounts the battle was over in 3 minutes. That's probably the initial charge. But, and that's really, that's really how it kind of played out. There's no British Army here. The Loyalists get defeated very soundly, they probably have at least 30 casualties, 30 to 50 casualties that we know of on the field, and another 35 or so are MIA, missing in action. And so you're looking roughly at about 85 casualties on the Loyalist side and you have two casualties on the Patriot side. So very low numbers on the on the Patriots side when it comes to casualties.

William: Wow. Now I wanna ask a quick follow up question talking about, cause I've heard some of the traditional stories like you're talking about with the dismantled bridge and the the soft soap on the girders; can you tell us more about the “King George and broadswords” thing?

Jason: Sure. Yeah. So where that comes from is a body of Loyalists actually make it to the coast, umm, they did a huge loop around the Patriot lines and they get to the coast and they link up with Cornwallis. And Cornwallis, when he gets here in May, he writes a report and he says, hey, you know, there's a, yeah, I think it's May, it might be April, late April, but I can't remember it. Either way, he writes a report and in his report of the Battle of Moores Creek Bridge, he says that the Loyalist charge cry was to be “King George and broadswords” in his official report. And so when you see that “King George and broadswords” that comes from Lord Cornwallis himself, as far as what the body of Loyalists had told him, their their battle cry was to be so.

William: Now, do you believe this? Do you think that is a battle cry that they used, or is there a potential that they this is being embellished a little bit because either they know how Cornwallis will receive it if they mention King George? Or Cornwallis is embellishing it to show the loyalty of the people?

Jason: You know, I mean, it's very possible, but you know there there's no information out there as to you know why, what his thought pattern was behind it. You know, we could go down many of different rabbit holes and and as to why this was done and and it's very possible that you know trying to to rally the the support of certain people by mentioning “King George” or or maybe even the Highlanders with the “broadswords” itself. But you know but there again there's there's there's nothing out there that you know that says “This is why I did it.”

Adrian: So the Loyalists are defeated, does that kind of tamper with Loyalist support in North Carolina for a while at least? Or does it, does it do anything?

Jason: I think it does. For at least the Highlanders, I think after being kind of left here, I think that kind of softens the Highlanders stance towards the crown, or at least helping them out at this point. The Patriots would go around and commit several atrocities against Loyalists. And the Loyalists kind of, or at least in the Highland community, kind of shy away from, you know, saying, hey, I'm for the crown. And we we know that when they come back here in in 1781 after the Battle of Guilford Courthouse, when they come, when Cornwallis comes back down through Cross Creek, which is present day Fayetteville, umm, the Highlanders don't want to have anything to do with them. They they remember what happened here in in 1776, kind of being left out the dry. So it's very possible that it kind of quelled that. Now from what I can gather with the Regulators, it was almost a Hatfield-Mccoys type thing. Like almost every time they got a chance to join up with British forces; they did. Mainly because of what had happened during the Regulator rebellion in 1771. They never forget, gave the Patriots for that. To give you an example of the animosity they held towards the Patriots: a week prior to the Battle of Moores Creek Bridge, there was this Patriot officer and he was in this backwoods town trying to rally Patriot support. And these former Regulators, there's ten of them and I don't know exactly how the situation went down, I don't know if they grabbed the guy and lined him up against the wall, or they all just kind of went on and, you know, they all saw him at once. But in the court proceedings that has so and so shot this officer. So and so shot this officer, all ten of them shot this guy. And that's kind of give you an idea of, I mean, they just rode into town, they saw him, all right, you know, we're going to kill this guy.

William: Wow.

Adrian: Talk about holding a grudge.

Jason: Ohh yeah, there's a lot of bad blood in North Carolina. I think it was Bradford Jay Wood who said that North Carolina was probably the most violent place in the in all of the colonies prior to the American Revolution. And it had got pretty bad between the Regulators and the Patriots prior to the American Revolution. So yeah, a lot of, a lot of holdover from that.

William: And I want to thank you for sharing this because, like we were talking about, you know, so many people think Moores Creek Bridge and the Highlanders because of their role at the battle. But when you're looking at the larger campaign like you're explaining, so many people say “Ohh a former Regulator. They were they must have been against tyranny and against the king!”

Jason: Right.

William: And as you explained, no, they are for the king. They are against the local government, the corrupt government.

Jason: Right.

William: So when you have these coastal North Carolinians who had been part of this governor Tryon’s militia and his movement, now those coastal Carolinians have become Patriots. The former Regulators are not wanting anything to do with those guys. I've seen this in South Carolina records before, but it's great to hear this in North Carolina as well. Now all these great stories that you've shared with us; is there one that kind of really stands out with you? Is there one that you would say is kind of your favorite, either from the battle itself or like we're talking about this larger campaign?

Jason: I think really it is the story of the Regulators. Um mainly because it doesn't get told. They’re a very marginalized portion of the Battle of Moores Creek. I think it kind paints the Patriots in a less than positive light. And I think people haven't talked about the Regulators mainly because it hadn't, you know, it does kind of get that negative vibe towards the, the, the Patriots themselves because during the Regulator rebellion they, uh, the the colonial government here in North Carolina had had told the Regulators “Hey, you're going to pay for this mansion that we're going to build the governor and you, by the way, don't need any representation we’re your representation” and the Regulators were, you know, you know, they're not very educated people, but they were educated enough and realized that, hey, that's kind of against British law and wasn’t you're saying the exact same thing to Parliament in 1766 about the Stamp Act? That doesn't really jive. And, I just find that to be a very fascinating story, mainly because it kind of contradictory with the Patriots, the Patriot saying hey, no taxation without representation, but then they kind of turn around and do the same thing to their people of kind of lower standard here. It's it's really a, a class struggle I guess. It’s a class struggle. It’s your classic class struggle. You have your poor backwoodsmen in the periphery, you got your kind of eastern elites over here saying, hey, we're the government you do what we say. I think by far that's probably one of my favorite. I think also another one of my favorite things is to get into the the whole discussion of kilt or no kilt. It's always, it's always fun to hear both sides of that argument. What I will say is we did find a document not too long ago, an actual newspaper article that said that in November 1775 a large body of Highlanders came to North Carolina and actually landed in the Cape Fear, they were all here, they were, they were outfitted for war, and all 500 of them had kilts on. So one of the the interesting thing is there's a there's always this one group that says “Ohh there are there are no kilts in the in the in the colonies” and well we got a newspaper article here that says these guys, these 500 guys actually had kilts. Umm. Now, were they at the Battle of Moores Creek Bridge? I don't know. It's very possible they could have been a portion of the men that McDonald leaves behind at Cross Creek, they could have been at the Battle of Moores Creek Bridge, we just don't know. They there is also the fact that there are some Highland officers that are went up to Philadelphia that people like to bring up. But if you look at the timeline I think November of ‘76 that they're discussing what these Highland officers look like, that's February to November. I mean is it possible they still have the same clothes on? Maybe but more likely they probably changed clothes. And then if you look at the account close enough there's about three of them where it said they give a really good description of their hat, what kind of vest and coat and shirt they were wearing, but then when it comes to the trousers or the lower, they, it has unknown. So are you telling me you gave me a really good description of everything, but then when you get to the trousers, you're telling me unknown? Or is it the fact that the jailer who gave the account was like, you know, didn't really know what a kilt was? Or didn't know how to describe this guy has a kilt on or that he's wearing a dress?

Adrian: Thinks he has a blanket around his waist.

Jason: Yeah, yeah, that he's got a blanket around. You know that, that whole, you know, argument is always interesting to to listen to both sides talk about. Typically tell people we don't know. There's this account and that account and we have this knowledge here, but we don't know there was actually any here at the battle. So yeah, there those are probably my two favorite.

Adrian: Well, sounds like there's a lot of commonality in some of our stories when it comes to the contradictory nature of the Patriots.

Jason: Sure. Ohh well yeah. I think it's a good time, you know, to use this is they were pretty good at quote unquote fake news. They could they could make a mountain out of a molehill for sure if they wanted to.

Adrian: So are there any common questions or misconceptions that you get a lot from visitors that you maybe wanna set straight?

Jason: Well, there's a, uh, there's the the cannons here. There is a swivel gun that we have here in the park and I cannot tell you that the Patriots actually had a swivel gun. In fact, the description of their artillery is is very sparse. The two guns that came from New Bern, they said the larger one was called Mother Covington and they had a smaller gun and but they both left New Bern on carriages, plural.

Adrian: Yeah.

Jason: I know that because on the February the 24th, the man who built the carriages for the cannons that left New Bern stood before the colonial, or the Committee of Safety in New Bern and said, hey guys, I built these carriages and I hired some horses to take them to Caswell. Can you pay me for it? Umm, so we know those two cannons at least left New Bern on carriages. And then we have three more supposed brass pieces, as it was in the description of of the man who talked about them, that came up from Wilmington. But it's it just said “we aligned three brass pieces with the bridge.” Now, were one of those a swivel gun? It's possible. Was it in a tree stump? Mmm I I can't say that for sure. Could they have put it in tree stumps? Definitely, but do I have any primary source that says that? No, I don't. I'm trying to think there's probably a couple of other ones that we could talk about, but unless you guys can think of any that you may have heard.

William: Was Jamie Fraser really there?

Jason: Yes, we did. We had we had four James Frasers here. Four. Now it was James Fraser, not Jamie Fraser. No, we had we had four James Frasers uh, we had 13 Donald McDonald's. There were several uh Donald McLeod's again McLeod, being a prevalent name, and Donald being very, you know, I can only imagine going into the Loyalist camps all “Hey, Donald!” everybody “Yeah!” I will say you know the importance of the Battle of Moores Creek is that this is the first decisive Patriot victory of the American Revolution. You know, prior to this, it's, you know, did did you, did the Patriots win it? Did we not win it? You know, or, you know, there's always this kind of like back and forth where all, you know, just for, like, the Battle of Lexington and Concord, you know the uh, British kind of crashed through the Patriot lines to get to the arsenal, but when they find out there's no uh weapons there, they kind of fight a, fight a pretty successful delaying action back to Boston. You know so there's always this iffiness of who wins? Who wins what? What’s going on? In the Battle of Moores Creek this is the first decisive Patriot victory of the American Revolution, and it allows North Carolina to be the first colony to allow its delegates to seek out and to vote on independence. It allowed them to go out to the Continental Congress and say, hey, North Carolina wants its independence. Say, what do you think you guys wanna join up? It’s become the first colony to do that. And it's also the last ever Highland broadsword charge anywhere in the world. The Scot Highlanders would would charge with their traditional broadsword. And from what we can gather and even over in Scotland they say the Battle of Moores Creek is the last ever, Highland, true Highland broadsword charge. Because when the Loyalists come across the bridge, the 50 of them that do, they charge with these with these weapons that are probably about 300 years old at this point or the design of weapons. They were designed for a time when men still wore armor on the battlefield. It was designed to cut through metal. It kind of had outlived its usefulness and this would be the last time there was this all out charge. So those that is the three things that make us a National Park. We were on designated National Park in 1933 for military study, and we were actually initially I think a Battleground, or not Battleground I’m sorry, a National Military Park and then they would change it over in 1980 from a National Military Park to a National Battlefield.

Adrian: I had to go look up the meaning of Donald, and it means basically “world leader” or… So that might be why it was popular. People like me- name meanings.

Jason: There you go.

William: So you've shared a lot about how significant like you just mentioned the three reasons for it being protected by the National Park Service, but you also mentioned that one of those reasons being this allows, this enables, North Carolina to give the green light to their delegates to begin seeking independence. So at the time of this recording, we are three years away from the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. Three years away from the 250th anniversary of the Battle of Moores Creek Bridge, as we're thinking about that, whenever people are listening to this or whenever they choose to think about Moores Creek Bridge or come visit the site, what is something that you think is important, kind of the major drop the mic walk away that all visitors and listeners should be aware about the battle of Moores Creek Bridge?

Jason: As far as it regards to the um, the America 250 event; we here at Moores Creek are looking at it as more so a story not of Moores Creek, but a story of the United States. A story of us. You know, when did we become us? Moores Creek is kind of that starting point. But hopefully you know for the for our A250 event which will occur in 2026, we are getting a lot of local parks to tell the story of not only you know what's going on during the colonial period, but what's going on during the antebellum period and what's going on during the Civil War and what's going on during the early or the late 1800s with the Wilmington Race Riots and what's going on with all the history within this region and bringing all of our stories together in in you know why, you know, we're gonna basically hopefully tell the story of the United States, not only the good, but the bad, but taking all those stories and piling them together. Because while the while the US, while you know the United States, started in, you know 1776, we kind of look at it as your grandfather let's say and your your you're gonna give him a birthday party and he's like 89 years old. You know, are you gonna just invite those people who know him right now? I mean those closest to him, just you, or you gonna invite all of his that he's had throughout his life? And and so we kind of look at it like that. We wanna not only celebrate the US being born, but we wanna talk about the US as a whole as as our our entire story. So that's kind of way Moores Creek is going to go about that. It should be a very interesting program that week. I’d say anywhere from the American Revolution I think up to World War Two, and maybe even further into the history here in southeastern North Carolina.

Adrian: Very cool.

William: Very cool.

Adrian: Well, thank you, Jason, for joining us. That's gonna wrap up our episode on the Battle of Moores Creek. If you would like to find out more about Moores Creek, Jason, where can they go?

Jason: Umm yeah, you could definitely look up our website here for the park or Google Moores Creek National Battlefield. I don't have the actual website in front of me, but definitely check us out there. You can check us out on Facebook or any any of the social media, we got Facebook, what is it, Instagram there you go that's the one I was trying and also Twitter and you can probably and we also have a YouTube channel that you can get information on. I would suggest, my suggested readings for you, “The Moores Creek Bridge Campaign,” by Hugh F. Rankin. Uh, there is “Redcoats on the Cape Fear” by Bert Dunkerly. That's probably the two prominent ones. There is one that just came out, “March to Independence, 1775 to 1776” by Mike Cecere. I believe I said his name correctly and that one's a pretty good book. Umm come call me, I will send you some information via email and I'd be more than happy to do any of that.

Adrian: Well, thank you. Once again that's gonna conclude this episode of Southern War, the podcast about the Southern Theater of the American Revolution. So thank you for listening and we hope you enjoyed and we'll see y'all next time when we revisit the Southern Theater of the American Revolution.

William: Bye everyone!

Adrian: Bye!

[sound of musket shots, drums, and horses]