A Timeline of the American Revolution in North Carolina

Locke’s writings laid the philosophical foundation for the American Revolution. His Two Treatises refuted the divine right of kings, and established the principles of natural rights, consent of the governed, limited government, and the right to rebel against unjust rulers. Twenty years earlier, Locke was involved in the writing of the Fundamental Constitutions of Carolina as secretary to Lords Proprietor Anthony Ashley Cooper, Earl of Shaftesbury.

British Stamp Collector is forced to resign after weeks of protest by agitated Patriots over the British Stamp Tax. The protests ultimately kept the stamps out of the colony.

Stamp Act protests continue as Sons of Liberty led by Cornelius Harnett confront Royal Governor Tryon in Brunswick Town.

In a climax of the Regulator movement, the battle occurs with forces under Royal Governor Tryon defeating local colonists upset about unfair fees, taxes and corruption in counties west of the more affluent North Carolina coast. Six Regulators were hung in Hillsborough for their leadership in the conflict.

51 women from the Edenton area signed a statement affirming their support for the first NC Provincial Congress’ decision to boycott British goods in protest of the Crown’s mistreatment of the American colonies.

With rebellion growing in Britain’s Massachusetts colony in the spring of 1775, British leaders dispatched troops from Boston with orders to capture and destroy military supplies and imprison Patriot leaders. Massachusetts militiamen and British soldiers clashed at the April 19 Battles of Lexington and Concord with what has been called “the shot heard ‘round the world.” The armed conflict, which resulted in 73 British and 49 Patriots dead, was the first of what became the American Revolution. Patriot Captain John Parker is said to have told his men: “Stand your ground; don’t fire unless fired upon, but if they mean to have a war, let it begin here.”

The Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence was a resolution allegedly adopted by local patriots after news of the Battles of Lexington and Concord in April 1775 in protest to British tyranny. It was a commitment to resistance against British authority. There has been a question whether the event took place since no document exists but the date is significant in that it is one more effort in support of American self-government.

British Royal Governor Josiah Martin fled his home at Tryon Palace in New Bern under the cover of darkness in fear that the newly formed Committees of Safety would soon jeopardize his and his family’s safety. Martin sent his family to the colony of New York and established headquarters at Fort Johnston in Brunswick County before fleeing again to a ship, the Cruizer, in the Cape Fear River.

55 Patriots from the Cross Creek area (Fayetteville today) joined in signing a resolution in protest after the Battles of Lexington and Concord. Signed at Lewis Barge’s tavern, it was not a declaration of independence but a commitment against aggressive British policies that sought reconciliation with Britain.

Committees of Safety under leadership of Col. Robert Howe force Royal Gov. Josiah Martin out of Brunswick onto a ship in the Cape Fear River and burn British Fort Johnston, an act that is considered the first military conflict of the Revolution in North Carolina.

A brief declaration adopted by 49 “subscribers” and “freeholders” of the Tryon County Association (today’s Lincoln, Gaston, Cleveland, Rutherford, and Polk counties) that vowed resistance to British coercion against its American colonies. It was a strongly worded protest but stopped short of calling for total independence from Britain, instead seeking “reconciliation.”

Patriot militiamen destroy a Loyalist army primarily made up of Highland Scots at the Moores Creek Bridge in Bladen County and prevent a British invasion of the colony. Royal Gov. Josiah Martin planned for Loyalist sympathizers to rally around the King and join up with British troops coming by ship to squelch the Patriot rebellion. The overwhelming victory at Moores Creek Bridge helped stifle Loyalist momentum and keep British forces out of the colony for years.

At the Fourth Provincial Congress in Halifax, 83 delegates from across the colony voted to adopt a document that gave North Carolina’s delegates to the Continental Congress the authority, if a vote for independence was proposed, to support it. This was the first official document that supported moving to independence without also saying resolution should be sought.

North Carolina representatives to the 2nd Continental Congress Joseph Hewes, William Hooper and John Penn sign the American Declaration of Independence in Philadelphia.

The U.S. Declaration of Independence was read publicly in Halifax on Aug. 1, 1776 by Cornelius Harnett who chaired the committee that produced the Halifax Resolves and served as President of the NC Council of Safety. It was the first public reading of the Declaration in the NC colony.

A militia force under the leadership of Gen. Griffith Rutherford leaves Davidson’s Fort to attack British-allied Cherokee towns in the Great Smoky Mountain area, a month-long foray that destroyed 36 Indian towns.

The Fifth Provincial Congress met in Halifax in November, 1776 where its delegates adopted the first constitution of the independent state of North Carolina on December 18.

Outnumbered 400-man Patriot militia under Col. Francis Locke destroys 1300 Loyalists, forcing a retreat and stemming the tide of Tory activity in what is today’s Lincolnton area.

Patriot and Tories skirmish in today’s Anson County with patriots emerging victorious over a larger loyalist force. Its primary significance is that Patriot colonel William Lee Davidson was seriously wounded in the fight, mainly because he was the only patriot wearing his old blue Continental uniform he had worn at Valley Forge and the Battles of Brandywine and Germantown, and was easy for Tory riflemen to spot.

This minor skirmish between Patriot and Tory militia was won by forces under noted Tory leader Major Patrick Ferguson. When Patriot forces withdrew back to the Watauga area of the mountains, Ferguson assumed western opposition to the Crown was finished. He had issued a declaration to western settlers just days before that “If they did not desist from their opposition to the British arms, he would march over the mountain, hang their leaders, and lay their country waste with fire and sword.” Within a month, these angry Overmountain men had crossed the mountains and killed him.

120 Patriot militia led by Col. William R. Davie fought 2000 British troops before retreating north to Salisbury. Significant in slowing down Gen. Cornwallis’ army before he established his 4000-man camp surrounding the 20-house village and county seat of Charlotte Town. Men sent to forage for supplies constantly skirmished with local militiamen causing Cornwallis to have allegedly said: “Let’s get out of here; this place is a damned hornet’s nest.”

After inflammatory challenges to Overmountain settlers who opposed the Crown from Maj. Patrick Ferguson, a response was organized by leaders John Sevier, Isaac Shelby, Joseph McDowell and Benjamin Cleveland who recruited 900 militiamen from western Virginia, eastern Tennessee and the Carolinas and marched over the mountains until they met Ferguson’s 1200-man Tory force at Kings Mountain on the SC/NC border. The Patriots surrounded the Tories on the top, killing Ferguson in the fight, and achieved a major victory that Thomas Jefferson called “the turn of the tide of success” in the Revolutionary War. See Battle of Kings Mountain

300-plus Loyalist militia were ambushed by the same size Patriot force as they were crossing the Yadkin River at the Shallowford crossing near today’s Winston-Salem. A Patriot victory, the attack was part of the constant militia effort to weaken Loyalist support in the region. The Shallowford is the place where thousands of families on the Great Wagon Road crossed into North Carolina’s Piedmont region to settle.

A six week-long retreat through North Carolina to the Dan River on the Virginia border by Gen. Daniel Morgan and Gen. Nathaniel Greene’s forces after the Jan. 17, 1781 major Patriot victory at Cowpens, SC. With Gen. Charles Cornwallis’ 2500 soldiers in hot pursuit, the patriots shrewdly stayed one step ahead, marching hard and taking all the boats with them as they escaped across the Yadkin and Dan Rivers, until an exhausted Cornwallis gave up and marched to Hillsborough.

After the Patriot victory at Cowpens, SC, Gen. Daniel Morgan is chased by British forces north into North Carolina. This battle takes place as the British cross the Catawba River at Cowan’s Ford and chase Morgan back to the Yadkin River. It is known for the Patriots’ loss of one of its best military leaders, Gen. William Lee Davidson, who was shot and killed on horseback.

Loyalist leader Col. John Pyle, leading a force of 3-400 men to join with Gen. Cornwallis in Hillsborough, was overtaken by a 600 Patriot band led by Gen. Andrew Pickens and Col. Lighthorse Harry Lee’s cavalry dragoons on a road near the Haw River. Lee’s troops dressed almost identically to British Col. Tarleton’s dragoons, and Pyle’s troop mistakenly thought it was Tarleton’s soldiers who rode by their column. The Patriots opened fire and attacked with their cavalry sabers, swiftly killing almost 100 Tories with few casualties of their own.

A 2100-man British force under Gen. Cornwallis fought Gen. Nathanael Greene’s 4,500-man Continentals near Greensboro. Despite the British army winning the field, they suffered heavy losses – more than a quarter of their strength – and weakened Cornwallis’ efforts to put down the Patriot rebellion in North Carolina. He soon moved his army to Wilmington to rest and regroup. See: Battle of Guilford County Courthouse

Cornwallis rested his troops and resupplied his force in Wilmington after his Pyrrhic victory at Guilford Courthouse. After writing his superiors “North Carolina… is the most difficult of provinces to attack,” he left Wilmington and marched north to Virginia to join other British forces. This march ultimately led to his defeat at Yorktown.

Patriot Colonel William Alston and a militia group under his command were attacked at his home by a larger militia force under Tory leader David Fanning. After a pitched battle, Fanning attempted to burn the house down and Alston surrendered. The house, built on a hill in a bend of the Deep River, remains today.

A small band of 65 or more Patriots crossed the Cape Fear River under the cover of darkness and surprise-attacked a 300-man Loyalist force in the fortified town of Elizabethtown. Trapping many of the enemy in a ravine today called “Tory Hole,” the Patriots won a big victory, killing 17 Tories, with only 4 Patriots wounded.

Tory forces under Loyalist Col. David Fanning – more than 600 men – attacked Hillsborough and captured NC Gov. Thomas Burke and 200 others. 30 Tory prisoners due to be hanged that day were freed from jail. Gov. Burke and the prisoners were taken to Wilmington, then Burke was transported to James Island prison in Charleston.

Gen. John Butler, hearing of Gov. Burke’s capture, gave chase and ambushed the Tory militia taking Burke to Wilmington at Lindley’s Mill in today’s Alamance County on Cane Creek. Fanning’s militia prevailed after a fierce battle with over 200 men killed or wounded, and Burke was delivered to Wilmington in captivity.

The last major battle of the American Revolution was won by American forces under Gen. George Washington, allied with French soldiers, when they trapped and defeated Gen. Cornwallis at Yorktown, VA after a long siege. This ended major conflict and led to the signing of the Treaty of Paris, September 3, 1783, which officially ended the war.

In early April, 1782, a wily party of mostly Tory militia and British dragoons based in still British-held Charleston, led by British Maj. Andrew DeVeaux, arrived at Beaufort harbor in search of grain, salt and other stores. The raiders tricked whalers into letting them in the harbor. Then they captured hostages, raided the town and plundered townspeople’s homes. Patriot militia came to an alarm and fought the force back to their ships after exchanges of cannon and musket fire. The captives were released and the British returned to Charleston. See: Battle of Beaufort

The Treaty of Paris officially ended the War of American Independence and established the thirteen colonies to be free, sovereign and independent unified states. The Treaty set boundaries between the United States and the rest of British North America. The Treaty was signed at the Hotel d’York in Paris by Benjamin Franklin, John Adams and John Jay for the United States of America, and David Hartley for Great Britain.