USA > North Carolina > Stanly County > Albemarle > In ancient Albemarle > Part 6
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Isaac Gregory, who in May, 1779, had been pro- moted to the office of Brigadier-General of the Edenton District, on the resignation of John Pugh Williams, was ordered to join General Caswell in South Carolina. As soon as he could collect his men, Gregory marched towards the Piedmont sec- tion, on his way to Caswell's army; and by June he was with Rutherford's Brigade at Yadkin's Ford in Rowan. Near this place the Tories had collected, some 800 strong ; and Rutherford hoped, with Gregory's aid, to crush them. But to his dis- appointment, no opportunity was given, for Gen- eral Bryan, the Tory leader, hearing of the defeat of the Loyalists at Ramseur's Mill a few days be- fore, crossed the Yadkin and united with General MacArthur, whom Cornwallis had sent to Anson County.
By July 31 Gregory's men, with Rutherford and his brigade, were with General Caswell at The
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Cheraws, just across the South Carolina border. For several weeks there was much suffering among the men on account of the lack of food, for though corn was plentiful, the rivers were so high that the mills could not grind the meal.
Lord Rawdon's army was stationed near Cam- den, South Carolina, and Gates, who had joined Caswell on August 17, having learned that the British general was daily expecting a supply of food and stores for his men, determined to inter- cept the convoy and capture the supplies for his own army. In the meantime Cornwallis, unknown to Gates, had joined Lord Rawdon. Gates, igno- rant of this reinforcement of Cornwallis' troops, marched leisurely towards Camden to capture the coveted stores.
The result of the battle that followed is known only too well. The American militia, panic- stricken at the furious onslaught of the enemy, threw down their arms and fled. General Gates, after a vain attempt to rally his troops, lost cour- age, and abandoning his forces and his stores, brought everlasting disgrace upon his name by fleeing in hot haste from the field.
But the cowardly conduct of Gates and several of the other officers of the American army, as well as many of the militia, in this disastrous battle, was offset by the heroism and courage of others;
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and among those who won undying fame on that fatal field, none is more worthy of praise than General Gregory.
Roger Lamb, a British officer, writing an ac- count of the battle, and speaking of the disgrace- ful conduct of those officers and men whose flight from the field brought shame upon the American army, gives this account of Isaac Gregory's he- roic struggle to withstand the enemy at this bloody field: "In justice to North Carolina, it should be remarked that General Gregory's bri- gade acquitted themselves well. They formed on the left of the Continentals, and kept the field while they had a cartridge left. Gregory himself was twice wounded by bayonets in bringing off his men, and many in his brigade had only bayonet wounds."
As to fight hand to hand with bayonets requires far more courage than to stand at a distance and fire a musket, this account of Gregory and his troops proves the bravery with which they fought during those terrible hours. General Gregory's horse was shot from under him while the battle was raging; and seeing him fall, so sure was the enemy of his death that Cornwallis in his official report of the battle, gave in his name in the list of the American officers killed on the field.
Two days after the battle of Camden, the pa-
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triots, Shelby, Clarke and Williams, defeated a band of Tories at Musgrove's Mill in South Caro- lina; but hearing of the disaster at Camden, these officers now withdrew from the State. Sumter's corps, near Rocky Mount, had been put to flight by Tarleton, Gates had fled the State, and only Davie's men were left between the army of Corn- wallis and Charlotte, North Carolina.
Had the British General pressed on into the State, North Carolina must have inevitably fallen into the hands of the enemy. But Cornwallis de- layed the invasion for nearly a month, thus giving the Carolinians time to collect their forces to repel his attempt.
The General Assembly which met in Septem- ber, 1780, acting upon Governor Nash's advice, created a Board of War to assist him in conduct- ing the military affairs of the State. This board now proceeded to put General Smallwood, of Maryland, in command of all the forces in the State, giving him authority over all the officers in the Southern army, the honor being conferred upon him on account of his gallant conduct at Camden. General Gregory was consequently ordered to hold himself in readiness to obey Gen- eral Smallwood's orders, with the other officers in North Carolina.
The Board of War then proceeded to raise
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money, arms and men for the army that would soon be called upon to drive Cornwallis from the State. Gregory's brigade received $25,000 of the funds raised, and 150 flints and 15 guns were dis- tributed among his soldiers.
The British now confidently expected that Corn- wallis would quickly subdue North Carolina, then sweep over the State into Virginia. In order to prevent the Americans from hurrying into that State to join forces against Cornwallis, General Leslie was ordered from New York to the Chesa- peake, and in October his army was stationed near South Quays in Virginia, not far from Norfolk.
The presence of Leslie's army so close to the Carolina border caused much alarm for the safety of the Albemarle section, which for the second time was in danger of invasion. General Gregory, who after the battle of Camden had joined Exum and Jarvis in front of Cornwallis, had recently returned to Albemarle. He was now ordered to take the field against Leslie, and to prevent him from entering the State. From his camp at Great Swamp, near North River, he wrote to Governor Nash in November, 1780, reporting the repulse of the enemy. He also warned the Governor that the British were planning to attack Edenton; and he set forth in his letter the blow that the capture of this town would be to the commerce of the State.
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General Gregory's post at Great Swamp was no sinecure. He had only about 100 men to withstand Leslie, whose forces at Portsmouth amounted to nearly 1,000 men. His troops were poorly equipped, half naked, and ill-fed; and his situation seemed almost desperate. To add to his troubles, an attempt was made at this time by Colonel Blount, of the Edenton District, to de- prive him of his command. But a Council of State, held at Camp Norfleet Mills to inquire into the matter, declared that as Colonel Blount had re- signed of his own free will and accord-in favor of Gregory-he should not now take the command from him.
In spite of the troubles and perplexities that beset Gregory in the fall of 1780, he bravely held his ground ; and by the end of November he wrote Governor Nash from his camp at North West that the British had abandoned Portsmouth, and had departed for parts unknown.
While these events were taking place in the East, Cornwallis, whose left wing under Ferguson had suffered a crushing defeat at King's Moun- tain, disappointed at the humbling of the Tories at that battle, had left North Carolina on October 12th, and returned to South Carolina. The heavy rains encountered by his army on his retreat caused much sickness among his men; and him-
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self falling ill, he was obliged to give up his com- mand temporarily to Lord Rawdon.
General Leslie's destination soon became known. On November 23 he had abandoned the vicinity of Norfolk, and had sailed to Wilmington, N. C., hoping to rouse the Tories in that section; but Lord Rawdon's army being now in great danger, Leslie was ordered to his assistance, and he accordingly set out for the British army near Camden. But Southern Virginia and the Albe- marle region were not long to be free from the fear of invasion, for soon another British army under the command of the traitor, Benedict Arnold, sailed into Chesapeake Bay, and Gregory was again sent to keep the enemy in check.
During this campaign a serious charge was brought against Gregory, which, though soon proved to be wholly unfounded, caused the gallant officer life-long mortification and distress. The circumstances of this unfortunate occurrence were as follows :
Captain Stevens, a British officer in Arnold's corps, while sitting idly by his fire one night, "just for a joke," as he afterwards explained, wrote two notes to General Gregory, which he intended to destroy, as they were simply the product of his own imagination, and were never intended to go out of his hands.
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In some unknown way these papers came into the hands of an American officer, who, deeming from their contents that Gregory was a traitor, carried them to headquarters. Their purport being made public, even Gregory's most loyal friends began to look upon him with suspicion and distrust.
The first of these two notes was as follows :
"General Gregory :
"Your well-formed plans of delivering into the hands of the British these people now in your command, gives me much pleasure. Your next, I hope, will mention place of ambuscade, and man- ner you wish to fall into my hands."
The second note was equally incriminating : "General Gregory :
"A Mr. Ventriss was last night made prisoner by three or four of your people. I only wish to inform you that Ventriss could not help doing what he did in helping to destroy the logs. I my- self delivered him the order from Colonel Simcox."
Great was the excitement and consternation in Gregory's brigade, and indeed throughout the American army when these notes were read. Arnold's treason early in 1780 was still fresh in the minds of all ; and it was natural that the accu- sation now brought against General Gregory should find ready and widespread credence. Greg-
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ory was arrested and court-martialed by his own men; but his innocence was soon established, for as soon as Colonel Stevens heard of the disgrace he had unintentionally brought upon an innocent man, he hastened to make amends for his thought- less act by a full explanation of his part in the affair. Colonel Parker, a British officer and a friend of Stevens, had been informed of the writ- ing of the notes, and he now joined Stevens in furnishing testimony at the trial that fully ex- onerated the brave general from the hateful charge. But though friends and brother officers now crowded around him with sincere and cordial congratulations upon the happy termination of the affair, and with heartfelt expressions of regret at the unfortunate occurrence, the brave and gallant officer, crushed and almost heart-broken at the readiness with which his men and many of his fellow officers had accepted what seemed proofs of his guilt, never recovered from the hurt caused by the cruel charge. For though he nobly put aside his just resentment, and remained at his post of duty, guarding the Albemarle counties from danger of invasion until the withdrawal of the British troops from southeastern Virginia re- moved the danger, his life was ever afterwards shadowed by the mortification he had been called upon to undergo.
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In February, 1781, the enemy's army in Vir- ginia became such a source of terror to the people of that section that General Allen Jones was ordered to reinforce Gregory with troops from the Halifax District. But later that same month a greater danger confronted the patriot army in the South, and this order was countermanded. Most of the forces in the States were now hurried to the aid of General Greene, who had superseded Gates after the battle of Camden, and was leading Cornwallis an eventful chase across the Piedmont section of North Carolina. Cornwallis, after hav- ing been reinforced by General Leslie, had planned to invade North Carolina, conquer that State, march through Virginia and join Clinton in a fierce onslaught against Washington's army in the North. To foil the plans of the British officers Greene was concentrating the patriot troops in the South in the Catawba Valley, and Gregory was left with only a handful of men to hold the enemy at Norfolk in check.
In June, General Gregory's situation was so des- perate that the Assembly again ordered General Allan Jones to send 400 men from Halifax Dis- trict to North West Bridge to reinforce Gregory ; and the latter officer was authorized to draft as many men as possible from the Edenton District. General Jones informed the Assembly that he
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would send the troops as soon as possible, but that Gregory would have to provide arms, as he had no means of furnishing equipments for them.
Several engagements took place in June between the British and Americans in the Dismal Swamp region, and in one of them Gregory was repulsed and driven from his position. But in July he wrote to Colonel Blount reporting that his losses were trifling, and that he had regained his old post from the enemy. In August, 1781, a letter from General Gregory conveyed the joyful tidings that the enemy had evacuated Portsmouth. As his troops were no longer needed to guard against the danger of invasion from that direction, and as smallpox had broken out in his camp, General Gregory now released his men from duty, and they returned to their homes.
The British army that had just left Portsmouth, was now on its way to Yorktown, whither Corn- wallis, after his fruitless chase of Greene, his dis- astrous victory at Guilford Courthouse, and his retreat to Wilmington, was now directing his army. There on the 19th of October the famous Battle of Yorktown was fought and Cornwallis and his entire army forced to surrender.
This battle virtually ended the war; but peace did not come to Carolina immediately upon the
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surrender. The Tories in the State kept up a con- stant warfare upon their Whig neighbors, and in March, 1782, General Greene, who not long after the battle of Guilford Courthouse had won a decisive victory at Eutaw Springs, and was still in South Carolina, sent the alarming intelligence to the towns on the coast that the British had sent four vessels from Charleston harbor to plunder and burn New Bern and Edenton. To meet this unexpected emergency, General Rutherford was ordered to quell the Tories in the Cape Fear sec- tion, who were terrorizing the people in that re- gion. And in April, 1782, General Gregory re- ceived orders from General Burke to take 500 men to Edenton for the defense of that town, and to notify Count de Rochambeau as soon as the enemy should appear in Albemarle Sound. In August no sign of the British ships had as yet been seen, though the coast towns were still in daily dread of their arrival. Governor Martin, who had suc- ceeded Burke, wrote Gregory to purchase what- ever number of vessels the Edenton merchants considered necessary for the protection of the town, to buy cannon and to draft men to man the boats.
But Edenton was spared the horror of a second raid such as she had suffered in 1781. In Decem- ber, 1782, the British army in South Carolina,
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which since the battle of Eutaw Springs had been hemmed in at Charleston by General Greene, finally embarked for England. The ships that had been keeping the towns near the coast in North Carolina in terror, departed with them, and the States that had for so many long and bitter years been engaged in the terrific struggle with Eng- land, were left to enjoy the fruits of their splendid victory without further molestation from the enemy.
In September, 1783, the Treaty of Peace was signed by Great Britain, and the United States, separately and individually, were declared to be "free, sovereign and independent States."
General Gregory's services to his State did not end with the war. Eight times from 1778 to 1789, we find him representing Camden County in the State Senate, serving on important committees, and lending the weight of his influence to every movement tending toward the prosperity and wel- fare of the State. In the local affairs of his neigh- borhood he also took a prominent part. In 1789 the Currituck Seminary was established at Indian Town, and Isaac Gregory and his friend and brother officer, Colonel Peter Daugé, were ap- pointed on the board of trustees of this school, which for many years was one of the leading edu- cational institutions of the Albemarle section.
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General Gregory lived at the Ferebee place in Camden County in a large brick house, known then, as now, as Fairfax Hall. The old building is still standing, a well known landmark in the county.
A letter from James Iredell to his wife, written while this famous North Carolina judge was a guest at Fairfax, gives a pleasant account of an evening spent in General Gregory's home with Parson Pettigrew and Gideon Lamb, and also of the kindness and hospitality of the Camden people.
In volume 2 of the Iredell letters this descrip- tion of General Gregory's personal appearance is given :
"A lady, who remembers General Gregory well, says that he was a large, fine looking man. He was exceedingly polite, had a very grand air, and in dress was something of a fop." In the same volume the following interesting account of an incident in the life of the famous General is found : "General Gregory lived in his latter years so se- cluded a life and knew so little of events beyond his own family circle, that he addressed to a lady, the widow of Governor Stone, a letter making a formal proposal of marriage, full six months after her death."
General Isaac Gregory was the son of General William Gregory, an officer who took a prominent
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FAIRFAX, CAMDEN COUNTY, THE HOME OF GENERAL GREGORY
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part in the French and Indian Wars. He married Miss Elizabeth Whedbee, and had two children, Sarah and Matilda. Sarah married Dempsey Bur- gess, of Camden, and Matilda married a young German, John Christopher Ehringhaus. Many of the descendants of this brave Revolutionary officer are living in the Albemarle region to-day, and claim with pride this ancestor, who, as Captain Ashe in his History of North Carolina says, "was one of the few who won honor at Camden, and whose good fame was never tarnished by a single unworthy action."
The Sir Walter Raleigh Chapter of the Daught- ers of the Revolution have within the past year obtained from the United States government a simple stone which they have had placed to mark the grave of this gallant officer, who lies buried in the family graveyard at Fairfax.
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CHAPTER XIII
PERQUIMANS COUNTY-"LAND OF BEAUTIFUL WOMEN," AND THE COLONIAL TOWN OF HERTFORD
F ROM its hidden source in the southern fringe of the far-famed Dismal Swamp, the Per- quimans River, lovely as its Indian name, which, being interpreted, signifies "the land of beautiful women," comes winding down. Past marshes green with flags and rushes and starred with flowers of every hue, through forests dense with pine and cypress, with gum and juniper, the amber waters of the ancient stream pursue their tranquil way. Lazily, but steadily and untiringly, the river journeys on in obedience to the eternal, insistent call of the sea, till its waves, meeting and mingling with those of the great sound and its numerous tributaries, finally find their way through the sand bars that bound our coast, to the stormy Atlantic.
Save for the fields of corn and cotton that lie along its banks, and an occasional sawmill whose whirring wheels break at long intervals the silence of its wooded shores, the peaceful river through the greater part of its way is undisturbed by signs of man's presence. Only twice in its course
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do its banks resound to the hum of town and vil- lage life, once when shortly emerging from the Great Swamp, the river in its winding flows by the sleepy little Quaker village of Belvidere; and again when its tranquility is suddenly broken by the stir and bustle of mill and factory, upon whose existence depends the prosperity of the old colonial town of Hertford. There, the river, sud- denly as wide awake as the beautiful town by which it flows, changes its narrow, tortuous, leis- urely course, and broadening out from a slender stream, sweeps on to the sea, a river grown, whose shores from this point on lie apart from each other a distance of more than a mile.
Of all the streams that flow down to the sea from Albemarle, none exceeds in beauty or historic interest the lovely Perquimans River. On its eastern banks lies Durant's Neck, the home of George Durant, the first settler in our State, who in 1661 left his Virginia home and came into Albe- marle; and being well pleased with the beauty and fertility of fair Wikacome, was content to abide thenceforth in that favored spot.
On the banks of the streams flowing on either side of Wikacome, roamed an Indian tribe, the Yeopims, whose great chief Kilcokonen gave to George Durant the first deed for land ever re- corded in our State. Durant, his friend and com-
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rade, Samuel Pricklove, and their families and servants, proved to be the vanguard of a long pro- cession of settlers, who, following the footsteps of these first pioneers, made their homes upon the shores of the Albemarle streams. Soon the dense forests that stretched down to the river brinks fell beneath the axe of these home-seekers, and small farms and great plantations fringed the borders of the streams.
At the narrows of the Perquimans, where the waters widen into a broad, majestic river, a sturdy pioneer, Henry Phillips (or Phelps) had built his home. Thither in the spring of 1672, came a missionary, William Edmundson, a friend and follower of George Fox, who some years be- fore had over in England founded the Society of Friends. Henry Phelps was a member of this Society also, and the meeting between the two godly men was a joyful one.
During the ten years that had passed since the Indian Chief had signed his first grant of land to the white man, the settlers of Albemarle had had no opportunity of assembling together for public worship. Phelps, knowing how gladly the call would be answered, at the bidding of Edmundson, summoned such of his friends and neighbors as he could reach, to his home, to hear the Word preached by this zealous man of God.
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Not since the days of little Virginia Dare had a body of Christian men and women met together in Carolina to offer in public worship their prayer and praises to the loving Father, who had led them safely over storm-tossed waters, through tangled wilderness, into this Land of Promise. Rough and uncultured as most of the congregation were, they listened quietly and reverently to the good mis- sionary, and received the Word with gladness. There were present at the meeting "one Tems and his wife," who earnestly entreated Edmundson to hold another service at their home three miles away. So the next day he journeyed to the home of Tems, and there another "blessed meeting" was held; and there was founded a Society whose members were to be for many years the most prominent religious body in the State.
In the fall of 1672, the hearts of the members of this infant church were gladdened by the tid- ings that George Fox himself was on his way to visit the little band of brethren in the wilds of Carolina. One cool, crisp October morning, the great preacher arrived. Again was the home of Phelps chosen for the meeting; but so great was the crowd that gathered to hear him that the house would not hold the congregation. Standing a little distance from Phelps' simple dwelling were two great cypress trees. Close down by the water's
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edge they grew, their feathery branches shading the rippling waves, and shielding the listeners from the glare of a sun whose rays had not yet lost their summer's heat. Under one of these trees the preacher stood, and spoke to the assem- bled crowd as the Spirit gave him utterance. It was a "tender meeting," as Fox reports in his letters describing his stay in Perquimans. Many who were present became converts to the faith of Fox and Edmundson; and Perquimans County and her sister, Pasquotank, became for many years the stronghold of the Society of Friends in Carolina.
For a number of years after George Fox's visit to Perquimans, the Quakers were the only relig- ious body in the colony that regularly assembled its members together for divine service. Their ministers were for the most part from the congre- gation itself; no salary was demanded by theni; and the home of some Friends was the scene of their religious meetings. In a new country where ready money is a scarce commodity, a church that could be conducted without any expenditure of cash could more easily take root, than one whose existence depended upon a certain amount, how- ever small, of filthy lucre.
The Lords Proprietors, members for the most part of the Church of England, were too intent
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