USA > North Carolina > Sketches of North Carolina, historical and biographical : illustrative of the principles of a portion of her early settlers > Part 6
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was sent out by the governor to stop the battle ; an old Scotch- man cried out to the Regulators, "it's a flag, don't fire ;" but almost immediately three or four rifles were discharged, and the flag fell. The firing was renewed with fresh vigor by the military, and the Regulators in the general fled, leaving a few posted behind trees, who continued their fatal aim till their ammunition was exhausted, or they were in danger of being surrounded.
Some of the Regulators had wished and expected to fight; but the greater part that had assembled expected that the governor, seeing their numbers, would parley with them, and ultimately grant their demands. Rev. Mr. Caldwell, just from Tryon's camp, was riding along the lines urging the men to go home without vio- lence, when the command to fire was given, and with difficulty escaped from the conflict.
They had no commander to regulate their motions, they had none with them used to camps and wars to give them advice ; there had of late been no expeditions against the savages, and the military life, further than to shoot a rifle and live on short rations, was all new. " O," said an old man, who was in the battle, to Mr. Caruthers, " O, if John and Daniel Gillespie had only known as much about military discipline then as they knew a few years after that, the bloody Tryon would never have slept in his palace again !" Many that were defeated in that bloodshed, in a few years showed Cornwallis they had learned to fight better than in the day of Tryon's victory on the Alamance. It is the unvarying tradition among the people of the country, that the Regulators had but little ammunition, and did not flee till it was all expended.
Nine of the Regulators, and twenty-seven of the militia were left dead on the field ; a great number were wounded on both sides in this skirmish, or battle-in this first blood shed for the enjoyment of liberty. We cannot but admire the principles that led to the result, how much soever we may deplore the excesses that preceded, and the bloodshed itself.
The excesses of the Regulators had been great, as has been recorded, but the barbarities of the governor upon his prisoners, after his victory, make these lamented deeds dwindle into harmless sport. On the evening of the battle, he proceeded to hang, without trial or form, James Few (whom he had taken prisoner), a young man, a carpenter, that owned a little spot of land near Hillsborough, where Mr. Kirkham's house now stands, of quiet and industrious habits, goaded on to rebellion by the exactions of Fanning ; and at last, driven to madness by the dishonor done by that man to his
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intended bride, he joined the Regulators, and proclaimed himself " sent by heaven to release the world of oppression, and to begin in Carolina." And not content with this, the governor's ven- geance followed his aged parents, and having executed their son, Tryon proceeded to destroy the little provision made for their helplessness and age.
Captain Messer was condemned to be hung the next day. His wife, hearing of his captivity and intended fate, came with her oldest child, a lad of about ten years, to visit and intercede for her husband. Her kindness comforted but could not redeem her husband, the father of her children ; the governor was inflexible. While the pre- parations were making for the execution, she lay upon the ground weeping, her face covered with her hands, and the weeping boy by her side. When the fatal moment, as he supposed, had arrived, the boy, stepping up to Tryon, says : "Sir, hang me and let my father live !" " Who told you to say that ?" said the governor. "Nobody !" replied the lad. " And why," said the governor, " do you ask that ?" " Because," said the boy, "if you hang my father my mother will die, and the children will perish." "Well !" said the governor, deeply moved by the earnestness and affecting simplicity of the lad, "your father shall not be hung to-day." On suggestion of Fanning, Messer was offered his liberty on condi- tion that he would bring in Harmon Husbands, his wife and child being kept as hostages. After an absence of some days he re- turned, saying he had overtaken him in Virginia, but could not bring him back ; he was put in chains and taken along as prisoner.
After resting a few days on Sandy River, the governor passed on as far as the Yadkin, and having issued a proclamation, that all those who had been engaged in these disturbances, excepting the prisoners in camp, the company called the Black Boys, and sixteen others, that should come into camp, lay down their arms, and take the oath of allegiance before the 10th of July, should receive a free pardon : and having sent General Waddel with a company of twenty-five light horse, one field-piece, and a respectable corps of militia to visit the counties to the west and south, and return home, himself took a circuit round through Stokes, Rockingham, Guilford to Hillsborough. In all his circuit, after the bloodshed, he exhibited his prisoners in chains, particularly in the villages he passed. He exacted the oath of allegiance from all the inhabitants that could be found; levied contributions of provisions with a lavish hand upon the suspected and the absent ; he seized one Johnson, who was reported to have spoken disrespectfully of Lady
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Wake, from whom one of the counties lately forcibly set off had been called, a beautiful and accomplished lady ; and for his want of gallantry to this sister of the governor's wife, condemned him to five hundred lashes on his bare back, two hundred and fifty of which were inflicted ; and offered a reward of a thousand acres of land, and one hundred pounds in money, for Harmon Husbands, James Butler, Rednap Howell, and others of the Regulators ; and filled his measure of tyrannical glory by burning houses, destroy- ing crops, and holding courts-martial for civil crimes. On reaching Hillsborough, he held a special court for the trial of his prisoners, twelve of whom were condemned to death on his urgent statements, and six were actually executed. The real leaders had all escaped, but a sacrifice must be made ; the court hesitated and delayed; he sent his aide-de-camp to chide and threaten their delay ; the soldier and governor were lost in the tyrant and the savage.
On the 19th of June, six prisoners were publicly executed near Hillsborough, of whom the unfortunate Messer was one, reprieved a few days by the spirit of his child, only to be carried about in chains, and hung ignominiously at last. The governor, in person, gave orders for the parade at the execution, and, as Maurice Moore said, "left a ridiculous idea of his character behind, bearing a strong resemblance to that of an undertaker at a funeral."
Robert Mateer, one of the victims, was a quiet, inoffensive, upright man, who had never joined the Regulators. On the morning of the bloodshed he visited Tryon's camp with Robert Thompson, and was detained with him a prisoner ; being recog- nized as the person who had, some time before, grievously offended the governor in the matter of a letter entrusted to his care, he was condemned, and made one of the six that were executed ; beloved while living, and lamented when dead.
Captain Merrill, from the Jersey Settlement, or, as others say, from Mecklenburg county, was on his way to join the Regu- lators-probably had been engaged in intercepting Waddel-with three hundred men under his command. Hearing of the defeat and dispersion of the Regulators on the Alamance, when within a day's march, his men dispersed, and he returned home, but was afterwards taken prisoner, and was made one of the six that were executed. A pious man, he professed his faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, and declared himself ready to die, and died like a soldier and a Christian, singing very devoutly, with his dying breath, a
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Psalm of David, like the Covenanters in the Grass Market in Edinburgh.
James Pugh, an ingenious gunsmith, had, during the firing at Alamance, killed with his rifle some fifteen of those who served the cannon, and delaying his escape too long was taken prisoner, and made one for this day's sacrifice. When placed under the gallows he asked and obtained leave from the governor to address the people for half an hour. He justified his course, professed his readiness to meet God, inveighed against the oppression of the public officers, and particularly against Fanning. This dastardly man, unable to bear the reproaches of his victim, made the sug- gestion, and the barrel, on which the prisoner stood, was over- turned, and the young man launched into eternity, his speech unfinished and his half hour unexpired.
These men may have been rash, but they were not cowards : they may have been imprudent, but they were suffering under wrong and outrage, and the withholding justice, and the proper exercise of law. "And if oppression will make a wise man mad," the ten years of such oppression as these suffered, would have proved them fit for subjection had they been submissive.
Tryon returned to his costly palace in Newbern, only to bid it farewell, and make room for Josiah Martin, who knew better how to appreciate these people and their complaints. Edmund Fan- ning, the cause of so much trouble, gathered a company and met the governor on his first approach to Orange ; went with him to Ala- mance, and as the firing commenced, found it indispensable to take his post many miles in the rear, whether through fear of his life, or of shedding the Regulators' blood. Harmon Husbands, also, on the other side, rode faster and farther on that day. He had been active for years in exciting the people to resistance, making speeches, circulating information, drawing up memorials and papers of a political cast, and taking the lead in measures that brought on the bloodshed in Alamance. He had been once put in prison while a member of the legislature, for his principles and connection with the disturbances in Orange ; but when the cannon began to roar at Tryon's command, on the 16th of May, on the Alamance, he mounted his horse and rode rapidly away to the more quiet State of Pennsylvania, and was not seen again in Carolina till after the Revolution-professing that his principles as a Quaker forbade him to fight, though they impelled him to resistance. When the time of trial came, that men must submit or flee, or bleed, he escaped, while others poured out their blood. He and all like him
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are passed over in the inquiries we make about the people who bore the burthen of the Revolution and its previous struggles.
The question now arises, who were these people ?- and whence did they come ? They could discuss the rights and privi- leges of men ; they could write in a manner that has been pro- nounced "the style of the Revolution ;" and they were men that feared an oath. The oath of allegiance exacted by Tryon, from multitudes, as the condition of their lives and property, hung on their consciences through life, and no reasoning could convince them they were free from its awful sanctions, though the king could afford them no protection. One of these, who was in the bloodshed of Alamance, and afterwards had borne arms for the king, as he considered himself bound to do, said sorrowfully at the close of the Revolution-" I have fought for my country, and fought for my king ; and have been whipped both times." Still his oath bound his conscience, while he rejoiced it did not reach his children.
The descendants of these people, who were at the time treated as rebels, and stigmatized in government papers as ignorant and headstrong and unprincipled, hold the first rank in their own coun- try for probity and intelligence ; have held the first offices in their own and the two younger and neighboring States ; and have not been debarred the highest offices in the Union.
In less than four years from this period, those who were not crushed by the solemnities of the oath Tryon forced on them, united with their brethren of Mecklenburg of the same stock, and kindred faith, in maintaining the first declaration of independence made in North America-a declaration sealed with blood in North Carolina, but never, like the Regulation, put down. The princi- ples of the Regulators never were put down ; and in the contest with the governor, there is little doubt on which side the victory would have declared itself had there been a military man at the head of the undisciplined people, or had they been fully convinced the governor would fire upon them. Repeatedly had these men gathered at Hillsborough, and dispersed without violence, on pro- mise of redress ; and Waddel had been met and turned back with- out bloodshed a few days before. The greater part expected some terms of reconciliation, while some wished for the contest, and many were ready to fight.
The address sent in to Tryon the day before the bloodshed, in which they promised to disperse and go home if he would redress their grievances, shows they were not expecting the governor
5
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would proceed to violence. The feelings of a great part of the western counties were united in the object of their efforts ; and many of the inhabitants of the seaboard were on their side. The militia of Duplin refused to march against them, with the exception of a company of light horse under Capt. Bullock, and also refused the oath of allegiance the governor offered them on his return. In Halifax there were many supporters of their principles ; in New- bern itself many, in fact, the majority of the militia assembled, de- clared in their favor. Not a few men of eminence favored them more or less openly, advocating the principles, but greatly disap- proving the excesses of the violent. Of these were such men as Maurice Moore, judge of the Superior Court ; Thomas Person, the founder of Person Hall, at Chapel Hill ; and Alexander Martin, afterwards governor of the State.
Martin, the historian, who appears to know so little about the principles and habits of the persons engaged, says that there were " several thousand families" scattered through the upper counties : and so there were-and these gathered into congregations of reli- gious worshippers all along from the Virginia to the South Carolina line. It is the origin of these that is now inquired after ; and the nature of their religion, so favorable to mental exercise and improve- ment, to civil freedom and the rights of man, that is to be deline- ated,-a religion the same now as in the days of the American Revolution,-and the great English Revolution of 1688,-and the same in spirit and substantial forms as when the great Apostle plead his cause, in chains, at Rome.
There has been as yet no monument erected to the memory of those who fell on the Alamance, in this first bloodshed in the cause of oppressed freemen seeking their rights : they sleep in unhonored graves, as also do those who were publicly executed in the same glorious cause near Hillsborough, June 19th, 1771. But you can find the battle ground and graves of the slain, on the old road from Hillsborough to Salisbury by Martinville, or Guilford old court- house. It is a locality to be remembered, for the event must always fill an honorable page in any full and fair history of North Carolina, or of the United States, as the first resistance to blood, in which resistance was determined upon, even should resistance end in wounds and death.
The Regulators may have been rude, they certainly were un- polished ; but they were not ignorant, neither did they lack intelli- gence, nor exhibit as a people any lack of religious or moral princi- ple. On the contrary, their estimation of an oath far transcended
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the expectation of the governor, who anticipated much from a people taught by McAden, Caldwell, Pattillo, and Craighead, all eminent in their vocation as gospel ministers.
Differing from the governor in their religious principles as much as in their political creed, they were condemned by the king's officers to fines and plunder and confiscation and death, and by the ministers of the State religion to endless perdition. There is extant a sermon preached before the governor at Hillsborough, on Sunday, the 25th of September, 1768, by George Micklejohn, from Romans, chapter xiii., 1st and 2d verses-in which the preacher avows that the governor ought to have executed at least twenty on that his first visit ; and that the rebels could not escape the damnation of hell on account of their resistance to the existing government. But these outraged men sought deliverance from the oppression of man, and hoped in the mercy of Almighty God. And they found from heaven what was denied by earth.
The succeeding pages will give a collection of facts that shall present the history of principles that cannot die, and are always effective. The scene of action and the actors but reflect additional tints of beauty on what, in themselves, are immortal,-the princi- ples of true government and undefiled religion.
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CHAPTER III.
A PAPER ON CIVIL AND RELIGIOUS LIBERTY, DRAWN UP IN 1775.
" SHE has seven sons in the rebel army," was the reason given by the British officer for plundering the farm and burning the house of Widow Brevard, in Centre Congregation, while Cornwallis was in pursuit of Morgan and Greene, after the victory of the Cowpens. What a mother ! seven sons in the army at one time ! all fighting for the independence of their country ! And for this glorious fact, the house of the widow plundered and burned, and her farm pil- laged !
One son, Captain Alexander Brevard, a tall, dignified gentleman, independent in his feelings and his manners, rendered signal ser- vices in the Continental army. He took part in nine important battles-Brandywine, Germantown, Princeton, Stony Point, Eu- taw, Guilford, Camden, Ninety-Six, and Stono. Of all these, he used to say, the battle of the Eutaw was the sorest conflict; in that he lost twenty-one of his men. When the time of hard service was over, he returned to private life, and never sought political pro- motion; enjoying that liberty for which he had fought, and serving his generation as a good citizen, and the church as an elder, respected and beloved. He laid his bones at last in Lincoln county, the place of his residence for many years, in a spot selected by himself and General Graham. They served as soldiers in the Revolution, and lived as most intimate friends : having married sisters, the daughters of Major John Davidson, one of the members of the Mecklenburg Convention, they were brothers indeed ; and dying in the hope of a blessed resurrection, they sleep, with their wives and many of their children, in their chosen place of sepulture. You may find the graves of these honorable dead in a secluded place, walled in with rock, about a hundred paces from the great road leading from Beattie's Ford by Brevard's Furnace to Lincolnton, a spot where piety and affection and patriotism may meet and mingle their tears ; and youth may gather lessons of wisdom.
The youngest son of this widow, afterwards Judge Brevard of Camden, South Carolina, was first lieutenant of a company of horse, at the age of seventeen, and held, through life, a correspond- ing station in the opinions and affections of his fellow men.
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Ephraim Brevard, another son of this widow, having pursued a course of classical studies in his native congregation, was graduated at Princeton College ; and having pursued a course of medical studies, was settled in Charlotte. His talents, patriotism and education, united with his prudence and practical sense, marked him as a leader in the councils, that preceded the convention, held in Queen's Mu- seum ; and on the day of meeting designated him as secretary and draughtsman of that singular and unrivalled declaration, which alone is a passport to the memory of posterity through all time.
Dr. Brevard took an active part in the establishment and man- agement of the literary institution in Charlotte, which was, to all useful purposes, a college, though refused that name by the king and council. His name appears upon the degree given John Gra- ham in 1778, which is carefully preserved at Vesuvius Furnace, the only degree of the institution now known to be in existence. For a time the institution was under his instruction.
When the British forces invaded the southern States, Dr. Bre- vard entered the army as surgeon, and was taken prisoner at the surrender of Charleston, May 12th, 1780. The sufferings of the captives taken in that surrendered city, moved the hearts of the brave inhabitants of Western Carolina, and in the tenderness of the female bosom found alleviation. News was circulated among the settlements in the upper country, that their friends and relations were dying of want and disease, in their captivity. 'The men could not visit them ; it would be leaping into the lion's den. The wives, the mothers, the sisters, the daughters, gathering clothing and pro- visions and medicine, sought through long journeys, the places of confinement, trusting to their sex, under the Providence of God, for their protection. These visits of mercy saved the lives of mul- titudes ; and in some cases were purchased by the lives of the no- ble females that dared to undertake them. The mother of Presi- dent Andrew Jackson, returning to the Waxhaw, from a visit made to the prisoners, having been the bearer of medicine, and clothing, and sympathy, was seized with a fever in that wide, sandy wilderness of pines that intervened, and died in a tent, and was buried by the road- side, and lies in an unknown grave. Multitudes perished and found a captive's grave ; and multitudes more contracted disease whose wasting influence more slowly, yet as surely, laid them low among their native hills. Of these was Dr. Brevard. On being set at liberty, he sought the residence of John McKnitt Alexander, his friend and co-secretary, for rest and recovery. The air of that mild climate, and the aid of medicine, and the watchful care of
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friends, all failed to restore him. Struggling for a time against the disease, with hopes of recovery, he breathed his last, about the time the hostile forces trod his native soil. He gave " life, fortune, and most sacred honor," in his country's service. The first was sacrificed ; the last is imperishable. You may search Hopewell graveyard in vain for a trace of his grave. His bones have moul- dered beneath the turf that covers Davidson and the Alexanders, but no stone tells where they are laid. No man living can lead the inquirer to the spot.
There is a paper in his handwriting, preserved for a long time in the family of his friend John McKnitt Alexander, and now in the possession of the Governor of North Carolina, William A. Graham, which is as remarkable as the proceeding of the Con- vention on which it is based. It bears date September 1st, 1775. The first Provincial Congress of North Carolina was then in ses- sion in Hillsborough. The delegates from Mecklenburg were his compeers and personal friends,-Polk, Avery, Pfifer and McKnitt Alexander.
66 INSTRUCTIONS FOR THE DELEGATES OF MECKLENBURG COUNTY, PROPOSED TO THE CONSIDERATION OF THE COUNTY.
" Ist. You are instructed to vote that the late Province of North Carolina is, and of right ought to be, a free and independent State ; is vested with the powers of Legislation, capable of making laws to regulate all the internal police, subject only in its internal con- nections and foreign commerce, to a negative of a continental Senate.
"2d. You are instructed to vote for the execution of a civil gov- ernment under the authority of the people, for the future security of all the rights, privileges, and prerogatives of the State, and the private, natural and unalienable rights of the constituting members thereof, either as men or Christians. If this should not be con- firmed in Congress, or Convention,-protest.
"3d. You are instructed to vote that an equal representation be established, and that the qualifications required to enable any per- son or persons to have a voice in legislation may not be screwed too high, but that every freeman, who shall be called upon to sup- port government, either in person or property, may be admitted thereto. If this should not be confirmed,-protest and remon- strate.
"4th. You are instructed to vote that legislation be not a di- vided right, and that no man, or body of men, be invested with a
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negative on the voice of the people duly collected ; and that no honors or dignities be confirmed for life, or made hereditary on any person or persons, either legislative or executive. If this should not be confirmed,-protest and remonstrate.
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