The provincial council now labored vigorously in the elaboration of measures for the defense of the colony, and the maintenance of liberty. A strong military establishment was organized, and in eaeh district a brigadier general was appointed, with an efficient corps of field-officers. ** On the eighteenth of December1776 a state government was formed under a Constitution, *** and, a few days afterward, a device for a great seal of the commonwealth was presented by a committee appointed for the purpose, and adopted. ****
In all their actions, the Carolinians exhibited the aspect of men determined to be free, and conscious that hope for reconciliation with the mother country was vain. A blow had been struck which marked out the bright line of future operations. There could no longer be hesitation, and the line between Whigs and Tories was as distinctly drawn as that of the twilight between the day and the night.
The siege of Charleston, and other events of the war which speedily followed the battle on Moore's Creek, will be detailed hereafter. From this time until the close of the Revolution, the military history of North Carolina is identified with that of the whole confederacy. From the time of the battle on Moore's Creek until Cornwallis and his army overran the Carolinas, there were no regularly organized bands of Loyalists in the "Old North State." Here let us close the chronicle for a day, and ride on toward the fertile region of the Allamanee, after glancing at noteworthy objects in Hillsborough.
I employed the first morning of the new year,Jan 1, 1849 in visiting places of interest at Hillsborough, in company with the Reverend Dr. Wilson. The first object to which my attention was ealled was a small wooden building, represented in the engraving on the next page, situated opposite the hotel where I was lodged. Cornwallis used it for
* Gordon, ii., 36. 37; Foote, 143-145: Marlin, ii., 380-384. On the fifth of May, 1776, Sir Henry Clinton issued a proclamation from the Pallas sloop of war, which declared North Carolina in a state of rebellion, ordered all Congresses to be dissolved, and offered pardon to all penitents, exeept the arch-rebels Cornelius Harnett and Robert Howe. The people laughed at him. Fired with indignation, he vented his spite upon the property of Colonel Howe. On the twelfth, he sent Cornwallis and a marauding party of nine hundred men on shore, who ravaged Howe's plantation in Brunswick, treated some women at his house with brutality, burned some mills in the neighborhood, and then returned to the ships. Despairing of success in that quarter, Clinton sailed with the British fleet of thirty vessels for New York.
***The following gentlemen were appointed brigadiers: Richard Caswell, of Newbern; John Ashe, of Wilmington; Thomas Person,* of Hillsborough; Griffith Rutherford, of Salisbury; Edward Vail, of Edenton; and Allen Jones, of Halifax.
*** The following gentlemen were appointed state officers under the Republican Constitution: Richard Caswell., governor; James Glasgow, secretary of slate; Cornelius Harnett, Thomas Person, William Day, William Haywood, Edward Staricey, Joseph Leech, and Thomas Eaton, counselors of state.