The celebrated battle of Moore's Creek proved another Culloden to the brave but unfortunate Highlanders. The unhappy General M'Donald, who had been prevented by illness from commanding his troops in the encounter, was found, when the engagement was over, sitting alone on a stump near his tent; and as the victorious American officers advanced towards him, he waved in the air the parchment scroll of his commission, and surrendered it into their hands. Captain M'Donald, the husband of Flora, was among the prisoners of that day, and was sent to Halifax: while Flora found herself once more in the condition of a fugitive and an outlaw.
The M'Donalds, with other Highlanders, suffered much from the plunderings and confiscations to which the royalists were exposed. It is said that Flora's house was pillaged and her plantation ravaged. Allen, after his release, finding his prospects thus unpropitious, determined to return with his family to his native land—and they embarked in a sloop of war. On their voyage home, an incident occurred, illustrative of the character of this remarkable woman. The sloop encountered a French vessel of war, and an action ensued. The courage of the sailors appearing to fail, capture seemed inevitable, when Flora ascended the quarter-deck in the fiercest of the battle, and, nothing daunted by a wound received, or according to one account, an arm broken in the tumult, encouraged the men to a more desperate conflict. The enemy was beaten off, and the heroine safely landed on her native soil. She was accustomed afterwards to say pleasantly, that she had hazarded her life for both the house of Stuart and the house of Hanover; but that she did not perceive she had greatly profited by her exertions.
Notwithstanding her masculine courage, her character was thoroughly feminine, and blended modesty and dignity with sensibility and benevolence. Her eventful life closed March 5th, 1790. An immense concourse assembled at her funeral, and not less than three thousand persons followed her remains to the cemetery of Kilmuir, in the Isle of Skye. According to a wish long previously expressed, her shroud was made of the sheets in which the Prince had slept the night he lodged at Kings-burg. It is said she had carried them with her through all her migrations.
The town of Fayetteville covers the former metropolis of the Highland clans. It was surrounded by a sandy, barren country, sprinkled with lofty pines, and the American home of Flora M'Donald stood in the midst of this waste. The place of her residence has been destroyed by fire; but her memory is still cherished in that locality, and the story of her romantic enthusiasm, intrepidity, and disinterested self-devotion, has extended into lands where in life she was unknown.
XXXVI. RACHEL CALDWELL.
The history of the Rev. David Caldwell is in many ways identified with that of North Carolina. He was for almost sixty years the pastor of the two oldest and largest Presbyterian congregations in the county of Guilford, and kept a celebrated classical school, for a long time the only one of note in the State, in which for forty years nearly all its professional men, and many from adjoining States, were educated. Not only was he thus the father of education in North Carolina, but before and during the Revolutionary struggle, he exerted a strong influence in favor of the promotion of national independence, and bore an active part in the prominent events of that period. The influence of Mrs. Caldwell in his school was great and beneficial, increasing the respect of the students towards him, and disposing their minds to religious impressions. They bore uniform testimony to her intelligence and zeal, and to the value of her counsels, while her kindness won their regard and confidence. The success with which she labored to inculcate the lessons of practical piety, gave currency to the saying throughout the country—"Dr. Caldwell makes the scholars, and Mrs. Caldwell makes the preachers." She was the third daughter of Rev. Alexander Craighead, the pastor of the Sugar Creek congregation, and a man of eminent piety and usefulness. In early life she had a share in many of the perils and hardships of the Indian war—the inroads of the savages being frequent and murderous, and her home in an exposed situation. She often said, describing these incursions, that as the family would escape out of one door, the Indians would come in at another. When Braddock's defeat left the Virginia frontier at the mercy of the savages, Mr. Craighead fled, with some of his people, and crossing the Blue Ridge, passed to the more quiet regions of Carolina, where he remained till the close of his life. Rachel married Dr. Caldwell in 1766.
For some days before the battle at Guilford Courthouse, the army of Cornwallis was encamped within the bounds of Dr. Caldwell's congregations; and most of the men being with General Greene, the distress fell on the defenceless women and children. In the detail of spoliation and outrage, their pastor suffered his share. He had been repeatedly harassed by the British and tories, who bore him special enmity; a price had been set upon his head, and a reward of two hundred pounds offered for his apprehension. *
* The reader is referred to the Life and Character of Rev. David Caldwell, D. D., by Rev. E. W. Caruthers, Greensboro', N. C.