They were every one patriots, soldiers and good citizens. They came from the battle-field of the Alamance—that first contest of the revolution which eventuated in American independence. They left their homes because of the disastrous result of that battle, in which many of them had participated, and because of their unconquerable hatred of the British government and their open revolt against British authority and the oppression of British officials.
The following letter from Hon. George Bancroft, the historian, then Minister from the United States to Great Britain, on the subject of the “Mecklenburg Resolves,” and the subsequent course and conduct of some of those engaged in the battle of the Alamance, is still of great interest to Tennesseans:
90 Eaton Place, London, July 4, 1848.
My Dear Sir—I hold it of good augury that your letter of the 12th of June reached me by the Herman just in time to be answered this morning. You may be sure that I have spared no pains to discover the Resolves of the Committee of Mecklenburg. A glance at the map will show you that in those days the traffic in that part of North Carolina took a southerly direction, and people in Charleston, and sometimes in Savannah, knew what was going on in ‘Charlotte Town’ before Gov. Martin. The first account of the Resolves extraordinary, ‘by the people in Charlotte Town, Mecklenburg County,’ was sent over by Sir James Wright, then Governor of Georgia, in a letter of the 20th of June, 1775. The newspaper thus transmitted is still preserved, and is the number 498 of the South Carolina Gazette and Country Journal, Tuesday, June 13, 1775. I read the Resolves, you may be sure, with reverence, and immediately obtained a copy of them, thinking myself the sole discoverer. I do not send you the copy, as it is identically the same with the paper you enclosed to me, but I forward to you a transcript of the entire letter of Sir James Wright. The newspapers seem to have reached him after he had finished his dispatch, for the paragraph relating to it is added in his own handwriting, the former part being written by a secretary. I have read a great many papers relating to the Regulators, and am having copies made of a large number. Your own state ought to have them all, and the expense would be, for the state, insignificant, if it does not send an agent on purpose. A few hundred dollars would copy all you need from the State Paper Office on all North Carolina topics. The Regulators are on many accounts important. They form the connecting link between the resistance to the Stamp Act and the movement of 1775, and they also played a glorious part in taking possession of the Mississippi Valley, toward which they were irresistibly carried by their love of independence. It is a mistake if any have supposed that the Regulators were cowed down by their defeat at Alamance. Like the mammoth, they shook the bolt from their brow and crossed the mountains.
I shall always be glad to hear from you and to be of use to you or your State.
Very truly yours,
George Bancroft.
D. L. Swain, Esq., Chapel Hill, N. C.
One of the “ringleaders” in organizing the Regulators for the battle of the Alamance was John Pugh, who was afterwards sheriff of Washington county, which at that time included all of the territory now embraced within the boundaries of the state of Tennessee. Among the few names of the participants in the battle of the Alamance which have been preserved in history may be found those of several who were afterwards prominent among the settlers on Watauga, Holston and Nolichucky. I have said this much because of some facts which will be given further along.
These people were on the very verge of the frontier, standing as a mere handful of pickets out on the confines of civilization, where the war-whoop of the painted savage rang through the forests, and the constant apprehension of the tomahawk and the scalping-knife haunted every abode, and every thicket ambushed a bloodthirsty foe. When open daring failed, fiendish cunning, the torch and midnight butchery wrought the ruin. Atrocity followed atrocity, in the utter extinction of homes. Men hunted, fished, toiled, slept and worshipped with their trusty rifles at hand. The women also, through necessity and with courage inspired by constant peril, were no less dextrous in the use of deadly weapons, and no less unerring in the precision of their aim. The very genius of evil and desolation seemed at times to brood over the infant settlements. Still, they prospered; and, amid their dangers, they followed industrial pursuits. The creaking clang of the loom and the whir of the spinning-wheel furnished the “accompaniment to the maiden’s concord of measured monotones.” The woodman’s axe felled the forest trees, and fields and farms were opened up, fenced and put in cultivation. Churches and schools were established, and public highways “viewed out” and opened up in the wilderness.
