Moores Creek National Battlefield- Saturday, February 21, 2026

     We're in the 250th anniversary years of the Revolutionary War, and that's the kind of thing that Scott loves to recognize.  He went to the anniversaries of Lexington and Concord last spring with Brian S. and more recently, to the commemoration of Henry Knox's "noble train of artillery" last December.  We've got reservations in Philadelphia for this July 4th.  He knows he won't be able to make every event, but when we're close to an anniversary and the site it happened at, he doesn't want to miss it.

     On February 27, 1776 (before there was a Declaration of Independence, but after the fighting had begun in places around Boston), forces loyal to King George III clashed with "rebels" at a bridge over a place known as Moores Creek in the southern corner of North Carolina.  This was a tiny conflict, but it pushed North Carolina to be the first state to encourage its delegates to support independence from Britain.  To be honest, Scott hadn't heard of this fight before.  He was sitting at his desk at school and looked up at the calendar that he has hanging on his bulletin board.  It shows pictures of battlefields across the United States, and he noticed February's picture was of Moores Creek.  He got excited.  We won't be able to be there for the actual anniversary a week from now, but we could still stop on our way back from Florida and be close to the anniversary anyway.

     Here's the scenario.  The Loyalists, many of whom were Scottish immigrants, were marching from the inland areas to the sea to meet up with a march larger force that was expected to be coming in ship.  The Patriots were told that they were supposed to surrender or the Loyalists would attack them.  The Patriots took the time to set a trap.  They removed planks and greased the rails on the bridge that the Loyalists would have to cross.  After crossing the bridge, the Loyalist Scots eventually made what they call here the last charge with broadswords ever done in battle.  The Patriots made use of a cannon and a swivel gun that they had and made earthworks that still can be seen on their side of the bridge.  The fight lasted less than three minutes according to some accounts.  The Patriot force of about 1,000 had soundly beaten the larger Loyalist force of about 1,600.  The Patriots lost only 1 dead and 1 wounded, while the Loyalists lost 50 killed or wounded and 850 captured.  

     The battlefield has a small visitors center.  The woman at the front register basically told us the whole story of the battle before we went through the building.   By the way, Scott asked her the question about what the Patriots and Loyalists actually referred to themselves as, because those names seemed wrong to him for a number of reasons.  As he suspected, in accounts from the time, they were actually referred to as Whigs and Tories respectively.  We then walked on the trail that took us about a mile through the battlefield.  Along the trail is a spot where there are Venus flytraps that still grow in the area.  Eventually, the trail crosses the stream so that you approach the recreated Moores Creek Bridge from the perspective of the Loyalist charge.  The trail then goes by several monuments remembering the battle.

     We gotten to the battlefield just as they opened at 9:00.  Rain was expected around 10:00 and we almost made it through the whole thing but did get caught in a few sprinkles.  By 10:30 we were on the road towards home, facing over 12 hours of driving, plus whatever stops we would have to make.  It felt like we weren't going to make it out of North Carolina because we had to make quite a few stops, and we faced a similar situation in Southside Virginia.    We passed through Petersburg and Richmond but didn't have time see anything of our old stomping grounds.    We left route 95 in order to go west and through Winchester instead of around Washington.  We stopped at a Waffle House north of Winchester for dinner.  It was dark and we still had over six hours to drive.  Julie wants to make it home tonight and is determined to continue on until we get home, but it will certainly be long after midnight when we do.