The Battle of Moores Creek Bridge: Meanwhile...

During Josiah Martin's offshore exile, the patriots, in August and September 1775, set up a Provincial Council to govern the colony. Upon recommendation of the Continental Congress, two regiments of the Continental Line and several battalions of minutemen and militia were raised.

At the news that loyalists were assembling at Cross Creek, the patriots mobilized their forces. In Wilmington, they threw up breastworks and prepared for fighting. In New Bern, authorities mustered the district's militia under Colonel Richard Caswell, and ordered it to join with other militia to counter the loyalists. Colonel James Moore, senior officer of the 1st North Carolina Continentals and first to take the field, was given command.

The loyalists' plan was to advance along the southwest bank of the Cape Fear River to the coast, provision the British troops arriving by sea, and join with them to re-conquer the colony. On February 20, 1776, Donald MacDonald began his movement toward the coast. Blocked by James Moore at Rockfish Creek, he marched eastward in the general direction of Richard Caswell's force, crossed the Cape Fear, and proceeded toward the Negro Head Point Road, a route into Wilmington along which he expected little opposition. Outmaneuvered by MacDonald's march tactics, Caswell withdrew from defending Corbett's Ferry on the Black River in order to "take possession of the Bridge upon Widow Moore's Creek," some 20 miles above Wilmington and a place the loyalists had to cross on their way to the coast. After sending Colonel Alexander Lillington to join Caswell, Moore fell back toward Wilmington, hoping to fall on the rear of MacDonald's column as Caswell obstructed him in front.

(Source: State Library of North Carolina)

The Battle of Moores Creek Bridge: Martin's Plan

In exile, royal governor Josiah Martin planned the reconquest of North Carolina. First, he would raise within that colony an army of 10,000 men, two-thirds loyalist Highlanders and former Regulators. This army would then rendezvous on the coast with a powerful expeditionary force under Lord Cornwallis, Sir Henry Clinton, and Sir Peter Parker. These combined army and naval forces were to concentrate at Brunswick, a seaport town below Wilmington, by February 15, 1776. Together they would re-establish royal authority in the Carolinas, striking wherever rebellion showed itself. Martin persuaded his London superiors and commander-in-chief Thomas Gage that this host could easily restore order. The British ministry approved the plan, and dispatched orders to the several commanders.

Martin now set about recruiting his army. On January 10, 1776, he called upon all loyal subjects to unite to put down "a most daring, horrid, and unnatural Rebellion." Six months earlier General Gage had sent Donald MacDonald and Donald McLeod to North Carolina to recruit a Highland battalion. Martin now appointed MacDonald a brigadier general and McLeod a lieutenant colonel in the loyalist militia with directions to enlist men.

To all Highlanders who pledged service to the Crown, the British government promised 200 acres of land, cancellation of land fees, and tax exemption for 20 years. These terms, and Martin's efforts among other groups, brought in recruits, though not nearly as many as had been expected. The call went out for loyalists to assemble under MacDonald near Cross Creek (Fayetteville) and then march to the coast. When the force was organized on February 15, there were about 1,600 men present: Highlanders, other loyalists, and some 130 ex-Regulators.

(Source:  State Library of North Carolina)

The Battle of Moores Creek Bridge: The Prelude

As the economic and political controversy with Great Britain gave way to open rebellion in the mid-1770s, North Carolina was left a badly divided colony. The legislature, which was popularly elected, opposed royal governor Josiah Martin, almost to a man. "Government here is as absolutely prostrate as impotent," Martin warned his superiors in London, "and nothing but the shadow of it is left." Yet many people who disliked parliamentary taxation and royal authority over provincial affairs nevertheless found the thought of fighting the mother country abhorrent. By mid-1775, North Carolinians had split into two groups: patriots, perhaps half the people, who were willing to take up arms for independence; and loyalists, primarily the Crown's officials, wealthy merchants, planters, and others of a conservative mind who opposed redressing their grievances by war. This last party included many Highlanders, who in recent decades had immigrated in sizable numbers to North Carolina, and some of the Regulators who had been defeated at Alamance in 1771.

News of the fighting at Lexington and Concord in April, 1775, received in North Carolina a month later, further weakened royal authority. Unable to stem the tide of revolution in the colony, Martin abandoned New Bern, the capital, and fled to Fort Johnston on the lower Cape Fear, arriving on June 2, 1775. Within 6 weeks, North Carolina militia forced him to flee again, this time offshore to the British warship Cruizer, as the fort burned behind him.

(Source:  State Library of North Carolina)