Col. Isaac Shelby (1750-1826)

Born in Frederick County, Maryland, near Hagerstown, Isaac Shelby was the son of Evan Shelby and Letitia (Cox) Shelby. The family moved to western Virginia in 1772 and ran a trading post. He was a lieutenant in Lord Dunmore's War in 1774. The next year he surveyed land in Kentucky and settled there in 1776. During the American Revolutionary War, Patrick Henry, Governor of Virginia, appointed Shelby to secure provisions for the army on the frontier. He was elected to the Virginia legislature in 1780. He served as a lieutenant, captain, and colonel in the War and fought with distinction, particularly at the Battle of Kings Mountain.
Along with James Williams and Elijah Clarke, Col. Shelby led a force of Overmountain Men from Fort Watauga (near present-day Elizabethton, Tennessee) to victory at the Battle of Musgrove's Mill in South Carolina on August 19, 1780. By securing their defensive patriot position on the banks of the Enoree River, Shelby, Williams, and Clarke were able to defeat a much larger force consisting of two hundred British Loyalists and three hundred British provincial regulars.
On September 26, 1780, a greater number of the Overmountain Men again assembled at Fort Watauga and formed a militia under Col. John Sevier and Col. Shelby. These Patriot troops days later crossed the Appalachians at Roan Mountain and successfully engaged the Ferguson's Loyalists at Kings Mountain, a southern battle recognized as one of the turning points of the American Revolution. In an address before this October 1780 battle, Col. Shelby encouraged his men to fight in frontier fashion: "Let each one of you be his own officer, taking every care you can of yourselves, and availing yourselves of every advantage that chance may throw in your way. If in the woods, shelter yourselves and give them Indian play! Advance from tree to tree, pressing the enemy and killing and disabling all you can."
After the creation of the Southwest Territory and the State of Kentucky during the early 1790s, Isaac Shelby enjoyed an even more prominent Kentucky career. He was chosen governor in 1792 and again in 1812. Between his terms as state executive, he served as sheriff of Lincoln County, Kentucky, from 1796 to 1798. His last significant contribution to the region came in 1818 when he, Andrew Jackson, and others negotiated the "Jackson Purchase," which removed control of the western districts of Kentucky and Tennessee from the Chickasaw Indians. To honor this service, the Tennessee General Assembly named Shelby County (Memphis) for him. He died in Lincoln County, Kentucky, in 1826.

Uncle Samuel McDowell

Patrick Henry was one of the most influential (and radical) advocates of the American Revolution. He is perhaps best known for the speech he made in the Virginia House of Burgesses on 23 March 1775, urging the legislature to take military action against the encroaching British military force. The House was deeply divided, but was very much leaning toward not committing troops. As Henry stood in Saint John's Church in Richmond, he ended his speech with his most famous words: "Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!" This speech is credited, by some, with single-handedly delivering the Virginia troops to the Revolutionary War.
My 5x great-uncle Samuel McDowell (1735-1817) was one of two delegates from Rockbridge County to the Virginia Conventions of 1775, and was present that day in the House of Burgesses. His life remains a lesson in citizenship and patriotism. Samuel McDowell had been a captain in the French and Indian War, commissioned 16 August 1759. On 21 November 1759, he was installed as County Commissioner and Justice in Augusta County, Virginia. He was a captain of the Rangers Company at the Battle of Point Pleasant in 1774. At the Battle of Point Pleasant, he served as aide-de-camp to Gen. Isaac Shelby, who later became the first governor of Kentucky. Samuel became a colonel in the Revolutionary War, serving in Gen. Nathanael Greene's campaign in North Carolina, and was with the army that drove Gen. Cornwallis to Wilmington. In 1775, in conjunction with his kinsman Thomas Lewis, son of Augusta County settler John Lewis and brother of Gen. Andrew Lewis, hero of Point Pleasant, Samuel was chosen to represent the freeholders of Augusta County in the convention which met at Richmond, Virginia. He was also a member of the second convention that met at Williamsburg in 1776. As an officer, Samuel McDowell distinguished himself in the Battle of Guilford Court House. In addition, he raised a battalion at his own expense to aid in repelling the invasion of Virginia by Benedict Arnold.
In 1783, uncle Samuel McDowell moved his family to what became Fayette County, Kentucky (but was then still part of Virginia), where he was a surveyor. He was appointed to the first District Court ever held in Kentucky, 3 March 1783, and was President of the convention which was called to frame the constitution for the state of Kentucky on 19 April 1792.
All this, and 13 children, too.

(info: "Rockbridge County, Virginia Notebook", The News-Gazette, Lexington, Virginia)

Martha McDowell, Colonel Buford, and the Butcher

My cousin Martha McDowell, daughter of Col. Samuel McDowell and Mary McClung, was born 26 June 1766 in Rockbridge County, Virginia. I don't know much about Martha, except that she married Col. Abraham Buford, a military man caught in a terrible, terrible situation still argued about in history circles.
Abraham Buford was a Continental Army officer during the Revolutionary War, most known as commanding officer during the "Waxhaw Massacre". Born in Culpeper County, Virginia, Buford quickly organized a company of minutemen upon the outbreak of war in 1775, eventually rising to the rank of colonel by May 1778. Assuming command of the 11th Virginia Regiment in September, he would be assigned to the 3rd Virginia Regiment in April 1780 and sent south to relieve the British siege of Charleston, South Carolina.
Banastre Tarleton [pictured, portrait by Sir Joshua Reynolds] was a British officer and politician. His reputation for ruthlessness earned him the nickname "Bloody Ban" and "Butcher" amongst American revolutionists. On May 29, 1780, Lt. Col. Tarleton, with a force of 150 mounted soldiers, overtook the detachment of 350 to 380 Virginia Continentals led by Col. Buford near Lancaster, South Carolina. Buford refused to surrender or even to stop his march. Only after sustaining heavy casualties did Buford order surrender. The battle has always been controversial, since after breaking Buford's line Tarleton's men slaughtered many of the Virginians who surrendered, hacking them down with their sabres. Some sources, such as Buford's Adjutant Henry Bowyer and Surgeon's Mate Robert Brownfield, claim that Buford belatedly raised a white flag but was ignored by Tarleton. In Tarleton's own account, he virtually admits the massacre, stating that his horse had been shot from under him during the initial charge and his men, thinking him dead, engaged in "a vindictive asperity not easily restrained." In the end, 113 Americans were killed and another 203 captured, 150 of whom were so badly wounded that they had to be left behind. Tarleton's casualties were 5 killed and 12 wounded. The British called the affair the Battle of Waxhaw Creek, while the Americans knew it as the Buford Massacre or the Waxhaw Massacre.
Col. Buford escaped on horseback with his remaining men and would hold no further commands for the remainder of the war. He and Martha eventually settled in Scott County, Kentucky.

(sources: Wikipedia - Waxhaw Massacre, Banastre Tarleton, Abraham Buford)