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 "Shirt Men"

From a letter reprinted in The Magazine of History with Notes and Queries, Vol. III, January-June 1906, published by William Abbatt, New York:

June 12 1775.

"Patriot Dixon son of the once beautiful and good natured York Lady, with some others went in the night to rob the magazine.
There being no ground about it 'tis said some of the seamen of the Fowey when at Wmsburg set some of the guns, so as to go off if a string near them was touched, accordingly off went a gun; when the patriots went in to steal; none of them were wounded. They immediately alarmed the town, swearing that the magazine was full of armed men and 40 guns had been fired at them. You will see the Govr with his famillie on board the Fowey again, I do not think his Lady will return to Williamsburg. 'Tis said he will, provided the shirt men are sent away. These shirt men or Virginia uniform are dressed with an Oznaburg shirt over their cloaths, a belt round them with a Tommyhawk or Scalping Knife. They look like a band of Assassins and it is my opinion if they fight at all it will be in that way." He [Norfolk tory James Parker] ends "I am still of opinion when General Gage begins to act on the offensive the Rebellion will be immediately crushed."

Georgia Enters The Revolution

From Our Country, a "Household History for All Readers," Vol. II, by Benson J. Lossing, published 1877:

Georgia, tardy in joining the Continental movement, felt the flame of patriotism warming the hearts and minds of her sons early in 1775. In February, the inhabitants of the parish of St. Johns, in that province, chose Lyman Hall to represent them in the second Congress, and he took his seat as such at the middle of May. In July the Provincial Convention that had been formed adopted the American Association, and chose delegates to represent the whole province in the Congress; and then the bright galaxy of the "Old Thirteen" was perfected. The royal governor, Sir James Wright, had tried in vain to suppress the rising tide of republicanism in Georgia. So early as May, 1775, when it was suspected that he was about to imitate General Gage, by seizing the ammunition of the province, several members of the Council of Safety and others broke open the magazine, sent a greater portion of the powder to Beaufort, South Carolina, and hid the remainder in their own garrets. When the governor and the Tories were preparing to celebrate the king's birthday, on the 4th of June, by firing the cannon on the battery in Savannah, some of the leading Whigs spiked the guns there, and hurled them to the bottom of the bluff. Not long afterward, a letter written by the governor to General Gage, asking him to send troops to Georgia to suppress the rising rebellion there, was intercepted at Charleston. The republicans were greatly exasperated; and a day or two afterward they seized a British ship at the mouth of the Savannah River, with thirteen thousand pounds of gunpowder on board. The spirit of resistance waxed from stronger and stronger, until, in January, 1776, the Whigs resolved to endure the adverse influence of the governor and the Tories no longer. Joseph Habersham, a member of the popular legislature, with some armed volunteers, seized Governor Wright and made him a prisoner on parole at his own house. A sentinel was placed before it, with orders not to allow any intercourse between the governor and the Loyalists. During a stormy night in February, Sir James escaped through a back window of his house, walked five miles down the borders of the river with a friend, and then entering an open boat, fled in the pelting rain, under the cover of darkness, for shelter to the British vessel-of-war Scarborough, lying in Tybee Sound. [John] Stuart, the Indian agent for the Southern Department, had fled for safety to St. Augustine. He had incurred the bitter resentment of the patriots by trying to execute an atrocious order from Gage, as commander-in-chief of the forces, in these words:
"The people of Carolina in turning rebels to their king have lost all faith; improve a correspondence with Indians to the greatest advantage, and even when opportunity offers make them take arms against his majesty's enemies, and distress them all in their power; for no time is now to be kept with them; they have brought down all the savages they could against us here, who, with their riflemen, are continually firing upon our advanced sentries; in short, no time should be lost to distress a set of people so wantonly rebellious; supply the Indians with what they want, be the expense what it will, as every exertion must now be made on the side of government."
Gage had borne the same false testimony concerning the employment of the savages by the Americans, to the British ministry, as an excuse for his barbarous recommendations to make allies of them with the British army. At the same time the British emissaries were among the savage tribes of the north trying to form alliances with them, and to incite them to war against the Patriots. 
So was ended royal rule in Georgia.