Part 22 (2/2)

3. Mention the movements of Major Joseph Graham. Of General Greene.

4. Give an account of the affair at Whitsell's Mill.

5. What special act of bravery is related?

6. What occurred on March 15th, 1781? Give some account of the battle of Guilford Court House?

7. How did the engagement terminate ?

8. What is said of the British victory? What did General Greene do three days later?

9. Where did he then go?

10. Where did Cornwallis carry his army?

11. Give an account of the battle of Eutaw Springs?

12. Who succeeded Governor Nash, and what is said of him?

CHAPTER x.x.xV.

FANNING AND HIS BRUTALITIES-- CAPTURE OF GOVERNOR BURKE.

A. D. 1781.

When Lord Cornwallis left Wilmington, on his way to Virginia, there were no British troops left in North Carolina except about four hundred regulars and some Tory recruits, which const.i.tuted the garrison of Wilmington. Major James H. Craig was in command there, having captured the place in the preceding January.

2. He had been trained to arms, and when General Burgoyne surrendered at Saratoga, was his Adjutant-General. He was skillful as a soldier, but utterly unscrupulous as to the means he used to carry out his objects. Seeing the British driven from almost all the State, he determined to ruin a people he could not subdue, and began to stir up a warfare of neighborhoods.

3. He found in David Fanning, of Chatham county, a powerful aid in his inhuman scheme. Fanning was a man of low birth, ignorant and unscrupulous. He was a good partisan guerrilla leader, being brave, enterprising and swift to execute. a.s.sociating with himself a small band of Tories, whose sole objects were plunder and revenge, he was for a time the terror of Chatham and Orange counties. Well mounted and well armed, and continually on the alert, these marauders made havoc of the Whig settlements, murdering, burning and destroying, unrestrained by any authority and with no sense of humanity. They did not spare even their own neighbors, many of whom they shot down or hanged at their own doors.

4. Many stories are told of Fanning's exploits, of his audacity, his cruelty, his arrogance, and his wonderful successes and hairbreadth escapes. Such a state of affairs existed at one time in the counties ravaged by his band that even the pitiless Colonel Tarleton deplored its continuance. Fanning was born in Johnston county about the year 1754, and was the vilest and bloodiest wretch ever seen in our limits, most richly deserving the punishment of the gallows. He continued his criminal courses as long as he lived, and was pardoned for a capital felony committed on the Island of Cape Breton not long before his departure from this world.

5. Fanning began his military operations by surprising a courtmartial in Chatham. His prisoners were disposed of by parole or sent to Wilmington. This was in July, 1781. His attack upon the house of Colonel Philip Alston, a few days later, was a more serious matter, for he encountered stubborn resistance and some loss before compelling the surrender of a force almost as large as his own, and protected by the walls of a large house. Four of the Whigs were killed, and those who remained alive were spared from butchery by Fanning only at the earnest appeals of Mrs. Alston.

6. Fanning's movements called for resistance, and Colonel Thomas Wade collected a force of more than three hundred men at McFall's Mill, in c.u.mberland county. These were speedily attacked and utterly driven from that portion of the country.

It was afterwards learned by the victors that Colonel Dudley's Chatham regiment of cavalry was disbanded, and Fanning immediately pushed on to Hillsboro. On the morning of September 12th, his force entered the town, and succeeded in capturing Governor Burke and several other prominent persons. *

*David Fanning gives the account of this affair as follows: ”We received several shots from different houses; however, we lost none and suffered no damage, except one man wounded. We killed fifteen of the rebels and wounded twenty, and took upwards of two hundred prisoners; amongst them was the Governor, his council, and part of the continental colonels, several captains and subalterns, and seventy-one Continental soldiers out of a church. We proceeded to the gaol and released thirty Loyalists and British soldiers.”

7. The bold marauders who had thus seized the Governor and capital of the State, at once started with their prisoners for Wilmington; but tidings of this exploit had reached a body of men who hastened to Lindley's Mill, on Cane Creek, to receive them. The Whigs, nominally commanded by General John Butler, were really directed by Major Robert Mebane in their brave and b.l.o.o.d.y reception of the Tories.

8. The Tory Colonel, Hector McNeil, leading the attack, was slain, and his followers driven back in confusion. It seemed that Governor Burke would be rescued and the whole Tory column captured when Fanning, ever fertile in expedients, discovered a ford in Cane Creek, and having crossed with a portion of his command, attacked the Whigs in the rear. This soon ended the battle, which was a b.l.o.o.d.y one to both sides.

9. About the same time with the capture of Hillsboro, a most gallant and successful attack was made upon the Tory stronghold at Elizabethtown, in Bladen county. There sixty Whigs, in the favoring darkness of night, fell upon and drove out a largely superior force commanded by Colonel John Slingsby. He and many of his men were slain, and Major Craig was thus confined in his fortifications in Wilmington.

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