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You and I have both walked by books, broadsides (posters printed on only one side) , declarations, and other documents which are valuable in historic content and sometimes in dollar-value. Unfortunately, we did not recognize the intrinsic worth of such an item, assuming that it caught our attention in the first place. Please consider this: the final history and stories of the Colonial period in America and the Revolutionary War have not yet been written. There are still many kinds of records in general circulation which have gone largely undiscovered. Because some of these records are in such apparently poor condition, they may be regarded as worthless. This is emphatically not the case.

There is good news! Many items made from paper, parchment, velum, or other seemingly fragile materials can now be salvaged. Numerous genealogies have been rescued from books and records which were apparently "beyond hope" in someone's view, or they wouldn't have thrown them away in the first place. When you see books, papers, Family Bibles or other sources of information that date from the middle-to-late-18th century through the middle-19th century , please take a closer look. For instance, just this past year, I saved from being discarded a rare copy of "SONGS AND BALLADS OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION", a document that had not been published until the year 1853. As somone keenly interested in the preservation of this type of Americana, I offer my services to help evaluate, and perhaps preserve, your future finds. I do not charge for my work on a project; I simply want the records saved for current and future scholarship.

The kinds of materials you are most likely to find in this category are letters and journals. These have proved to be irreplaceable in telling the history of the American Revolution and its period, and all the stories of many individuals with their own personal problems, situations, and resolutions. A major goal of our Society should be to invest a few dollars in these resources and to ensure their final placement in a "Good Home" such as a library or a collection available to a large number of people. Please contact Bill Holt at (910) 686-3883 or at costlbks@coastalnet.com for further information or assistance.

225th Anniversary of the Battle of Guilford Courthouse,
March 18, 2006

On the bright, late winter day of March 15, 1781, the Revolutionary War came to a remote county seat in north central North Carolina. Guilford Courthouse, with its population of considerably fewer than 100, was on this day the temporary residence of 4,400 American soldiers and their leader, Maj. Gen. Nathanael Greene. The British had overrun Georgia and South Carolina and showed every indication of ripping the stars and stripes of North Carolina and Virginia from the new American flag. From the ragged remnants of a defeated southern army, Greene had raised a new force comprising 1,700 Continentals (three-year enlistees in the regular army) and about 2,700 militia (mostly farmers who were nonprofessional temporary soldiers called up for short periods of service during an emergency).

Early on the morning of March 15, General Greene deployed his men in three lines of battle across the Great Salisbury Wagon Road that led off to the southwest toward the camp of the British army commanded by Lord Charles Cornwallis. Although grossly outnumbered, Cornwallis nonetheless was certain that his redcoats, victors on scores of battlefields, could overcome the rebels.

The battle began about noon and progressed unevenly. The first line of the North Carolina militia, its center deployed behind a rail fence facing cleared farm fields and its flanks extending into the forest, collapsed rapidly after the center of the line gave way. Before they retreated, however, the militia inflicted heavy casualties on the redcoats. One British officer later recalled that when his men of the 71st Highland Regiment were hit by a volley (a simultaneous discharge of firearms, in this case 1,500 muskets), "one half of the Highlanders dropped on that spot."¹

The second line proved to be an even greater obstacle for the British. Located in heavy forest and with noncommissioned officers ordered to shoot any men who ran away, the Virginia militia grappled with their attackers for about an hour in an action a British writer later described as "a number of irregular, but hard fought and bloody skirmishes."² After enduring more heavy losses, the redcoats finally were able to break through.

The heaviest fighting took place on the third line where General Greene had stationed his Continentals. Even here the intensity of the fighting varied; some new Continentals retreated after offering only token resistance, while other, more experienced soldiers fought furiously. In the final stages of the fighting Lord Cornwallis found portions of his army under simultaneous attack from two directions, as if caught between hammer and anvil. He extricated his men by firing two cannon directly into the mass of struggling soldiers, as if to blast them apart. A number of his own soldiers were killed in the process (another British officer, Brig. Gen. Charles O’Hara, begged him not to do it), but when the smoke cleared the battle was over. General Greene had ordered his army to retreat, leaving the British in possession of the battlefield.

Adapted from Thomas E. Baker, Another Such Victory (Philadelphia: Eastern National Park and Monument Association, 1981

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