Chapter 2

The next morning, we started on our way south. A week later, we received word that retired British Lt. Colonel Donald McLeod was raising a large force of loyalist troops who had settled around Cross Creek [part of modern Fayetteville, NC] and was supposed to meet up with British troops in Brunswick Town on the Cape Fear River.

The Whigs were aware of what was happening because two British officers had arrived in New Bern and immediately aroused the suspicions of the locals, so much so that the officers were continuously followed and spied upon.

The plan of Governor Martin, the British Governor of North Carolina, to raise a large Loyalist militia was well known.

We arrived in New Bern long after the two British officers had left and bought food and splurged on warm baths.

Learning that the goal of the sixteen-hundred-man Loyalist force was still to reach Brunswick Town and meet up with British forces arriving by ship, we left once we had resupplied.

We were fortunate that the weather had cooperated for the first part of the trip--for the most part. About a third of those mornings, we woke to frost or ice on the ground. On the two days that it rained, the clouds kept the overnight temperature warm enough that it did not snow. One of the four days that we got snow there was about an inch on the ground in the morning. The other three days, the snow was light enough that it did not collect on the ground.

After leaving New Bern, our luck with the weather ran out and we had rain or snow five of the seven days as we slogged along the muddy roads and forded the multitude of swollen streams on our way south.

When we reached Brunswick Town, we were relieved to find that the ships carrying British troops had not yet arrived. We also learned that the Loyalist Militia, made up predominantly of Scottish settlers, was nearly a week away. That gave us time to rest and prepare, including scouting the area. The road the Loyalist forces were following would take them to the Widow Moore’s Creek Bridge. Otherwise, the Loyalist troops would have to wade or swim across the six-foot deep creek.

Breastworks were thrown up on the east side of the crossing and two artillery field pieces nicknamed “Old Mother Covington and Her Daughter” were placed so they covered the bridge and the road leading from the bridge.

By the time the Loyalist troops neared the bridge, they were being followed by a large force of revolutionary colonists and they knew it. When the colonists were challenged and refused to lay down their arms, the leader of the Loyalists decided that his best choice was to stay ahead of them until they reached Brunswick Town and the British troops he expected to be waiting there.

The trailing force had not been idle and had been sniping at the Loyalist troops for days.

Once we knew the Loyalists were close, we left our camp on the west side of the bridge, hoping to make the Loyalists overconfident, thinking we had fled. We also removed the planks from the bridge and coated the railings with tallow.

My men and the Culpeper Minutemen were still stationed on the west side of the river, hidden from view well back from the road. When the Loyalist troops reached the abandoned camp sometime after midnight, they stopped there for the night.

Feb 27, 1776

As dawn broke, the Loyalists began their attack. I could not believe that they were mainly armed with broadswords instead of muskets. When we heard the gunfire from the east side of the bridge, we added our own, quickly downing the troops at the rear, including the two British officers. Seeing the planks removed from the bridge and the entrenched troops on the east side, and knowing there was a large force closing behind them, as well as along their flank, the remainder quickly threw down their weapons and surrendered or fled into the forest.

The aftermath wasn’t terribly bloody with only fifty or so of the Loyalists killed. Four hundred had surrendered, and the rest had run. Eventually, four hundred of the escapees were captured. By the time the dead had been buried, the captured weapons had all been collected, as had some fifteen thousand Pounds meant for the Loyalist cause.

Our group received one hundred Pounds for our help. The more numerous Minutemen received two hundred Pounds. Four days after the battle, my men and I were on our way home. Aside from the money we received, each of us took one of the Scottish broadswords. We left the remainder and all the guns for the North Carolina Colonial Militia.

[Author’s note: Aside from the presence and actions of James and his crew, the rest of the Battle of Widow Moore’s Creek Bridge is accurate, including the broadswords. Look it up online.]

March 2

One of our men who knew the area led us northwest, following the Yadkin River, intending to intersect the Great Wagon Road to take us North into Virginia and then home.

March 19

Seventeen days after leaving Moore’s Creek Bridge, we stopped and camped along a creek that emptied into the Yadkin River, planning to spend a day or two resting and hunting.

Three of us headed out to find game. When I spotted a small herd of deer drinking along a creek, I leveled my rifle and chose a target, dropping the deer at the water’s edge. After reloading and taking my horse and packhorse upstream of the deer, I let them graze and drink while I dragged the deer out of the water and positioned it so the head was downhill before cutting the throat to let it bleed out.

Washing my hands in the water afterwards, I noticed a yellow rock in the shallow water. When I tried to pick it up, I had to dig deeper in the sand and mud. “Oh, my God,” I gasped when I finally pulled a fist-and-a-half sized nugget out of the sand. As I hefted what had to be at least a twenty-pound nugget, my mind was swirling more than the mud I disturbed when I pulled the nugget free.

Stashing it in my saddlebags, I made a crude travois to haul the field dressed deer back to camp.

“What are you grinning about? I have never seen you so happy about bringing back a deer,” Jeremiah, one of my men, commented when I rode into camp.

“Change of plans. I want to stay here for a week or so,” I replied.

“Why? I thought we wanted to get back to the estate,” another man questioned as two men took the deer off the travois and began processing it.

“I like the hunting in this area and want to see if my initial find was a fluke,” I replied as I took the nugget from my saddlebags and tossed it to Jeremiah.

“Is this real?” he asked, barely above a whisper, having dropped the unexpectedly heavy rock when he tried to catch it.

“I have only seen gold in a few coins, but this is far heavier than any lump of iron I have seen,” I replied as he tossed the nugget back. It took two hands to catch it. While the rest of the men gawked, I walked to a big river rock and smashed the nugget against it.

“The nugget is malleable,” I said, tossing it to another of the men so he could feel the weight and see the dent in the nugget. “How much cash do we have left?” I asked.

“We have most of the thousand Pounds you kept in Norfolk, and most of the hundred Pounds they gave us down here,” one of the men replied.

“In three days, I’m going to take four men with me and ride to Charlotte Town. One of the men from the North Carolina Militia we met in Norfolk said it was a county seat. Hopefully, it will be the county seat for the county we are in. If not, we will find out what city is and go there. I want to purchase as much land on this side of the river as I can. Once I have the deed, I will return and see if you have found more gold while we are gone. I will take that home and then return and buy more land. Jeremiah, tomorrow I want you and Ezekiel to ride back to the Reynolds Estate and tell Father and Grandfather what we found here,” I instructed.

And that is what we did. For another two days, we searched the frigid shallow water along the banks of the stream. We found more nuggets, but none the size of the first one I found. Most were the size of gravel, though a few were the size of a walnut. Still, with forty men, we found a lot of nuggets, enough that we split them into eight sets of saddlebags.

March 22

By now, we had learned that the gold only existed in two streams, and along the Yadkin River below those streams. Following the river road west when it turned farther inland, I was surprised when we reached the Great Wagon Road, which we discovered ran through the city of Salisbury.

“James!” someone hollered as we rode through town looking for something that looked like the city offices.

“Daniel, what are you doing here?” I asked. Daniel was one of the North Carolina Militia we had fought alongside in Norfolk.

“I live here. What are you doing here? I thought you would be home by now.”

“I’m looking to buy some land east of town. Since my older brother will inherit the family estate in Virginia, it is time for me to move away and start a life of my own. Any idea where I go to buy land?”

“One street north. Follow me,” he replied excitedly.

We reminisced about Great Bridge, Norfolk, and Moore’s Creek Bridge as we walked. When we entered the land secretary’s office, Daniel became excited again. “Ezekiel, I just ran into one of the men I was telling you about yesterday. This is the man who led the attack against the British warships in Norfolk Harbor!” he exclaimed excitedly.

“Did you really sink four warships using only canoes?” Ezekiel asked disbelievingly.

“Canoes loaded with all the gunpowder they could carry,” I replied, grinning at the memory.

“Were you not worried that their sentries would spot you and shoot you?” he asked.

“A little, but our snipers harried everyone on the main decks of the ships and the fires we started along the shore should have drawn their attention and ruined their night vision. Besides, I just had a feeling that we could get away with it.”

“James wants to buy some land east of here,” Daniel interjected.

“Where?” Ezekiel asked.

“Having not yet performed a survey, I can only describe the land as about ten miles east of town on the road that runs along the river. If you have an accurate map, the land I want is between the seventh and eighth streams east of town. I want to buy everything from the south bank of the river inland as far as I can afford,” I explained. “I intend to return home and get more money to purchase even more land.”

After unrolling a plat map of the area, the secretary looked up at me. “Once you get away from the river, much of that land is too hilly to grow tobacco or cotton,” he warned.

“I plan to do the same thing we do at Reynolds Estate in Virginia and only have a small plot of tobacco, just enough for my men and to trade with the local Indians. Most of what we intend to grow will be to feed everyone. We will build sawmills along the streams and have men cut timber for them. We intend to sell what we don’t use for building or making furniture. We will grow hemp for making rope, raise horses and cattle, collect nuts in the autumn, split cedar shingles, and look for clay deposits so we can make bricks. We even plan to harvest pine sap. In the winter, we will organize a long hunt into the mountains west of here like we did at home. If there’s any iron available around here, we will build a couple of smithies, too.”

“I’m not aware of any iron deposits in this area, but there’s definitely a shortage of lumber and bricks around here. You will have a ready market,” Ezekiel told me, although I realized that most of what we “sold” to people in the area would be bartered or traded for scrip.

It was mid-afternoon before the transaction was complete. There were several farms between Salisbury and the land I wanted, which made pinpointing the area easier.

“How much money do you have?” Ezekiel asked.

“About a thousand Pounds in coins, although most of them are Spanish. I also have a little something that one of the British officers was carrying,” I explained with a grin. Opening my saddlebags, I showed him the big nugget.

We had to go to the mercantile to get a rough weight of the nugget--twenty-six-and a half pounds.

“I’m sure it has impurities, so why not call it thirteen hundred Pounds’ worth,” I suggested. “If it comes to more, I will use the excess to buy more land. If it is less, I will make up the difference when I get back.”

After doing a rough calculation, we guessed that the land I wanted was roughly fifty thousand acres, which would only cost one-fifth of what the nugget was worth.

“Why not make it everything between Dutch Creek, the fourth creek east of here, the Yadkin River on the north, and the county line? Take the money for the survey out of this,” I said motioning to the nugget. “If I owe more, the men staying here will have money to pay the difference. If I have extra, keep adding land near the river west of what I own,” I instructed.

And with that one purchase, I owned well over two hundred thousand acres, an estate almost the size of the Reynolds Estate. What excited me even more was that I had gotten all the land I initially wanted to purchase, including the land on both sides of the two creeks, and all the way up the creeks to beyond where we no longer found gold. In essence, I owned a triangular parcel of currently unowned land bounded by Dutch Creek on the west, the Yadkin River on the north and east, and the county line on the south. And I did not even have to use any of our supply of ready cash!

Another benefit of the property was that we could use the Yadkin River to transport goods via raft or canoe down to the fall line on the Pee Dee River, just like my family did now when we used the James River to transport goods downriver from Lynch’s Ferry to Richmond. Well, we used the James River to Westham before having to travel overland the last few miles to Richmond. Westham was just above the Fall Line rocks which prevented further safe travel downriver. Richmond was built below the fall line, allowing access to the ocean.

The Yadkin River eventually joined the Pee Dee River that wended its way to the South Carolina port of Georgetown on Winyah Bay. The fall line of the Pee Dee River was just across the state border in South Carolina near Cheraw.

I promised to return in a couple of months, but first, had to return to the Reynolds Estate and collect the money I had there. I knew it was a lot. What kept surprising me was that, despite the rarity of specie in the colonies, my family had a huge cache of coins--some British, but mostly foreign, especially Spanish silver. They even had gold British Guineas. I had no idea where those came from since they were mostly used to buy and sell slaves, of which we had none. True, I had taken possession of the slaves in Norfolk that nobody else wanted, but had every intention of freeing them.

March 23

We spent the next morning in town buying food, and tools like axes and saws. We also bought canvas so we could make better shelters from the wind and rain, and hammers and other tools to help build those shelters. Then we rode back to where our men were.

They were astounded that I was able to purchase so much land until I explained about telling the secretary that we took the nugget from one of the British officers. The reason I did that was because I hoped to hide our gold discovery for a while longer and since he was so excited hearing about our attack on the British warships, it was easy to misdirect him.

March 24

The next day, two of the men that had gone with me to Salisbury accompanied me again, as well as two others, as we headed back to Salisbury and the Great Wagon Road. Since our long hunts had been to the west and not the south, we had never been in this area before and could only guess at how long it would take to return home.

Daniel had estimated that it would take about a week.

Daniel was right. We made excellent time the first two days because of the road. We left the road in Bethania and headed northwest. Two days later, we recognized where we were and made it home early in the afternoon of the seventh day.

April 3

At home, we were greeted by an excited crowd, including Grandfather and my parents.

Both Father and Grandfather hugged me emotionally. “I cannot believe that you sank four warships using canoes!” Father exclaimed.

Then, with a knowing smirk, Mother hugged me and whispered, “You are in trouble now.”

As she stepped aside, I groaned. Standing nervously on the porch about thirty feet behind them was Penelope Rodgers.

“I do not think you will be able to dodge her again this year,” Mother chuckled.

I wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing. Last year, we discussed marriage. She was all for it, but with one condition. She did not want me going on long hunts.

As one who always prefers to deal with a problem head on, I approached James, her father. “May we speak privately?” I asked, motioning away from the house.

“Of course,” he replied, also grinning.

“I would like to ask your permission to marry Penelope,” I said.

“Her mother and I give our permission and would have given our permission last year,” he replied. “When you stopped seeing her last year, we questioned Penelope about it and she admitted the ... stipulation ... she insisted on,” he continued.

“Yes, I have reservations about that,” I sighed.

“I understand your reservations, and both her mother and I explained that she cannot expect you to change your nature,” he explained.

“You might accept it, but what about Penelope?” I asked.

“I believe that she has finally come to her senses,” he said, surprising me.

When I looked back at the crowd, Grandfather, Father, and Mother were all grinning at me. As I walked up to her, Penelope was more nervous than I had ever seen her.

“Can you accept me going on the long hunts? That is how I earn most of my money,” I questioned her.

“Yes, I accept you continuing your long hunts. I realized that I enjoy the fancy dinners and fancy parties but loathe the young men who escorted me to them. Not one of them would have survived one of your long hunts. They were merely boys dressed in their finery and pretending to be men. You are a man and make no pretense about who or what you are,” she explained.

“Once I get back from Richmond, I intend to move to North Carolina where I just bought over two hundred thousand acres of land to begin a new estate,” I explained, and watched her jaw drop.

“Since I need to travel to Richmond almost immediately, perhaps we could post the banns at your church in Lynch’s Ferry when I travel through there on the way to Richmond. I should be back in Lynch’s Ferry from Richmond in about three weeks, and we can get married then,” I suggested.

No sooner had I finished my explanation that I had my arms full of an excited Penelope giving me an inviting kiss.

Mr. Rodgers shook my hand, and his wife kissed me on the cheek. “Good luck,” she chuckled quietly in my ear.

Before retiring for the night, I found the remaining jewelry looted from Norfolk and found a silver ring that fit Penelope’s finger perfectly. “I will have a gold wedding band made for you once I get to Richmond,” I explained when I pocketed the ring after having her try it on.

April 4

Despite the displeasure shown by my fiancée about being ignored this morning, I spent the day meeting with the men who had gone on the long hunt. They had been home for six days, long enough to have the furs sorted, bundled, and ready to transport to Richmond. The trappers assured me that, as usual, they had left all the deerskins with the Indian women so they could make new clothing for themselves and for us, especially for the Negroes who had just arrived. They had even set aside all the furs that could be used to make warm coats for them. The wagons we had sent from Norfolk were already loaded, ready to make the trip to Lynch’s Ferry so we could ship the furs downriver via bateaux.

A bateau is a sixty to seventy-five-foot long, flat-bottom boat that is about five to six feet wide. The bateaux (plural) are poled, both upriver and down, by three boatmen.

They can go twenty-five to thirty miles a day being poled upstream. With decent weather and no wind, the trip upstream took five to seven days. The boats could travel forty to fifty miles a day downstream, making the average trip in four days.