Chapter 5

October 1, 1779

None of our men left for the long hunt this winter. Realizing ahead of time that the British could arrive at any time, we made numerous two- or four-week hunts closer to home to make sure we had enough smoked and salted meat to get through the winter. I still sent the powder, ammunition, and trade goods I usually supplied, but the men who took it gave it to those waiting for us at the first camp, along with the news that we were not going this winter. They reported back that there were enough Indian hunters to make the long hunt this winter.

I had sent the powder, ammunition, and trade goods requested by the Cherokee from the south and central part of their territory for them to use for their long hunts. Unfortunately, we needed the rifles and horses in case of a British attack. I sent everything else, though, and included steel knives and other tools to make up the difference with the value of the furs I anticipated they would send.

Instead of hunting, we spent the winter mining and making bullets. Some of our lead was melted and poured into molds to make the bullets. Some was formed into goose shot by making lengths one-quarter-inch square and several inches long. Using a chisel, the length was then cut into quarter-inch cubes.

And we made rounds for our swivel cannons. To save iron and to use some of the zinc, we made the rounds out of a combination of zinc and lead. The extra zinc ingots were sold to a merchant in New Bern who then sold them to one of the sea captains that visited frequently. Since he received payment in cash, he could pay us cash when we sold zinc to him in the future.

December 11, 1779

A messenger arrived on horseback today, only two weeks after we harvested the last of our small crop of cotton. “The British fleet has attacked Charleston and is blockading the harbor,” he shouted excitedly.

I thought about it for a second and realized that something felt “off” about his news. “How many ships were involved?” I asked.

“Six,” he replied.

“Have they landed troops?” I asked, figuring that a mere six ships could not carry an invasion force. They were either awaiting more troop ships or it was a diversion. The thought that they were awaiting more ships also felt off, yet the thought that they were a diversion felt correct.

“They usually send a raiding party ashore each night and then withdraw to their ships before dawn,” he replied.

“It is a decoy,” Ralzieman commented from beside me. “They want any troops in the area to deploy to Charleston.

“I agree, but that still leaves the question of where they really intend to attack and where their troops will disembark,” I replied as we stared at our map showing Virginia, North, and South Carolina.

Three days later, we received a second clue in the form of a messenger from New Bern. “The British have blockaded the Neuse River near New Bern,” he reported.

“How many ships, and have they landed troops?” I asked.

“Six ships and there were only two brief exploratory raids by the time I left.”

Ralzieman and I looked at the map. “One feint at Charleston to draw troops south and one at New Bern to draw the remaining troops there,” I said as I used my hands to mimic troops responding to the two areas as if I was splitting a pile of dirt on the map.

“That leaves the area between the two undefended,” Ralzieman said as if reading my mind. He stabbed his finger at the spot where Brunswick Town had been. It was still shown on the map and was approximately halfway between Charleston and New Bern.

Somehow, that guess felt correct to me.

“Prepare riders to warn every town along the different routes they could take from Brunswick Town to here,” I ordered, not wanting anyone along the way to suffer because of us.

“Send people out to buy all the food they can and to start foraging,” I told someone else, planning to top off our supplies for a siege.

“Get another well dug inside the stockade and start preparing temporary shelters. We may have people coming here from nearby farms and towns,” I ordered a third person standing near us.

“Double check our defenses and let all the Indian villages know,” I told Ralzieman.

“Bring in more firewood,” I ordered yet another person.

“And everybody pray for us,” I thought to myself.

Looking at the map, I ran my finger along several of the possible routes the British could take from Brunswick Town, quickly noticing a difference when I traced the Yadkin Trail, an Indian trail, compared to the other possibilities. The tip of my finger felt ... tingly.

If that was the route they planned to take, it meant they had found locals to guide them since the Yadkin Trail did not appear on many maps. It was only on ours because we had meticulously surveyed and documented every road, path, and Indian trail we could find. It also meant that the British hoped to escape detection by avoiding settlements, especially the two large towns of Cross Creek and Campbellton [Both part of modern Fayetteville]. Even though both were strongholds of Tory sentiment, there were enough Whigs willing to send out warnings.

“Interesting,” I mused, remembering the trail. While it had started as an Indian trail, settlers, including our people, had widened it so wagons could use it. The worst creek crossings had been bridged and those that remained unbridged had the banks cut down to make crossing them easier.

I found the riders that were preparing to warn towns about the British and sent most to the southeast along every road and trail leading to Brunswick Town. I also sent four of my best men to follow the Yadkin Trail, telling them to make sure to warn everyone along the way that we felt the British would follow the trail for their invasion and anyone living near it might want to hide, taking their food, harvested crops, livestock, and valuables with them.

Then I went in search of Ralzieman to explain a crazy idea I had.

“Remember that long, straight section of the trail where it widens right before making a sharp turn away from the Lumber River?” I asked.

“I remember,” he replied, his voice expressing curiosity about where this was leading.

...

“That has to be the most outlandish scheme I have ever heard,” he exclaimed once I finished explaining it.

“More outlandish than attacking British warships with canoes?” I asked.

“Well...” he replied.

“Ralzieman, I have something to confess,” I said nervously. “Remember when I warned our group about the Indian ambush waiting for us on my second long hunt?”

When he nodded, I continued.

“I sometimes get a bad feeling about a dangerous situation. I also get a calm feeling when something will work, like the attack on the warships. When we were paddling to the ships, I had a bad feeling about the fifth ship, which is why I stopped you and had you help me. I had a calm feeling about our attack on the British troops leaving Norfolk for Great Bridge, and about sending our Negro hunters to talk to the Negro troops fighting for the British.

“I have the same calm feeling about this ambush,” I said solemnly.

“Then, we shall do it,” he replied adamantly.

When the scouts I sent out along the Yadkin Trail returned, they reported witnessing the British landing three thousand troops and eight cannons, and they had good news.

Enos explained what they saw. “We watched for three days as ship after ship sent their men ashore and then anchored in the river. We heard two men talking and heard that General Cornwallis convinced the King to let him capture North Carolina to split the colonies in two, all while capturing the gold mines where the new coins are being minted. He brought two thousand troops from overseas and another thousand from the northern colonies.

“General Clinton intends to wait for four weeks once Cornwallis begins his campaign and then plans to attack Charleston with six thousand troops from Rhode Island and New York. They intend to land the troops south of Charleston on Simmons Island and move north and inland from there.

“We sent Amos south to warn Charleston, and had Lewis ride to New Bern to let them know what was happening.

“The last night we were there, we saw two officers having a conference and are both sure one was General Cornwallis because every other officer he passed saluted him. Since Seth and I are both expert shots, we made sure we had an escape route to our horses and settled in to get a shot at the men. When we were ready, we both fired and hit our targets. We have no idea how badly they were wounded, but both men collapsed at the table where they were sitting,” he bragged.

“Excellent,” I replied, actually excited that they may have taken both men out of the upcoming battle. Maybe they would even call off the campaign.

Nope, as soon as I thought that, I knew it was wrong. The attack would still happen.

We immediately began selecting men for our ambush. Once our Indian allies heard my plan, they again volunteered two hundred-fifty warriors, excited about using the hit-and-run type of warfare they had taught us and attacking using stealth. We planned to take three hundred men besides the Indians, and some of our men would be assigned to operate the four cannons we were taking with us. We intended to leave the caissons here and just take the cannons and limbers, each with a chest containing powder and four rounds of canister shot. I doubted that we would even be able to fire two rounds from each cannon before having to affect an escape from the British but wanted the ammunition just in case.

If the cannons were in danger of being captured, we would load them with powder and then spike them with brass spikes, hoping that the British might somehow set off the powder charge trying to recover the cannons.

Our scouts were already in place, watching the British at a distance so we would know immediately if they changed direction or took a different route. Within a week, our men and cannons were where we planned our ambush, a spot with a steep slope along the south side of the trail. Our snipers would take the high ground after the British scouts passed. The Indians would deal with the British scouts.

Where the ambush was planned, the trail was wide enough for two wagons to pass comfortably. The Lumber River was less than a hundred feet south of the trail and was too deep to ford.

The approach to where we planned to place the cannons had enough of an incline to make it difficult for the British troops to rush us. The trail turned there, so there would be pine trees behind the cannons, allowing us to hide the cannons by covering them with pine boughs until the British were in range.

Once we fired the cannons, our snipers would open fire from the ridge opposite the river, using their long rifles. If the British troops advanced close enough to them, the snipers would switch to muskets loaded with shot or buck and ball. We also had a bugler to sound “retreat” when it was time to break off the ambush and make our escape.

Meanwhile, the Indian warriors planned to attack the British cannons and supply wagons, which were following behind the troops.

Amazingly, the attack happened almost like we had planned it. Our opening salvo with the cannons caught the British troops flat-footed. By the time they recovered, the second round of canister shot had been fired, increasing the devastation among the front ranks. We managed to fire all four rounds from each cannon before they lit out of there ... well, as fast as cannons could escape.

After that, our snipers kept the remaining British troops pinned down long enough for the cannons to get a head start. My surprise that the attack happened like we had planned was surpassed when the British troops began surrendering.

“I never thought this would happen,” Ralzieman chuckled from next to me. “Now what?” he asked.

“Now, what, indeed,” I wondered as I quickly began running various scenarios through my mind. Most were immediately abandoned when they gave me a bad feeling, such as a cold shiver running down my spine or a queasy stomach. The one that felt right was as big a surprise as the British surrendering.

“Send some of our men down to collect their weapons,” I told Ralzieman as I continued cogitating.

Turning to my left, I assigned the two men there to take five of our Indian warriors and make haste to New Bern to tell them what had happened. I also hoped that we could get some insight into what to do with what looked to be more than two thousand prisoners of war, many of them wounded. I sent the next two men to catch up with our retreating cannons to have them come back to us. Then the two men should continue on to the plantation to let them know the outcome of our ambush.

“You have that look on your face. What sort of mischief is on your mind this time?” Ralzieman asked when he returned. At least he was smiling.

“Once we get our prisoners situated, I think we need to attack their base camp. If we can find someplace to position our cannons, maybe we can use them to sink a few British warships the proper way,” I chuckled, enjoying the look of incredulity on Ralzieman’s face.

Two days later, our ambush group headed for Brunswick Town with our four cannons and the eight captured British cannons. I was thankful that their cannons used the same size shot as ours, and that they had plenty of shot and powder. They had obviously planned on a siege.

Our prisoners were marched towards their original destination where they would be put to work in our mines or plowing our fields. If they worked, they would be fed. If not, they would get bread and water. Their wagons loaded with food and supplies accompanied them.

The following day, two hundred troops from New Bern caught up with us, excited about both our victory and their own victory. Hearing that the fleet blockading the Neuse River only had five hundred infantry aboard, they borrowed my idea about using canoes. Attacking the four ships anchored in the river, three were sunk. The fourth managed to ground itself before it sank.

Many waterlogged sailors were rescued from the river, and everyone aboard the grounded ship was captured. The grounded ship was stripped of everything of value, and then left unburnt in case the American navy could repair and refloat it.

Three days later, we reached Brunswick Town. After checking locations where the thirty-one British ships were anchored, I dispatched six cannons and a hundred men upriver. They were to build log rafts and float the six cannons across the river, along with the horses necessary to move them into position, and the men necessary to operate them.

The two warships were anchored closest to the ocean, probably meant to deter any American ships that tried to come upriver. They were anchored with their guns facing downriver. If we got lucky, we might be able to block the channel by sinking those two ships, trapping the other ships. If we sank them, I would let someone else worry about how to salvage the ships so the undamaged ships could eventually continue downriver.

After a two-day wait, we got word that our cannons were in position across the river. That night, once our Indian warriors took out the sentries, we attacked, silently entering the base camp, which was guarded by sailors, not soldiers. When I was reasonably certain that we were victorious, I sent a rider to let the six cannons on this side of the river know to open fire on the closest warship. The cannons on the far side of the river were to fire after the ones on this side, hoping to disable or sink the second warship, or on the first one if it looked like it might escape.

With more than half of their sailors ashore, the warships were unable to maneuver enough to reply against our cannons. Before they could fire their first salvo, the warship closest to our cannons was listing dangerously.

The second warship managed to fire one salvo, but only two of the men on the far side of the river were injured, lacerated when a British cannon ball hit a tree near them, showering them with slivers of wood. Regardless, the two ships foundered and finally ran aground. Our men rushed the grounded ships and took the dazed sailors prisoner.

Unsure of the course of the river channel since the pilot was aboard one of the two warships, the remaining ships surrendered rather than face being sunk in the frigid river water in the middle of a winter night.

It was midafternoon the next day before we had everyone off the ships and gathered ashore. After that, I sent teams of twenty men to search each ship as we began loading captured weapons into the wagons that had been left behind in the camp. I was looking forward to our gunsmiths converting some of the captured Brown Bess muskets into .62 caliber rifles like Father had done.

We also learned that General Cornwallis and the second officer had both died and were buried here.

I guess that I should not have been surprised to find chests of coins aboard the ships. After all, they had to pay the sailors and troops. Still, finding more than eighty thousand Pounds made my day. I sent sixty thousand with the men from New Bern, telling them to thank the Governor for the assistance. Forty thousand was for the government and twenty thousand was to buy me more land bordering us, mainly in neighboring counties. Also going to New Bern were one-hundred-fifty-three sailors who claimed to have been pressed into service and who said they would volunteer for our navy. Knowing nothing about the navy except that they sailed ships, I sent them on to New Bern to be dealt with.

I sent messengers south to Charleston to let them know that the ships here and at New Bern had been grounded or captured and more than four thousand sailors and troops killed or captured. I was sure that word of our huge victory would quickly spread across North Carolina, encouraging Whigs to join the fight, and making Tories afraid to call attention to themselves. The rest of the fifteen hundred captured sailors joined us for the march to the Reynolds Plantation where they would join the captured troops and spend the remainder of the war working for us.

Along the way, I sent men into every city and town to buy wagons and food. Half of the Indian warriors ranged two or three days ahead of us, hunting game to help feed us until we got home. If they killed enough, they would smoke part of it.

We were treated like conquering heroes when we got home, which I guess we were. Advanced scouts had already told the stories of our two improbable victories.

One of the first things I noticed when we arrived was that the British troops were busy building enough barracks to house many of the more than three thousand prisoners. I learned later that even more barracks were being built closer to our various mines. Other prisoners were resignedly plowing new fields, realizing that what they ate this summer and until the war was over, would probably come from those new fields.

Even with all the extra food that we captured, bought, and hunted, with so many new mouths to feed, rations for everyone would be tight this winter. It wasn’t until we had returned that I realized that we already had more than a thousand people living on the plantation, not counting the prisoners, or the distant and independent Indian villages on our vast property. Part of the reason that I did not realize how many people we had was that groups were scattered across our property and small villages had sprung up, especially at each location where we had a mine.

I heard that the initial group of troops that we captured had blanched when they first saw our defenses.

In April, the Cherokee and other long hunters sent us their furs, far more than I had ever seen before. For three months, our blacksmiths had to concentrate on making the trade goods they wanted in exchange. When we took the furs to New Bern to sell, we returned with the horses, rifles, and glass beads requested by the Indian long hunters.

Just over a month after our return from selling the furs, we learned that the planned attack on Charleston had failed. Knowing that we had eliminated the threat from the north, they built a series of hidden defensive emplacements along the route the British troops would have to take to get from Simmons Island to Charleston and concentrated half of their available troops there.

The sailors we sent to New Bern had led two American ships upriver to the grounded and anchored British ships we left behind. Those ships were now being crewed by Americans. The two grounded warships had been temporarily repaired and were currently in drydock having permanent repairs completed.

In June, we had visitors from New Bern. Three men from the state government came to ask if we would make changes to the coins we were minting.

“We cannot begin to tell you how much we appreciate everything you have done, but we hope to convince you to modify the coins you are minting. While they would still belong to you until you spend them, we hope that you will agree to remove ‘Rowan County’ and ‘Reynolds’ from them to help make it appear that they are officially issued by the state government, helping to make us look stronger and more official. Not only that, but it will continue to help all the states by providing desperately needed coinage,” one of them said nervously.

“We can do that,” I agreed, “but it will take some time to make the new molds. I also intend to expand our operation and bring in a brass smith and another metallurgist or two to help us make bronze and other alloys we can use to mint more of the smaller denomination coins. If you want any specific denominations, let me know.”

“Perhaps a farthing and a halfpenny?” a second man suggested.

“I shall keep those in mind once we determine what alloys we can create from the metals we mine here,” I agreed.

When I told Asa, he left the next day with the men from New Bern, as well as five of our men as bodyguards. His goal was Williamsburg and the College of William and Mary where he hoped to convince his friend, Obadiah, to join us. He assured me that Obadiah could show us how to make any alloys that were suitable for minting coins. Now that Asa knew where to get the presses we needed, he would order two hundred more since we had put almost all the last two hundred into service.

Another two hundred was more than we currently needed, but who knew what the future held? He and I both felt that the state government would eventually end up sending us metal to use for minting copies of our coins for them.