BERTIE BEAMS.

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Ancient—Cashie River—Natural Beauty—An Appropriation Needed—Bertie Railroad—Harding Manufacturing Co.—What the South Needs

[By Our Special Reporter.]

Windsor, Bertie Co., N. C.

Nov. 1^st, 1879.

            Your reporter reached this ancient town on Sunday last, 26^th ultimo.

            Steamers run on the Cashie (River) between here and Plymouth (Washington Co.) daily. The Cashie is a very deep, narrow river, being about 20 feet deep at the wharf here. It is impossible for the pen, or the brush of the painter, to do justice to the autumnal gilded foliage of the trees, which consists of every variety known to this climate, which so densely grow in their primeval wildness on the banks of this deep, dark and currentless little river. The river is very narrow from here for some eight miles below, and being very crooked, the overhanging limbs and fallen trees render navigation tedious and difficult in the extreme. An appropriation of $3,000 would be sufficient to cut away the limbs and trees and make navigation safe. The member of Congress from this district should attend to this matter as soon as possible and secure the above appropriate from congress. The people of Bertie pay their proportionate part of the governmental taxes, and their wants are entitled to substantial consideration. If Mr. Martin will not or cannot effect anything, perhaps some of his more energetic democratic colleagues may.

 

Cashie River: http://www.wandringagain.com/index.php/2016/12/03/dismal-swamp-state-park-part-two/

            Bertie has a Narrow Gauge Railroad below here, which runs from the Cashie for five miles back to the highlands. This little road is owned and was built by Greenleaf Johnson & Son, of Baltimore, for hauling logs to the river, where they are made into rafts and tow boated to Norfolk and Baltimore.

            The Harding Manufacturing company are putting more machinery in their factory, preparatory for making “ply twist.” “Ply twist” is worth 20 cents per lb. in New York. It would take half dozen more such mills as this to fill the present orders. This factory has two Clement Attachments*, 612 spindles, uses about a bale of cotton per day turning out 300 lbs. of spun cotton from 1,000 pounds of seed cotton. All the waste cotton and cotton seed find a ready sale. The seed cotton is first put through a patent cleaner which thoroughly frees it from all dirt, is then placed on rolling tables which carries it to the “Attachments” from whence it comes out ready for the spindles. This factory cost, complete, $12,000. Mr. Hardin, the President of the company, says the enterprise is now paying 20 per cent. Less politics but more cotton factories is what the South needs.

[The Tarborough Southerner (Tarboro, NC) 6 Nov 1879, p. 3]

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            Mr. Hardin, President of Harding Manufacturing wrote to Mr. J. R. Adams of Montgomery, Alabama in June 1880 describing his experience with the Clement Attachment:

            “We started last June, and have been running smoothly ever since. We are pleased with our mill and have already enlarged it, and are going to enlarge it to double the size it is in the fall. We are now running two attachments, 612 spindles. Our mill cost $11,000 as it now stands. We are averaging three hundred pounds of first class yarn per day. Our mill is paying 35 per cent on the investment, and we expect to make it pay 45 per cent as soon as our hands become expert. We have not got a hand that ever saw a mill before. We have met with no reverse, and had no mishap to stop the mill a day since starting. There is an unlimited demand for our yarns. We get the highest market price for our goods.”

[The Weekly Star (Wilmington, NC) 4 Jun 1880, p. 1]

Gin with Clement Attachment: Chicago Tribune(Chicago, Illinois)10 Jan 1880, Page 16

          *The Clement Attachment was invented about 1874 in by a Tennessean named Clement. He lived in Memphis where he had a small shop. He proposed to manufacture his attachment, but died shortly after making his invention, passing it to his heirs. Mr. F. E. Whitfield of Corinth, MS bought ½ interest from the heirs and built , patented and put it into operation. 

          Cotton bolls contain seeds that must be separated from the fiber before it can be used. Before Eli Whitley invented the cotton gin in 1794, this was done by hand. An average worker could only remove seeds from about a pound of cotton per day.

           The cotton gin—the word “gin” was derived from “engine”—had hooks that caught the cotton fiber and pulled it through a mesh too fine for the seeds to go through. Small gins were cranked by hand and larger ones were powered by steam engines. The hand-cranked machine could process 50 pounds of cotton per day.

            The Clement Attachment was explained by its owner F. E. Whitfield:

            “To convert an old into a new process cotton mill, little else is necessary than to get a cleanser of seed cotton…cost from $75 to $100, and to substitute an attachment, costing about $175, for the lickerin and feed rollers on each card.” As the cotton passes through the cleanser, dirt, dust and most motes, trash, etc. are removed. It is then carried by a revolving apron into the attachment where the lint is removed from the seed. As the filaments pass through the attachments, any remaining trash is removed and is combed out so that the filaments are delivered to the card and converted into yarns.[1]

---

[1] Our country’s wealth and influence, by Linus Pierpont Brockett and Henry Barnard: 1882; page 169.

To Pension Ex-Slaves.

         The Secretary of State yesterday granted letters of incorporation to “The National Ex-Slave Mutual Relief Bounty and Pension Association of the United States of America in North Carolina.” The incorporators are Elijah Dudley, Edmond Hicks, Cornelius W. Jones, Peter Bragg, Sophia Brown, Catherine Bellamy, Abraham Forrman, Edward W. Pritchard, A. W. Rogers and Horace Brown. 
            The principal office and place of business of this association is to be Washington, Beaufort county, and the first meeting at which officers are to be elected will be held on January 15^th  [1900].

            The object of the association is to render assistance to its members in good standing, and to devise and provide ways and means for the care and nourishment of ex-slaves, their widows and orphans, and to unite the efforts of all friends in securing pension legislation in favor of ex-slaves.

[Taken from News and Observer (Raleigh, NC) 2 Jan 1900, Page 6]

_________________

This medal was worn by ex-slaves who joined this Association attempting to obtain reparations in the late 19th century. It is a two piece medal with a simple top bar below from which hangs a crescent moon and star on which are printed: "National Ex-Slave Mutual Relief Bounty & Pension Ass'n of the U.S.A. http://www.cowanauctions.com/auctions/item.aspx?ItemId=7294
___________________________

National Ex-Slave Mutual Relief bounty and Pension Association

Of the United States of America

By the 1890s there was some movement to enact legislation to provide pensions for ex-slaves. The idea was modeled after the pensions provided for Civil War veterans. Walter R. Vaughan of Omaha worked for many years to get such legislation passed. He published a pamphlet, Freedmen’s Pension Bill: A Plea for American Freedmen which circulated in the black communities. According to Walter B. Hill, Jr. in an article published in Negro History Bulletin, Vol. 59, No. 4, 1996 Special Issue on Black Genealogy, 10,000 copies of the pamphlet were sold at $1 each, and other editions were published. One person who read the pamphlet was Callie Guy House.

An MRB&PA broadside features both Isaiah Dickerson, the general manager, and Callie House, a national promoter and assistant secretary of the association, with the emblem of the United States in the center. 
http://www.archives.gov/publications/prologue/2010/summer/slave-pension.html
________________________

        “Callie House is most famous for her efforts to gain reparations for former slaves and is regarded as the early leader of the reparations movement among African American political activists.  Callie Guy was born a slave in Rutherford Country near Nashville, Tennessee.  Her date of birth is usually assumed to be 1861 but due to the lack of birth records for slaves, this date is not certain.  She was raised in a household that included her widowed mother, sister, and her sister’s husband.  House received some primary school education.

“At the age of 22, she married William House and moved to Nashville, [TN] where she raised five children.  To support her family, House worked at home as a washerwoman and seamstress.  In 1891, a pamphlet entitled Freedmen’s Pension Bill: A Plea for American Freedmen began circulating around the black communities in central Tennessee.  This pamphlet, which espoused the idea of financial compensation as a means of rectifying past exploitation of slavery, persuaded House to become involved in the cause that would become her life’s work.  

“With the help of Isaiah Dickerson, House chartered the National Ex-Slave Mutual Relief, Bounty and Pension Association in 1898, and was named the secretary of this new organization.  Eventually House became the leader of the organization. In this position she traveled across the South, spreading the idea of reparations in every former slave state with relentless zeal.  During her 1897-1899 lecture tour the Association's membership by 34,000 mainly through her efforts.  By 1900 its nationwide membership was estimated to be around 300,000.  

“House's activism was not without controversy.  Newspapers of the time often ridiculed her efforts and the federal government attempted to arrest her and other leaders of the Association.  In 1916, U.S. Postmaster General A.S. Burleson sought indictments against leaders of the association claiming that they obtained money from ex-slaves by fraudulent circulars proclaiming that pensions and reparations were forthcoming. House was convicted and served time in the Jefferson City, Missouri penitentiary from November 1917 to August 1918.  Callie House died in Nashville at the age of 67 on June 6, 1928 from cancer.”

[Taken from BlackPast.Org: http://www.blackpast.org/aah/callie-house-c-1861-1928]

Trial and Conviction of a
Baptist Minister

for Murder—His Suicide

The North State Whig, of the 30th ult., published at Wilmington, North Carolina, publishes a condensed report of the trial of Rev. GEORGE W. CARAWAN, for the murder of Mr. C. H. LASSITER, a school-teacher, in Hyde County. The whole case is remarkable, on account of the status of the accused, the depravity developed, and the tragical issue of the trial. Eminent counsel were arrayed for both the prosecution and the defence, and much excitement prevailed during the proceedings. The paper before us gives the following particulars:


Carawan is a56 years old, and for many years has been a popular preacher in the Baptist Church—a man of strong will, exercising a powerful influence over his friends, and feared as much as hated by his foes. Lassiter was a quiet young man, engaged in the business of teaching. Some months before the murder Lassiter boarded in the house of Carawan, and a quarrel arose between them, Carawan alleging that Lassiter was too familiar with his (C.'s) wife. Carawan talked very freely among his neighbors n the subject—said that L. ought to be shot—that shooting was too good for him, and that he and L. could not live in the same neighborhood, &c., &c., and finally tried to get out a peace warrant against L., alleging that he had attempted to take his life. He went on this way for some time, when L. sued him for slander, laying the damages at $2,000. A few hours after the writ was served on C., Lassiter was killed.


He [Lassiter] had finished a school on Rose Bay, and on Monday, the 15th of November, 1852, started on foot, with a carpet-bag in his hand to go to the Lake [Mattamuskeet] where he had engaged another school. About 3 o'clock, P.M., he passed C.'s house on his way to the Lake. Shortly after he passed, C. left his house and went across the field toward the woods which lie between the house and the spot on the road where L. was killed, his wife following with a gun wrapped up in her apron. She returned to the house immediately; Carawan not till sundown. That night he was absent from home.


Tuesday he remained at home; but on Wednesday, a rainy day, he took a hoe and went into the woods, and was gone for several hours. On Thursday, before L. was missed, (the people on the Lake thinking he was at the Bay, and the people on the Bay thinking he was at the Lake,) C. went to one of the neighbors, and inquired if he had seen anything of L., stating that his (C.'s) family had seen him pass his house on Monday with a package of clothes, and he was thinking he had run away. On Friday evening, when told that the people were searching for L. he expressed great surprise that he should be missing—never had heard anything of it.

On Saturday morning, the search for L. still going on, he wrote to a friend to come and see him—that L. was missing—supposed to be killed—and added that he (C.) was at home all day Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, and that he could prove it by Carawan Sawyer, (the main witness on the trial for the State,) his nephew, a boy who was living with him. The body of L. was found on Saturday evening in the swamps behind C.'s house, in an open lot, which was surrounded with briars, underbush, &c., and covered with moss. The moss over the grave had been carefully removed, the grave dug just large enough to hold the body, the body pressed into it, the grave filled up even with the surrounding earth, and pressed down, and the moss carefully laid back up in it. The moss leaving no trace of a foot-print, there was no sign that anybody had ever been there, except that the moss over the grave had faded a little; about a handful of fresh dirt was near it; and a dead limb of a tree had apparently been recently disturbed, the bark which had evidently just fallen from it lying in one spot and the limb in another. The men who were searching for the body had stopped in this lonely spot to rest, having given up the search for the day, when these appearances attracted their attention, and the body was found.


L. was killed by gunshot wounds. Several shots were taken from the body—three from the heart. There were three sizes of shot found in the body, and in one of the barrels of C.'s gun, found in his house, just such shot, and of three sizes, were found. That night C. left Hyde County, telling his nephew, (Sawyer,) that if he staid there he should be hung; and that he should send for his family, and he (S.) must go with them. On Sunday morning he landed from a canoe at Durham's Creek mills, in Beaufort County, about twenty miles from his home, telling the man who rowed him over that he was after a piece of land which another man was trying to buy, and that was the reason of his hurry, and charging him to keep his movements a secret.

From this time till his [Carawan's] arrest at night in his house in January following, the State did not know his where-abouts. But from letters received by the sheriff of Hyde, from Tennessee, it seems he had been sin that State, preaching, under the assumed name of John Forbes.

After his imprisonment in Hyde County Jail, he [Carawan] tried to get a friend to hire the witness Sawyer to go away. He had offered this same witness, before the body of L. was found, a negro, if he would swear that he (C.) was at home all Monday, the day on which the murder was committed. And while in Hyde County Jail he wrote to a friend (the letters were produced in Court,) to get Sawyer out of the way. He had given, he said in one of his letters, Mary (his wife) $500 to get Sawyer off; if that wouldn't do, give him $1,000; and if that wouldn't do, he (his friend) must get rid of Sawyer "by hook or by crook," and not suffer his (C.'s) neck to be broke.


The defence set up for the prisoner was that three of the witnesses (including Sawyer) had sworn falsely, committed willful and deliberate perjury, and that it was impossible for Carawan to have gone through the woods after Lassiter passed his house quick enough to have cut him off.


The Jury, after a protracted sitting, brought in a verdict of guilty, and the Judge ordered a recess of the Court for an hour. As the crowd was leaving, the prisoner suddenly drew two pistols, one of which he fired at Mr. Warren, the counsel for the State, and with the other shot himself through the head, killing himself instantly. The ball of the other struck Mr. Warren on the breast, just above the heart, but fortunately glanced off, and left only a slight wound. The North Star Whig says:


"Carawan maintained his self-control throughout the trial. He was as fine a looking man as one would find among a thousand—tall, admirably built, with a massive head, showing, with enormous animal passions, large intellect. These passions have destroyed him, he having given himself all his life to their unbridled sway. His wife, apparently about his own age, and his children, have been with him during the trial, accompanying him to and from the Court-House and Jail."

This article was published in The New York Times, December 5, 1853

The story of George Washington Carawan was also published in Dead and Gone: Classic Crimes in North Carolina by Manly Wade Wellman, 1954. The story of the crime and the trial with all the details were printed in The North Carolina Tragedy in 1853. This book can be found at

 http://pds.lib.harvard.edu/pds/view/5808740?n=1

A Giant of a Man

An article, written by Henderson Co., TN native, Rev. John Brooks, appeared in the Tarboro Southerner, Aug. 22, 1857:

The Great America—The Giant of the World—Miles Darden

"Mr. [Mills] Darden was born in North Carolina, in the year 1798, and departed this life at his residence in Henderson County, Tennessee, on the 23d day of January, 1857, in the 59th year of his age.

"He joined the Baptist Church in early life, and shortly after emigrated to Tennessee, where he connected himself with what is called the Christian Church, but had not been a member of any church for years past, but was moral and fond of conversing on religious subjects. He was a kind and obliging neighbor, and fond of company. — About fifteen years ago, he joined the Order of Masons. He was twice married. His children are very large, but probably none of them will ever be more than half the weight of their father. He was quite active and lively, and labored until about four years ago, when he became so fleshy that he was compelled to stay at home, or to be hauled about in a two horse wagon.

"In 1849, he made a contract with a tailor to furnish him a suit of clothes for $50 — the cloth was to cost five dollars per yard. Upon measurement, it took twelve yards of cloth. So the tailor lost ten dollars and the making. The tailor states that three men, each weighing over 200 pounds, put the coat on, buttoned it around them, and walked across the square at Lexington [TN]. In 1850, it took 13½ yards of flax cloth, a yard wide, to make him a coat. It took sixteen yards of cambrick for his shroud; 1½ yards of black velvet to cover the sides and lid of his coffin; 125 feet of plank to make his coffin.

"His coffin was eight feet long.
Across the breast, 32 inches.
Across the  head, 18 "
Across the  foot, 14"
Its depth, 35"
He weighed in 1845, 871 pounds.
His height was 7 feet, 6 inches.
His weight, when he died, as nearly as could be ascertained, was a fraction over 1,000 pounds."

More About Miles (Mills) Darden

Mills Darden, one of the largest men who ever lived, was born in Northampton Co., NC, near Rich Square, on 7 Oct. 1799. He was the son of John and Mary Darden. Mills and Mary Jenkins were married in 1820 and had 7 children: Louisa M. m Clement Strickland; Martha J. m William H. Parrott; Easter Elizabeth m James W. H. Knowles; George W., killed in battle near Atlanta, GA in 1864; Francis Marion m Lucinda Carver; and Adoniram Judson m1 Mary Ann Webb, m2 Nancy Cox.

Mills moved his family to Tennessee around 1830, where he is listed on the 1830 census in Madison Co. By 1840, the family had settled in Henderson Co. His first wife, Mary, died and by 1840 Mills had married Termisha Cooper. They had 4 children: Virginia m Louis H. Norfleet; Mary m Henry Anderson Wadley; Mills Newsom; and Tennessee V.

Mills Darden died in Henderson Co., TN and is buried on Mills Darden Cemetery Road a few miles from Lexington, TN.

Darden was a farmer, and it was said that it took 3 men to bind grain as he cut it. It was also said that "he could single handedly pull a loaded wagon from a mud hole." When he became too large to farm, he moved into Lexington where he operated a profitable tavern and inn on the court house square.

Many stories were told about Mills Darden. He was too heavy for a church pew, and so he brought a blanket and spread it before the pulpit where he would lie down to hear the sermon. He refused to be weighed but his weight was secretly calculated by measuring the height of his wagon seat when he sat on it, and later weighting it down to the same height with 100 pound sacks of sugar or flour. His pants were 72" in the waist and his hat was size 8½. A typical breakfast was said to be 12 eggs, 30 biscuits, 10 slabs of bacon, and ½ gallon of coffee. When he went visiting he had to sleep on the floor was normal beds would not support him. When he died, it took 17 men to lift him into his coffin, and a section of wall had to be knocked out to remove the coffin from the house.

In an article written in 1949, Tom Lawler reported that his uncle had seen Mills Darden holding Tom Thumb on his knee. What a sight that must have been!

Mills Darden is listed in the 1998 Guinness Book of World Records as follows: "GREATEST WEIGHT DIFFERENTIAL" The greatest recorded for a married couple is 922 lb in the case of Mills Darden (1020 lb) of North Carolina and his wife Mary (98 lb)" As James Ewing says in It Happened in Tennessee, "Darden wasn't the world's largest man and he wasn't the world's tallest man, but he appears to have been tallest large man and largest tall man on record." His weight and height were recorded in the 1886 Guinness Book of World Records.

Source: Tarboro Southerner, 8/22/1847; Research done by Laura Waddle, posted at www.tnyesterday.com/families/m-darden.htm; It Happened in Tennessee, by James Ewing. This article was first published in The Connector, newsletter of Tar River Connections Genealogical Society in the Spring 2006 issue.]

Nashville Boy Trains for WWI

From Training Camp At Chickamauga Park, Tenn.

Dear Mr. Lincke:

Thinking that perhaps you might be interested in the work of the Officers Training Camp, I shall briefly give you a sketch of our work.

The location is an ideal one, in that it is contiguous to the city of Chattanooga, Tenn. Its broad plains; towering peaks; innumerable forests and splendid roads wonderfully contribute toward its especial adaptability for the purpose of training. The company to which I belong does all of its drilling on the famous "Snodgrass Hill." This hill was the place which was so hotly contested during the Battle of Chickamauga, and incidentally, it is the vantage point which General Thomas gained and for his success at this point he was later characterized as the "Rock of Chickamauga."

The sanitation of the camp is splendid. A one month camp was held here several years ago, but was resultant of many untimely deaths due to the sanitary methods then employed.

Our work is very strenuous and may be attested by a brief outline of a day's work. We rise at 5:15, AM, and take thirty minutes exercise. Breakfast is called at 6:00 o'clock; we then report at the company street at 6:30 for police duty. This duty of course consists of removing all filth of whatever nature. At 7:00 we fall in for drill which lasts until 11:30 AM. Close order drill, bayonet exercise and signaling constitute the work of this period. We have dinner at 12:00 M. At 1:30 we again fall in for drill or possibly hike four or five miles with about forty pounds. We have from 4:30 until 5:30 to make preparation for supper and rest. At 7:00 PM, we go to our respective mess halls and study the assignments in the text until 9:00, or about three times a week we have a lecture at the amphitheater on some phase of military work. All are required to retire at 9:30 PM. The remaining hours are at our disposal, subject to the express regulation of sleeping.

Today about six hundred men are being transferred to other branches of the service: field artillery, court artillery, aviation and cavalry. There will only be nine companies left or about 1600 men in training for infantry. Cantonments are being built on the park and I understand will eventually accommodate 40,000 troops of the regular army.

The Y.M.C.A. has erected a very commodious building here for the benefit of the men. Various musical instruments and a motion picture machine are furnished free. We have Saturday noon until Sunday evening 10:00 at our disposal.

The people of Chattanooga are true types of southern hospitality, having thrown their homes open to men who desire to stay over-night.

Major General Wood was here some days ago and witnessed the drilling of the various companies and expressed himself as being highly pleased with the one month training, and felt that the remaining two months would graduate men in position to competently handle the new conscript army.

Very Truly,
Archie D. Odom


[This letter appeared in the Nashville Graphic, Nashville, NC, on 6/21/1917. Mr. Lincke was editor of the paper.]

Photo of World War I barracks came from Administrative History of Chickamauga and Chattanooga National Military Park by John C. Paige and Jerome A. Greene: February 1983 The book can be found at http://www.nps.gov/archive/chch/adhi/adhi.htm

This story was published in The Connector, newsletter of the Tar River Connections Gnealogical Society in the Fall 2007 issue.

Reminder of Home

NC Pine Trees Thrive in Tennessee

It must have been an adventuresome spirit that carried the 70+ year old Samuel R. Smith and his wife from Granville County, North Carolina to Montgomery County, Tennessee in 1833-34. It was a 500 mile trek through the Cumberland Gap to the untamed country in middle Tennessee. [Do you know anyone in his early 70s? Can you imagine him starting out on a 500 mile walk through wilderness?] There were about three hundred and fifty people in the group making its way to the new land. Their belongings were carried on ox-carts and many of the settlers walked most of the way. Before they reached Montgomery Co, TN, Smith's party was detained for a week by the birth of his granddaughter, so we know that some of his family traveled with him.

The Smiths settled on Piney Fork near what is now Ft. Campbell, KY. Samuel knew he would never return to NC so he carried a piece of North Carolina with him in his saddlebag—seven tiny pine seedlings. One of the first things he did when he reached his new home was to plant the fragile trees.

Samuel Smith was a generous man. He gave land to establish a church near his new home—Asbury Church. It was built of logs and served as both a church and a school. The building was later destroyed by lightning but the Asbury Church survived.

Smith died at his new home on January 16, 1837 just a few years after his arrival. He was buried at a site selected by him near one of his North Carolina pines— still small at the time of his death.

Bicentennial Celebration

By 1976, when this country celebrated its bicentennial, the pine tree near Samuel Smith's grave was well over 100 feet tall. Its needles blanketed the little cemetery where Samuel and five of his relatives were buried. But the graves were covered with undergrowth—overgrown and forgotten. As part of the 200th birthday celebration, the Girl Scouts of America and the 20th Engineer Battalion at Ft. Campbell cleared the grave site and reseated the granite headstones

On August 13, 1976, when the project of clearing the cemetery was completed, a ceremony was held and the spot was dedicated as Samuel Smith Memorial Park. A speaker noted, "The undergrowth has been cleared, and Samuel Smith's headstone feels the sun."

There is a bronze plaque at the entrance to the cemetery.

Why Did Smith Go to Tennessee?

What made Samuel R. Smith leave his home in North Carolina and travel to Tennessee in his old age? His service to his country during the Revolution provides the answer to that question. On August 8, 1833, he applied for a Revolutionary War pension in Granville County, NC.

In his pension application application, Smith stated that he enlisted in the patriot forces in Warren County, NC in 1778 as a substitute for someone whose name he could not remember. He served three months during which time his company marched from Oxford to Wilmington, NC. "Our duty was principally to guard that town and the Country round about from the incursions and ravages of the Enemy consisting principally of Tories. Our service was occasionally to march on expeditions in various parts of the country round about that town; but the most of the time we were on duty in the camp in the suburbs of it."

Smith re-enlisted in late 1778 or early 1779 in Oxford, Granville County, NC as a substitute for William Dodson. [He later married a Miss Dodson!] The company first marched to Hillsboro in Orange Co., NC and then south to Augusta, GA. Smith's pension application states, "We were marched through Salisbury in North Carolina to South Carolina and through many little towns in that State the names of which he cannot recollect and joined the American Army then stationed there for Augusta on the Savannah River." Smith also recalled, "… the men had to march near or quite four hundred miles to the scene of duty [Georgia]."

On February 13 or 14, John Ashe's men, including Samuel Smith, joined South Carolina General Andrew Williamson's troops on the east bank of the Savannah River opposite Augusta. Lieutenant Colonel Archibald Campbell, observing the large number of Patriots across the river, marched his Loyalist troops out of Augusta, moving south along the river. Ashe's troops trailing after them as far as Brier Creek where they set up camp. Smith said, "I was of the detachment that was commanded by Generals Ashe and Bryant who were sent to take post at Briar Creek. … "

The Battle of Brier Creek

Ashe had been ordered to cross the Savannah River and continue after Campbell, but when they reached Brier Creek, they found that Campbell had burned the bridge. The American force moved its camp further up the creek for security. Smith recalled, "[We] were not there stationed but a few days … before the fatal and ever to be regretted attack on us by the British, … ."

Campbell had turned his troops over to Col. Mark Prevost who decided to attack the American force from the rear. While Ashe was engaged in conferring with other American leaders, Prevost moved his troops up the west side of Brier Creek, built a bridge across it, and moved his men onto the east side behind Ashe's men.

The historical marker at the site describes the ensuing rout this way: "Confusion and hysteria reigned among the American soldiers as their officers vainly tried to keep them in line while ammunition was being distributed. …The British opened on the American center with cannon. . … With dead and wounded falling on every side, the center broke and retreated in riot. The British poured through the hole in the American center and within a few minutes, the right … broke and ran into the swamps of the Savannah. …."

In Smith's words, "… our entire defeat and dispersion. [I] with eight others after skulking about and under the banks of Brier Creek, effected our Escape to Savannah River, across which River we obtained a conveyance by paying three dollars a piece to a Boatman." The nine patriots eventually were able to rejoin the American Army.


John Ashe was eventually court martialed for his lack of preparation for the British attack.

———

Based on his pension application, Samuel Smith was granted 1000 acres in Tennessee for his service during the war.

Genealogy

Samuel R. Smith was married first to Miss Sallie Williams and then to a Miss Dobson. To the first union were born four sons and one daughter: Harry, Elizabeth (Betsy), Charles, John and Wiley. By his second marriage, there were three children: Mary, Samuel R., Jr., and Sarah Long.

————

Sources:
[Samuel Smith] http://www.tngenweb.org/montgomery/soldiers/samuelsmith.html
[Transcription by Will Graves of Samuel Smith's Revolutionary War Pension Application] http://www.southerncampaign.org/pen/s7560.pdf
[Battle of Brier's Creek] http://www.myrevolutionarywar.com/battles/790304.htm; http://www.revolutionarywararchives.org/49march1779.html; and many others
[Court martial of Gen. John Ashe] http://docsouth.unc.edu/csr/index.html/document/csr14-0306


This story was published in The Connector, newsletter of the Tar River Connections Genealogical Society in the Winter 2005 issue.