LINCOLN COUNTY, NORTH CAROLINA — June 20, 1780

At the first breaking of day, beneath a heavy fog that lay upon the hills near Ramsour’s Mill, a body of approximately six hundred Patriot militia advanced against nearly thirteen hundred Loyalists assembled in support of the Crown.

In a desperate contest lasting scarcely two hours, the Patriot forces carried the field and compelled the Loyalists to flee!

The Loyalist host was commanded by Lieutenant Colonel John Moore and Major Nicholas Welch, while the Patriot force marched under Colonel Francis Locke and Captain John Dickey.

The men of Liberty came from the counties of Rowan, Surry, Mecklenburg, Burke, Lincoln, Rutherford, Orange, and Edgecombe in North Carolina, together with several companies from South Carolina.

Lieutenant Colonel Moore, acting under the direction of General Lord Charles Cornwallis, had begun gathering a considerable Loyalist force near Ramsour’s Mill.

Approximately one week before the battle, Moore sent word throughout the surrounding country, calling upon all men who remained faithful to King George and the Crown to join his standard.

Moore had been instructed not to engage the Patriot forces, but instead to drill and prepare his recruits for future service in the British Southern Campaign.

News of this gathering soon reached the Patriot leaders.

Thereupon, General Griffith Rutherford ordered Colonel Francis Locke to raise a force and disperse the Loyalist encampment before it could be strengthened.

Colonel Locke reached the vicinity of the mill before General Rutherford and discovered that the enemy outnumbered his men by nearly three to one.

Yet the danger of allowing so great a Loyalist force to remain unopposed was judged greater still.

Locke therefore determined to attack!

The Patriot cavalry advanced upon the eastern side of the hill, followed closely by the infantry under Captain John Dickey. That same hill may yet be walked today near Lincolnton High School and Battleground Elementary School.

The fighting was fierce, confused, and often hand to hand.

At one point Colonel Locke ordered his men to withdraw. Captain Dickey, seeing that retreat might bring disaster upon the Patriot line, refused to abandon his position.

He and his men stood firm.

Their determined resistance preserved the Patriot line, turned the course of the battle, and helped secure the victory.

Unable to withstand the renewed Patriot assault, the Loyalists broke and fled down the western slope. Some were overtaken and captured, while many others escaped into the surrounding countryside.

Neither army entered the field wearing regular uniforms.

The Loyalists distinguished themselves by placing sprigs of green leaves within their hats. The Patriots wore pieces of white paper in theirs.

Amid the smoke, fog, and confusion of battle, neighbor fought against neighbor, and in some instances members of the same family found themselves upon opposing sides.

Many of the fallen Patriots were discovered with wounds to the head. It has therefore been supposed that certain Loyalist riflemen deliberately aimed at the white paper worn in the Patriots’ hats.

The full number of killed and wounded could not be determined with certainty.

Reports estimate that between fifty and seventy men were killed, while approximately one hundred men from each side were wounded.

Some of the dead were buried by their families and friends upon the very ground where they had fallen. Others were carried home for burial.

Those taken prisoner faced uncertain fates. Some were confined, while a small number were later condemned and hanged.

Many bodies could not be identified. Patriots and Loyalists alike were therefore placed together within common graves upon the battlefield.

Thus did the earth receive men who, though divided in life by loyalty and conviction, were united in death beneath the same Carolina soil.

The defeat at Ramsour’s Mill greatly weakened Loyalist confidence and support throughout the surrounding country.

The destruction and dispersal of Moore’s force denied the British army a valuable body of local recruits at a critical moment in the Southern Campaign.

From the fog-covered hill at Ramsour’s Mill, the cause of American Liberty gained fresh strength.

The Patriot victory helped diminish the influence of the Crown in the Carolina backcountry, weakened the designs of Lord Cornwallis, and contributed to the chain of events that would ultimately lead the British army toward its final entrapment at Yorktown.

There, on the 19th day of October, 1781, Lord Cornwallis’s army would surrender.

Let it therefore be remembered that the road to Yorktown passed not only through the great armies and famous fields of the Revolution, but also across the blood-stained hill beside a small mill in Lincoln County—

RAMSOUR’S MILL!