The Civil War in North Carolina



Reminiscences and Memoirs of North Carolina and Eminent North Carolinians

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in Hillsboro, much esteemed as a gentleman and a scholar; has often been in the legislature, and served in the confederate service as lieutenant-colonel.

        His son, Halcot Pride, did good service in the war as captain of cavalry.

        He has been twice married; first to a daughter of Judge John A. Cameron; and second, to a daughter of William Cain, Esq.

        William Polk, born July 9th, 1758, died January 14th, 1834, who married Grizzie Gilchrist, the daughter of Robin Jones, was born in Mecklenburg County, North Carolina. He early drew lessons of patriotism from that ardent and devoted people, and has testified that he was a spectator, (as the Reverend Hampton Hunter has also testified,) at the convention, assembled on May 20th, 1775, at Charlotte, which declared their independence of all allegiance to the British crown.

        The files of the Pension Bureau, at Washington, presents his declaration for a pension, and it tells in his own simple and unadorned language of his military services and sufferings endured to obtain the liberty we now enjoy.

        Colonel Polk represented the county of Mecklenburg from 1787 to 1791.

        He was appointed, in 1812, a general in the United States army, but age and other causes compelled him to decline.

        He removed to Raleigh, and was for a long time president of the bank of the state. He was grand master of the free mason lodges of the state, and died January 14th 1834, possessing the esteem of all who knew him.

        Extracted from the declaration of Colonel William Polk, on file in Pension office, Washington, D. C. He was born on July 9, 1758, (seventy-five years old on July 9th, 1833.)

        He entered into service in war of the revolution, in April, 1775, as second lieutenant of a company commanded by Captain Ezekiel Polk, third regiment of South Carolina State Troops of Mounted Infantry, Colonel William Thompson, Major Mason, commanding; rendezvoused at York, South Carolina, and marched to Ninty-six to oppose the tories, thence to Dorchester, and thence to Granby. An engagement took place at Canebrake, on December 22nd, 1775, where he was severely wounded in the left shoulder, from which he was confined eight or nine months and from the effects of which he still suffers.

        On November 26th, 1776, he was elected by the Provincial Congress of North Carolina, Major of the Ninth North Carolina Continental Battalion, and joined his regiment at Halifax. He did duty by command of General Moore, at Charleston, South Carolina, and at Wilmington. This regiment was under command of Colonel John Williams, John Luttrel being Lieutenant-Colonel. From absence of these officers, the command of the regiment devolved on himself, and he marched with the regiment to Georgetown, then in Maryland, now in the District of Columbia, thence to Trenton, where his regiment joined the grand army under General Washington; was in the battle of Brandywine, September 10, 1777, and Germantown, October 4, 1777, where he was wounded by a musket ball in the cheek. He went into winter quarters at Valley Forge, when the regiment was reduced, and he returned to North Carolina to superintend the recruiting service for the purpose of filling up the regiments. In the fall or winter of 1780, he was appointed a lieutenant colonel by John Rutledge, Governor of South Carolina, and had command of the Fourth, and then the Third regiment of the State. He first mustered his regiment under General Thomas Sumter, on Broad river, South Carolina. The first active service was an attack on a block house near Granby, on the Congaree, which was carried by his and Colonel Wade Hampton's regiment; was at the siege and reduction of Forts Mott and Orangeburg. He was present at the battle of Eutaw Springs, September
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