The Civil War in North Carolina



Reminiscences and Memoirs of North Carolina and Eminent North Carolinians

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within three miles of that place. He left two daughters, one of whom married a son of John Louis Beard, of whom John Beard of Florida is a son. The other daughter married Mr. Fisher who was the mother of the Hon. Charles Fisher, of whom we shall soon hear.

        John H. Steele, (born 1792, died 1865), was born in North Carolina, a relative of General Steele. He was Governor of the State of New Hampshire in 1844 to 1846, and died at Petersboro', New Hampshire, July 2, 1865. We know but little beyond this, and the fact that while our State has given Senators and Governors to the south and southwest, she has also given Governors to two of the Yankee States--Joseph R. Hawley, of Connecticut and John H. Steele, of New Hampshire.

        Griffith Rutherford was long a resident of Rowan, lived in the Locke settlement and was distinguished in the Indian and Revolutionary wars for his valor and enterprise.

        He was a native of Ireland and first appears in North Carolina history as a member of the Legislature from Rowan in 1775, at New Berne. He served as Senator, and was re-elected, with some intermissions, till 1786. His first essay in arms was in 1776, when he commanded an army of 2400 men, raised to subdue "the Overhill Cherokee Indians;" this he did most completely and with great slaughter. He was an active member of the Committee of Safety and on April 22, 1776, was appointed one of the six Brigadier-Generals by the Provincial Congress at Halifax. He commanded his brigade at the ill-fated battle of Camden, (Aug. 1780,) where he was taken prisoner. He was sent to Charleston, and from thence to Augustine with Col. Elijah Isaacs, taken also at Camden; Lieut. Col. Stephen Moore and Col. Henderson; on June 22, 1781, they were exchanged. He again took the field, and took command at Wilmington, when that place was evacuated by the British. After the war was over he removed to Tennessee and served in the Councils of that State.

        His name is preserved both in North Carolina and Tennessee, by calling counties after him, and we regret that so little is known of his services and character.*

        * A list of the prisoners sent to St. Augustine is found in Johnson's Traditions of the Revolution, 318.


        Blanche, daughter of General Rutherford, married a son of General Matthew Locke

        The Locke family was once a large, influential and patriotic family in Rowan. The first of this race came from Ireland to America in the 17th century, and settled in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. From thence, three brothers: Matthew, Francis and George, came to North Carolina. Matthew and Francis settled in Rowan and George in Iredell County.

        General Matthew Locke, (born in 1730, died 1801,) was by nature energetic, public spirited and popular. The determined foe to every form of oppresion, fraud or peculation. In the excitement as to illegal fees exacted by the Crown officers and wrung from an oppressed people, he was their friend and adviser. He was in 1771 with Herman Husbands appointed by the people to receive the fees due the sheriff and Clerk of the Court. He was elected in 1776 a member of the Provincial Congress at Halifax, and to the same body in Nov. 1776, which formed our first State Constitution. He was continued a member of the Legislature under the Constitution in 1777 to 1792. He was elected a Brigadier-General of State troops. In 1793 he was elected a member of 3rd, 4th and 5th Congresses, 1795 to 1799, and was succeeded by Archibald Henderson. He died September 7, 1801. He married Mary, daughter of Richard Brandon, a name distinguished in the annals of those troubled times, for devotion to popular rights and the cause of freedom, and left a family of thirteen children, eight sons
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