I just published two new articles in the same week, last week:

“‘Too Grievous for a People to Bear’: Impressment and Conscription
in Revolutionary North Carolina,” The Journal of Military History, 73 #4, October, 2009.

and

“The Greatest Terror Imaginable: Cornwallis Brings his Campaign to Goochland, 1781,” Goochland County Historical Society Magazine, Vol. 47, October, 2009.

The Journal of Military History, the quarterly journal of the Society for Military History, has published scholarly articles on the military history of all eras and geographical areas since 1937. The Journal is fully refereed. It publishes articles, book reviews, a list of recent articles dealing with military history published by other journals, an annual list of doctoral dissertations in military history, and an annual index.

Those interested in obtaining a copy can contact the NCHR here:

North Carolina Historical ReviewHistorical Publications Section Office of Archives and History4622 Mail Service Center

Raleigh, NC 27699-4622

919-733-7442

919-733-1439 (fax)

http://www.ncpublications.com

The park service released its “Report to Congress on the Historic Preservation of Revolutionary War and War of 1812 Sites in the United States” last week.

The Trading Ford was included in the survey along with other historic sites that comprise the “Race to the Dan River.” A linear resource, the inclusive “Race to the Dan River,” is listed in the “Roads, Trails, and Waterways Needing Further Study” section of the report. These are resources that due to their size and complexity had no equivalent survey methodology that allowed them to be represented in an equitable manner.

P.S.  In case you were wondering how old the earth is, check out this tedious and lengthy website which “explains” how to calculate it based on the Bible, but never comes up with a clear answer at the end!  Looks like they think it is about 13000 years old. 

Please forward any questions to Bob Yankle  byankle@triad.rr.com  
Webmaster and Principal Photographer, NCSSAR and Staff Photographer,
SCAR.
 
Charles B. Baxley
Editor / Publisher
Southern Campaigns of the American Revolution
www.southerncampaign.org
cbbaxley@truvista.net

More than anything else, the struggle for American independence in North Carolina was a civil war, especially after the British concentrated their Southern offensive there in late 1778.  This was not only a traditional military contest between regular armies in the field, but a bloody internal struggle marked by plundering, property destruction, violence and murder as well.  These concurrent conflicts created great difficulties for Patriot military and civilian leaders in all of the nascent southern states in their attempt to establish and maintain order and stability.  The need to secure the state was of paramount importance for North Carolinians, who recognized even before 1783 the necessity of ending uncontrolled violence among the citizenry as the most imperative part of this process.  Patriot leaders during this period had to balance the need for an end to violence as the war ended, with the strong desire among many Whigs to seek vengeance and reprisals against their disaffected enemies.  Although moderates sought to limit the retributive violence and calls for punishment during and after the war, and worked to foster a spirit of conciliation in order to bring peace, prosperity and order to the state, this was a position not universally shared by all supporters of the American cause, which frustrated efforts to insure leniency toward Tories as the state moved from war to peace.

This note is printed on fine quality period white laid paper, and was recently offered for sale at auction.  N.C. currency from the Revolution or colonial era is very rare, primarily because so much of it was printed on poor quality paper, or was burned upon redemption through taxation.  This note is very nice….

By the way, James Davis was N.C.’s first state printer.  According to an article on-line, In August 1751, Davis published the first North Carolina newspaper, The North Carolina Gazette. The weekly was published until 1761. Several years later, Davis began a second newspaper, The North Carolina Magazine: or Universal Intelligencer. Foreign news dominated the paper. Ads were mostly merchants’ lists of goods, legal notices and notices seeking runaway slaves.

The publication title returned to The North Carolina Gazette in 1768 and finally ceased publication in 1778, when his son, Thomas, his primary helper, went to fight in the Revolutionary War. The newspaper lasted longer than any other early paper – 10 years.

Davis, born Oct. 21, 1721, also printed currency, legislative journals and session laws. He printed at least 100 titles during the 33 years he served as public printer. Although most of the titles were official government books, he published the first nonlegal book written by a North Carolinian and published in the state, Clement Hall’s “A Collection of Many Christian Experiences.”

He served in the General Assembly as a representative and was elected to the Council of State. Before he died in 1785, Davis also served as county sheriff, justice of the peace and commissioner of the Port of New Bern. Davis also was selected to open the state’s first post office in 1755.

Davis’ son, Thomas, became state printer in 1782. He also started his own newspaper in 1785 in Hillsborough, The North Carolina Gazette.

An article I submitted in September to the North Carolina Historical Review has been accepted, and will be published in July 2008.  It is entitled “‘The Cure for All Our Political Calamities’: Archibald Maclaine and the Politics of Moderation in Revolutionary North Carolina.”  Maclaine was a moderate attorney from the Wilmington area, whose son-in-law George Hooper, a merchant, was a lukewarm Loyalist forced to leave the state in 1781 for his shallow support of independence.  Maclaine opposed such measures as property confiscation and banishment as punishment for loyalists’ activities, but faced staunch opposition from state “radicals” or “democrats” such as Thomas Person and Griffith Rutherford, whom Maclaine called “bloodthirsty.”

This comes from one of my eleven dissertation chapters, and will be the first of my work to see the light of day as far as publication.  I hope to publish one more chapter as well, and am waiting to hear about that one.  I previously published an article on N.C. and the Seven Years’ War in NCHR, back in 2002, so I am pleased to be working with editor Anne Miller again.