The American War for Independence Started in Dixie – Today In Southern History

16 May 1771

On this date in 1771…

The Battle of Alamance, North Carolina was fought between royal militia and a group of patriots called “The Regulators” in present-day Alamance County, North Carolina. The Regulators lost the battle and twelve were condemned to death. Six were hanged at Hillsboro, North Carolina on 19 June 1771. Many historians consider Alamance, not Lexington, to be the REAL first battle of the first battle of the American War for Independence.

Of twelve Regulators condemned at Hilsboro, the following six were executed by the British governor: James Pugh, Robert Matear, Benjamin Merrill, Captain Messer, and two others, whose names are now unknown.

“Our blood will be as good seed on good ground, that will soon prduce one hundred fold.”
~James Pugh, under the gallows at Hillsboro, N.C., June 19th, 1771

Other Years:

• 1760 – Creek Chief Handsome Fellow, a former English ally, led an attack on a group of English traders in Georgia in support of the Cherokee at the outbreak of the Cherokee war. Thirteen traders are killed in the fighting.

• 1817 – Steamboat service began on the Mississippi River.

• 1824 – Confederate General Edmund Kirby Smith was born in St. Augustine, Florida.

• 1836 – At the age of 26, Edgar Allan Poe married his 13 year-old cousin, Virginia Clemm.

• 1861 – The Kentucky Legislature voted to remain neutral and reject Lincoln’s call for troops to subdue the Confederate States.

• 1861 – Tennessee was officially admitted to the Confederate States of America.

• 1868 – The United States Senate failed by one vote to convict U.S. President Andrew Johnson as it took its first ballot on one of 11 articles of impeachment against him. (Johnson was subsequently acquitted of all charges.)

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