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Battle of Alamance, May 1771 (site now in Alamance County)

The battle that ended the uprising, fought in historic Orange County on ground that is now Alamance County.

In briefIn the spring of 1771 Governor William Tryon marched militia against the Regulators, raising Orange County companies, buying supplies at Hillsborough and camping across the Eno from the town. After the Presbyterian minister David Caldwell went between the camps, Tryon's army defeated the Regulators at Alamance Creek on May 16, 1771.

Read the 17 eventsAll storylines

13 works about Battle of Alamance, May 1771 (site now in Alamance County) are indexed here. 2 held at OCPL →

Search these works Research sources View indexed works ↓
The Alamance Battleground monument, with James Hunter’s words
The Alamance Battleground monument, with James Hunter’s words

In the chronology

Events in this storyline, in date order. See these 17 dated events in the chronology →

  1. Barnaby Cabe hauls supplies and prisoners for Governor Tryon's army An expense account shows Cabe served as a wagoner for Tryon's militia in 1771, carrying supplies, hauling prisoners to New Bern and appearing as a witness against the Regulators after Alamance. People: Barnaby Cabe Place: Orange CountyNC State Historic Preservation Office: Cabe-Pratt-Harris House, National Register nomination (OR0656), p. 9
  2. Governor Tryon's army buys supplies at Ralph McNair's Hillsborough store On his expedition against the Regulators, Governor William Tryon bought supplies at McNair's Hillsborough store, including Delft bowls and gilt tin cups. People: Ralph McNair, William Tryon Place: HillsboroughSearch the index · NCpedia: MacNair, Ralph (Claiborne T. Smith Jr., Dictionary of North Carolina Biography, 1991)
  3. Four Orange County militia companies march with Tryon against the Regulators When Tryon's eastern column gathered on the march from New Bern, Orange and Dobbs each supplied four companies, the largest contingents in a force of 917 rank and file and 151 officers. Two Orange companies were later left to guard Hillsborough when the army moved on to Alamance. People: William Tryon Place: Johnston Court House and HillsboroughInternet Archive: Bassett, The Regulators of North Carolina (1765-1771) (1896), p. 201
  4. Thomas Hart contracts to supply provisions for Tryon's campaign against the Regulators Hart accepted Governor Tryon's offer to victual the militia raised to suppress the Regulators, on the terms on which he had supplied the troops at Hillsborough in 1768. His department covered nearly a thousand men from eleven counties including Orange. People: Thomas Hart, William Tryon Place: Orange CountySearch the index · Documenting the American South: Colonial and State Records of North Carolina, Letter from William Tryon to Thomas Hart (Apr 13, 1771)
  5. James Thackston raises a company of Orange County militia against the Regulators Thackston enlisted sixty-two Orange County men into a militia company for the 1771 campaign against the Regulators. People: James Thackston Place: Orange CountySearch the index · NCpedia: Thackston, James (Arthur C. Menius III, 1996)
  6. Robert Howe serves as quartermaster general of Tryon's army against the Regulators Governor Tryon's order book for the 1771 campaign against the Regulators, which took his army through Hillsborough to the Battle of Alamance and back to the Hillsborough camp, names Colonel Robert Howe quartermaster general. People: Robert Howe, William Tryon Place: Orange CountySearch the index · Documenting the American South, Colonial and State Records: Order Book for William Tryon's regiment in the military campaign against the Regulators, May 1 to June 20, 1771 (vol. 8, pp. 659-676)
  7. Tryon's army camps on the south bank of the Eno opposite Hillsborough Marching west from New Bern, Tryon's army entered Orange by an old road past Patterson's and camped across the Eno from the town on May 9. A hospital and a supply depot were set up at Hillsborough, and on May 11 the army marched through town and west along the later Graham road. People: William Tryon, Edmund Fanning, John Ashe Place: Eno River opposite HillsboroughNash, Hillsboro, Colonial and Revolutionary (1903), p. 23
  8. Tryon's army halts at Colonel Mebane's for Sunday worship on the march to Alamance Leaving Hillsborough on May 11, Tryon stopped on Sunday at Colonel Mebane's for divine service, then marched to the Haw River, where 23 mounted men under Captain Bullock joined as his only cavalry. He ordered his troops not to take property and reached Alamance Creek on May 14. People: William Tryon Place: Colonel Mebane's, Haw River and Alamance Creek (then Orange County) · Also named: Colonel Mebane, Captain BullockInternet Archive: Bassett, The Regulators of North Carolina (1765-1771) (1896), p. 202
  9. David Caldwell goes between Tryon's camp and the Regulators before the Battle of Alamance At the request of his parishioners, some of them Regulators, Caldwell visited Governor Tryon's camp on May 15 with Alexander Martin to urge mild measures. On the morning of the battle he was riding along the Regulator lines urging the men to go home when the order to fire was given. People: David Caldwell, William Tryon, Alexander Martin Place: Alamance battlefield (then Orange County)Search the index · Documenting the American South: William Henry Foote, Sketches of North Carolina (1846)
  10. Regulators seize Colonel John Ashe and Captain Walker and whip them On the morning before the battle, some of the Regulators caught Colonel John Ashe and Captain Walker while they were out scouting, whipped them severely and held them prisoner. Many Regulators condemned the act, and some threatened to leave the cause if it happened again. People: John Ashe Place: near Alamance Creek (then Orange County) · Also named: Captain WalkerInternet Archive: Bassett, The Regulators of North Carolina (1765-1771) (1896), p. 203
  11. Willie Jones is made Tryon's aide-de-camp on the march into Orange County Jones marched into Orange County with Governor William Tryon's colonial militia and was appointed Tryon's aide-de-camp on May 15, 1771, the day before Tryon defeated the Regulators at Alamance. Several days later he was sent to raid the plantation of the Regulator leader Herman Husband. People: Willie Jones, Herman Husband, William Tryon Place: Orange CountySearch the index · NCpedia: Jones, Willie
  12. Battle of Alamance Governor William Tryon's militia defeated the Regulators at Alamance. James Few, captured on the field, was hanged at Tryon's camp the next day. People: William Tryon, Herman Husband, Robert Palmer, James Few Place: Present-day Alamance County; then Orange CountyNCpedia
Show all 17 dated events
  1. Governor Tryon kills Robert Thompson as the Battle of Alamance opens According to an anonymous open letter to Governor William Tryon printed in 1771, Tryon himself killed Robert Thompson at the beginning of the battle; Thompson had been his prisoner and was escaping to fight against him. The writer, a hostile critic of Tryon, accepted that killing as self-defense while condemning the hanging of James Few after the battle as an execution without judge or jury. People: William Tryon, James Few Place: Alamance battleground, then in Orange County (now Alamance County) · Also named: Robert ThompsonInternet Archive: D. L. Corbitt (ed.), "Historical Notes", North Carolina Historical Review 3 (1926), p. 497
  2. Colonel John Ashe commands the guard left at Hillsborough When Tryon's army marched west from its camp across the Eno in May 1771, two of the four Orange County companies under Edmund Fanning stayed behind as a guard for Hillsborough under Colonel John Ashe. They rejoined the army before the Battle of Alamance. People: John Ashe, Edmund Fanning, William Tryon Place: HillsboroughSearch the index · Internet Archive: Nash, Hillsboro, Colonial and Revolutionary (1903), p. 23
  3. Regulators are tried and executed at Hillsborough After the Battle of Alamance, Regulator prisoners were tried at Hillsborough and twelve were condemned for treason. Six were pardoned; on June 19 Governor Tryon's army marched the others to a gallows east of town and hanged them, among them Benjamin Merrill, Robert Messer, Robert Matear and James Pugh. James Few had been hanged at camp on May 17. People: William Tryon, James Few Place: Hillsborough · Also named: Benjamin Merrill, Robert Matear, James PughNC Department of Natural and Cultural Resources: Regulators Hanged (G-23)
  4. A fenced burying ground stands at the Alamance battlefield On a preaching tour in 1772 the Moravian evangelist George Soelle, leaving a service at Jacob Christmann's meeting house, took a wrong path and came out on the Trading Path just where the Battle of Alamance had been fought. He noted a fenced-in burying ground nearby. Place: Alamance battlefield on the Trading Path, then in Orange County (now Alamance County) · Also named: George SoelleInternet Archive: Douglas L. Rights, "The Trading Path to the Indians", North Carolina Historical Review 8 (1931), p. 408
  5. Whigs hold a two-day mass meeting on the Alamance battleground Whigs from Orange, Wake and neighboring counties camped for two days on the ground of the 1771 Battle of Alamance, hearing George E. Badger, Henry K. Nash, Henry W. Miller, Charles Manly, Ralph Gorrell and others tie the Regulators' cause to their own. Michael Shoffner, who owned the land, declared that the ground should henceforth belong to the nation in memory of the battle, and on October 11 Hillsborough's Whigs met the returning Wake delegation with a procession and a supper at the Masonic Hall. People: George E. Badger, Charles Manly, William A. Graham, Henry Kollock Nash Place: Regulator battleground on Great Alamance Creek, Orange County (now Alamance County) · Also named: Henry W. Miller, Ralph Gorrell, Michael ShoffnerSearch the index · Hillsborough Recorder, October 17, 1844, p. 3

Indexed works

Related works found in catalogs and archives across North Carolina. Each links to the institution that holds or provides it.

Farming Dissenters: The Regulator Movement in Piedmont North Carolina

Troxler, Carole Watterson · 2011

Carole Watterson Troxler's history of the Regulator movement in Piedmont North Carolina, from land speculation and backcountry resentment through Herman Husband and the Sandy Creek network to the petitions, court proceedings and rioting in Hillsborough and Salisbury, the Battle of Alamance in 1771 and the movement's afterlife in the Revolution. An appendix compiles names in a Regulator context. Published by the North Carolina Department of Cultural Resources in 2011, 221 pages with illustrations, maps and an index.

Included because: Catalog heading in the NC Cardinal record: Alamance Creek, Battle of, N.C., 1771.

✓ Held at OCPL · NC 975.602 TROXLER NC Cardinal Durham Chapel Hill PL CH Historical Society Library of Congress

The War of the Regulation and the Battle of Alamance, May 16, 1771

Powell, William S. · 1976 · State Dept. of Archives and History

William S. Powell's short account of the War of the Regulation and its end at the Battle of Alamance on May 16, 1771, when Governor Tryon's militia defeated the backcountry Regulators. The fighting took place in what was then Orange County, and Hillsborough, the county seat, had been the center of the Regulators' grievances and riots. Issued by the State Department of Archives and History, 32 pages with illustrations, facsimiles, a portrait and a folding map; this printing is dated 1976.

Included because: Catalog heading in the NC Cardinal record: Alamance Creek, Battle of, N.C., 1771.

✓ Held at OCPL · NC 975.6 POW NC Cardinal Library of Congress

Some Neglected History of North Carolina: Being an Account of the Revolution of the Regulators

Fitch, William Edward · 1905 · Neale Pub. Co.

William Edward Fitch's account of the Regulator movement and the Battle of Alamance of 1771, which his subtitle calls the first battle of the American Revolution, published by Neale in 1905 in a second edition. Hillsborough, the Orange County seat, was the scene of the Regulators' 1770 courthouse riot and of the hangings that followed Alamance. 307 pages with nine leaves of plates, folding maps and a portrait.

Included because: Catalog heading in the NC Cardinal record: Alamance Creek, Battle of, N.C., 1771.

Duke NC State NC Cardinal Durham UNC Library of Congress

Commemorative souvenir program, May 9-16, 1971.

Battle of Alamance Bi-Centennial Commission · 1971 · Battle of Alamance Bi-Centennial

Souvenir program for the week of events, May 9 to 16, 1971, marking two hundred years since the Battle of Alamance, the engagement that ended the Regulator insurrection in the North Carolina backcountry. Issued at Burlington with illustrations, a map and portraits, and including the program for the historical drama First for Freedom by Joseph Cole Simmons. Alamance County was separated from Orange County in 1849.

Included because: Catalog heading in the UNC record: Alamance Creek, Battle of, N.C., 1771.

UNC

Correspondence containing minutes of a council held in New Bern discussing matters of trade and appeals made by civilians on behalf of those sentenced to death for stealing horses

1771

Minutes of a council sitting at New Bern in 1771, sent on with the governor's correspondence, recording debate over trade and export embargoes and petitions from civilians on behalf of men sentenced to hang for stealing horses. Governor Tryon, James Hasell, Richard Henderson and Samuel Cornell take part. Hillsborough in Orange County is also named. Reference CO 5/314.

Included because: The record names this subject alongside a heading for the county or its towns.

Duke NC State

Governor Tryon's letter to the Earl of Hillsborough regarding the battle of Alamance, enclosing two maps of Alamance Camp and orders given out to the provincials raised to march against the insurgents

1771

Governor William Tryon reported to the Earl of Hillsborough in 1771 on the battle of Alamance, the defeat of the Regulators that May, enclosing two maps of Alamance Camp and the orders issued to the provincial troops raised against the insurgents. Surveying, troop movements, casualties, supplies and quartering are mentioned. The battlefield lay within Orange County as its bounds then stood.

Included because: Its title names this subject.

Duke NC State
Show 6 more

William Tryon's letter to the Earl of Hillsborough regarding a message from the assembly which he has enclosed

1771

Tryon's letter of 1771 to the Earl of Hillsborough forwards a message from the assembly, and a companion version reports the recent victory over rebel forces and the events after their surrender: oaths, disbandment, land grants, petitions from widows and children, and a capital sentence touching Benjamin Merrill. Richard Caswell, John Rutherford and Robert Palmer are named, and Hillsborough appears among the places.

Included because: The record names this subject alongside a heading for the county or its towns.

Duke NC State

A Plan of the Camp and Battle of Alamance, the 16th May 1771. Between the Provincials of North Carolina, Commanded by His Excellency Governor Tryon. and Rebels who styled themselves Regulators. Survey'd and Drawn by C. J. Sauthier.

Sauthier, Claude Joseph · 1771 · North Carolina Department of Cultural Resources

Claude Joseph Sauthier's survey plan of the camp and battlefield at Alamance, where Governor William Tryon's provincial militia met the Regulators on 16 May 1771. Sauthier drew it to accompany Tryon's letter of 2 August 1771. The battle was fought in what was then Orange County. Part of the Map Collection.

Included because: Catalog heading in the State Archives of NC record: Battle of Alamance Creek, N.C., 1771.

DPLA State Archives of NC

A Plan of the Camp and Battle of Alamance the 16 May 1771. Between the Provincials of Nth. Carolina, Commanded by His Excellency Governor Tryon. and Rebels who styled themselves Regulators. Surveyed and Drawn by C. J. Sauthier.

Sauthier, Claude Joseph · 1771

Claude Joseph Sauthier's plan of the camp and Battle of Alamance on 16 May 1771, where Governor William Tryon's provincial militia met and defeated the Regulators. It maps the battle ground topographically. This version differs only in small details from the one in the British Public Record Office. The battlefield lay in Orange County at the time and is now a state historic site.

Included because: Catalog heading in the State Archives of NC record: Battle of Alamance Creek, N.C., 1771.

State Archives of NC

A Plan of the Camp at Alamance from the 14th to the 19th of May 1771. Composed of the Provincials of North Carolina, Comanded by His Excellency Governor Tryon. On an Expedition against Rebels who styled themselves Regulators. Surveyed and Drawn by C. J. Sauthier. geor.

Sauthier, Claude Joseph · 1771

Plan by the surveyor Claude Joseph Sauthier (1736 to 1802) of Governor William Tryon's militia camp at Alamance, 14 to 19 May 1771, during the campaign against the Regulators. Sent with a letter from Tryon dated 2 August 1771, it maps troop positions and the lay of the ground before the Battle of Alamance, fought in what was then Orange County.

Included because: Catalog heading in the State Archives of NC record: Battle of Alamance Creek, N.C., 1771.

State Archives of NC

A Plan of the Camp at Alamance from the 14th to the 19th of May 1771. Composed of the Provincials of North Carolina, Commanded by His Excellency Governor Tryon. On an Expedition against Rebels who styled themselves Regulators. Surveyed and Drawn by C. J. Sauthier. geor.

Sauthier, Claude Joseph · 1771

Claude Joseph Sauthier's topographic plan of the North Carolina provincial militia encamped at Alamance from 14 to 19 May 1771, under Governor Tryon's command in the expedition against the Regulators. It went with Tryon's letter of 2 August 1771 and shows where the troops stood before the battle. Alamance Creek then lay in Orange County.

Included because: Catalog heading in the State Archives of NC record: Alamance, Battle of, 1771.

State Archives of NC

Session of November-December, 1771: Joint Resolutions, November 28-December 23

North Carolina. General Assembly · 1771

Joint resolutions of the General Assembly, 28 November to 23 December 1771, passed in the months after the Battle of Alamance. They favor claimants such as James Alford of Wake County, Robert Howe, Wilmington jailer David Pollock and John Fulford, whose money had burned, and touch on disabled veterans and widows. Seventy-one images.

Included because: Catalog heading in the NC Digital Collections record: Alamance Creek, Battle of, N.C., 1771.

NC Digital Collections

NC Digital Collections record courtesy of the North Carolina Department of Natural and Cultural Resources.

Search all 13 indexed works →

Start at OCPL

Books in OCPL’s Rebecca B. Wall Local History Collection whose titles, catalog subjects, or descriptions match this storyline. The Friends’ recommended starting points are labelled. Books marked Wider context cover the broader subject rather than this storyline itself.

  • Start here · NC 975.602 TROXLER Farming Dissenters: The Regulator Movement in Piedmont North Carolina Troxler, Carole Watterson · 2011

    Carole Watterson Troxler's history of the Regulator movement in Piedmont North Carolina, from land speculation and backcountry resentment through Herman Husband and the Sandy Creek network to the petitions, court proceedings and rioting in Hillsborough and Salisbury, the Battle of Alamance in 1771 and the movement's afterlife in the Revolution. An appendix compiles names in a Regulator context. Published by the North Carolina Department of Cultural Resources in 2011, 221 pages with illustrations, maps and an index.

  • Start here · 975.602 KAR Breaking Loose Together: The Regulator Rebellion in Pre-revolutionary North Carolina Kars, Marjoleine · 2002

    Marjoleine Kars's history of the Regulator Rebellion of 1766 to 1771, the backcountry uprising against corrupt county officials that ended at the Battle of Alamance. Hillsborough, the Orange County seat, was a center of the Regulators' protests and the scene of their 1770 court riot. Published by the University of North Carolina Press in 2002, 286 pages with illustrations and maps.

  • Rebecca Wall Collection · NC 975.6 POW The War of the Regulation and the Battle of Alamance, May 16, 1771 Powell, William Stevens · 1975

    William S. Powell's short account of the War of the Regulation and its end at the Battle of Alamance on May 16, 1771, when Governor Tryon's militia defeated the backcountry Regulators. The fighting took place in what was then Orange County, and Hillsborough, the county seat, had been the center of the Regulators' grievances and riots. Issued by the State Department of Archives and History, 32 pages with illustrations, facsimiles, a portrait and a folding map; this printing is dated 1976.

Show 6 more
  • Foundational · NC 975.656 CAM Hillsborough and the Regulators Cameron, Annie Sutton · 1964

    Annie Sutton Cameron's short account of Hillsborough during the Regulator uprising of 1766 to 1771, when backcountry farmers protested colonial officials and courts and Hillsborough, as the seat of Orange County, stood at the center of the conflict. Published by the Orange County Historical Museum in Hillsborough in 1964, 36 pages with illustrations.

  • Foundational · NC 975.602 DUN The Battle at Lindley's Mill: [a Revolutionary War Battle in Order to Free Governor Burke and Citizens of Hillsborough, N.C. Held as Prisoners by the Tories] Dunaway, Stewart E. · 2009

    Stewart E. Dunaway's account of the Battle of Lindley's Mill, fought in September 1781 after the Loyalist David Fanning raided Hillsborough and carried off Governor Thomas Burke. Burke, Fanning and the Lindley family, whose mill gave the fight its name, are the people at its center, with the Revolutionary campaigns in North Carolina as the frame. Published in 2009.

  • Rebecca Wall Collection · NC 975.602 NEW The Battle of Lindley's Mill Newlin, Algie Innman · 1975

    Algie Innman Newlin's short study of the Battle of Lindley's Mill, the 1781 engagement in which Whig militia caught up with David Fanning's Loyalist column on its way from Hillsborough with the captured governor. Published by the Alamance Historical Association in 1975, 30 pages with maps and a bibliography.

  • Wider context · NC 812 VER Esther Wake, Or, The Spirit of the Regulators: A Play in Four Acts Vermont, Adolph · 1913

    Adolph Vermont's four-act drama of the Regulator uprising, first performed on the University of North Carolina campus by its Summer School Dramatic Club on 4 July 1912. Scenes move from Governor Tryon's palace at New Bern to Orange County, on the Eno, at Hillsborough and on the Alamance battlefield, as the heroine, Esther Wake, pleads for the Regulator gunsmith James Pugh; N. W. Walker's introduction admits she may never have lived. Printed at Raleigh, 1913.

  • Wider context · NC BIO TRYON POW The Correspondence of William Tryon and Other Selected Papers Tryon, William · 1980

    The letters and papers of William Tryon, royal governor of North Carolina until 1771, edited by William S. Powell in two volumes, 1758 to 1767 and 1768 to 1818. They cover the Regulator troubles, from the riots at Hillsborough, the Orange County seat, to the battle of Alamance in 1771 and the hangings that followed. Tryon, builder of the New Bern palace, later governed New York. Division of Archives and History, 1980; indexed.

  • Rebecca Wall Collection · NC 285 ARN David Caldwell Arnett, Ethel Stephens · 1976

    Ethel Stephens Arnett's life of David Caldwell (1725 to 1824), pastor of the Buffalo and Alamance Presbyterian churches in Guilford County, who opened a log college in 1767 and practiced medicine he had taught himself. He was present at the Battle of Alamance in 1771, represented Guilford at the Halifax congress that adopted the state constitution in 1776, and sat in the Hillsborough convention of 1788. Greensboro, 1976, 106 pages with an index.

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Background reading at OCPL

Books from OCPL’s Rebecca B. Wall Local History Collection that provide broader context. They may not discuss Battle of Alamance, May 1771 (site now in Alamance County) directly.

  • Background reading · Rebecca Wall Collection The History of Alamance Stockard, Sallie Walker · 1986

    Sallie Walker Stockard, born at Saxapahaw in 1869 and the first woman to earn a degree from the University of North Carolina, wrote this history of Alamance County, cut from Orange in 1849, as her master's thesis. It runs from the Saxapahaw Indians through the Regulators, the Battle of Alamance and Pyle's defeat to churches, schools and cotton mills, and closes with family histories. First printed in Raleigh in 1900; reprinted in 1986 with notes on the author and an index.

    Subjects in the Library of Congress catalog record: Alamance County (N.C.) -- History; Alamance County (N.C.) -- Genealogy OCPL call number: NC 975.658 STO
  • Background reading · Rebecca Wall Collection Bentonville: The Final Battle of Sherman and Johnston Hughes, Nathaniel Cheairs · 1996

    A tactical history of the battle of Bentonville, fought in March 1865, Joseph E. Johnston's last effort to stop Sherman's march north through the Carolinas. Nathaniel Cheairs Hughes Jr. follows both armies from South Carolina to Fayetteville and Goldsboro, explains why the Confederate attack's early gains came to nothing, draws on letters, diaries and official reports, and sketches commanders including Bragg, Hardee, D. H. Hill, Howard and Slocum. UNC Press, 1996; 336 pages with maps.

    Subjects in the Library of Congress catalog record: Bentonville, Battle of, Bentonville, N.C., 1865 OCPL call number: NC 973.738 HUG

Search the Wall Collection for related books →

Related themes

Colonial Orange County →Wars & Military Service →Politics & Government →Roads, Rail & Transportation →Creation of Orange County and Hillsborough, 1752–1766 →

Picture: The Alamance Battleground monument, with James Hunter’s words. CC BY-SA 4.0. Photograph by Hallcp; via Wikimedia Commons

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