Local News - June 2003

Rains flood battleground

Ramsour’s Mill

By CALEB HAWKINS, LTN Correspondent

The real battle at the annual celebration of the Battle of Ramsour’s Mill Saturday and Sunday was between man and the elements.

“We were treading water there like bullfrogs,” said Harold Eaker, one of the reenactors.

Saturday was muddy and so rainy the ghost walk had to be canceled. By Sunday, most of the field where the camp was set up was flooded. Only a small island in the middle was left dry.

Did the rain hinder the event?

“Definitely,” said Lincoln County Historical Coordinator Darrell Harkey. “I saw a multitude of people ride by, and once they saw the place, keep going.”

Despite the rain, the event was still a success.

“We’ve had more people with the bad weather than (the first years) with good weather,” Harkey said. He estimates that 250 to 300 people visited during the weekend.

“The reenactors are made of sturdier stuff,” he said..

Thirty-five to 40 reenactors took part in the event. Locke’s Militia, Guilford Militia and Over the Mountain Men have members from Georgia, Florida, Virginia and Maryland, as well as North Carolina.

Eaker played the part of Capt. Nicholas Warlick in the reenactment, which took place before the flooding.

In the actual battle on June 20, 1780, 400 patriots faced 1,400 loyalists, or Tories. The outnumbered patriots had thought it better to attack.

In the reenactment, a group of Tories, led by Eaker as Warlick, fired at the patriots emerging from the woods as men on both sides fell.

Harkey, who was narrating the battle, reminded the onlookers that these people firing muskets at each other were friends and neighbors, but were still devoted to their causes.

“Many of them died with gun barrels to their chests,” Harkey said.

The crowd got into the action. When one child hollered for the bad guys to stop, a redcoat cried “Tell the bad guys to stop it! Support the local government!”

The weapons used were all reproductions. Besides the guns, the reenactors used bayonets and long, spear-like weapons called spontoons.

The rain did not spoil the reenactors’ weekend.

“You don’t study history, you live it,” said Eaker, who has been reenacting for 15 years.

“This is the sixth event I’ve been to this year, and only one of those hasn’t been rained on,” the Rev. Jim Campbell, a member of Guilford Militia, said during Sunday’s service at the mass grave site.

Most of the time, the militias only choose a few people to go to reenactments. Why the big turnout for this one?

“The hospitality in Lincoln County is better than anywhere else,” said Harkey.

© 2001 Lincoln Times-News  

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