Qualla: Battle of Charlotte

Battle of Charlotte: Introduction

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit City Dweller 2, CC BY-SA 4.0. Cornwallis did not expect to be shot at in Charlotte. He had just routed the Continental Army at Camden a month earlier; he had Charleston, he had most of South Carolina, and he was moving north through the Carolina backcountry toward Continental remnants in North Carolina with the confidence of a man whose maps were finally working. Then his cavalry trotted into the small crossroads at Trade and Tryon Streets on September 26, 1780, and ran straight into a low stone wall, three rows of militia, and a Patriot ambush organized by a 24-year-old colonel named William Richardson Davie. The skirmish that followed lasted only minutes. Its consequences lasted years.

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Image: City Dweller 2 | CC BY-SA 4.0

Battle of Charlotte: A Town Built on a Crossroads

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Nascar1996, Public domain. Charlotte in 1780 was small enough to draw on a napkin. Two roads met at the town center, and the Mecklenburg County Court House dominated the intersection. The southern side of the courthouse was lined with pillars connected by a stone wall about three and a half feet high - low...

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Image: Nascar1996 | Public domain

Battle of Charlotte: George Hanger's Bad Afternoon

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Thomas Beach, Public domain. George Hanger - later the 4th Baron Coleraine, then an aggressive young cavalry officer in Tarleton's British Legion - led the advance into town. He moved fast, he moved boldly, and he moved without his infantry. When the twenty men behind the southern house opened fire, Hanger k...

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Image: Thomas Beach | Public domain

Battle of Charlotte: The Hornet's Nest

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Larry Pieniazek, CC BY 2.5. Davie's small force withdrew north toward Salisbury, but Charlotte itself did not stop fighting. Patriot militia harassed the British presence so persistently after the battle that Cornwallis is said to have called the area "a hornet's nest of rebellion" - a phrase Charlotte adop...

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Image: Larry Pieniazek | CC BY 2.5

Battle of Charlotte: What the Skirmish Set in Motion

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Humberto Moreno, CC BY 2.0. Eleven days after Charlotte, on October 7, 1780, the British left flank under Major Patrick Ferguson was destroyed at the Battle of Kings Mountain - over-mountain men hunting Loyalists into a hilltop kill zone. The Carolina campaign that Cornwallis thought he was winning was actu...

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Image: Humberto Moreno | CC BY 2.0

Battle of Charlotte: The Site Today

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit CarCai, CC BY-SA 4.0. Where Davie's militia crouched behind a stone market wall, the Bank of America Corporate Center now rises sixty stories above Trade and Tryon Streets. The intersection is still the geographic center of Charlotte, still the busiest crossroads in Mecklenburg County, still the place...

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Image: CarCai | CC BY-SA 4.0