Qualla: Battle of Shallow Ford

Battle of Shallow Ford: Introduction

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Breakfast was cooking at the bottom of the hill when the Loyalist column appeared at the ridge. It was about half past nine on the morning of October 14, 1780, near Shallow Ford on the Yadkin River in what is now Yadkin County, North Carolina. Three hundred Patriot militia under Major Joseph Cloyd had laid an ambush along Battle Branch, expecting the Loyalist force under Colonel Gideon Wright to come down the Mulberry Fields Road after crossing the Yadkin. They were right about the route. The skirmish that followed took perhaps an hour, killed at least fourteen Loyalists and only one Patriot, and helped chip away at the British strategy for the southern theater of the American Revolution.

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Battle of Shallow Ford: The Wright Brothers' Loyalist Column

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Colonel Gideon Wright and his brother Captain Hezekiah Wright led fewer than 350 mounted Loyalist militia north from the Yadkin crossing at Shallow Ford. They were heading northwest along the Mulberry Fields Road, part of a broader effort to reinforce British forces under Lord Co...

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Battle of Shallow Ford: Cloyd's Ambush at Battle Branch

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Major Joseph Cloyd had gathered three hundred Patriot militia and chosen his ground carefully. He positioned his men in the woods along Battle Branch, about a mile from Shallow Ford. The Loyalist column was strung out along the road, with the leading riders already approaching Cl...

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Battle of Shallow Ford: Ball Turner and Captain Bryan

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Among the Loyalists who did not flee was a Black man named Ball Turner. Period accounts describe him fighting from cover near the creek after the main column had broken, continuing to fire at the Patriot militia after most of his comrades had gone. The Patriots found his position...

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Battle of Shallow Ford: Henry Francis, the Only Patriot Killed

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Captain Henry Francis of the Virginia militia was the only Patriot killed at Shallow Ford. A tombstone at the site honors him. The Big Poplar Tree, a landmark at the skirmish site, is said to have been shot to pieces during the fighting. Francis was one casualty among the hundred...

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Battle of Shallow Ford: After Shallow Ford, King's Mountain

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Just two weeks before Shallow Ford, on October 7, 1780, a force of Patriot Overmountain Men had destroyed Major Patrick Ferguson's Loyalist command at the Battle of King's Mountain in present-day South Carolina. Ferguson himself was killed; his command was annihilated. Shallow Fo...

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