by Rankin, H.F.
UNCP 1971
434p £ 26

The title of this thoroughly excellent work is a trifle misleading in that it is actually a comprehensive study of that state's 'war effort' during the Revolutionary War.

This begins with a very detailed account of the campaign culminating in the battle of Moore's Creek Bridge, and goes on to describe in immense detail the raising and subsequent service of the North Carolina Continentals, and of the militias raised at various times for the defence of North Carolina and adjoining states.

In itself this would justify buying the book, but Rankin spends rather more time in discussing the very real difficulties faced by the North Carolina authorities in recruiting and supplying their troops - the biggest impediment to recruiting turns out not to have been the presence of a large loyalist community, but a shortage of cash and higher bounties offered by predatory recruiters from other states.

At first North Carolina's role was simply to feed troops northwards to reinforce Washington's army, but the arrival of substantial British forces in the south saw the state become a battleground. It must have been tempting at this point for the author to fill out his pages with a comprehensive and detailed account of Cornwallis's southern campaign, but remarkably Rankin succeeds in avoiding this. Instead, while providing a lucid overview and concluding that while the American General Greene lost battles he undoubtedly outgeneralled Cornwallis, the well known encounters at Hannah's Cowpens and Guilford Courthouse are sketched in fairly lightly - after all excellent accounts of both are readily available elsewhere - and instead we are treated to a wonderfully detailed and exciting account of the much less significant [and consequently rather neglected] battle of Eutaw Springs.

The only criticism which I feel can be made of this book is that more could have been said of the parallel Loyalist war effort - if only to round off the picture. It is a pity that the detailed coverage of Loyalist troops at Moore's Creek Bridge is not continued to the same degree during the later southern campaigns. Nevertheless it is sobering to discover that the infamous Colonel Banastre Tarleton appears to have cut up more Loyalist units than the 'Patriots' managed to, by working on the principle that anyone not wearing a red coat must be a rebel.

Thoroughly recommended.