This article is from Joe Pyle, j.pyle@computer.org This article was published by the Groveton News during the week of 23 August 1997. Groveton is the County Seat of Trinity County, TX. It was written by Benjamin Malrey Pyle. In June of this summer, I vacationed in North Carolina and sauntered around an old Revolutionary War battleground named Alamance near the Haw River in today's present community of Burlington, North Carolina. This is the Northwest territory of the Carolinas. Before there was a teabag thrown over the side of a ship in Boston Harbor, the citizenry of this backwoods country rebelled against high and over taxation imposed on them by officials of North Carolina and the British government These frontiersmen began to gather in groups and protest the burden of taxes. They became known as Regulators, so named because they wanted to regulate themselves rather than submit to dishonest sheriffs and extortionate fees. Herman Husband provided the leadership for these frontiersmen ready and ripe for revolt. Dr. John Pyle of Chatham County belonged to the Regulators. He was a medical doctor and not militantly talented. He was a Loyalist, having spent his entire life under British Rule. He never considered himself a Tory, but was against those who wanted to destroy law and order in the frontier. In the spring of 1775, King George instructed the Governor of North Carolina to grant leading gentlemen a commission. John Pyle was commissioned a Colonel in the British Army with authority to raise armies and grant commissions up to and including Major. Col. Pyle probably commissioned his son, John, as a Captain. Col. Pyle and his son, John, were constantly engaged in behalf of the Royalists. Records do not indicate that Col. Pyle participated in the 1771 battle of Alamance, but do show that Governor Tryon from New Bern, North Carolina, who put down the rebellion, requisitioned six wagon loads of grain and food supplies for the troops from Dr. Pyle. In 1775, Col. Pyle and his son, John, participated in the battle of Moore's Creek Bridge, were captured by the Patriots and imprisoned at Halifax. The Pyles and other prisoners, whose presence in North Carolina endangered the Revolutionary movement, were sent by the Provincial Congress to Virginia or Philadelphia. While being transported, the Pyles escaped and returned to Chatham County. Dr. Pyle , on December 13, 1776, appealed to the Provincial Congress, took an oath of loyalty to the state, and upon giving bond, was permitted to remain in the State of North Carolina. In the fall of 1778, Sir Henry Clinton, the British commander in America, moved his operation south to Charleston, SC. Clinton had failed to defeat George Washington's Army in the North but had been very successful in the south. Benjamin Lincoln had surrendered his entire Patriot Army to Clinton. Shortly thereafter in June 1780,Clinton returned to New York. Before he left he turned the British command over to Lord Charles Cornwallis with orders to complete the conquest of the Carolinas. Cornwallis appealed to Loyalists to join his army. Cornwallis' appeal rekindled Dr. Pyle's sentiments and the Colonel raised a three to four hundred man army of Loyalists to join with the British forces. Col. Pyle passed word to Cornwallis and requested an escort for his army. Cornwallis instructed Tarleton to rendezvous with Pyle at a plantation a few miles from Hillsborough. General Greene's Continental Army was in North Carolina and his elite cavalry was commanded by General Henry "Light Horse Harry" Lee, father of Confederate Civil War General Robert E. Lee. Lee's men had captured two British officers and through interrogation learned that Tarleton's unit was nearby in Hillsborough. On the same day Lee's men had met two of Col. Pyle's men who tragically mistook Lee's legions as Loyalists because they were dressed in similar attire. Light Horse Lee took advantage of the mistaken identity and encouraged Pyle's men to bring the Colonel's troops into camp the next day. Col. Pyle and his men were deceived so completely that he was shaking hands with Light Horse Harry Lee, exercising military commander theatrics of salutatory greetings, when Lee's legions unleashed their wrath upon the unsuspecting Loyalists. The Patriots decimated Pyle's command in a few minutes with sword and saber, killing and wounding over 90 Loyalists. Col. Pyle escaped on his horse and was pursued by the Patriots. Pyle jumped off his horse and hid out of sight in a pond until his men found him seriously wounded. Lee's legions inhumanely butchered Pyle's militia while they were begging for quarter and without making the slightest resistance. In the History attributed to Charles Steadman, Cornwallis' Civilian Commissary, the author repeats the charge that the American Patriots refused quarter to Pyle's men. "Humanity shudders," the author wrote, "at the recital of so foul a massacre." Pyle's defeat was more commonly referred to as "Pyle's massacre" or "Pyle's Hacking Match". The British government charged Light Horse Harry Lee with war crimes for the cruelty in which he had slaughtered the Loyalists while pleading for quarter. An excerpt from the Times-News of Burlington, NC, written by Burlington City Councilman Sam Powell, who helped gather research material for Col. Pyle's marker, said the battle brought shame on Henry Lee because the British accused him of war crimes. Powell said historians believed Robert E. Lee graduated from West Point Military Academy and went on to become a famed Civil War General in part to vindicate his father's name. Pyle's defeat and a short time later, Tarleton's mistaken attack on a smaller group of loyalists brought an end to the Loyalists' allegiance to the Crown in the Carolinas. Col. Pyle, still suffering from wounds, went to see Cornwallis and requested the British commander to make him a Brigadier General. It is believed that Cornwallis refused the request. Pyle then decided he would take matters in his own hands and honored an invitation to a societal party in Philadelphia at which General George Washington was in attendance. As was the custom in those days, an occasional party was attended by officers of both sides of the conflict. It is believed that Col. Pyle met George Washington and agreed to join his staff. The records show that both Col. John Pyle and his son surrendered to Cap. Wm. O'Neal of Washington's army. Both men being doctors then devoted their time and services to caring for the wounded in the Patriot Army. Since Pyle had been with Cornwallis and at his camp, he knew much of the plans and proceeded to help George Washington defeat Cornwallis at Yorktown. It is said that King George III offered five thousand pounds for the capture of Col. Pyle. For Col. Pyle's services to Washington's Patriot Army, many Pyle descendants are able to go into the National Patriotic organizations in the United States. John Pyle of Sam Houston's Texas Army was a grandson to Col. John Pyle of North Carolina fame. This descendant is buried at Pyle Prairie Cemetery in Kaufman County, Texas. My work on this subject is minuscule compared to sources from which I gathered my material for this story. As mentioned heretofore, Sam Powell, City Councilman, Burlington, NC; Pat Bailey of Alamance County Historical Association; Dr. George Troxler, Associate Professor of History, Elon College; Howard Thornton Pyle, Publisher of the "Pyle Family in America 1642-1980". To Ms. Kelly May, Burlington Chamber of Commerce and Ms. Reba G. Thomas, Register of Deeds, Chatham County, Pittsboro, NC, I give the utmost credit in recognition of a multitude of hard working hours dedicated by them and others I have not mentioned. Sincerely, Ben Pyle. Thanks. Joe W. Pyle j.pyle@computer.org