Battle of Charlotte
Who Fought
United States: 150
History & Significance
The Battle of Charlotte was fought on September 26, 1780 during the American Revolutionary War. It took place at what was then the Mecklenburg County courthouse; which is now the site of the Bank of America tower at Trade and Tryon Streets in uptown Charlotte, North Carolina. An advance guard of General Charles Cornwallis' army rode into town and encountered a well-prepared American militia under the command of William R. Davie in front of the court house. A skirmish ensued in which George Hanger, leading British cavalry, was wounded. The small American force, which had not intended more than token resistance, withdrew north toward Salisbury, North Carolina upon the arrival of Cornwallis and the main army.
Pursuant to the British "southern strategy" for winning the American Revolutionary War, British forces had captured Charleston, South Carolina early in 1780, and had driven Continental Army forces from South Carolina. Following his rout of the Continental Army at Camden in August 1780, British General Lord Cornwallis paused with his army in the Waxhaws region of northern South Carolina. Believing British and Loyalist forces to be in control of Georgia and South Carolina, he decided to turn north and address the threat posed by the Continental Army remnants in North Carolina. In mid-September he began moving north toward Charlotte, North Carolina.
Cornwallis' movements were shadowed by militia companies from North and South Carolina. One force under Thomas Sumter stayed back and harassed British and Loyalist outposts in the South Carolina backcountry, while another, led by Major William R. Davie, maintained fairly close contact with portions of his force as Cornwallis moved northward. Davie surprised a detachment of Cornwallis' Loyalist forces at Wahab's Plantation on September 20, and then moved on to Charlotte, where he set up an ambush to harass Cornwallis' vanguard.
Charlotte was then a small town, with two main roads crossing at the town center, where the Mecklenburg County courthouse dominated the intersection. The southern facade of the courthouse had a series of pillars, between which a stone wall about 3.5 feet (1.1 m) high had been constructed to provide an area that served as the local market. Davie positioned three rows of militia at and north of the courthouse, with one behind the stone wall, and placed cavalry companies on the east and west sides of the courthouse, covering the roads leading away in those directions. Finally, he put a company of 20 men behind a house on the southern road, where he was expecting the British advance.
The ground they fought on
The site of Battle of Charlotte lies on Stratheden Group, bedrock that formed in the Late Devonian. The rock here is sandstone and conglomerate, interbedded.
- Great Britain: 15-59 killed, wounded or missing
- United States: 23-30 killed, wounded or captured
Frequently Asked Questions
Everything a full report reveals about Battle of Charlotte
This page covers Battle of Charlotte. A full Aubrey report for the area pulls together this battle alongside scheduled monuments and everything else the record holds within a few miles:
Every location is different. Not every section appears for every place, only what the historical record actually holds turns up in a report.
Scheduled Monuments near Battle of Charlotte
Other modern Battles
Battles near Battle of Charlotte
Explore the landscape around this battlefield
Aubrey generates in-depth historical research for any location in the UK — drawing on Domesday records, scheduled monuments, Victorian OS maps, geological data and archaeological archives to tell the full story of a place.
- Battle of Charlotte · Wikipedia