Elizabethtown

On August 27, 1781, fighting broke out at Elizabethtown, situated in Bladen County, North Carolina. Thomas Robeson and Thomas Brown led Patriot forces against a Loyalist North Carolina militia under the joint command of John Slingsby and David Godden. Both Slingsby and Godden suffered mortal wounds during the clash, and a number of their men scattered into a nearby ravine along the river while retreating. That gully has carried the name "Tory Hole" from that day forward.

Background

In the summer of 1781, Loyalist forces, known as Tories, pushed a band of some sixty to seventy Patriot militiamen from their homes. The displaced men found shelter among the Whigs of Duplin county, though they had almost nothing left in the way of supplies or clothing. Determined to reclaim the ground they had lost, they resolved to head back and fight, naming Thomas Brown and Robeson to lead them. Once they had scraped together what ammunition they could find, the group set out on a wilderness march of about fifty miles, living on dried meat and scant bread along the way.

When they reached the Cape Fear River close to Elizabethtown, they discovered that no boats remained to ferry them across. The Loyalists had deliberately cleared them away as a precaution. Undeterred, the Patriots waded through the river under cover of darkness, keeping their weapons and powder dry as they went. Waiting on the other side were more than three hundred Loyalist troops under Colonel Slingsby and Colonel Godden, who had turned Elizabethtown into a fortified position guarded with tight security.

The day before the fighting began, a local woman named Sallie Salter walked into the Loyalist camp under the pretense of selling eggs. What the Loyalists did not realize was that she was secretly working for the Patriot side. Salter carried what she learned back to Colonels Thomas Robeson and Thomas Brown, who commanded a unit of the Bladen County militia, and her intelligence convinced the two men to strike the Loyalist position. Though badly outnumbered, Robeson and Brown devised a scheme to make their small force sound far larger, shouting orders to invented "phantom" troops so that the enemy would believe reinforcements were near. Under the cover of night, the Patriots moved on the Loyalist camp and struck without warning.

Battle

The night before the fighting began at Elizabethtown, sixty-nine Patriot fighters made ready to strike. Under cover of darkness, they posted a single guard to watch over the horses while the rest stripped down and crossed the Cape Fear River on foot, the current rising to their chests. On reaching the far bank, they toweled off, dressed again, and checked their arms in preparation for combat. Splitting into three roughly equal bands of about twenty-five men, they closed in on the Loyalist encampment from several angles, moving without a sound.

The scheme worked exactly as intended, throwing Colonel Slingsby's sizeable body of Tories into disarray before they knew what was happening. The plan called for the fighting to begin the instant a Tory sentry discharged his musket. As the Whigs crept closer under that silent cover, a nervous guard called out a challenge three separate times, met only by stillness from the ranks. He eventually fired a shot skyward and bolted into the trees, and that single report unleashed a storm of musket fire into the Loyalist ranks. Nothing but the muzzle flashes cut through the blackness of the night. Because the attackers kept converging from every side without noise, the rattled Loyalists had no way of judging how many men opposed them. Adding to the confusion, the Patriots roared "Washington!" as they charged, convincing the Loyalists that they faced the full might of General Washington's army.

Once their officers fell, the bulk of the Loyalist force broke and ran, many plunging into a ravine nearby that afterward earned the name Tory Hole, and others vanishing into the surrounding woodland. When morning light came, the Whigs tallied seventeen dead among the Loyalists, Colonel Slingsby among them. Not a single Patriot lost his life, and only four came away wounded.

Present day

Among all the engagements fought during the Revolutionary War within North Carolina's Cape Fear region, historians now consider Elizabethtown to hold second place in overall significance. The victory did more than break Tory control in the moment; it also kept local Loyalists from ever again amassing meaningful power in that part of the state. In recognition of this lasting impact, a historical marker now stands on Main Street in Elizabethtown, honoring both the battle itself and the site known locally as the "Tory Hole."