126 Chronicles of the Cape Fear River

1745, to raise a Highland regiment for the King, and gave the
rank of captain to Flora’s husband. This identified the heroine
with the Royalist party, and had the effect of securing the ad-
hesion of hundreds of gallant men who would otherwise have
held back or joined the other side. When the royal standard
was raised at Cross Creek, 1,500 Highlanders assembled in
arms. Flora, it is said, accompanied her husband, and inspired
the men with her own enthusiasm. She slept the first night in
the camp, and did not return to her home till she saw the troops
begin their march. The fate that awaited this gallant little
force is known to all readers of history. It had got down the
river as far as Moore’s Creek, on its way to join Governor
Martin, when, finding further advance checked by a force of
Revolutionists under Lillington and Caswell, while another
under Colonel Moore was hurrying up in pursuit, it was driven
to attack the enemy in front on ground of his own choosing.
In the first onslaught its officers fell, confusion ensued, and
after a severe struggle the Highlanders were routed.1 Flora’s
husband was taken prisoner and thrown into Halifax jail.
Many of those who escaped are said to have joined another
Highland regiment which was raised for the King under the
title of the North Carolina Highlanders and fought the Revo-
lutionists till the close of the war. So deeply had they identi-
fied themselves with the royal cause that when the war was
ended most of them, including Flora Macdonald and her hus-
band, left America and returned to Scotland. Those who re-
mained in the settlement, divided by the war, were soon reunited
by peace, became, as in duty bound, good citizens, and resumed

the task of taming the savage wilderness in which they had cast
their lot.

When the troubles between North and South were gathering
to a head in 1860, the Highlanders, with their conservative
instincts, were almost to a man opposed to secession. But,
taught to believe that their allegiance was due primarily, not to

‘J. A. McAllister, of Lumberton, N. C., says:

“In connection with the Battle of Moore’s Creek, it may interest a
good many to know that the capture of Gen. Donald McDonald was
effected by William Whitfield and his brother-in-law, Williams. This
fact I learn from the genealogical record of the Whitfield-Bryan fami-
lies. It is stated in the record that William and his brother, Needham
Whitfield, both took part in the battle. William belonged to the light
horse. He and Needham were sons of William Whitfield and his wife,
Anne Bryan, and there are but few families in North Carolina more
numerous or more highly respected.”

The Revolution : 127

the Federal Government but to the State, no sooner did North
Carolina go out, than they, with Highland loyalty, followed ;
and no men crowded to the front more eagerly, or fought more
valiantly or more desperately to the bitter end.

Almost every man of those I met had served in the Confed-
erate Army, and had left dead brothers or sons on the battle-
field. Others, following the example of those who had left
Scotland after the downfall of the Stuarts, and America after
the triumph of the Revolution, had left the States altogether,
and gone off to Mexico.

Amongst those I found at Wilmington was one who was a
fine specimen of the material that the Highlands have given to
Carolina, a spare, dark-visaged, soldierly fellow—Gen. William
MacRae—whose personal valour and splendid handling of his
troops in battle had caused him to be repeatedly complimented

by Lee in general orders.
He seemed to belong to a fighting family. His eight brothers
had all been either in the army or the navy. Their father, Gen.

Alexander MacRae, had fought in the war with England in
1812, and, on the outbreak of the War between the States,

though then a man of seventy years of age, again took the field,
and commanded what was known as MacRae’s battalion. He
died not many weeks after I parted from him at Wilmington.
He was the grandson of the Rev. Alexander MacRae, minister
of Kintail, two of whose sons fell fighting for the Pretender at
Culloden. The others emigrated to North Carolina, and one of
them, Philip, who had also served in the Prince’s army, cher-
ished so deadly a hate of the English in consequence of the
atrocities of Cumberland, that he would never learn the English
language, but spoke Gaelic to the day of his death. The family
settled in Moore County, which is part of what is still called
the “Seotch Country.”

The Life of Flora Macdonald was published by her grand-
daughter in the form of an autobiography, said to be based on
family records. The following is the passage in which the
Scottish heroine is made to describe the episode in her life con-
nected with America: ,

“In 1775 my husband put in practice a plan he and I often
talked over—that of joining the emigrants who were leaving
their native hills to better their fortunes on the other side of the
Atlantic. We were induced to favour this scheme more par-
ticularly as a succession of failures of the crops and unforeseen