Abstract:
An examination of the two week occupation and plundering of Beaufort by British troops that began on April 5, 1782, a full six months after Lord Cornwallis' surrender at Yorktown, to identify why the battle took place, what the purpose of the invasion was, and why coastal North Carolina was targeted so late in the Revolutionary War. Particular attention is given to the career of the mastermind of the attack, North Carolina loyalist John Cruden, the commissioner of sequestered estates for Lord Cornwallis, and his motives for attachment to the British cause.