OPINION — Thomas Paine’s “Common Sense” may have persuaded the American colonists of the need for independence, but it is one thing to favor independence and quite another to pick up arms to obtain it.
We tend to think of war as being won by large armies on vast fields commanded by generals. But small victories can have a big effect. One such victory, mostly forgotten, occurred 250 years ago, on Feb. 27, 1776, at Moore’s Creek in North Carolina.
At the beginning of 1776, North Carolina was deeply divided; the British considered it ripe for exploitation. They decided to raise a 10,000-man force of civilian “loyalists,” march to the coast, join up with British troops, and move north, retaking the Carolinas and opening a southern front.
