~ Battle of Haw River ~
or 'Pyle's Massacre'
Febuary 25, 1781 ... American Victory



Gen. Lighthorse Harry Lee is mistaken for a Loyalist, he rides right up to the Tory lines and shakes British Colonel Pyle's hand.

For understanding the action which follows, it is useful to realize that Lee's troopers were dressed in green uniforms, similar to those worn by Colonel Banastre Tarleton's British cavalry serving under Cornwallis. Also, natives of the area just west of Haw River were mostly Loyalist, and many of them were Germans who spoke and understood English only with difficulty. Pickens and Lee learned on 25 February that the much detested Tarleton was detached from the main British army, foraging fifteen or twenty miles west of Hillsborough. They set out to catch him. Pickens reported the outcome of their efforts in a letter to General Greene:

Camp Rippey's .[Dickey's] Feb 26th 1781
Sir
....we had intelligence of Tarleton's proceeding towards Butler's on Haw River. We immediately pursued but found they had crossed and marched for Major O'Neals, seven Miles from it, whither, after the utmost dispatch in crossing, we likewise followed. So very little was the expectation of an American party, the Inhabitants seemed prodigiously rejoiced, imagining we were a fresh party of British. We found them chiefly in arms and prepared to join Tarlton that Evening. Never was there a more glorious opportunity of cutting off a detachment than this, when pushing on with the utmost hope and our Men in the highest spirits, our sanguine expectations were blasted by our falling in with a body of from two to three hundred Tories, under command of Colonel Pyles, under the same deception they suffered Colonel Lee's Horse to pass equal with their front. Our Men were in some measure under the same mistake, but soon found out, and nigh one hundred were killed and the greatest part of the others wounded, unfortunately the Dragoons got separated from us and our Militia could not be kept from firing. This brought Night on us and as it could not be supposed but in that time Tarlton must have been apprized of it, Colonel Lee and myself determined to retire to some plantation and attack them by day break.... [efforts to catch Tarleton failed] .....We were joined by Colonel .[William]. Preston .[of Montgomery County, VA, a 'rifle county']. About three hours previous to our march yesterday, with about three hundred. Major's.[Joseph]. Winston and .[John]. Armstrong has about one hundred each. Colonel .[William]. Moore from Caswell joined me on Saturday with one hundred more.....Colonel Paisly .[John Peasley]. of Guildford.....came in with a few Men.... This Affair.....has knocked up Toryism altogether in this part..... I am sir your very humble servant.......ANDerw PICKENS

Other than Preston's, all reinforcements mentioned in the report are North Carolinians. The shifting makeup of Pickens' body of North Carolina and Virginia riflemen is a matter of some importance to this history as it would finally come to be commanded by Colonel William Campbell and would fight alongside the Augusta and Rockbridge militias on the day of the main battle at Guilford Court House.

'Pyle's Massacre', so called, was a disaster for the British cause, the worst since the Cowpens. The Tories were marching to join Tarleton. Ninety of them were slaughtered outright, and over a hundred more fell wounded. Some tried to surrender with phrases like 'Ich ergebe mich', to uncomprehending, battle-happy Catawbas and crackers; others protesting in the fading light, 'we are the King's men', to Lee's looming swordsmen on great war horses, thinking they were cut down by the King's dragoons. What's more, rumors of the event, both accurate and fantastic, rushed through the area and just about ruined local enthusiasm for enlistment in Cornwallis' army. As Pickens reported, Toryism, as a factor in the campaign, was 'knocked up altogether'. The patriots, according to Lee, lost but a single horse, shot by a little band of Tories that tried to fight back.


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