So What Happened after Guilford Courthouse?

 So What Happened after Guilford Courthouse?

This is the part that most historians have let go by the wayside. Yet I think it is the part that best describes the sacrifice and determination of the patriot cause.

Right after the battle was fought, Greene retreated in order to preserve his army, and the losses. He went northward toward Virginia, encamping at Ninety-Six where he rearmed, and re supplied, then moved north to Virginia.

Cornwallis did go to Virginia as well, but it took him some time to get there. He first went to the Quaker Settlement known then as New Garden, just down the road from the battlefield, he left the most direly wounded in the care of the Quakers to care for them, and made his way down south following The Deep River. It was said that the injured that were able to travel straggled along behind making their way as best they were able, but that some of them did not make it to the next encampment in Randolph County at Bell's Mill. There were dead, and dying strewn all along the way.Lord Cornwallis actually had planned to encamp here even before the battle was fought, and had sent the baggage wagons carrying his personal effects, and those effects of his officers ahead with an armed detachment.

I need to state here that this information I gleaned from a lot of sources.  Most is taken from: Revolutionary incidents and sketches of character chiefly in the "Old North State" : volumes 1 and 2  Statement.Resp.:  by E. W. Caruthers ; typed and indexed
by Ruth F. Thompson.  Authors:  Caruthers, Eli W  Caruthers 1799-1865 (Main Author)  Thompson, Ruth F (Added Author)

Other sources came from Rev War Pension Records Statements from those who had served, or from their survivors. Additional material gathered from The Randolph Room of the Asheboro Public Library, and from the Book of Jennifer Welborn," Martha  McFarlane McGee Bell, The Case for Caruthers. Her book was her mission statement to cement the honor and place in history for Matha Mc Farlane McGee Bell, of whom Jennifer is a direct descendant.

I had several interviews with Jennifer about Martha, and together we applied for Registry for the grave yard containing Martha McGee Bell, and the remains of her husband in an unmarked grave, along with those of Thomas Dougan, Rev War Soldier, and his parents, and children. Though we were unsuccessful in doing so, we feel that we generated enough interest in the graveyards preservation that it will remain undisturbed at least for a long while we hope.

It is here that I will begin to transition from the Battle of Guilford Courthouse, and cover not only what happened in the days after the battle, but I will endeavor to introduce you to the main characters  those people who fought in the Battle, and were true heroes of the Revolution in every way. People who went on to develop their homeland, and make it the great nation that it would eventually become. I hold these people as my true life heroes, I have the utmost respect for them. I have walked in the dirt where they walked, and I have wiped the dirt off their tombstones. I even stood by them and made a promise that I would do all that I could possibly do to preserve their memory, and tell their story so that their efforts would not be forgotten.