Breaking the Loyalists

On this episode we head down the flat road into Raft Swamp, where the pines close in and the ground swallows hoofprints. The date is October 15, 1781. The British are about to surrender at Yorktown, but here the fight still decides who controls the Cape Fear country. Loyalists gather on high ground and tear up a bridge, certain that cavalry will balk at water and mud. Major Joseph Graham ignores the script. He drives his dragoons off the road, through the wet, and up onto the causeway. The fight turns fast and rough. Sabres do the work. A rearguard fails. The night ends with trumpet calls and a broken Loyalist army. This is the end of something in North Carolina. It is also a reminder about boldness and terrain. The last big Tory force in the state dissolves, and the road to Wilmington opens. History does not always turn on a famous field. Sometimes it turns in a swamp.