This Day in History: The little-known Battle of Shallow Ford

On this day in 1780, a band of Loyalists is defeated at the lesser-known Battle of Shallow Ford.  It was the second Patriot victory within a matter of days!

The Battle of Shallow Ford was a relatively small battle, and it doesn’t usually get too much attention in history books. The bigger American victory at King’s Mountain, which occurred only one week earlier, tends to get all the attention instead.

Yet both battles were important. Each was a domino that fell, prompting British General Charles Cornwallis to pull out of North Carolina.

At about this time, many Americans had left their homes to join the Patriot effort against Cornwallis. The Patriot enthusiasm was great, of course, but it also left many homes in the area unprotected. A Loyalist force under Gideon and Hezekiah Wright decided to take advantage of the situation. They ravaged the countryside, destroying these unprotected properties as they marched to join Cornwallis near Charlotte. 

Naturally, local Patriots weren’t going to let these attacks go unanswered! 

A force of assorted Patriot militia gathered to meet the Loyalist threat.  On the morning of October 14, these Americans were on the west side of the Yadkin River near a wide crossing known as Shallow Ford. They spotted the Loyalists on the other side.

At least according to legend, when the two sides saw each other, cries of “Tory! Tory!” and “Rebel! Rebel” floated across the river.

The Loyalist and Patriot militia soon clashed.

“Intense fighting ensued for about forty-five minutes,” local historian Marcia D. Phillips explains. “One can imagine buckskin clad men with muskets dashing from tree to tree . . . . It is likely many of them personally knew those on the other side and that they yelled out to them by name . . . . This was backwoods fighting, an organic survival mode born of necessity on the frontier.”

A Loyalist officer was killed early in the fight and the Loyalists were soon discouraged and ready to retreat.  By some accounts, they yelled, “We are whipped! We are whipped!” as they broke up and began retreating toward their homes.

The Loyalists lost a little more than a dozen men.  Only one Patriot was killed.  

The Battle of Shallow Ford might not be one of the more glamorous, flashy battles in our history, but it still served an important purpose: It helped to loosen the British grip on the South.

The surrender at Yorktown was only a year away.

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Primary Sources:

• Daniel W. Barefoot, Touring NC Revolutionary War Sites (1998)

• Encyclopedia of North Carolina (William S. Powell ed. 2006)

• Marcia D. Phillips, Historic Shallow Ford in Yadkin Valley: Crossroads Between East and West (2022)

• Robert M. Dunkerly, Redcoats on the Cape Fear: The Revolutionary War in Southeastern North Carolina (revised edition; 2012)

• The Battle of Shallow Ford (California Society, Sons of the American Revolution; October 14, 2023)