The Moores Creek battlefield manages to look simultaneously well manicured and primordial. Encompassing only 87 acres, it’s a landscape from before the dinosaurs that happens to have a rubberized pathway winding through its tall, thin pines.

Tucked away in a forest some 22 miles northwest of Wilmington, North Carolina, the battlefield sits along a darkwater creek that spills its banks into even darker patches of swamp. This is Moores Creek itself, where, in February 1776, Patriots and Loyalists squared off with muskets, broadswords, and a pair of cannons. (And, yes, I did say “broadswords.”) Continue reading “A Visit to Moores Creek” →