Episode Details

In February 1776, less than five months before the Declaration of Independence, a force of Scottish Gaelic loyalists charged with broadswords across a misty North Carolina creek in what became the last recorded Highland broadsword charge in history. This episode explains how Royal Governor Josiah Martin tried to build a loyalist army from Scottish Highlanders, former Regulators, and coastal loyalists, and why that fragile coalition fell apart before it ever reached the coast.

We follow the cat-and-mouse chase through the swamps between Brigadier General Donald MacDonald and Patriot commanders James Moore and Richard Caswell, and the clever sabotage at Moores Creek Bridge, where Caswell's men pulled up the planks and greased the rails with soap and animal fat. The battle lasted about ten minutes, yet it secured North Carolina for the Patriots and derailed British plans in the South for years.

• How the Highland charge worked: one volley, then a sprint with broadswords before the enemy could reload
• Why Scottish settlers bound by loyalty oaths and Regulators with local grudges sided with the Crown
• The mass desertions that shrank the loyalist army from about 3,500 to roughly 1,500 men
• Caswell's overnight move across the creek and the greased bridge rails that broke the charge
• The aftermath: 850 loyalists captured, $15,000 in Spanish gold seized, and the tragedy of poet John MacRae