Today, on the 245th anniversary of The Battle of Waxhaws, we revisit the Moravian account of the battle from June 8th, 1780. "June 8. The officers who came yesterday rode away with their subalterns. We feared that the wounded men from Abbots Creek would be brought here, but heard that they were being taken to Virginia. Three of them came hither on foot, but had neither money nor food, so Br. Bonn bandaged them and gave them half a loaf of bread, and they left again. The Collect under the Doctrinal Text today was: 'Lord, teach us both faithful and useful to prove, That friend and that foe may believe in our love.' These soldiers gave us some details concerning the bloody action at Hanging Rock. Before they were aware of it they had been surrounded by the English, and laid down their arms, but as the English commander rode up one man seized a gun and shot at him, and then the massacre began.Between three and four hundred were killed or taken prisoner, and those who could ran away. The militia were released until further orders, but the regulars were held." In her footnotes, archivist and historian Adelaide Fries says the following: "Bishop Graff, writing in the Salem Diary, speaks of the Buford and Tarleton engagement as taking place at Hanging Rock, but that name is usually applied to another engagement which took place in August at a place not very far away. Colonel Buford's note to Colonel Tarleton, refusing to surrender, is dated from the Waxhaws. Tarleton's "Campaigns of 1780 and 1781" presents the English side of the story, while the "Memoirs of the War in the Southern Department of the United States," by Lieutenant-Colonel Henry Lee, gives the American account. In his foot-notes to the latter book Gen. Robert E. Lee accepts Tarleton's figures as to losses on both sides. Later historians, from Bancroft down, have also accepted Tarleton's figures, but have denied the rest of his story, accusing* him of ruthless massacre and sustaining the validity of the use of the term "Tarleton's Quarters" as synonymous with heartless brutality. Even General Lee, in his otherwise generous foot-notes, refuses to credit the English claim that the Americans threw down their arms and then fired, which gives unusual interest to this story of retreating soldiers, told as they passed through Salem immediately after the engagement." This view of the events of the battle shows the overwhelming neutral stance that the pacifist Moravians in Wachovia have taken at this point in the war. This will quickly change with their October 19th, 1780 proclamation of support of the North Carolina State Congress. Source: Information- Records of the Moravians in North Carolina. Volume IV: 1780-1783 Images- From the New York Public Library. (Photo by Smith Collection/Gado/Getty Images). (fb)

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