Pre-Revolutionary War battle anniversary to be commemorated on Alamance site

In May of 1771, an armed group of backcountry farmers took on forces of Royal Gov. William Tryon in what is now Alamance County.

The anniversary will be commemorated this weekend.

Ten years before the Revolutionary War Battle of Guilford Court House, a local group known as “The Regulators” took up arms against the colonial government. The two-hour battle left almost 20 dead and hundreds more wounded.

On Saturday, reenactors portraying soldiers, field hospital workers, Royalist Gov. Tryon, among others, will recreate the experience at Alamance Battleground State Historic Site. 

The Regulators were upset about local corruption, and statewide taxation and voting rights issues, says Drew Neill, a historic interpreter for the site.

“I think the way that most North Carolinians remember this battle is a group of people that stood up for their rights against a corrupt, oppressive government,” he says. “And they lost, but they survived, and they lived to tell the tale and live to to fight another day.”

Neill says there’s an irony about the participants in the battle. A few years later, many of the The Regulators ended up supporting the British in the Revolutionary War, while many in Tryon’s militia became leaders in the fight for independence.