t= ^H . ^1 )^V V |E 242 G9 G87 'Copy I EXTRACTS PROM THE Memorial Volume OF THE GUILFORD BATTLE GROUND COMPANY, GREENSBOROUGH, N. C. 1894. A ■/• V- V .:ti'^:W%€W0')% Cia^iuau:b ^^^lu^^,4^*lS/, /^f4- f -^ .r- t, w H CD o K /Sl ! J- campaign, ackiiowlcclgcs tliat its events "were of so momentous importance as to place within the grasp of the revolted Colonies the independence and sovereignty for which they had been so long contending." This scholarly paper of Professor Daves ^vas afterwards read before the Maryland Historical Society, on November 14th, 1892, and is printed in their Fund Publications. At the conclusion of this address, "Mar\land, My Maryland!" was sung, and then Professor E. A. Alder- man, of the North Carolina Industrial College for Girls, delivered the response on behalf of the Guilford Battle Ground Company^ He dwelt upon the sentiment of patriotism and the inspiration that comes from the scenes of heroic deeds; he accepted for North Carolina the gift from Maryland with reverent gratitude, and prayed that the massive granite block, with its legend of "Manly Deeds and Womanly Words." may stand forever a fresh and sympathetic bond of amity between the proud Commonwealth that gave it and the proud Common- wealth that received it. After the singing of "The Old North State," and the presentation of flowers to the speakers by the ladies of Greensboro, the whole company marched to the black- and-gold enwrapped Monument, where Miss PLdith Hagan gracefully recited a poem by Mrs. E. D. Hundley on the Battle of Guilford, and on its conclusion the Memorial was unveiled to the accompanying music of "Honour the Brave," and with greetings of enthusiastic applause. The huge unhewn stone stands out grandly in its rugged simplicity, with which contrasts happily the artistic finish of the handsome bronze tablets. A lofty pole is planted near by, and from it floats on festal days the brilliant heraldic flag which Maryland has inherited from the Lords Baltimore. 4 MAJOR JOHN DAVES. Major John Daves, of Newbern, North Carolina, was* born in 1748 in what is now Mecklenburg County, Virginia. He was brought when very young to Craven County, North Carolina, in which County, on September 29th, 1750, a grant for six hundred and forty acres of land was issued by Governor Gabriel Johnston to his uncle, Richard Daves. William Daves also purchased land in Craven County as early as March, 1750, and in a deed bearing date 30th April, 1754, he is described as "late of the Colony of Virginia, but now of 'Newbern town.' " The ancestors of John Daves were English. The first of the name in this country came from London about the middle of the 17th century, and settled in Virginia, in what was afterwards Chesterfield Count}-; whence his descendants moved into the counties to the Southward, and into North Carolina. The following extract from Smith's Obituary, P. 33, is said to refer to this family: "1652, December 24th. Died, John Daves, broaker; buried in St. Olave's, Old Jewry. His son, Thomas Daves, a bookseller, was afterwards an Alderman, and Lord Mayor of London, enriched by the legacy of Hugh Audley." To this Daves there is reference, under date of November 23rd, 1662, in Bohn's edition of Pepys' Diary. On 25th October, 1770, John Daves purchased from the Commissioners of the town of Newbern the premises occupied by him during his lifetime as his homestead; an unusual condition of the Commissioners' deed being that within eighteen months from the date of its execution there should be built on the land "a house at least 24x16 feet of stone, brick or frame," a failure to cbmply with which made void the conveyance. Shortly 5 thereafter he married his first wife, Sally, daut^'luer of John Council Bryan, a planter, of which marriage there was a son, John, whc^ died in early childhood. In the stirring- times previous to the Revolution, and during that war, the men of Newbern were active and prominent. Her Minute Men, under Caswell, bore a conspicuous part in the victorious campaign of Moore's Creek, in the vVinter of 1776, and it is said that John Daves then served as a private. But the first record we have of his services during the Revolution, throughout the whole of which he was in the field, is as Quarter- master of the Second North Carolina Regiment of the Continental Line, June 7th, 1776. This Regiment, with the First, participated in the successful defence of Charleston, South Carolina, in June, 1776, and the bearing and efficiency of the North Carolinians were highly commended by General Charles Lee. Soon afterwards all the North Carolina Continental Regiments, or Battalions, as they were then called, were brigaded under command of Brigadier-General James Moore. General Moore died in April, 1777, and the command devolved upon General Francis Nash, who was trans- ferred, with his Brigade, to the army of General Washington. These troops acquitted themselves with credit at the battle of Brandywine, in September, 1777, and were heavily engaged at Germantown, where the>' lost General Nash, Colonel Edward Buncombe and Lieutenant-Colonel Henry Irwin, of the Fifth Regiment, Captain Jacob Turner and many others. John Dave.s, who had been commissioned Ensign in the Second Regiment, September 30th, 1776, distinguished himself in this battle, and his commission as First Lieutenant bears its date, October 4th, 1777. With his comrades he shared the miseries of the memorable Winter of ^777-7^, at Valley Forge, the Brigade being then commanded by General Lachlan Mcintosh, of Georgia. In June following, by virtue of a resolution of Congress passed in May, 1778, the nine Regiments of the Brigade were consolidated into four, and many of its officers were retired, or assigned to other commands; Lieutenant Daves was ainong those retained. At Monmouth, in June, 1778, the Brigade was next in action, and the winter of 1778—79 was passed at Morris- town, New Jersey. Two Companies of the Second Regiment formed part of the assaulting column of General Anthony Wayne at Stony Point, New York, July i6th, 1779, and were warmly commended by him for their gallant behaviour. Major Hardy Murfree commanded the detachment, and Lieutenant Daves, who was severely wounded in the attack, is said to have been a volunteer in the "Forlorn Hope," led by Lieutenant G'bbon, of Pennsylvania, afterwards of Virginia. Lieutenants Daves and Gibbon, both of whom subsequently attained the title of Major, were ever after intimate friends. After his recovery. Lieutenant Daves went with his Regiment, in the Spring of 1780, to the relief of Charleston, South Carolina, and was made prisoner of war at the surrender of that city by General Benjamin Lincoln to Sir Henry Clinton, 12th May, 1780. By this calamity North Carolina was deprived, at a time of sorest need, of all her veteran Continental troops, many of whom, including their distinguished General, James Hogun, died while prisoners of war. Having been exchanged, Lieutenant Daves was assigned, January ist, 1781, to the Third of the four new Regiments levied to supply the places of those lost at Charleston. These Regiments, raised and equipped only after incredible labor, were not organized in time to bear a part in the Guilford campaign, but three of them, constituting the Brigade of General Jethro Sunnier, and officered by veterans of long experience, won for themselves at Eutaw Springs, September 8th, 178 1, the highest enco- miums for their bravery and steadiness. In his report of the battle, General Greene says of them: "I am at a loss which most to admire, the gallantry of the officers or the good conduct of the men." After the battle of Eutaw, General Sumner was recalled to North Carolina to punish and overawe certain bands of Tories, one of which, under the notorious David Fanning, had captured, at Hillsboro, on September 13th, 1781, Governor Thomas Burke. Sumner's stay in North Carolina was short, for we find him, with his command, again in South Larolina, in February, 1782, at Ponpon, where, on the 6th of that month, there was a reassign- ment of the officers of the North Carolina Line, Captain John Daves— for on the day of the battle of Eutaw Springs he had been promoted to that rank — retaining his position in the Third Regiment. In April, 1782, Captain Daves married at Halifax, North Carolina, Mary Haynes, then in the thirty-first year of her age. She was the widow of Oroondatis Davis, of that place, and daughter of Andrew Haynes. Her mother, Anne Eaton, was a daughter of William Eaton, of Bute, (Warren) County, and Mary Rives, of Virginia, his wife. Upon the reduction of the Continental Army in January, 1783, Captain Daves and most of his fellow officers were retired, and placed on "waiting orders" until November 15th, 1783, when, with the return of peace, he was mustered out of service. By a resolution of Congress, passed in September, 1783, officers of the Continental Line, who had served for a certain length of time, were promoted one grade "by Brevet." The promotion, which was honorary only, was in recognition of long and faithful s'ervi'ce, and it was probably to this resolution that Captain Daves owed his title of Major, by which he was always known after the war. The State Society of the Cincinnati, composed of officers of the Continental Line, was organized at Hillsboro, in October, 1783, with General Jethro Sumner as President, and Rev. Adam Boyd as Secretary. Major Daves was one of the original members of the Society — 5ixtv-tvvo in all — but unfortunately it was short-lived. Public sentiment in this State, and elsewhere, was adverse to the Society at that time, and nothing is known of its existence since 1790. Its interesting records are probably lost, but it was represented in the meetings of tlie General Society, held in Philadelphia, in 1784, 1787 and 1790, when it disappears from the record. The names and rank of its original members have, however, been preserved.* Major Daves was elected Collector of the Port of Beaufort, "with office at Newbern," by the Legislature, which sat at Hillsboro, in April, 1784, and at the same session an Act was passed authorizing the Continental Congress to collect duties on all foreign merchandise entering at the ports of the State. But in 1789 the State ratified the Constitution of the United States, and that prerogative having thereby passed to the General Gov- ernment, President V/ashington appointed John Daves, on the 9th of February, 1790, Collector of the Port of Newbern, and on the 6th of March, 1792, advanced him to "Inspector of Surveys and Ports of No. 2 District — Port of Newbern," an office held by him until his resignation in January, 1800. In May, 1787, Major Daves was elected one of the "Commissioners of the Town of Newbern," a body •University Magazine, No. 6, Mav, i8g3, and January, 1894. which, at that time and previously, had, in addition to its other powers, authority "To Grant, Convey and Acknowledge in Fee, to any ])erson requesting the same, anv lot or lots in the said town, not already taken up and save I." Many conveyances of these Commissioners are registered in the County of Craven. An Act of Assembly, passed in 1789, appointed John Daves and others vestrymen of Christ Church Parish, Newbern, a parish originally established by law in 171 5, and first called Craven Parish, This Act was merely in the nature of a new incorporation, an 1 for Church purposes on!'/, whereas the vestries of Colonial days had been clothed with many of the powers of our County Commis- sioners. Major John Daves died in Newbern on the 12th of October, 1S04, in the fifty-seventh year of his age. He was buried in that town, in Cedar Grove Cemetery, with military and Masonic honors, and rested there until June, 1893, when his remains and the handsome monu- ment shown in our engraving were transferred by his grandsons, Edward Graham and Graham Daves, to Guilford Battle Field, where, in the perpetual and tender care of the Battle Ground Association, they now repose. Meet resting place, where sleep old comrades and former friends, for him whom his epitaph so well describes as "One of the well tried Patriots of our Revolutionary War." His widow survived Major Daves eighteen years. Their children were Sally Eaton, Mrs. Morgan Jones, whose many descendants are now in Arkansas and Mississippi; Ann Rebecca, Mrs. Josiah Collins, of Edenton, North Carolina; John Pugh Daves, whose children still live in Newbern, and Thomas Haynes Daves, whose numerous posterity live in Alabama and Mississippi. lO EDWARD GRAHAM DAVES. Edward Graham Daves, second son of John Pugh Daves and Elizabeth Batchelor Graham, was born in New Bern, March 31st, 1833. His grandfathers were Major John Daves, a gallant officer of the North Carolina Continental Line in the Revolutionary Army, and Edward Graham, a leading member of the bar of Craven County. Mr. Graham dying just before the birth of his grandson, to the latter was given his name. His father died when he was but five years of age, and all his after training he owed to the wisest and tenderest of mothers. His education began at the New Bern Academy, under the formal Lancastrian system of Alonzo Attmore, a rigid teacher of the i8th century type. Later he had the benefit of the genial instruction of Rev. F. M. Hubbard, afterwards Professor of Latin at Chapel Hill, and soon showed marked taste for the classics, being at the age of twelve at the head of his class as a student of Vergil and Cicero. His early boyhood was spent at New Bern, amid the refining and cultivating influences of the old town, then still in the after-glow of its brightest days; and the summer holidays were passed at Raleigh with his kindred, the family of Hon. William H. Haywood, or at Beaufort, at that time a seaside village of marked quaint- ness and simplicity in customs and character. This first phase in the life of young Daves ended in 1847, when he was invited to the plantation of his cousin, Josiah Collins, on Lake Scuppernong, Washington County, there to prepare for College under private tutors. Mr. Collins was a man of wealth and culture, and his home was a centre of refinement and hospitality. The plantation was a type of the best Southern life of that day; every detail of the management was admirably systematized, and the government was like that of a II perfectly organized principality under a mild and benefi- cent autocratic rule. The only neighbours were the Pettigrevv family, and society had to be sought within the house, which in winter was filled with guests. For the children's education there was a resident instructor in English, the classics and mathematics, and another in French, German and music. Love of God, love of kindred, and love of country were diligently inculcated, and the standard of gentlemanlike conduct was that of Sir Philip Sidney — "High erected thoughts seated in the heart of courtesy." After three fruitful years passed amidst these surround- ings, Daves entered Harvard at the age of seventeen. This was his first glimpse of the outer world, and the change was great from the atmosphere of a Carolina plantation to that of a New England town. Harvard was then a mere College with a fixed curriculum; there were about three hundred undergraduate students and as many more in the professional schools, while now the total number in the University is more than three thousand. The Southerners were very few, but their influence in College life was out of proportion to their numbers. The President was Jared Sparks, the pioneer explorer among the archives of American history, and in the Faculty were Peirce, the great mathematician, and Longfellow. Among the students were President Eliot, Bishop Perry, Furness the Shakesperean, the younger Agassiz and Phillips Brooks. A diligent student and of social tastes, Daves was popu- lar with his associates, and was chosen President of various College Societies and Marshal of his class. In classical studies he was especially proficient, and he had the advantage of admirable instruction from Sophocles, a native Greek, the most thorough of teachers, and a perfect master of all Hellenic lore. Graduating in 1854 12 with second honours, and with a prize for oratory, he entered the Harvard Law School, where he occupied himself both with legal studies and private teaching. He left Cambridge in 1856 with the d'egree of Bachelor of Laws, and after a short time spent in the office of Brown & Brune, in Baltimore, was admitted to the Maryland bar. Just then came the unexpected and flattering announcement of his election to the Greek Professorship at Trinity College, Hartford; the temptation was too strong for resistance, and law books were laid aside for his favorite classics. For five years he devoted himself to the duties of this position with diligence and success, and in the spring of l86i he sailed for Europe. Attending lectures for a short while at the University of Bonn, in the autumn he settled in Berlin. It was a most interesting historic epoch in the North German capital. William had just been crowned King of Prussia, and the initial measures of his memorable reign were the appointment of the then little-known Bismarck as Prime Minister, and the perfecting of that admirable army organization which was destined to revolutionize the military system of Europe. The intelligent looker-on in Berlin in that winter of 1 861 -'62 could see the rising of the curtain on the great political drama of our generation, the denoue- ment of which was the unification of Germany, the conquest of France, the founding of the Germanic Empire, the establishment of the Kingdom of Italy, and the downfall of the thousand-year-old edifice of Papal temporal power. Daves travelled much in Germany, studying and teaching, and. moved to Paris in the spring of 1863, a brilliant moment at the French capital. Louis Napoleon, flushed with his victories in the Crimea and in Italy, was posing as the arbiter of Europe, and the Court of the C^a£u-A^ y^<'^^'^