Capt. Adam Wallace (Continental Army)

ADAM4 WALLACE (PETER3, PETER2, SIR WILLIAM1) was born 1755 in Lexington, Rockbridge, Virginia, USA, and died May 29, 1780 in Waxhaw, Union, South Carolina, USA.

Notes for ADAM WALLACE:

Adam Wallace the Captain of a Rockbridge Company in the 10th Virginia and was killed by Tarleton's Troops, while bravely fighting against fearful odds at the Waxhaw, SC, May 29, 1780. His sword or espontoon, used on that bloody day was in the possession of John A.R. Varner of Lexington, VA a descendant of his brother Samuel a few years ago. Wallace's company was composed of 50 Rockbridge men. Col Buford's Reg had been detached from the Northern army and ordered to go to the relief of the beleaguered garrison at Charleston, SC.

On their way they learned that Gen Lincoln had capitulated and Col Buford was ordered to fall back again toward the north. Cornwallis hearing of Buford's retreat sent his dashing unscrupulous Cavalry officer, Col Tarlton, with 300 picked men in pursuit and after a forced march of 100 miles he overtook Col Buford at Waxhaw, SC. Before Buford and his Virginians could prepare for the attack the British cavalry was up on them from front and rear and both flanks. The Virginians delivered their fire, but before they could relaod Tarlton's cavalry men were on them with their pistols and swords. Out of 400 men of Buford's command 300 were killed or wounded. The wounded were hacked to pieces in the most inhuman manner.

It was in this terrible encounter that Capt Adam Wallace fell. He was a young man of 25 and stood 6'2" in his stockings the very picture but young Wallace disdained to flee and standing his gouund met steel with steel. His trusty sword was wielded with tremendous vigor and he managed to kill a number of Tarlton's dragoons before he received the fatal blow which ended his noble young life.

Four brothers of young Andrew to wit, Malcolm, Samuel, Andrew and James (or Hugh), sons of Peter Wallace, Jr. and Martha Woods, his wife sacrificed their lives for the independence of their country. In a speech delivered in the Virginia House of Delegates by late Governor James MacDwell occurs this sentence concerning the brave young soldier who owned that sword.

"That dark and dismal page in the history of the Revolution, that carnival of cruel and unjustifiable slaughter, stamped with the name of Waxhaw, is illuminated only by the splendid heroism of a soldier from the valley of Virginia, whom I am proud to claim as a kinsman, Captain Adam Wallace of Rockbridge." Of all the members of the Wallace-Woods Clans, none had a nobler record in the great struggle for freedom from the British yoke, than did Peter Wallace, Jr. and his wife Martha Woods who gave five brave sons to that sacred cause: Samuel, Malcolm , Andrew, James (or Hugh) and Adam. (Woods-McAfee Memorial, by Rev. N.M.W.)

More About ADAM WALLACE:

Military service: Captain of a Rockbridge Company in the 10th Virginia

Child of ADAM WALLACE is:

32. i. LUCINDA5 WALLACE, d. September 23, 1798, Tarborough Town, Edgecomb, North Carolina, USA.

The Waxhaw Massacre is an alternative name for the controversial Battle of Waxhaws that took place during the American Revolution on May 29, 1780, in Lancaster, South Carolina, between a Patriot force led by Abraham Buford and a mainly Loyalist force led by Banastre Tarleton.

Colonel Abraham Buford led a force of between 350 and 380 Virginian Continentals - the 3rd Virginia Detachment (composed of the 7th Virginia Regiment, two companies of the 2nd Virginia Regiment and an artillery detachment with two six-pounders) - to assist the Patriot forces in the Siege of Charleston. Before arriving, they learned that the city had already been captured by the British, and they turned back to Virginia.

However, British Colonel Banastre Tarleton heard that South Carolina's Patriot Governor John Rutledge was traveling with Buford. Anxious to capture Rutledge, Tarleton pursued with a force of roughly 230 men, consisting of 130 Legion dragoons, 100 Mounted British Legion infantry, and a three-pounder cannon. In the event, only an advance force of 60 dragoons from the 17th Light Dragoons and the British Legion cavalry, 60 mounted infantry from the British Legion, and an additional flanking force of 30 British Legion dragoons and some infantry actually engaged in the main attack.

On May 29, 1780, Tarleton caught up with Buford in the Waxhaws, at a crossroads in what is now Buford, South Carolina. By then, Governor Rutledge had already separated from Buford's detachment.

While waiting for his reserves to move up, Tarleton sent Captain David Kinlock to demand Buford's surrender. In his message, Tarleton hugely exaggerated the size of his force—claiming he had 700 men—hoping to sway Buford's decision. Buford refused with the message: "I reject your proposals, and shall defend myself to the last extremity."

Despite this, Buford made the unwise decision to keep marching rather than prepare for battle. When Tarleton's attack came, Buford waited until the enemy was within ten yards to give the order to fire. This had minimal effect on the charging cavalry and resulted in a rout of the Virginians. According to Tarleton's after battle report, the Patriots lost 113 men killed, 147 wounded and released on parole, and the 2 six pounders and 26 wagons captured. The British lost 5 killed, 12 wounded, with 11 horses killed and 19 horses wounded.

The battle has always been controversial, since after breaking Buford's line Tarleton's men slaughtered many of the Virginians who surrendered, hacking them down with their sabres. Some sources, such as Buford's Adjutant Henry Bowyer and Surgeon's Mate Robert Brownfield, claim that Buford belatedly raised a white flag but was ignored by Tarleton. In Tarleton's own account, he virtually admits the massacre, stating that his horse had been shot from under him during the initial charge and his men, thinking him dead, engaged in "a vindictive asperity not easily restrained."

The wounded of both parties were treated with equal humanity by the British. The American officers and soldiers who were unable to travel, were paroled the next morning, and placed at the neighbouring plantations and in a meeting house, not far from the field of battle. Surgeons were sent for from Camden and Charlotte town to assist them. Every possible convenience was provided by the British.

In recounting Tarleton's action at the scene one member of the British Army who was there, a surgeon named Robert Brownfield, wrote that

"... Tarleton with his cruel myrmidons was in the midst of them, when commenced a scene of indiscriminate carnage, never surpassed by the ruthless atrocities of the barbarous savages."

Before the massacre, popular opinion held that the Southern states were lost to the Patriot cause and would remain loyal to Britain. The reports of the Waxhaw Massacre, however, may have changed the direction of the war in the South. Many who might have stayed neutral flocked to the Patriots, and "Tarleton's Quarter!" and "Remember Buford" became rallying cries for the Whigs. The massacre was also directly responsible for the over-mountain men (from what is now Tennessee) forming a volunteer force that utterly destroyed Major Patrick Ferguson's command at Kings Mountain, South Carolina.

The Buford Massacre

May 9, 1780

by Louise Pettus

About 9 miles east of Lancaster on SC Highway 522, a quarter of a mile south of Highway 9, there is a two-acre plot of land with two historical markers, a stone wall, and two mass graves. What happened there on May 29, 1780 is know variously as the Buford Massacre, Buford's Defeat, or the Battle of the Waxhaws.

Following a naval siege, Charleston had surrendered on May 12th. Col. Abraham Buford and his Virginia soldiers were the only organized troop left in South Carolina. Buford and his men retreated at a slow pace, partly because they waited on remnants of several South Carolina cavalry troops to join them, and partly because the Virginians were escorting SC Gov. John Rutledge and his party to Hillsborough, NC for safety.

Afraid that Governor Rutledge would escape, the British general, Lord Cornwallis, assigned his best commander of mobile forces, Col. Banastre Tarleton, to pursue. By the time Tartleton had caught up (at one point covering 105 miles in 54 hours), Rutledge had separated from Buford's 350 Virginia Continentals. Tarleton, who had 130 cavalry, 100 infantry, and 40 British Dragoons, found Buford's forces resting after a long march.

Accounts of what happened next vary considerably. One view states that Buford, realizing that it was futile to resist, ordered his men to raise the flag of truce. Tarleton came forward on horseback to accept the flag. Just as he did so, his horse was shot from under him. Tarleton fell, and the horse fell on him. Tarleton's men, mistakenly believing their leader was killed, attacked furiously.

Another version, and the one most popular with Patriot writers, is that Tarleton tricked Buford by offering the Colonials quarter, and when they laid down their arms, Tarleton ordered the British troops to attack without mercy. Alexander Garden of Charleston wrote that it was "one of Tarleton's most atrocious acts of barbarity, yet it exalted him in the favour of Lord Cornwallis, and raised his military reputation, in the opinions of the British nation, to the most exalted degree of perfection."

American casualties were 113 killed, 150 wounded, and 53 prisoners. Many of the wounded died within a day. An American officer who was there said that the average number of saber and bayonet wounds per soldier was 16. After this the Americans spoke of "Bloody Tarleton." Buford escaped, and most of those who did were mounted. The British lost only 5 killed and 14 wounded.

People in the neighborhood came to care for the wounded, and that afternoon buried 84 of the dead in a mass grave. The next day they buried 25 others in a second mass grave about 300 yards from the first.

The remaining wounded patriots were taken by wagon to Waxhaw Presbyterian Church to be tended. Among the nurses were Elizabeth Jackson and her son, 13-year-old Andrew Jackson.

A major result of Buford's Massacre was to stimulate a vast amount of hatred toward the British in the Scotch-Irish communities of Lancaster, Chester, and York. It was easy for Thomas Sumter to recruit soldiers in the area. Recruiters only had to shout "Tarleton's Quarter."

The oldest memorial on the site is a marble obelisk, 15' tall from base to top, which was erected in 1860. It was designed and cut by William T. White, a prominent Charleston stone-cutter. The monument is inside a two-foot wall of white rocks that outlines the larger of the two mass graves. The second mass grave is unmarked. There is also a single grave, dated 1894, near the rock enclosure. It is the only thing left of a church called Buford Monument Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church, which adjoined the site from 1893 until 1902.

Because the writing on the 1860 could not be read and the stone was badly chipped by souvenir hunters, in 1955 the Lancaster County Historical Commission and the Daughters of the American Revolution, Waxhaws Chapter, erected a second monument repeating the wording of the first.

Captured Colors: Four Battleflags of the American Revolution

Region: Tidewater and Hampton Roads

Locality: James City County

Colonial Williamsburg

325 Francis Street

Williamsburg, VA 23185

Little more than two dozen Revolutionary War flags are known to exist in museum and other institutional collections. The four flags are in very good condition and their histories are well documented. Three of the flags represent the 3rd Virginia Detachment led by Col. Abraham Buford. The Buford standards – a main regimental flag and two divisional flags – are the only intact set of battleflags surviving from the American Revolution. The first of the flags measures 35 inches high by 39 inches long with 13 red and white stripes and a field with a painted thundercloud. The trio of Virginia flags is constructed of silk. The main flag is gold in color and depicts a beaver gnawing on a palmetto tree and the Latin legend Perseverando. The others are gold and blue silk, bearing the word “Regiment” on a scrolling ribbon.

http://familytreemaker.genealogy.com/users/o/v/e/Frances-A-Overton/...

ADAM4 WALLACE (PETER3, PETER2, SIR WILLIAM1) was born 1755 in Lexington, Rockbridge, Virginia, USA, and died May 29, 1780 in Waxhaw, Union, South Carolina, USA.

Notes for ADAM WALLACE:

Adam Wallace the Captain of a Rockbridge Company in the 10th Virginia and was killed by Col. Banastre Tarleton's troops, while bravely fighting against fearful odds at the Battle of Waxhaws, SC, May 29, 1780.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Waxhaws

Adam's sword (or espontoon), used on that bloody day was in the possession of John A.R. Varner of Lexington, VA (a descendant of his brother Samuel) a few years ago. Wallace's company was composed of 50 Rockbridge men. Col Buford's Reg had been detached from the Northern army and ordered to go to the relief of the beleaguered garrison at Charleston, SC.

On their way they learned that Gen Lincoln had capitulated and Col Buford was ordered to fall back again toward the north. Cornwallis hearing of Buford's retreat sent his dashing unscrupulous Cavalry officer, Col. BanastreTarlton, with 300 picked men in pursuit and after a forced march of 100 miles he confronted Col Buford at Waxhaw, SC. Before Buford and his Virginians could prepare for the attack, the British cavalry was up on them from front and rear and both flanks. The Virginians delivered their fire, but before they could relaod Tarlton's cavalry were on them with their pistols and swords. Out of 400 men of Buford's command 300 were killed or wounded. The wounded were hacked to pieces in the most inhuman manner.

It was in this terrible encounter that Capt Adam Wallace fell. He was a young man of 25 and stood 6'2" in his stockings the very picture but young Wallace disdained to flee and standing his gouund met steel with steel. His trusty sword was wielded with tremendous vigor and he managed to kill a number of Tarlton's dragoons before he received the fatal blow which ended his noble young life.

Four brothers of young Andrew to wit, Malcolm, Samuel, Andrew and James (or Hugh), sons of Peter Wallace, Jr. and Martha Woods, his wife sacrificed their lives for the independence of their country. In a speech delivered in the Virginia House of Delegates by late Governor James MacDwell occurs this sentence concerning the brave young soldier who owned that sword.

"That dark and dismal page in the history of the Revolution, that carnival of cruel and unjustifiable slaughter, stamped with the name of Waxhaw, is illuminated only by the splendid heroism of a soldier from the valley of Virginia, whom I am proud to claim as a kinsman, Captain Adam Wallace of Rockbridge." Of all the members of the Wallace-Woods Clans, none had a nobler record in the great struggle for freedom from the British yoke, than did Peter Wallace, Jr. and his wife Martha Woods who gave five brave sons to that sacred cause: Samuel, Malcolm , Andrew, James (or Hugh) and Adam. (Woods-McAfee Memorial, by Rev. N.M.W.)

More About ADAM WALLACE:

Military service: Captain of a Rockbridge Company in the 10th Virginia

Child of ADAM WALLACE is:

32. i. LUCINDA5 WALLACE, d. September 23, 1798, Tarborough Town, Edgecomb, North Carolina, USA.

The Waxhaw Massacre is an alternative name for the controversial Battle of Waxhaws that took place during the American Revolution on May 29, 1780, in Lancaster, South Carolina, between a Patriot force led by Abraham Buford and a mainly Loyalist force led by Banastre Tarleton.

Colonel Abraham Buford led a force of between 350 and 380 Virginian Continentals - the 3rd Virginia Detachment (composed of the 7th Virginia Regiment, two companies of the 2nd Virginia Regiment and an artillery detachment with two six-pounders) - to assist the Patriot forces in the Siege of Charleston. Before arriving, they learned that the city had already been captured by the British, and they turned back to Virginia.

However, British Colonel Banastre Tarleton heard that South Carolina's Patriot Governor John Rutledge was traveling with Buford. Anxious to capture Rutledge, Tarleton pursued with a force of roughly 230 men, consisting of 130 Legion dragoons, 100 Mounted British Legion infantry, and a three-pounder cannon. In the event, only an advance force of 60 dragoons from the 17th Light Dragoons and the British Legion cavalry, 60 mounted infantry from the British Legion, and an additional flanking force of 30 British Legion dragoons and some infantry actually engaged in the main attack.

On May 29, 1780, Tarleton caught up with Buford in the Waxhaws, at a crossroads in what is now Buford, South Carolina. By then, Governor Rutledge had already separated from Buford's detachment.

While waiting for his reserves to move up, Tarleton sent Captain David Kinlock to demand Buford's surrender. In his message, Tarleton hugely exaggerated the size of his force—claiming he had 700 men—hoping to sway Buford's decision. Buford refused with the message: "I reject your proposals, and shall defend myself to the last extremity."

Despite this, Buford made the unwise decision to keep marching rather than prepare for battle. When Tarleton's attack came, Buford waited until the enemy was within ten yards to give the order to fire. This had minimal effect on the charging cavalry and resulted in a rout of the Virginians. According to Tarleton's after battle report, the Patriots lost 113 men killed, 147 wounded and released on parole, and the 2 six pounders and 26 wagons captured. The British lost 5 killed, 12 wounded, with 11 horses killed and 19 horses wounded.

The battle has always been controversial, since after breaking Buford's line Tarleton's men slaughtered many of the Virginians who surrendered, hacking them down with their sabres. Some sources, such as Buford's Adjutant Henry Bowyer and Surgeon's Mate Robert Brownfield, claim that Buford belatedly raised a white flag but was ignored by Tarleton. In Tarleton's own account, he virtually admits the massacre, stating that his horse had been shot from under him during the initial charge and his men, thinking him dead, engaged in "a vindictive asperity not easily restrained."

The wounded of both parties were treated with equal humanity by the British. The American officers and soldiers who were unable to travel, were paroled the next morning, and placed at the neighbouring plantations and in a meeting house, not far from the field of battle. Surgeons were sent for from Camden and Charlotte town to assist them. Every possible convenience was provided by the British.

In recounting Tarleton's action at the scene one member of the British Army who was there, a surgeon named Robert Brownfield, wrote that

"... Tarleton with his cruel myrmidons was in the midst of them, when commenced a scene of indiscriminate carnage, never surpassed by the ruthless atrocities of the barbarous savages."

Before the massacre, popular opinion held that the Southern states were lost to the Patriot cause and would remain loyal to Britain. The reports of the Waxhaw Massacre, however, may have changed the direction of the war in the South. Many who might have stayed neutral flocked to the Patriots, and "Tarleton's Quarter!" and "Remember Buford" became rallying cries for the Whigs. The massacre was also directly responsible for the over-mountain men (from what is now Tennessee) forming a volunteer force that utterly destroyed Major Patrick Ferguson's command at Kings Mountain, South Carolina.

The Buford Massacre

May 9, 1780

by Louise Pettus

About 9 miles east of Lancaster on SC Highway 522, a quarter of a mile south of Highway 9, there is a two-acre plot of land with two historical markers, a stone wall, and two mass graves. What happened there on May 29, 1780 is know variously as the Buford Massacre, Buford's Defeat, or the Battle of the Waxhaws.

Following a naval siege, Charleston had surrendered on May 12th. Col. Abraham Buford and his Virginia soldiers were the only organized troop left in South Carolina. Buford and his men retreated at a slow pace, partly because they waited on remnants of several South Carolina cavalry troops to join them, and partly because the Virginians were escorting SC Gov. John Rutledge and his party to Hillsborough, NC for safety.

Afraid that Governor Rutledge would escape, the British general, Lord Cornwallis, assigned his best commander of mobile forces, Col. Banastre Tarleton, to pursue. By the time Tartleton had caught up (at one point covering 105 miles in 54 hours), Rutledge had separated from Buford's 350 Virginia Continentals. Tarleton, who had 130 cavalry, 100 infantry, and 40 British Dragoons, found Buford's forces resting after a long march.

Accounts of what happened next vary considerably. One view states that Buford, realizing that it was futile to resist, ordered his men to raise the flag of truce. Tarleton came forward on horseback to accept the flag. Just as he did so, his horse was shot from under him. Tarleton fell, and the horse fell on him. Tarleton's men, mistakenly believing their leader was killed, attacked furiously.

Another version, and the one most popular with Patriot writers, is that Tarleton tricked Buford by offering the Colonials quarter, and when they laid down their arms, Tarleton ordered the British troops to attack without mercy. Alexander Garden of Charleston wrote that it was "one of Tarleton's most atrocious acts of barbarity, yet it exalted him in the favour of Lord Cornwallis, and raised his military reputation, in the opinions of the British nation, to the most exalted degree of perfection."

American casualties were 113 killed, 150 wounded, and 53 prisoners. Many of the wounded died within a day. An American officer who was there said that the average number of saber and bayonet wounds per soldier was 16. After this the Americans spoke of "Bloody Tarleton." Buford escaped, and most of those who did were mounted. The British lost only 5 killed and 14 wounded.

People in the neighborhood came to care for the wounded, and that afternoon buried 84 of the dead in a mass grave. The next day they buried 25 others in a second mass grave about 300 yards from the first.

The remaining wounded patriots were taken by wagon to Waxhaw Presbyterian Church to be tended. Among the nurses were Elizabeth Jackson and her son, 13-year-old Andrew Jackson.

A major result of Buford's Massacre was to stimulate a vast amount of hatred toward the British in the Scotch-Irish communities of Lancaster, Chester, and York. It was easy for Thomas Sumter to recruit soldiers in the area. Recruiters only had to shout "Tarleton's Quarter."

The oldest memorial on the site is a marble obelisk, 15' tall from base to top, which was erected in 1860. It was designed and cut by William T. White, a prominent Charleston stone-cutter. The monument is inside a two-foot wall of white rocks that outlines the larger of the two mass graves. The second mass grave is unmarked. There is also a single grave, dated 1894, near the rock enclosure. It is the only thing left of a church called Buford Monument Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church, which adjoined the site from 1893 until 1902.

Because the writing on the 1860 could not be read and the stone was badly chipped by souvenir hunters, in 1955 the Lancaster County Historical Commission and the Daughters of the American Revolution, Waxhaws Chapter, erected a second monument repeating the wording of the first.

Captured Colors: Four Battleflags of the American Revolution

Region: Tidewater and Hampton Roads

Locality: James City County

Colonial Williamsburg

325 Francis Street

Williamsburg, VA 23185

Little more than two dozen Revolutionary War flags are known to exist in museum and other institutional collections. The four flags are in very good condition and their histories are well documented. Three of the flags represent the 3rd Virginia Detachment led by Col. Abraham Buford. The Buford standards – a main regimental flag and two divisional flags – are the only intact set of battleflags surviving from the American Revolution. The first of the flags measures 35 inches high by 39 inches long with 13 red and white stripes and a field with a painted thundercloud. The trio of Virginia flags is constructed of silk. The main flag is gold in color and depicts a beaver gnawing on a palmetto tree and the Latin legend Perseverando. The others are gold and blue silk, bearing the word “Regiment” on a scrolling ribbon.

http://familytreemaker.genealogy.com/users/o/v/e/Frances-A-Overton/...

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