James Moore (Continental Army Officer) - Colonial Political and Military Service

Colonial Political and Military Service

James Moore had experience as a military officer prior to the American Revolution. In 1758, Governor Arthur Dobbs appointed him as the captain of a company of militia at Fort Johnston, and Moore remained in command of that unit during the French and Indian War. During that conflict, Moore, a Captain at the time, led his company to South Carolina to defend that colony against Cherokee attacks brought on by the Anglo-Cherokee War. By 1759, he was appointed a justice of the peace. In 1766, Moore led an armed mob in protest of the Stamp Act that occupied the de facto capital of Brunswick. The mob appointed Moore as its delegate to confront Governor William Tryon and the royal comptroller of customs, William Pennington, who had taken refuge at Tryon's home. Pennington gave in to the demands of the mob, and resigned his post, swearing that he would not enforce the provisions of the Stamp Act.

Moore served as a colonel of an artillery company in the colonial militia during the War of the Regulation, a revolt by western settlers against perceived injustices in the colonial government of North Carolina in the decade immediately preceding the American Revolution. At the Battle of Alamance, Moore served as the commander of Governor Tryon's artillery company. Moore's orders in that engagement were to fire his cannons once Tryon had determined the Regulators would not surrender, thus signalling the beginning of the battle. During the conflict, however, the governor's artillery functioned poorly, and the Regulators were able to gain an initial advantage by fighting in an irregular fashion. The governor's forces eventually succeeded in crushing the armed farmers, thus ending the Regulator rebellion. Moore went on to serve in the North Carolina House of Commons from 1764 to 1771 and again in 1773, representing his home county of New Hanover. In 1772, he purchased a plantation of 500 acres (200 ha; 0.78 sq mi) on the Cape Fear River several miles upriver from Wilmington.

Read more about this topic:  James Moore (Continental Army Officer)

Famous quotes containing the words colonial, political, military and/or service:

    In colonial America, the father was the primary parent. . . . Over the past two hundred years, each generation of fathers has had less authority than the last. . . . Masculinity ceased to be defined in terms of domestic involvement, skills at fathering and husbanding, but began to be defined in terms of making money. Men had to leave home to work. They stopped doing all the things they used to do.
    Frank Pittman (20th century)

    [The political mind] is a strange mixture of vanity and timidity, of an obsequious attitude at one time and a delusion of grandeur at another time. The political mind is the product of men in public life who have been twice spoiled. They have been spoiled with praise and they have been spoiled with abuse.
    Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933)

    Personal prudence, even when dictated by quite other than selfish considerations, surely is no special virtue in a military man; while an excessive love of glory, impassioning a less burning impulse, the honest sense of duty, is the first.
    Herman Melville (1819–1891)

    But when with moving accents thou
    Shalt constant faith and service vow,
    Thy Celia shall receive those charms
    With open ears, and with unfolded arms.
    Thomas Carew (1589–1639)