ASHEVILLE, N.C. (828newsNOW) — A family account preserved in a 1934 narrative credits a young North Carolina woman, Ruth Davidson, with carrying a critical Patriot message through the Southern backcountry during the Revolutionary War.
According to the story recounted by Catherine Rebecca Carson, Davidson disguised herself as an elderly woman and rode on horseback from her home near the Catawba River in Western North Carolina to the British-held post at Fort Ninety Six in South Carolina. The message she carried urged Patriot forces to “hold out,” assuring them that reinforcements were on the way.
The journey is placed in the context of 1781, during General Nathanael Greene’s Southern Campaign, when Continental forces were attempting to reclaim territory from British and Loyalist control. In that period, Patriot troops laid siege to Ninety Six, a fortified outpost that became one of the war’s key strongholds in the Carolinas…