Wahab's Plantation, North Carolina

WAHAB'S PLANTATION, NORTH CAROLINA. 21 September 1780. Tarleton's Legion, reinforced, moved on the left (west) of the British army that advanced toward Charlotte. During this advance, Tarleton came down with yellow fever and command passed to Major George Hanger. Acting on intelligence reports that the Legion was camped at Wahab's Plantation, home of Captain James Wahab of the rebel militia, Colonel William Davie approached the plantation with eighty mounted partisans and seventy riflemen in two small companies under Major George Davidson at around sunrise on 21 September. Oblivious to the presence of enemy troops nearby, the British had called in their sentries and more than sixty men were now sitting their horses on a road near one of the plantation houses. Davie's force, guided by Captain Wahab, broke into two units; one, under Davidson, seized the plantation house, while the mounted troops used a cornfield as cover to emerge on the road below the Loyalists.

When Davie attacked up the road at the same moment that Davidson's men stormed the house, the Loyalists were caught completely by surprise. In just a few minutes, fifteen or twenty Loyalists were killed, forty were wounded, and rest of the Loyal Legion fled in disorder. There was only one American casualty, and this a man who was wounded during the pursuit when mistaken for an enemy. The rebels carried off 96 fully equipped horses and 120 stand of arms, retreating before a British relief force. Davie returned to camp at Providence after covering sixty miles in less than twenty-four hours. The British responded by burning Wahab's house. Davie and Hanger met next at Charlotte, North Carolina, on 26 September.

SEE ALSO Charlotte, North Carolina; Kings Mountain, South Carolina.

                         revised by Michael Bellesiles