Whoever first said “better late than never” was a brilliant, brilliant individual. We are a few days late getting our most recent installment of “This Month in North Carolina History” out to our readers, but it is finally up! Take a look at Harry McKown’s retelling of “The Battle of Guilford Courthouse.”
I’m sitting about half a mile from the spot in Pittsboro where Cornwallis camped on the retreat from Guilford. He slept in the widow Scurlock’s house, which was torn down about a hundred years ago. They said there was blood on the floor from one of the officers wounded in that battle. For a long time, people who lived in Pittsboro thought of it as about the most important and historic event that ever took place here.
There’s a Cornwallis Street in that neighborhood that I assume the British used for egress from the town. So I wonder if Cornwallis Road in Durham got its name the same way?
A friend of mine who lives off Smith Level Road in Chapel Hill tells me that an old road bed across from his house was used in the retreat from Guilford.