Casualties often were few but psychological damage deep.

From The Road to Guilford Courthouse by John Buchanan. Page 104.

Buchanan makes the point that the American Revolution was, in some respects, an even more brutal precursor of the later Civil War.

“I was born in Lawrence [Laurens] District, S. C., on the seventeenth of January 1764. My father, Thomas Young, soon removed to Union District, where I have lived to this day.” So begins the Memoir of Thomas Young, son of Thomas Young, whose thirst for vengeance would equal Thomas Brown’s. He described his introduction to civil war at the age of fifteen simply and with candor.

“In the Spring of 1780, I think in April, Col. Brandon was encamped with a party of seventy or eighty whigs, about five miles below Union court-house, where Christopher Young now lives. Their object was to collect forces for the approaching campaign, and to keep a check upon the tories. They had taken a prisoner one Adam Steedham, as vile a tory as ever lived. By some means, Steedham escaped during the night, and notified the tories of Brandon’s position. The whigs were attacked by a large body of the enemy before day and completely routed. On that occasion, my brother, John Young, was murdered. I shall never forget my feelings when told of his death. I do not believe I had ever used an oath before that day, but then I tore open my bosom, and swore that I would never rest until I had avenged his death. Subsequently, a hundred tories felt the weight of my arm for the deed, and around Steedham’s neck I fastened the rope as a reward for his cruelties. On the next day I left home in my shirt sleeves and joined Brandon’s party. Christopher Brandon and I joined at the same time, and the first engagement we were in was at Stallions’, in York County.”

Young’s commander, Colonel Thomas Brandon (1741–1802), was born in Pennsylvania of Scotch Irish descent, and had come down the Great Wagon Road and Catawba Trading Path with his parents and siblings to South Carolina. An inveterate enemy of Tories, Brandon had the reputation of showing little mercy. He had received information about a party of Tories stationed at a house owned by a family named Stallions and with about fifty militiamen moved to attack them. Just before arriving at the house, Brandon divided his force. He took the larger party and circled to the rear in order to intercept any Tories trying to escape. Captain Love took sixteen men, including Thomas Young, to the front of the house to mount an attack. Thomas Young told what happened.

“Mrs. Stallions was a sister of Captain Love, and on the approach of her brother she ran out, and begged him not to fire upon the house. He told her it was too late now, and that their only chance for safety was to surrender. She ran back to the house and sprang upon the door step, which was pretty high. At this moment the house was attacked in the rear by Col. Brandon’s party, and Mrs. Stallions was killed by a ball shot through the opposite door.” The tragedy did not stop the attack. After several rounds were fired, the Tories, Young continued, “ran up a flag, first upon the end of a gun, but as that did not look exactly peaceful, a ball was put through the fellow’s arm, and in a few minutes it was raised on a ramrod, and we ceased firing.” The only Rebel casualty was shot through the wrist and thigh while next to Thomas Young. The Tories had “two killed, not counting the unfortunate Mrs. Stallions, four wounded, and twenty-eight taken prisoner. “After the fight Love and Stallions met and shed bitter tears. Stallions was dismissed on parole to bury his wife and arrange his affairs.”

Before his sixteenth year was out Thomas Young had fought at King’s Mountain, Hammond’s Store, and Cowpens, was captured by the British, met Banastre Tarleton, and escaped to fight again. He saw the war end in his twentieth year. He will later tell us a macabre tale that more than indicates how he quickly became hardened to the horrors of war.

The fight at Stallions was not unique, although the dramatic death of Mrs. Stallions probably was not a common occurrence. The latest conservative count of Revolutionary War actions in South Carolina alone is 213 and most were small, unheralded encounters like this one, which probably would have escaped notice if Thomas Young had not been there and described it in his memoir. Casualties often were few but psychological damage deep. When small numbers are involved, a few deaths have as much impact as hundreds or thousands when armies clash, and the significance is magnified when those involved are “friends and neighbors and kin, some on one side, some on the other. This kind of fighting would go on for almost two years, and not all were small fights—some backwoods encounters would involve hundreds of men on each side.