HistoricSiteMarkers
American Revolution

Battle of Lindley's Mill

Alamance County, Alamance County, North Carolina

Marker Inscription

Lindley's Mill. In a battle on Sept. 13, 1781, John Butler's Whig militia failed to rescue Governor Thomas Burke from Col. David Fanning's Tories. Site 4 mi. S.W.

Erected by North Carolina Department of Cultural Resources

The Story

On September 13, 1781, Whig militia under John Butler clashed with Loyalist forces led by Colonel David Fanning at Lindley's Mill, four miles southwest of here. Butler's men were trying to rescue Governor Thomas Burke, whom Fanning had captured the day before, but they failed and the governor remained a prisoner. It was one of the largest and bloodiest militia battles of the Revolution in North Carolina.

Why it matters

Lindley's Mill captures the ferocity of the Carolina backcountry war, where neighbor fought neighbor in a struggle that raged on even in the Revolution's closing months.

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Related people

  • ยท John Butler
  • ยท David Fanning
  • ยท Thomas Burke

Related events

  • ยท Battle of Lindley's Mill

Themes & tags

American RevolutionBattlefield

Nearby & related markers

John Butler

Swepsonville, NC

John Butler lived through two of North Carolina's defining struggles. As Orange County sheriff during the War of the Regulation in 1770โ€“1771, he stood at the center of the backcountry's clash with colonial authority, and he later served as a brigadier general of the state militia through the Revolution. His career spanned the passage from colonial grievance to armed independence.

Pyle's Defeat

Burlington, NC

In February 1781, a body of Loyalist militia marching to join Cornwallis's army was surprised and destroyed by Henry 'Light-Horse Harry' Lee's Legion on Colonel Michael Holt's land near here. The one-sided fight, sometimes called Pyle's Massacre, shattered Tory recruitment in the region on the eve of the Battle of Guilford Courthouse.