Revolutionary War Soldiers from Mecklenburg County, North Carolina
CAPTAIN CHARLES POLK'S "MUSTER ROLL"
Among the interesting Revolutionary records of Mecklenburg County, which have been preserved, is the "Muster Roll" of Captain Charles Polk's Company of "Light Horse," with the time of service and pay of each member thereof, as follows:"Dr. The Public of North Carolina,
"To Captain Charles Polk, for services done by him and his Company of Light Horse, who entered on the 12th of March, 1776.
"Captain, Charles Polk.
1st Lieut, William Ramsey.
2nd Lieut., John Lemmond.
1st Sergt, John Montgomery
2nd Sergt., William Galbraith (erased).
Drummer, Hugh Lindsay.
John Smith.
John Polk, Sen. (erased).
John Wylie.
John Findley.
John Galbraith.
James Hall.
John Stansill.
William (illegible).
John Miller.
Humphrey Hunter.
Henry Carter.
James Maxwell.
John Maxwell.
Robert Galbraith.
John McCandlis.
Nicholas Siler.
Samuel Linton.
Thomas Shelby.
James Alexander.
Robert Harris, Jun.
John Foard.
Jonathan Buckaloe.
Charles Alexander, Sen.
Henry Powell.
William Rea.
Samuel Hughes.
Charles Alexander, Jun.
William Shields.
Charles Polk, Jun.
John Purser.
William Lemmond, Clerk to the said company, and Shurgeon to ye same.
Remarks
The whole expense of Captain Polk's company in this campaign for sixty-five days, including the hire of three wagons at 16shillings each per day, and two thousand and five rations, at 8d.each, amounted to PDS683 9shilling 8d. The account was proven, according to law, before Colonel Adam Alexander, one of the county's magistrates, and audited and countersigned by Ephraim Alexander, George Mitchell, and James Jack, the bearer of the Mecklenburg Declaration to Congress. The pay of a Captain was then 10s. per day; of a 1st and 2nd Lieutenant, 7s. each; of a First Sergeant, 6s. 6d.; of a 2nd Sergeant, 5s. 6d.; of the Clerk and "Shurgeon," 6s. 6d.; and of each private, 5s.James Hall, one of the privates in this expedition, afterward became a distinguished Presbyterian minister of the gospel and was elected on two occasions by his own congregation, in pressing emergencies, to the captaincy of a company, and acted as chaplain of the forces with which he was associated. The late Rev. John Robinson, of Poplar Tent Church, in Cabarrus County, in speaking of him, said, "When a boy at school in Charlotte (Queen's Museum), I saw James Hall pass through the town, with his three-cornered hat, the captain of a company and chaplain of the regiment. In Captain Polk's manuscript journal of his march, under Gen. Rutherford, through the mountains of North Carolina, then the unconquered haunts of wild beasts and savage Indians, he says: "On September 15th, 1776, Mr. Hall preached a sermon," prompted, as it appears, by the death of one of Captain Irwin's men on the day before.
This was probably the first sermon ever heard in these secluded mountainous valleys, now busy with the hum of civilized life. (See sketch of his services under "Iredell County.") Humphrey Hunter, first a private and afterward lieutenant in Captain Robert Mebanes company in this expedition, also became an eminent minister of the gospel, and presided at the semi-centennial celebration of the Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence, on the 20th of May, 1825. (See sketch of his services under Gaston County.)
William Shields was the gallant soldier of General Sumter's command, who discovered a bag of gold in the camp of the routed enemy after the battle of Hanging Rock. Not less generous than brave, steady on the march, and true on the field, he voluntarily carried the gold to his commanding general and requested him to use it in the purchase of clothing and shoes for his ragged and suffering fellow soldiers. It is needless to say that this brave and meritorious officer faithfully applied it according to the request of the honest and generous soldier.
Thomas Shelby, a relative of Colonel Isaac Shelby, of King's Mountain fame, James Alexander, Charles Polk, Jun., Robert Harris, William Ramsey, John Foard (one of the Mecklenburg signers), John Lemmond, John Montgomery, William Rea, and others on the list, will awaken in the minds of their descendants emotions of veneration for their patriotic ancestors, who, one hundred years ago, at the very dawn of the Revolution, and before a hesitating Congress, proclaimed our National declaration, pledged their lives, fortunes and sacred honor in the cause of American freedom.
Source: Sketches of Western North Carolina, Historical and Biographical by C. L. Hunter