Moores Creek National Battlefield

Moores Creek National Battlefield, on State Road 210 near Currie in Pender County, North Carolina, preserves the ground where Patriot militia defeated a larger Loyalist force on February 27, 1776. The fight lasted about three minutes at a partly dismantled bridge over Moores Creek. Although minor militarily, the victory helped prevent a full-scale invasion of the South and was followed by North Carolina's April 1776 instruction to its delegates to vote for independence. The park began as a 30-acre state battleground in 1897, passed to the federal government in 1926, and now covers 42.23 acres. It includes the Patriot earthworks, traces of the colonial road, a visitor center, and six commemorative monuments erected between 1857 and 1931. The visible earthworks are rebuilt, but archeological work found below-ground evidence of the original works. A later amendment recognized those buried remains as a site significant for historic archeology.