Carolina River Research Articles

To the End of the World: Nathanael Greene, Charles Cornwallis, and the Race to the Dan by Andrew Waters

Reviewed by: To the End of the World: Nathanael Greene, Charles Cornwallis, and the Race to the Dan by Andrew Waters Philip Ranlet To the End of the World: Nathanael Greene, Charles Cornwallis, and the Race to the Dan. By Andrew Waters. ( Yardley, Pa.: Westholme, 2020. Pp. xxvi, 264. $30.00, ISBN 978-1-59416-348-7.) Andrew Waters tells the story of Nathanael Greene's "strategic retreat" over North Carolina's Dan River into Virginia (p. xx). This retreat was "designed to inflict a toll on his enemy while conserving his own military options further down the road" (p. xx). Greene was "a chess master, thinking moves ahead, designed to lure his opponent into a trap" (p. xx). Finally, this race to retreat "was responsible for Cornwallis's move to Yorktown" (p. xxi). The first four chapters are introductory material, far too much for a book of this size. More exasperating is how repetitive Waters is. He repeats himself so much that it gets tedious. Did any editor at this publisher read the entire book? The John Marshall who wrote a biography of George Washington was the chief justice of the Supreme Court, not a later "historian" (p. 19). I have never heard of a general with an "inferiority complex" (p. 169). It must be a rare thing indeed. The author suggests Greene had one. If that were true, Greene should have immediately left when he saw the mess Horatio Gates made of the southern army. Regarding the heroic Horatio Gates, he took command in New York only toward the end of John Burgoyne's invasion. Gates did very little to bring about the eventual American victory. If Gates had been any good, he would have still been in the British army. His disaster at the battle of Camden should not therefore surprise. As for Banastre Tarleton's British Legion, the author is wrong when he says it was recruited from northern Loyalists. The legion and Lord Rawdon's Irish Volunteers were created to recruit American prisoners from the New York prison ships. In the South, they recruited from Charleston's prison ships and jails. These units, especially Tarleton's, were known to be "ruthless" (p. 32). The author relates one incident when some of the legion wanted to rape a group of Loyalist women, but some were just "slashed with swords" (p. 75). The actions of Tarleton's men were beyond the pale in that century. British regulars detested them. Throughout the war, the British showed a definite talent in attacking their own supporters. The author is certainly correct when he calls the British government's belief that there were a host of Loyalists in the South "a fiction" (p. 29). [End Page 146] Greene did prepare for a retreat across the Dan, but the hoarded boats were reasonably close to Cornwallis. If Cornwallis had better spies, he could have seized the boats, ending the retreat, and he would not have fallen for the diversion that drew the British away. As it was, a general warned Greene, "Rely on it, my Dear Sir it is possible (for you) to be overtaken before you can cross the Dan even if you had 20 Boats" (p. 189). The British were just twelve hours late. Cornwallis was truly exasperated by North Carolina's rivers. The retreat to the Dan could have been a disaster for the American cause. The Continental army had much experience in retreating, and George Washington has been praised for his Fabian tactics. Greene knew all about the tactics his mentor had been using and had to have been inspired by them. Greene seems less like a chess master and more like a master juggler who managed to keep everything in the air until the ultimate victory. Waters, I believe, has done a service by giving the retreat to the Dan more attention. Philip Ranlet Hunter College Copyright © 2022 The Southern Historical Association

Morphological and molecular confirmation of Myxobolus cerebralis myxospores infecting wild‑caught and cultured trout in North Carolina (SE USA).

We used microscopy and molecular biology to provide the first documentation of infections of Myxobolus cerebralis (Myxozoa: Myxobolidae), the etiological agent of whirling disease, in trout (Salmonidae) from North Carolina (USA) river basins. A total of 1085 rainbow trout Oncorhynchus mykiss, 696 brown trout Salmo trutta, and 319 brook trout Salvelinus fontinalis from 43 localities across 9 river basins were screened. Myxospores were observed microscopically in pepsin-trypsin digested heads of rainbow and brown trout from the Watauga River Basin. Those infections were confirmed using the prescribed nested polymerase chain reaction (PCR; 18S rDNA), which also detected infections in rainbow, brown, and brook trout from the French Broad River Basin and the Yadkin Pee-Dee River Basin. Myxospores were 9.0-10.0 µm (mean ± SD = 9.6 ± 0.4; N = 119) long, 8.0-10.0 µm (8.8 ± 0.6; 104) wide, and 6.0-7.5 µm (6.9 ± 0.5; 15) thick and had polar capsules 4.0-6.0 µm (5.0 ± 0.5; 104) long, 2.5-3.5 µm (3.1 ± 0.3; 104) wide, and with 5 or 6 polar filament coils. Myxospores from these hosts and rivers were morphologically indistinguishable and molecularly identical, indicating conspecificity, and the resulting 18S rDNA and ITS-1 sequences derived from these myxospores were 99.5-100% and 99.3-99.8% similar, respectively, to published GenBank sequences ascribed to M. cerebralis. This report comprises the first taxonomic circumscription and molecular confirmation of M. cerebralis in the southeastern USA south of Virginia.

Featured Collection Introduction: North Carolina Ecological Flows

Featured Collection Introduction: North Carolina Ecological Flows

History of Fish Investigations in the Yadkin–Pee Dee River Drainage of North Carolina and Virginia with an Analysis of Nonindigenous Species and Invasion Dynamics of Three Species of Suckers (Catostomidae)

AbstractNorth Carolina's river drainages continue to lose their faunal distinctiveness as nonnative fish species establish themselves and expand their distributions, resulting in biotic homogenization. One such example is the Pee Dee drainage on the Atlantic Slope. It is the most speciose drainage in North Carolina, inhabited by 113 species of which 34 are nonindigenous, many introduced from adjacent drainages. The history of fish investigations in the Pee Dee in North Carolina and Virginia is detailed herein. The fauna was first sampled by Cope in 1869 at two conjoined sites—Yadkin River and Gobble Creek, a small tributary at the Yadkin River site (Cope 1870). Cope described numerous new taxa from the drainage, and many subsequent researchers provided data that show additions of nonnative faunal elements. As a case study, indications are that Hypentelium roanokense, Roanoke Hog Sucker, Hypentelium nigricans, Northern Hog Sucker, and Moxostoma rupiscartes, Striped Jumprock, were cryptically introduced after the late 1950s. The Roanoke Hog Sucker, introduced as recently as the 2000s, is found only in three tributaries of the Ararat subsystem in North Carolina and Virginia. The Northern Hog Sucker has expanded its range very little, confined primarily to the North Fork Reddies and Ararat subsystems and a short segment of the mainstem Yadkin River in North Carolina. The Striped Jumprock is now in much of the upper Yadkin system, but not in Virginia, and at several sites in the South Yadkin subsystem. Natural dispersal of all three species is limited by dams and impoundments, but the dispersal by Striped Jumprock has probably been aided by multiple bait bucket introductions. Consequences of nonindigenous species introductions in the drainage are well known for some species but unknown for the Roanoke Hog Sucker, Northern Hog Sucker, and Striped Jumprock.

Fan beheading and drainage diversion as evidence of a 3200-2800 BP earthquake event in the Esmeraldas-Tumaco seismic zone: A case study for the effects of great subduction earthquakes

The San Lorenzo area belongs to the Esmeraldas–Tumaco seismic zone where some of the strongest earthquakes of South America occurred during the 20th century. This paper provides evidence for a succession of geomorphic changes characterized by the disruption of the Quaternary drainage network and the reshaping of the Cayapas–Santiago estuary. The rise of the La Boca uplift bordered by the La Boca and San Lorenzo faults is responsible for the southward diversion of the Palabi, Tululbi, Bogotá and Carolina rivers toward the Santiago and Cayapas rivers. The increase of the discharge directed to the Cayapas River generated the change of the channel pattern downstream from the confluence, and the avulsion of a new estuary through the coastal plain. According to the dating of beach ridges the avulsion occurred in the period 3200–2800 BP. This period corresponds also to a faster accretion of the beach ridge margin, interpreted as a response to a small uplift of the shore. The coherency of the three morphologic evidences—diversion of drainage network, avulsion and increase of coastal accretion—suggest a unique morphotectonic event, in relation with the activity of the Esmaraldas–Tumaco seismic zone. The opening of a direct communication through the mangrove margin may have brought favorable conditions for the development of the La Tolita archaeological site after 3000 BP.