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SKETCHES OF NORTH CAROLINA.

CHAPTER III.
A PAPER ON CIVIL AND RELIGIOUS LIBERTY, DRAWN UP IN 1775.

"SHE has seven sons in the rebel army," was the reason given by the British officer for plundering the farm and burning the house of Widow Brevard, in Centre Congregation, while Cornwallis was in pursuit of Morgan and Greene, after the victory of the Cowpens. What a mother! seven sons in the army at one time! all fighting for the independence of their country! And for this glorious fact, the house of the widow plundered and burned, and her farm pillaged!

One son, Captain Alexander Brevard, a tall, dignified gentleman, independent in his feelings and his manners, rendered signal services in the Continental army. He took part in nine important battles—Brandywine, Germantown, Princeton, Stony Point, Eutaw, Guilford, Camden, Ninety-Six, and Stono. Of all these, he used to say, the battle of the Eutaw was the sorest conflict; in that he lost twenty-one of his men. When the time of hard service was over, he returned to private life, and never sought political promotion; enjoying that liberty for which he had fought, and serving his generation as a good citizen, and the church as a elder, respected and beloved. He laid his bones at last in Lincoln county, the place of his residence for many years, in a spot selected by himself and General Graham. They served as soldiers in the Revolution, and lived as most intimate friends: having married sisters, the daughters of Major John Davidson, one of the members of the Mecklenburg Convention, they were brothers indeed; and dying in the hope of a blessed resurrection, they sleep, with their wives and many of their children, in their chosen place of sepulture. You may find the graves of these honorable dead in a secluded place, walled in with rock, about a hundred paces from the great road leading from Beatte's Ford by Brevard's Furnace to Lincolnton, a spot where piety and affection and patriotism may meet and mingle their tears; and youth may gather lessons of wisdom.

The youngest son of this widow, afterwards Judge Brevard of Camden, South Carolina, was first lieutenant of a company of horse, at the age of seventeen, and held, through life, a corresponding station in the opinions and affections of his fellow men.