Our Local Portion of The Great Wagon Road
"Shallow Ford was an essential link on Great Wagon Road, the frontier road used by immigrants to backcountry North Carolina in the mid-eighteenth century. On 14 Oct. 1780 about 300 Whigs, led by Joseph Cloyd, engaged a similar number of Tories, commanded by Gideon Wright, in a battle near Shallow Ford. The Whigs included about 160 Virginia troops and 140 militiamen from Surry and Rowan Counties. The battle, lasting several hours, ranged over an area that included present-day Huntsville. Fifteen Tories and a single Whig, a captain in the Virginia militia named Henry Francis, were killed in the Whig victory. A tributary of the Yadkin River took the name Battle Branch from this encounter."
The dotted lines on this map show the GWR extensions which passed through Lewisville, NC
Excerpts from the NCpedia website.
"On 17 Feb. 1781 Lord Charles Cornwallis's army of 2,500 to 3,000 men crossed the Yadkin at Shallow Ford in pursuit of the American force commanded by Gen. Nathanael Greene. The two armies would meet five weeks later, on 15 Mar. 1781, at the Battle of Guilford Courthouse".
"On 11 Apr. 1865 Union cavalry under Gen. George H. Stoneman skirmished with Confederates at Shallow Ford. Moving east from Tennessee across western North Carolina, Stoneman's immediate objective was to destroy factories in Salem engaged in making clothing for southern troops. The detachment that crossed the Yadkin River numbered about 5,000 men."
Other References
Great Wagon Road
Great Wagon Road
The Great Wagon Road of the East