Battle of Ramsour's Mill
1780 CE.
Shown on the map at 35.478°, -81.259°.
The Battle of Ramsour's Mill took place on June 20, 1780 in present-day Lincolnton, North Carolina, during the British campaign to gain control of the southern colonies in the American Revolutionary War. The number of fighters on each side of the battle is still an issue of contention, but Loyalist militiamen (many of them German Palatine emigrants and settlers in the local area) outnumbered Patriot militia. The one to two-hour battle during the foggy morning of June 20 did not involve any regular army forces from either side and was literally fought between family, friends, and neighbors with muskets sometimes being used as clubs because of a lack of ammunition. Some cases of fratricide occurred during the battle. Peter Costner, a loyalist, was killed by his brother Thomas who buried his sibling's corpse after the fight. William Simpson, a patriot scout, rushed to the battle desiring to kill his brother; but arrived after the battle was over. He never located his brother Reuben, who had suffered a serious, but non-fatal injury and departed the battlefield earlier.
Text from the Wikipedia article Battle of Ramsour's Mill, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.