Page:Republican Court by Rufus Griswold.djvu/92

He had a maternal uncle, the Rev. William Richardson, who was one of the Presbyterian clergy in that "Scotch Irish" settlement of which we have spoken as existing in North Carolina. This uncle had no children, and adopted his nephew, who afterward inherited his estate. He was prepared for college in North Carolina, and afterwards finished his studies at Princeton. Here his patriotism first broke into action. He was one of that party of students who left college, with the consent of its head. Dr. Witherspoon, and served as a volunteer, near New York, in the summer of 1776. In the autumn of that year he took his bachelor's degree, and returned home to study law. But the times were too stirring to allow repose to such a temperament as his. In 1777 he joined the army, and was ere long a major in Pulaski's legion of cavalry. From this time onward he was in service until the close of the war, and shared in most of the battles in the western part of the Carolinas. When, after the defeat of Gates, Cornwallis attempted to overrun North Carolina, it was Davie, with his troops, who interposed between the British and our retreating forces, and kept the former at bay, compelling them at last to retreat to South Carolina. Three times, at the village of Charlotte, in Mecklenburg County, with an inferior force of mere militia, did he withstand the charge of Tarleton's celebrated cavalry legion, and as often compel it to retire in disorder. When Greene took the command, he besought Davie to become commissary general; he yielded to his entreaties and did so; and it is not saying too much to state that his personal influence, and the pledge of his own credit, in this department, contributed largely to save the South. After the war was over, he entered on the practice of his profession, and is now one of the most distinguished lawyers in the state.

The other representative to be named from North Carolina is Dr. Hugh Williamson. He is now a little more than fifty years