rived, pitched battles were fought in what amounted to civil war—neighbors fighting neighbors— as in the bloody conflicts in the Carolinas. Bassett1 reports that 1600 Highlanders and Regulators marched from Fayettville, N. C., February 18, 1776, with the aim of joining the British fleet at Charleston, S. C., in a drive to conquer the Carolinas for the crown. This army was intercepted by a Whig army of 1,000 men and defeated in the Battle of Moore’s Creek. There were other similar encounters, not always successful for the Patriots. During most of the war, the Tories in New York were wining and dining with the British who held the city.

It is surprising that even at the end of the war, part of Cornwallis’s army at Yorktown consisted of native Americans. After the surrender, these Tories were given humane treatment, some being allowed to migrate to Canada. However, not all of the Tories fared so well after the war.

By one of those strange coincidents of war, descendants of two families who had once been deadly enemies in ancient Renfrewshire, Scotland, fought on opposite sides in the Battle of Yorktown two centuries later. Among the British forces who surrendered at Yorktown was Capt. William Mure of Caldwell, Renfrewshire, and he was paroled home. He was a member of the ancient Muir family who were embroiled in a bloody feud with the Houstouns in the 16th century.

Through extensive research, the author has compiled a list of more than 200 Houstons and Hustons who served in the Revolutionary War. There are necessarily many omissions as in some instances records were poorly kept and some have been lost or destroyed by fire. During the war, records were kept by the various states in the absence of a central government, a matter which adds to the problem of gathering complete data.

In compiling the list, which is published here for the first time, we have searched family records, local histories, pension lists, the rolls in National and State Archives and other sources.

In the roll which follows, a brief sketch has been given of each veteran where data was available, but with some only the name and rank are found. There are so many Houstons of the same name that identification of individuals is sometimes difficult. However, dates of birth and death, and the name of the soldier’s wife are usually sufficient for verification:

1 Bassett, p. 183.