Elbert-Hart County GaArchives Biographies.....Hart, Nancy About 1735 - About 1830 ************************************************ Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://www.usgwarchives.net/ga/gafiles.htm ************************************************ File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by: Chandler Eavenson http://www.genrecords.net/emailregistry/vols/00030.html#0007294 August 8, 2008, 8:52 am Author: Max Cleland, Secretary of State of GA The following appeared in the Elberton Star newspaper on 27 Mar 1991 under a heading of Tales of Nancy Hart: "The following account of Elbert County's Revolutionary War heroine Nancy Hart was provided by Secretary of State Max Cleland as part of his 'Moments in Georgia History' series. "Georgia produced a legendary patroit during the American Revolution. Nancy Hart of Elbert County was tall and strong as a Georgia pine, had all the fighting spirit of a pit bulldog, and was a crack shot. The local Indians dubbed her 'The War Woman' and stayed out of her musket range. She hated the enemies of American independence. In her neck of the woods, small bands of Georgia freedom fighters battled squads of British sympathizers. After the British recaptured Savannah at the end of 1778, the worst of the Tories- Americans who sided with the English - spread terror among common townsfold and farmers in the backcounty beyond Augusta. "Nancy Hart often lost her temper, but never her courage. She spied on Tory troops, captured some, even killed a few. According to a much repeated phrase, 'She was a devil of a wife, but a honey of a patriot.' And the best part about the Nancy Hart legends is that we know she really existed. She was born about 1735, according to Georgia historian E. Merton Coulter. Her family moved from Pennsylvania to North Carolina. There she met and married Benjamin Hart, a union which eventually made her an aunt to Henry Clay and a grandaunt to Thomas Hart Benton. Benjamin and Nancy moved to the Broad River area of Georgia in the early 1770s and built a log cabin on lands which the Indians had traded away. Their homestead in what became Elbert County, eventually included eight children. "Chronicler Edna Copeland writes that Benjamin Hart 'owned 400 acres of land on Broad River and other property in Burke County.' His patriotism is clearly documented for he served as a lieutenant in the Georgia militia, and the Georgia Executive Council,the government of the rebels, gave him emergency rations of 20 bushels of corn in 1781 as reward for his efforts. But it was Nancy who becme famous. Not only did she aid her husband in the guerilla warfare that raged across the Georgia wilderness, but she gave invaluable assistance to many 'Sons of Liberty,' including leaders like Colonel Elijah Clarke and General Benjamin Lincoln. She also proved herself adept at inclicting casualties and taking prisoners. "Most frequently repeated is the tale of six Tories who surprised her when she was at home with only her teenage daughter Sukey. The ruffians shot her last turkey and ordered her to cook them dinner. Notorious for her profanity, Nancy at first spat curses at them. But after overhearing one say they had just murdered her patriot neightor, Colonel John Dooly, she changed her attitude.She set to preparing the bird and brought out plenty of stout drink. As the turkey roasted and the Tories toasted, Nancy told her daughter to fetch some water. At the nearby spring, Sukey picked up the family's signalling device, a large conch shell, and gave three loud blasts. This informed her father, who was working with some neighbors in a distant field, to rush home as fast as possible. "Her mother, meanwhile, swirled about the cabin, bringing out plates of food, pouring more alcohol, and, one at a time, slipping the diner's now forgotten muskets out a crack in the wall. There were three guns left when a tipsy Tory noticed what she was doing and shouted out. The men jumped to their feet, but Nancy leveled a musket at them and said she would shoot the first one who moved. One did spring at her and paid with his life. She grabbed a second musket, and the survivors froze. Then another Tory leaped, only to fall to the floor wounded. With the third musket she held the rest at bay until her husband and neighbors arrived. Her reinforcements wanted to shoot the prisoners but she reputedly growled, 'Shooting's too good for them. Hang em!' "According to another story, when General Benjamin Lincoln needed reconnaissance on a camp of British army units across the Savannah River in South Carolina, Nancy Hart tied logs into a raft, floated the river, and walked into the camp posing as a crazy eccentric. She returned with information which enabled Lincoln to drive back the enemy's forward artillery positions. When Elijah Clarke wanted to attack Tory-held Augusta, it supposedly was Nancy Hart who snuck into the city and spied out weak points in the enemy defenses. And there are many ancedotes about how she bested Tories, including one in which she splashed boiling soapy water into the eyes of a spy who dared peek into her cabin. "Historic records from after the war trace Benjamin and Nancy's move to coastal Georgia. Benjamin became, according to Department of Natural Resources historian Kenneth Thomas, 'first a justice of the peace and then a justice of the inferior court, a very important post...' When her husband died, Nancy joined her son John and moved to Kentucky. John died in 1821, while Nancy apparently passed away about 1830. Elizabeth Fries Ellet's book, The Women of the American Revolution, publicized stories of the War Woman to a wide audience in 1848. Georgia writer George White collected more tales of her and published them in 1854. Nancy Hart thereafter was a familiar character to every Georgia schoolchild. "Georgia has honored her memory in numerous ways and named both a county and state park for her. These tributes recognize that when it came to raising a musket on behalf of American independence, Nancy Hart's aim was true." File at: http://files.usgwarchives.net/ga/elbert/bios/hart962gbs.txt This file has been created by a form at http://www.genrecords.org/gafiles/ File size: 6.2 Kb