Method

I am a lifelong history buff, and do not claim to be an historian. However, I am a veteran researcher and former newspaper editor with a master’s degree from a top-ranked journalism school, the University of Missouri-Columbia, and I used those skills to create this site. I tried to stick to secondary Web, book, academic and periodical sources. But I often had to dive into primary sources when the others did not provide sufficient details, or contradicted each other. Visits to state, university, and county libraries turned up significant evidence and forgotten stories.

Some types of evidence are more reliable than others, of course. I followed a strict hierarchy of evidence to mitigate the effects of memory loss and cognitive bias among veterans and their storytellers, including mine. In other words, if two sources differed, I went with the higher-ranked type:

1. Wartime documents (orders, letters, newspapers) and modern archaeological studies.
2. Veteran’s memoirs and pension applications.
3. Modern academic studies, local historians, etc., who cite the above.
4. Secondhand reports from the 19th-Century based on named eyewitnesses (e.g., works like Caruthers’ shown on this page).
5. Expert consensus regarding typical military and lifestyle practices of the day.
6. Local oral traditions, which often (but not always) proved wrong.

As a former reporter, I tried to find at least two, and preferably three independent sources from types 1 through 3 before stating something as a fact. Unfortunately, many type 3 and 4 sources draw from the same one or two older sources, and thus were not deemed “independent.” Where I could not corroborate a fact, I footnote the single source and often use qualifying language like “probably” or “tradition claims…” The sources for a particular “Sight” are listed on its page, with links provided to online sources so you can get more details.

For the shorter “Stop” pages, I sometimes do not list sources because the lists would be highly repetitive! Many started with the appropriate one of two guidebooks described below (Barefoot or Rozema), with details added from NCpedia, the NC Historical Marker Program, and sources already listed for relevant Sights. (For example, sources for the Battle of Guilford Court House contributed to Stops at campsites of the two armies.) Again I footnote single sources.

There are also cases where I made a judgment call that experts might question, often using my knowledge of military strategy and tactics. For sake of narrative flow, I do not always point that out, but again I use qualifiers like “likely.” Where I realize my conclusion may be controversial, I footnote both my evidence and my reasoning.

Whenever relevant to reporting on historical events, I conform to the Society of Professional Journalists Code of Ethics.

Ongoing research includes visiting Local History rooms in the public libraries of each county involved in the war, which were closed during my initial work due to covid lock-downs. I am also double-checking the secondary sources from the previous research related to major tour locations with comprehensive reviews of primary sources (types 1 and 2 above). This process has led to major revisions of several pages, including those for the Black Hole and Shallow Ford. Website visitors have provided us with new evidence as well, leading, for example, to a rewrite of the Turkey Cove page.

Regarding #6 above, in the majority of cases where I could find better evidence to compare to family or local “lore/tradition,” the lore was completely wrong or off on major details. This is not to say family members are lying; rather, they are victims of what I call the “Generational Gossip Game.” This refers to the children’s game where a sentence is whispered around a group in a circle. What is stated out loud by the last person has little in common with the original. In a similar way a story gets altered as it is passed from generation to generation. And of course, the story may have started out as an assumption, “tall tale,” or an attempt to build someone’s reputation.

An exception is Native American