RALEY, CHARLES, aged 70, and a resident of Morgan County; private of Cavalry Virginia Continental Line; enrolled on September 17, 1833, under act of Congress of June 7, 1832, payment to date from March 4, 1831; annual allowance, $77.72; sums received to date of publication of list, $194.30.-Revolutionary Pension Roll, in Vol. xiv, Sen. Doc. 514, 23rd Cong., 1st sess., 1833-34.
RANDOLPH, ABRAHAM, aged 72, and a resident of Lawrence County; private N. C. Militia; enrolled on April 13, 1833, under act of Congress of June 7, 1832, payment to date from March 4, 1831; annual allowance, $20.-Revolutionary Pension Roll, in Vol. xiv, Sen. Doc. 514, 23rd Cong., 1st sess., 1833-34.
RANDOLPH, HUGH, aged 85, resided in Franklin County, June 1, 1840, with David Puller.-Census of Pensioners, 1841, p. 148.
RANKIN, ROBERT, a resident of Washington County; lieutenant 3rd Regular Virginia Line; enrolled on September 8, 1828, under act of Congress of May 15, 1828, payment to date from March 3, 1826; annual allowance, $320, sums received to date of publication of list, $2,880; W. Crawford, agent.-Revolutionary Pension Roll, in Vol. xiv, Sen. Doc. 514, 23rd Cong., 1st less., 1833-34.
RAY, FREDERICK, aged 75, and a resident of Tuscaloosa County; private Virginia State Troops; enrolled on April 23, 1833, under act of Congress of June 7, 1832, payment to date from March 4, 1831; annual allowance, $36.66.-Revolutionary Pension Roll, in Vol. xiv, Sen. Doc. 514, 23rd Cong., 1st sess., 1833-34.
READY, SHADRACK, aged 88, and a resident of Madison County; private Virginia Continental Line; enrolled on December 5, 1820, under act of Congress of March 18, 1818, payment to date from September 11, 1820; annual allowance, $96; sums received to date of publication of list, $438.13. Died April 3, 1825.-Revolutionary Pension. Roll, in Vol. xiv, Sen. Doc. 514, 23rd Cong., 1st sess., 1833-34.
REED, JOHN. aged 82, and a resident of Fayette County; private N. C. Militia; enrolled on November 15, 1833, under act of Congress of June 7, 1832, payment to date from March 4, 1831; annual allowance, $30; sums received to date of publication of list, $90.-Revolutionary Pension Roll, in Vol. xiv, Sen. Doc. 514, 23rd Cong., 1st sess., 1833-34.
REED, NATHAN, aged 72, and a resident of Perry County; private N. C. Militia; enrolled on September 17, 1833, under act of Congress of June 7, 1832, payment to date from March 4, 1831; annual allowance, $30; sums received to date of publication of list, $75.-Revolutionary Pension Roll, in Vol. xiv, Sen. Doc. 514, 23rd Cong., 1st sess., 1833-34.
REED, ROBERT, aged 77, and a resident of St. Clair County; private and sergeant N. C. Militia; enrolled on February 4, 1833, under act of Congress of June 7, 1832, payment to date from March 4, 1831; annual allowance, $65; sums received to date of publication of list, $195.-Revolutionary Pension Roll, in Vol. xiv, Sen. Doc. 514, 23rd Cong., 1st sess., 1833-34. He resided in St. Clair County, June 1, 1840, aged 75.-Census of Pensioners, 1841, p. 148.
REESE, LITTLETON, aged 76, resided in Autauga county, June 1, 1840.-Census of Pensioners, 1841, p. 149.
REYNOLDS, FIELDING, aged 70, and a resident of Dallas County; private and sergeant S. C. State Troops; enrolled on March 8, 1833, under act of Congress of June 7, 1832, payment to date from March 4, 1831; annual allowance, $93.33; sums received to date of publication of list, $279.99. Revolutionary Pension Roll, in Vol. xiv, Sen. Doc. 514, 23rd Cong., 1st sess., 1833-34.
RICE, RIGHT, a resident of Wilcox County; private, particular service not shown; enrolled on January 26, 1835, under act of Congress of June 7, 1832, payment to date from March 4, 1831; annual allowance, $20. Pension Book, State Branch Bank, Mobile.
RIDNER, SAMUEL, aged 80, resided in Benton County, June 1, 1840, with Jos. Ridner.-Census of Pensioners, 1841, p. 148.
ROANE, JAMES H., age not given, a resident of Morgan County; 2nd lieutenant 10th Regular U. S. Infantry; enrolled on April 18, 1825, payment to date from January 28, 1825; annual allowance, $90; sums received to date of publication of list, $684.22; Acts Military establishment.-Revolutionary Pension Roll, in Vol. xiv, Sen. Doc. 514, 23rd Cong., 1st sess., 1833-34.
ROBERSON, JOHN, aged 74, and a resident of Tuscaloosa County; private Virginia Militia; enrolled on July 20, 1833, under act of Congress of June 7, 1832, payment to date from March 4, 1831; annual allowance, $28.11; sums received to date of publication of list, $70.38.-Revolutionary Pension Roll, in Vol. xiv, Sen. Doc. 514, 23rd Cong., 1st sess., 1833-34.
“Valoriously He bore himself, and with his youthful arms Chivalrous deeds performed, which in a land Of legendary lore had placed his name, Embalmed in song, beside the hallowed ones Of Douglass and of Percy; not unsung Entirely his fame. Romance has wreathed With flowering fingers, and with wizard art That hangs the votive chaplet on the heart, His story, mid her fictions, and bath given
His name and deeds to after times. When last This trophied anniversary came round And called Columbia’s patriot children out To greet its advent, the old man was here, Serenely smiling as the autumn sun Just dripping down the golden west to seek His evening couch. Few months agone I saw Him in his quiet home, with all around Its wishes could demand-and by his side The loved companion of his youthful years-This singing maiden of his boyhood’s time;
She who had cheered him with her smiles when clouds Were o’er his country’s prospects; who had trod In sun and shade, life’s devious path with him,
And whom kind Heaven had still preserved to bless, With all the fullness of maternal wealth, The mellowing afternoon of his decline. Where are they now?-the old man and his wife? Alas? the broadening sun sets in the night, The ripening shock falls on the reaper’s arm; The lingering guest must leave the hall at last; The music ceases when the feast is done; The old man and his wife are gone. From earth,
Have passed in peace to heaven; and summer’s flowers,
Beneath the light of this triumphant day,
Luxurious sweets are shedding o’er
The unsculptured grave of ‘Horseshoe Robinson.”
“The grave of James Robertson is in Tuscaloosa County on the banks of the Black Warrior river near Sanders’ ferry, in the old family burying-ground. He was the famous ‘Horseshoe Robertson’ of Revolutionary fame in South Carolina, and the hero of the novel of that name written by John Pendleton Kennedy in 1835. The name ‘Horseshoe’ was given because of a bend in a creek in his plantation in South Carolina shaped like a horseshoe.
“The following inscription is taken from his tombstone:
MAJOR JAMES ROBERTSON,
A native of S. C.
died April 26, 1838, aged 79 years,
and was buried here.
Well known as Horseshoe Robinson, he earned a Just fame in the war of independence, in which he was eminent in courage, patriotism and suffering. He lived fifty-six years with his worthy partner, useful and respected, and died in hopes of a blessed immortality. His children erect this monument as a tribute justly due a good husband, father, neighbor, patriot and soldier.
“James Robertson was born in 1759; and his epitaph states that he was a native of South Carolina. He was married in 1782 and ‘lived fifty-six years with his worthy partner;’ she died in January, 1838, and he died April 26, 1838. The name of his wife was Sarah Morris; tradition says her maiden name was Hayden; they left several children, one daughter was living in Mississippi a few years ago. James Robertson was a famous scout during the Revolution and a terror to the Tories. After the war he settled in Pendleton district and was living there when Kennedy met him in 1818.. In the pre-face to Kennedy’s novel of Horseshoe Robinson he gives an account of the circumstances that led him to write the story.
“He says that in the winter of 1818-19 he had occasion to visit the western section of South Carolina. He went from Augusta to Edgefield, then to Abbeville and thence to Pendleton, in the old district of Ninety-six, just at the foot of the mountains. His course was still westward until he came to the Seneca River, a tributary of the Savannah. He describes how he happened to spend the night at the home of Col. T. who lived thirty miles from Pendleton . Horseshoe Robinson came here that night. ‘What a man I saw! Tall, broad, brawny and erect. His homely dress, his free stride, his face radiant with kindness, the natural gracefulness of his motions, all afforded a ready index to his character. It was evident he was a man to confide in.’
“The old soldier was drawn out to relate some stories of the war. He told how he got away from Charleston after the surrender, and how he took five Scotchmen prisoners, and these two famous passages are faithfully preserved in the narrative.
“It was first published in 1835. Horseshoe Robinson was then a very old man. He had removed to Alabama and lived, I am told, near Tuscaloosa. I commissioned a friend to send him a copy of the book. The report brought me was that the .old man had listened very attentively to the reading of it and took great interest in it.
” ‘What do you say to all this?’ was the question addressed to him, after the reading was finished. His reply is a voucher, which I desire to preserve: ‘It is all true and right-in its right place-excepting about them women, which I disremember. That might be true, too; but my memory is treacherous–I disremember.’ ”
It is a pleasure to know that this fine old hero was a real personage, and although his exploits may have been colored in a measure by the pen of the romancer, there still remains a rich stock of adventures, which were undoubtedly true, and the picture of a nature frank, brave, true and yet full of modesty.
Extract from Flag of the Union, published at Tuscaloosa, January 17, 1838:
Horseshoe Robinson- Who has not read Kennedy’s delightful novel of this name, and who that has read would not give an half day’s ride to see the venerable living Hero of this Tale of “Tory Ascendency,” the immortal Horseshoe himself-the extermination of “Jim Curry” and Hugh Habershaw? The venerable patriot bearing the familiar sobriquet, and whose name Mr. Kennedy has made as familiar in the mouths of American youths as household words, was visited by us in company with several friends one day last week. we found the old Gentleman on his Plantation about 12 miles from this city, as comfortably situated with respect to this world’s goods as any one could desire to have him. It was gratifying to us to see him in his old age after having served through the whole war of Independence thus seated under his own vine and fig tree, with his children around him and with the Partner of his early toils and trials still continued to him enjoying in peace and safety the rich rewards of that arduous struggle, in the most gloomy and
That of his escape from Charleston after the capture of that city, his being entrusted with a letter to Butler, the scene at Wat Adair’s, the capture of Butler at Grindal’s Ford, his subsequent escape and recapture, the death of John Ramsey, and the detection of the party by reason of the salute fired over his grave, his capturing of the four men under the common of the younger St. Jermyn, his attack up Ines’ camp, and the death of Hugh Habershaw by his own hand and finally the death of Jim Curry, are all narrated pretty much as they occurred, in the old veteran’s own language: “There is a heap of truth in it, though the writer has mightily furnished it up.” That the names of Butler, Mildred Lindsay, Mary Musgrove, John Ramsay, Hugh Habershaw, Jim Curry and in fact almost every other used in the Book, with the exception of his own, are real and not fictitious. His own name, he informed us, Is James; and that he did not go by the familiar appellation by which he is now so widely known until after the war, when he acquired it from the form of his Plantation in the Horse-shoe Bend of the Fair Forest creek, which was bestowed upon him by the Legislature of South Carolina in consequence of the services he had rendered during the war-this estate, we understood him to say, he still owned.
He was born, he says, in 1759 in Virginia, and entered the army in his seventeenth year. Before the close of war, he says, he commanded .a troop of horse, so that his military title is that of Captain Horseshoe, although in infirm health, bears evident marks of having been a man of great personal strength and activity. He is now afflicted with a troublesome cough, which in the natural course of events must in a few years wear out his aged frame. Yet, not-withstanding his infirmities and general debility, his eye still sparkles with the fire of youth, as he recounts the stirring and thrilling incidents of the war, and that sly, quiet humor so well described by Kennedy may still be seen playing around his mouth as one calls to his recollections any of the pranks he was wont to play upon any of the “tory vagrants,” as he very properly styles them. The old Gentleman received us with warm cordiality and hospitality; and after partaking of the Bounties of his board and spending a night under his hospitable roof we took leave of him, sincerely wishing him many years of the peaceful enjoyment of that liberty which he fought so long and so bravely to achieve. It will not be uninteresting, we hope, to remark that the old hero still considers himself a soldier, though the nature of his warfare is changed; he is now a zealous promoter of the Redeemer’s cause as he once was in securing the independence of his country.
Since the above was in type we have heard of the death of the aged partner of this venerable patriot. An obituary notice will be found in another column.
“The novel Horseshoe Robinson is interesting reading even in this critical and blasé twentieth century. Judge A. B. Meek, a fine literary critic, says that “Mr. Kennedy, the author of ‘Horseshoe Robinson,’ has in that inimitable ‘Tale of the Tory Ascendency’ in South Carolina proved the suitableness of American subjects for fictitious composition of the most elevated kind. Although in his incidents and characters he has done little more than presented a faithful chronicle of facts, using throughout the veritable names of persons and places as they were stated to him by his hero himself, yet such is the thrilling interest of the story, the vivid pictures of scenery, manners, customs, and language, the striking contrasts of characters and the pervading beauty and power of style and description throughout the work, that we think we do not err in saying that it is not inferior in any respect to the best of the Waverly series.’
“The home of James Robertson in South Carolina, where he lived for a third of a century, is still standing. It is in Oconee County a few miles from Westminster. It is now owned by a Mr. Cox and travelers frequently visit the place, drawn thither by the fame of ‘Horseshoe Robinson.’ “-Mrs. P. H. Mell in Transactions of the Alabama Historical Society, Vol. iv, pp. 560-564.
ROBINSON, JOHN, aged 81, resided in Benton County, June 1, 1840, with J. H. Morison.-Census of Pensioners, 1841, p. 150.
ROBINSON, WILLIAM, aged 75, and a resident of Montgomery County; private S. C. State Troops; enrolled on January 4, 1834, under act of Congress of June 7, 1832, payment to date from March 4, 1831; annual allowance, $80; sums received to date of publication of list, $240.-Revolutionary Pension Roll, in Vol. xiv, Sen. Doc. 514, 23rd Cong., 1st sess., 1833-34.
ROBINSON, WILLIAM, aged 75, and a resident of Autauga County; private S. C. Continental Line and Militia; en-rolled on February 11, 1834, under act of Congress of June 7, 1832, payment to date from March 4, 1831; annual allowance, $40.-Revolutionary Pension Roll, in Part 3, Vol. xiii, Sen. Doc. 514, 23rd Cong., 1st sess., 1833-34.
RODGERS, JAMES, aged 80, resided in Pickens County, June 1, 1840.-Census of Pensioners, 1841, p. 149.
ROGERS, EDWARD, aged 89, and a resident of Tuscaloosa County; private S. C. State Troops; enrolled on August 12, 1833, under act of Congress of June 7, 1832, payment to date from March 4 ,1831; annual allowance, $80; sums received to date of publication of list, $240.-Revolutionary Pension Roll, in Vol. xiv, Sen. Doc. 514, 23rd Cong., 1st sess., 1833-34.
ROPER, JOHN, aged 75, resided in Benton County, June 1, 1840, with Stephen Roper.-Census of Pensioners, 1841, p. 148.
ROSS, CHARLES, aged 85, and a resident of Morgan County; private Virginia Continental Line; enrolled on May 27, 1824, under act of Congress of March 18, 1818, payment to date from April 26, 1824; annual allowance, $96; sums received to date of publication of list, $670.98.-Revolutionary Pension Roll, in Vol. xiv, Sen. Doc. 514, 23rd Cong., 1st sess., 1833-34.
ROSS, WALTER, aged 74, and a resident of Autauga County; private N. C. Militia; enrolled on October 29, 1833, under the act of Congress of June 7, 1832, payment to date from March 4, 1831; annual allowance, $30; sums received to date of publication of list, $90.-Revolutionary Pension Roll, in Part 3, Vol. xiii, Sen. Doc. 514, 23rd Cong., 1st sess., 1833-34. He resided in Autauga County, June 1, 1840, aged 81.-Census of Pensioners, 1841, p. 149.
ROWAN, SAMUEL, aged 70, and a resident of Jackson County; private S. C. Continental Line; enrolled on November 22, 1833, under act of Congress of June 7, 1832; payment to date from. March 4, 1831; annual allowance, $39.44; sums received to date of publication of list, $118.32.-Revolutionary . Pension Roll, in Vol. xiv, Sen. Doc. 514, 23rd Cong., 1st sess., 1833-34.
ROWE, JOSHUA, aged 79, resided in Coosa County, June 1, 1840, with Daniel Rowe.-Census of pensioners, 1841, p. 149.
ROWSEY, EDMOND, aged 71, and a resident of Fayette County; private Virginia Militia; enrolled on February 11, 1834, under act of Congress of June 7, 1832, payment to date from March 4, 1831; annual allowance, $20; sums received to date of publication of list, $60. Revolutionary Pension Roll, in Vol. xiv, Sen. Doc. 514, 23rd Cong., 1st sess., 1833-34.
RUSSELL, THOMAS, aged 74, and a resident of Jackson County; private of Cavalry N. C. Continental Line; enrolled on April 22, 1834, under act of Congress of June 7, 1832, payment to date from March 4, 1831; annual allowance, $41.66.-Revolutionary Pension Roll, in Vol. xiv, Sen. Doc. 514, 23rd Cong., 1st sess., 1833-34. He resided in Jackson County, June 1, 1840, aged 79.-Census of Pensioners, 1841, p. 148.