Another View: War for independence was ‘the people’s war’

Thomas Paine’s “Common Sense” may have persuaded the American colonists of the need for independence, but it is one thing to favor independence and quite another to pick up arms to obtain it.

We tend to think of war as being won by large armies on vast fields commanded by generals. But small victories can have a big effect. One such victory, mostly forgotten, occurred 250 years ago, on Feb. 27, 1776, at Moore’s Creek in North Carolina.

At the beginning of 1776, North Carolina was...