Pension Application of Harper Ratcliffe: S31312
Transcribed and annotated by C. Leon Harris
State of Kentucky Perry County SS
On this 11th day of November 1833 personally appeared in open Court before the Justices of the County Court of Perry now sitting Harper Ratcliffe a resident of Clay County Ky aged 71 years who being first duly sworn according to Law doth on his oath make the following Declaration in order to obtain the benefit of the act of Congress passed June 7th 1832. That he entered the service of the United States under the following named Officers and served as herein stated. As a volunteer in Rockbridge County Va. where he then lived under Capt. Charles Campbell Lieut. Samuel McNabb & Ensign Audeinus[?] Campbell as he now believes. They first met at Col. McDoes [sic: possibly Samuel McDowell’s] below Lexington at the magazine & several other companies also. They marched through Albemarle County & on through to Norfolk & was afterwards marched through the Country to Petersburg &c until the 3 months his term of service expired at the end of which he was honorably discharged. Gen’ls [Anthony] Wayne & Lafayette & Col. Washington Regular Officers are well recollected on this Tour [see endnote]. he recollects that they started on this tour in the fall he thinks in ‘79 [sic] He afterwards entered the service in the same County for 3 months as a drafted Militiaman he thinks the year before Cornwallis was taken [on 19 Oct 1781] under Capt William Paxton & Ensign John McCorkle the Lieut he does not recollect, Col. William McKee & he thinks Maj’r David Hays – marched from Rockbridge to the neighborhood of Williamsburg & there had a scrimmage with the British at a place called Hotwater [Battle of Hot Water Plantation or Spencer’s Ordinary, 26 June 1781] and had to retreat. then marched in different directions to Petersburgh & he thinks about Petersburg they joined Gen’ls Morgan & Wayne [see endnote]. He well recollects when they were at a bridge above Petersburg he thinks Goods Bridge [possibly Goode’s Bridge on Appomattox River] that a man by the name of Fitzpatrick was hung for desertion & while there the Bridge fell; and after the Bridge fell as the Boat was crossing the river being very heavy loaded she sunk and a man by the name of Gipson was drowned it was supposed that his horse struck him on the head with his foot. And he also recollects that not far from this place Gen’l. Campbell cut one of his men very bad with his sword. he thinks this tour was in 1780 that they started in June. at the end of this tour of 3 months he was honorably discharged & was taken sick immediately & had to be haul’d home & was near a year before he recov’d so as to be able to do any thing. His discharge he has long since lost. He was born in Hanover County Va. has no record of his age and knows of no living witnesses the last & only one that he knew in this Country being dead several years Mr Henry Gay. He understood that Gen’l. Campbell & his Aid Mitchell both died in Richmond on their way home. After the war he lived in Rockbridge for many years then on Holstein [sic: Holston River] in Va. & since in Kentucky where he has lived for about 22 years past. He lives immediately on the line between Clay & Perry Counties about 30 miles from Clay C.H. & 10 from Perry C.H. is old and infirm which may account for his making application in Perry County together with his being able to have his business better attended to (as he believes) at Perry C.H. than at Clay as there are few persons in either County competent to do business of this kind. On the first tour below Richmond he recollects shooting off his Gun at the request of some of the Soldiers to scare some negroe women & forgot to stop his powder Horn & when he fired his Gun the powder in the Horn caught & bursted the horn.
He hereby relinquishes every claim whatever to a pension or annuity except the present and declares that his name is not on the pension roll of the agency of any state
Sworn to and subscribed the day and year aforesaid Harper hisXmark Ratcliffe
NOTE: Generals Anthony Wayne and Marquis de Lafayette were together in Virginia beginning in June 1781, but Col. William Washington was in South Carolina as a soldier and then prisoner of war. Gen. Daniel Morgan’s rifle corps joined Lafayette on 6 July 1781.