7. These British Loyalists Went on a Vicious Crime Spree Against Patriots During the American Revolution
Wiley “Little” Harpe and his older brother Micajah “Big” Harpe were born in North Carolina to Scottish parents. Their father was a British Loyalist, who had fought in a Tory militia during the Regulator War (1765 – 1771) against local insurgents who rose up against corrupt colonial officials. When the War of American Independence began, their father tried to join the Patriots, but they rejected him because of his past record as a Tory. Instead, Patriot neighbors persecuted the Harpe family.
That drove Big and Little Harpe to seek revenge by fighting on the British side, and they joined a depraved Loyalist gang. Exploiting the wartime breakdown of law and order, the Harpes and their associates targeted Patriots with a depraved crime spree of robbery, arson, kidnapping, violation of women, and murder. At times, they fought alongside the British without pay, subsisting by looting battlefields. They were present at the battles of Kings Mountain and Blackstock in 1780, and the Battle of Cowpens in 1781.