Robert Henry

Born in 1765 and living until 1863, Robert Henry is chiefly remembered today for his memoir-like narrative about the Battle of Cowan's Ford, a Revolutionary War engagement fought on February 1, 1781, in North Carolina. Because he lived so long, his life stretched from the colonial era into the Civil War period, making him an unusually vivid witness to a huge span of American history.

His best-known work, Narrative of the Battle of Cowan's Ford, February 1st, 1781, preserves personal recollections connected with the war in the Carolina backcountry. That kind of firsthand testimony is especially valuable because it captures not just military events, but also the local memory and storytelling that surrounded them.

The surviving sources found here confirm his dates and his connection to that narrative, but they do not provide many biographical details beyond his long life and Revolutionary War associations. Even so, his importance is clear: he helped pass along the lived memory of the American Revolution to later generations.