The life of John Dillard reflects that he was always at the cutting edge of establishing new frontiers. He did not fear but thrived on change. In fact, he did not mind if a bit of controversy was thrown in with the change. That may in part explain his enthusiastic involvment as a soldier in the Revolution and his continued volunteer military service after that war.

John Dillard was born to Edward and Elizabeth Dillard in northeastern Virginia Culpeper County in 1755. At an early age, he moved with his family and the family of one of his father’s brothers, Thomas Dillard, to then new sparsely settled frontier of Halifax County in southeastern Virginia. A part of this county would later become Pittsylvania County. It was here that he married Ruth Vaughan of that county and had his older children, Thomas, William, John, Jr. and possibly others.

He enlisted in 1776 as a Minuteman in the Pittsylvania County Militia. A Minuteman was ready on a minute’s notice to take to the field with arms to fight the enemy. John Dillard in 1777 signed along with relatives and friends a written oath of allegiance to the American cause in the Revolution.

John Dillard applied in 1834 for a pension of $31.00 per year for his service in the Revolution. He was then 79 years of age living in Rabun County. This application contained a sworn affidavit before the justices of the Rabun County Inferior Court detailing his military service. The facts in this affidavit save for minor details are verifiable from documented sources. The application and affidavit are preserved today in Revolutionary War Pension files in the National Archives in Washington, D.C.

The service of most Revolutionary soldiers was in the militia as Minutemen from the various counties as opposed to service in the regular Continental Army. These homespun dressed, often ragged, backwoods men of the militia served as needed and went back home when they had finished fighting. They were the backbone of the American cause.

John Dillard’s early military service was under Thomas Dillard, Jr., his older first cousin, who was captain over the Pittsylvania County militia as his father had been before him. John Dillard had a close relationship to Thomas Dillard, Jr. He had been "bound out" to him several years earlier by the vestry of Antrium Parish Church when something happened to his father and while he was still under age.

Under Captain Thomas Dillard, Jr., Colonel Lewis and General Stephens on February 1, 1776, John Dillard marched to Petersburg "by James Town" to Williamsburg, "thence to Little York" and thence to Chesapeake Bay to the Rappahannock River opposite Gwynn's Island where the British Fleet lay in anchor. He was there involved in a bombardment from the British Fleet defended by General Andrew Lewis. He was stationed on the coast to keep the enemy from "landing and plundering the inhabitants".

On February 1, 1778 John Dillard under Captain Thomas Dillard and Colonel Clark marched to Boone's Fort on the Kentucky River, then in Virginia, but now in Kentucky. He stated he arrived there on March 26, 1778. He remained there three months and two weeks.

On July 10, 1778 John Dillard marched to the falls of the Ohio River. He arrived there on July 20, 1778 where he built a stockade fort and two log cabins on an island in the river. On August 1, 1778 John Dillard was sent back home with a group of sick men, including Captain Thomas Dillard, and arrived back home on August 18, 1778.

John Dillard states that on January 27, 1780 he was ordered out as a part of the Pittsylvania County militia under General Greene on the Dan River in Halifax County, Virginia against British Lord Cornwallis. He was commanded by Captain Issac Clemmons and Colonel Perkins. He served as a lieutenant. He stated that he was dismissed on March 22, 1780 and arrived home on March 27, 1780. John Dillard was one year off on his dates in describing this major military event in his pension application which took place in 1781 instead of 1780.

That was John Dillard’s understated description of his five day engagement in the Battle of Guilford Courthouse which took place in March 1781 in central North Carolina near present Greensboro, North Carolina. In this battle 4,400 American soldiers assembled under the leadership of Major General Nathaniel Greene to confront British Lord Charles Cornwallis. These consisted of about 1,700 Continentals and 2,700 militia. Other Dillard cousins from Virginia were also involved in this battle.

The Virginia Militia of which John Dillard was a part was located in heavy woods where the orders were to shoot any man who attempted to run away. The Virginia militia grappled with the British attackers for about an hour in an action a British writer later described as “a number of irregular, but hard fought and bloody skirmishes.” Finding his line under attack from two directions, Lord Cornwallis extricated his men by firing cannons directly into the mass of struggling soldiers killing many of his own British troops.

With his line finally broken General Greene retreated, but the British, though claiming victory, suffered severe casualties. 532 British were reported killed, wounded or missing. 264 Americans were reported killed or wounded. A leader of the opposition to the war in the British parliament on hearing the news of the “victory” exclaimed “another such victory would ruin the British army.” Guilford Courthouse greatly contributed to the defeat of Lord Cornwallis at Yorktown a few months later in October 1781 and his surrender at the end of the war.

Captain Thomas Dillard, Jr. at the end of the War in 1782 moved his family to the Nolichuckey River of Washington County, North Carolina, a new unsettled frontier in an area which is now Erwin, Tennessee near old Jonesborough and modern Johnson City, Tennessee. John Dillard and his young family went with him. He was not finished with the military. John Dillard enlisted in the Washington County Militia as an ensign in May 1787 as recorded in the court minutes of that county. State militia was indispensable in frontier counties for protection against Indian hostilities. John Dillard was there in 1785 when both the state of North Carolina and the State of Franklin under John Sevier claimed jurisdiction over Washington County with the resulting political choas. John Dillard left before the admission by Congress of this territory as the state of Tennessee.

John Dillard in 1789 obtained a land grant from the State of North Carolina. This grant indicates that he had prior to that date once again moved to another unsettled frontier in Burke County, now Buncombe County, North Carolina. This was in the gently rolling plateau of Flat Creek of the French Broad River about ten miles north of present Asheville, North Carolina. John Dillard was an organizer of Buncombe County. He participated at the first term of court held in new Buncombe County in 1792. He was a commissioner appointed to select the first county seat for new Buncombe County and served as county ranger.

John Dillard with others petitioned the North Carolina Legislature requested compensation for their services as soldiers in the "late Continental Army". This was before the North Carolina House and Senate on November 28, 1792, and was referred to committee without final disposition.

By 1820, John Dillard had accumulated his home place, a farm containing 560 acres, and other properties throughout Buncombe County. He appeared to be enjoying prosperity. His four sons, Thomas, William, John, Jr. and James, had between 1807 and 1814 purchased as their homes farms contiguous to the home place owned by their father. However, some changes were beginning to take place rapidly in John Dillard’s life.

His oldest son, Thomas, sold out in Buncombe County in 1810 and settled in Independence County, Arkansas where he lived the rest of his life. His descendants were on both the Union and Confederate sides in the Civil War resulting in strained relationships within their circle of kin.

William Dillard and John Dillard, Jr. sold out in Buncombe County in 1812 and went to Knox County, Tennessee. Afterwards, William Dillard settled in Greene County, Missouri. John Dillard, Jr. finally settled in Cass County, Georgia near present Calhoun, Georgia where he resided until he died.

Rabun County, Georgia was organized in 1819 from land which had been ceded by the Cherokee Indians. Its lands were sold by state lottery. James Dillard, the youngest son of John Dillard, obtained deeds from lottery purchasers to 1,000 acres in four lots of land in Rabun County between 1821 and 1823. We stand on this property for this occasion.

By 1823 the older sons of John Dillard had already left him and the younger children had moved or were getting ready to move to Rabun County leaving him and his wife all alone in Buncombe County. John Dillard, at that time some 68 years of age, followed his younger children, James Dillard, Mary Rebecca Dickerson and Elizabeth Dryman when they were among the first settlers of Rabun County, Georgia. The younger children with passing time lost touch with the older children and their families who emigrated from Buncombe County, North Carolina.

John Dillard gave up his home of some 35 years in Buncombe County as evidenced by the sale in 1826 of his last two home place tracts in Buncombe County in which he identified himself in the deed as now of Rabun County, Georgia. He had taken on still another new, unsettled frontier in his older age. He survived his wife and lived some sixteen years longer when he died in Rabun County in 1842 at 87 years of age.

A willingness to fight to defend his beliefs was continued by every one of the Rabun County grandsons of John Dillard. William Franklin Dillard, son of James Dillard and Sarah Barnard Dillard, died in Lynchburg, Virginia of pneumonia where he is buried in a government cemetery at Lynchburg, Virginia. He was a private in Co. E., 24th Ga. Reg. (Calvary), Army of Northern Virginia.

Both John Barnett Dillard, my great grandfather buried about a hundred feet from where we are now, and Albert George Dillard, the other two sons of James Dillard and Sarah Barnard Dillard, served in the Georgia 4th Calvary (State Guards), Cannon's Company. After expiration of his term of duty in the state militia during which he was hospitalized in Augusta for his wounds in action, John Barnett Dillard was mustered in 1864 as a regular in the Confederate Army as a 5th Sergeant on the Muster Roll of Company F, 11th Regiment of Georgia, (formerly the 30th Battalion Georgia Calvary) which was in combat at Petersburg, Cold Harbor and Gettysburg.

Living in a society of rapidly changing events and values, we can enrich our lives by looking again at the values of those who fought with personal hardships in the Revolution for the freedom which we often take for granted today. The values of the American Revolution were radical in the world of that day. These values include, like John Dillard’s, not to be afraid of change but to have the courage to take on new frontiers whatever they may be.