North Carolina's royal governor, Josiah Martin, with political and military tensions rising in the Thirteen Colonies in early 1775, had hoped to combine the recruiting of Scots settlers in the North Carolina interior with that of sympathetic former Regulators (a group originally opposed to corrupt colonial administration) and disaffected Loyalists in the coastal areas to build a large Loyalist force to counteract Patriot sympathies in the province.

His petition to London to recruit one thousand men had been rejected, but he has continued efforts to rally Loyalist support.

At about the same time, Scotsman Allan Maclean had successfully lobbied King George III for permission to recruit Loyalist Scots throughout North America.

In April, he had received royal permission to raise a regiment known as the Royal Highland Emigrants by recruiting retired Scottish soldiers living in North America.

One battalion was to be recruited in the northern provinces, including New York, Quebec and Nova Scotia, while a second battalion was to be raised in North Carolina and other southern provinces, where a large number of these soldiers had been given land.

After receiving his commissions from General Thomas Gage in June, Maclean had sent Donald MacLeod and Donald MacDonald, two veterans of the June 17 Battle of Bunker Hill, south to lead the recruitment drive there.

These recruiters are also aware that Allan MacDonald, husband of the famous Jacobite heroine Flora MacDonald, is already actively recruiting in North Carolina.

Their arrival at New Bern is cause for suspicion by members of North Carolina's Committee of Safety, but they have not been  arrested.

On January 3, 1776, Martin learns that an expedition of more than two thousand troops under the command of General Henry Clinton is planned for the southern colonies and that their arrival is expected in mid-February.

He sends word to the recruiters that he expects them to deliver recruits to the coast by February 15, and dispatches Alexander Maclean to Cross Creek (present-day Fayetteville) to coordinate activities in that area.

Mclean optimistically reports to Martin that he will raise and equip five thousand Regulators and a thousand Scots.