Digital Scholarship and Initiatives

A standard, frequently-quoted source. W. McKee Evans states that, although “strongly partisan,” Norment “seems to make few factual errors” (To Die Game, pp. 273-275). Includes a genealogy of gang members, description of Scuffletown’s origin and geography, account of “the true condition of affairs in Robeson County,” 1864 through late 1870; and sections on people who were robbed or killed by the gang. The appendix of the 1909 edition is a condensation of a series of newspaper articles by Col. F. A. Olds. Weeks ("The Lost Colony of Roanoke: Its Fate and Survival," Papers of the American Historical Association, 1891) asserts that this book was actually written by Joseph B. McCallum. W. McKee Evans was never able to substantiate this claim. He has not seen any mention of Norment being celebrated as an author but speculates that a ghost writer could have used her name for publicity purposes (from correspondence).