Moores Creek Battlefield trail map

There are two trails at Moores Creek National Battlefield. Both are flat and easy and provide an educational experience. The History Trail allows you to walk the battlefield grounds so you can get a feel for the terrain on which the battle was fought. Details about the trail are given on the Touring the Battlefield web page here on National Park Planner. There is also a short nature trail, the Tarheel Trail, where you can learn about the business of extracting pine tar and pitch from the longleaf pine trees that once dominated the area. Pitch, a very valuable commodity at the time, was used for sealing the hulls of ships. If you are planning to walk the History Trail, the Tarheel Trail branches off of it just before you get to the end, so you might as well hike the two together. The Tarheel Trail is only a .2 mile loop.

Tarheel Trail

Length: .3-mile loop
Time: 15 minutes
Difficulty: Easy

The Tarheel Trail can be hiked on its own or combined with the History Trail (which I recommend). The trail forms a horseshoe shape with one trailhead starting at the far end of the Moores Creek Battlefield Visitor Center parking lot and the other at the intersection with the History Trail not too far from the Women’s Monument. I can’t imagine walking this trail on its own, so if you are already walking the History Trail, might as well take this short detour and learn something about the pine tar industry. Once you pass the monuments, there’s nothing left to see on the History Trail anyway.

Paved path of the Tarheel Trail

The forest that the trail takes you through today consists mainly of loblolly pines, but back in the 1700s it was dominated by longleaf pines. Being pyrophytic—resistant to fire—longleafs thrived when wildfires burned the underbrush and other competition for resources. Unfortunately, as the area became more populated, people began suppressing wildfires, and as a result, longleafs died out and loblollies took over. The National Park Service has begun to plant longleafs in hope of one day restoring the area to what it looked like in the 18^th Century.

As for the trail, it is flat and easy with no unmarked side trails or intersections to cause confusion. The actual trail length is just .2 miles long; the .3-mile stated length includes the trip to and from the Visitor Center. A trail map is included on the park brochure.