Nancy Morgan Hart (c. 1735–1830) was a rebel heroine of the American Revolutionary War, noted for her exploits against Loyalists in the northeast Georgia backcountry. She is characterized as a tough, resourceful frontier woman who repeatedly outsmarted Tory soldiers, and killed some outright. Stories about her are mostly unsupported by contemporary documentation, and it has been impossible for researchers to entirely distinguish fact from folklore. Early life Although explicit details concerning most of her life are unknown, Nancy Ann Morgan Hart is believed to have been born in North Carolina around 1735, in the Yadkin River valley. (Some researchers think that she was born in Pennsylvania or New York). She married Benjamin Hart of that area. His extended family's descendants included such famous later political figures as Missouri Senator Thomas Hart Benton and Kentucky Senator Henry Clay. During the early 1770s, Nancy, Benjamin and their family left North Carolina and migrated to Georgia, settling in the extremely fertile Broad River valley of the northeast Piedmont area. There she drew on her many frontier skills, including herbalism, hunting and shooting. Hart was well connected through family ties to other prominent figures in early American history. She was a cousin to Revolutionary War general Daniel Morgan, who commanded victorious American forces at the Battle of Cowpens in South Carolina on January 17, 1781. According to contemporary accounts, "Aunt Nancy", as she was often called, was a tall, gangly woman. She was rough-hewn and rawboned, with red hair and a face scarred by smallpox. One early account said that Hart had "no share of beauty—a fact she herself would have readily acknowledged, had she ever enjoyed an opportunity of looking into a mirror." Hart was said to have a feisty personal demeanor characterized by a hotheaded temper, a fearless spirit, and a penchant for exacting vengeance upon those who offended her or harmed her family and friends. Many remembered that she, rather than her husband, ran the Hart household. They had a total of six sons and two daughters. Although she was illiterate, Hart was amply blessed with the skills and knowledge necessary for frontier survival; she was an expert herbalist, a skilled hunter, and an excellent shooter. Revolutionary War accounts According to one account, during the Revolution, a group of five or six Tory soldiers came by the Hart house looking either for food or a Whig they were pursuing (accounts vary).