Jethro Sumner Jethro Exum Sumner ( 1733 – c . March 18 , 1785 ) was a North Carolina landowner and businessman , and an officer in the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War . Born in Virginia , Sumner ' s military service began in the French and Indian War as a member of the state ' s Provincial forces . After the conclusion of that conflict , he moved to Bute County , North Carolina , where he acquired a substantial amount of land and operated a tavern . He served as Sheriff of Bute County , but with the coming of the American Revolution , he became a strident Patriot , and was elected to North Carolina ' s Provincial Congress . Sumner was named colonel of the 3rd North Carolina Regiment of the Continental Line in 1776 , and served in both the Southern theater and Philadelphia campaign . He is best known as one of four brigadier generals in the Continental Army from North Carolina , in which capacity he served between 1779 and 1783 . As a brigadier general , he served with distinction in the battles of Stono Ferry and Eutaw Springs , but recurring bouts of poor health forced him to oftentimes play an administrative role , or to convalesce in North Carolina . Additionally , after a drastic reduction in the number of North Carolinians in service in the Continental Line , Sumner served as a general in the state ' s militia for a time , before resigning in protest after the North Carolina Board of War awarded overall command of the state ' s militia to William Smallwood , a Continental Army general from Maryland . After the end of the war in 1783 , Sumner helped to establish the North Carolina Chapter of the Society of the Cincinnati , and became its first president . Sumner died in 1785 with extensive landholdings and a large number of slaves . Early life . Sumner was born in Nansemond County , Virginia in 1733 to Jethro and Margaret Sullivan Sumner . His family had originally settled in Nansemond County in 1691 . Between 1758 and 1761 , during the French and Indian War , he was a lieutenant in the Virginia Provincial forces under the command of William Byrd III . On November 25 , 1758 , Sumner participated in the capture of Fort Duquesne . He was made commander at Fort Bedford in 1760 . After his regiment was disbanded in 1761 , he returned home to Nansemond County . Between 1761 and 1764 , he moved to Bute County in North Carolina , and married Mary Hurst of Granville County , with whom he would have three children . Sumner owned a substantial amount of property that had been inherited through his wife ' s family in Bute County , where he also owned and possibly operated a tavern on land that he leased for £36 annually . Like many former Virginians who moved across the border into North Carolina during the colonial era , it is likely that Sumner would have retained close business ties with the province of his birth , and would likely have done business in both Virginia and North Carolina ' s colonial currency . Between 1772 and 1776 , he served as sheriff of Bute County , resigning when he became an officer during the American Revolutionary War . Early on , he was active in pre - Revolution protests and politics , as he believed a separation from Great Britain was inevitable . He was chosen to be a Major in the Halifax District militia , and was instructed to drill his men so that they would be prepared for the expected conflict . Between August and September of 1775 , he served as Bute County ' s representative at the Third North Carolina Provincial Congress . In November 1775 , Sumner summoned his militia into active service , and marched north to join with Robert Howe in capturing ( and later burning ) Norfolk , Virginia . American Revolutionary War . Southern theater , 1776 . On April 4 , 1776 , early in the American Revolution , the Provincial congress at Halifax chose Sumner to be colonel of the 3rd North Carolina Regiment . He likely participated in the defense of Charleston in 1776 , after which he was involved in the aborted plans of Major General Charles Lee to invade British Florida . During the planning stages for the Florida invasion , Sumner became involved in a dispute with Peter Muhlenberg of the 8th Virginia Regiment over which officer was to be given temporary command over the expeditionary force in Lee ' s absence . This dispute was solved only when a court of inquiry awarded Muhlenberg temporary command , after Sumner failed to appear and plead his case . The plan did not materialize , though , and Sumner left his regiment at Savannah , Georgia in September , 1776 in order to recruit further soldiers from North Carolina . Philadelphia campaign and Valley Forge . In early 1777 , Sumner resumed command of his regiment , and marched north , where he then served under George Washington in the Philadelphia campaign . In the summer of 1777 , he remained encamped with the main army at Morristown , New Jersey . He and his men drilled regularly during that time and had their supplies and arms inspected and repaired , although many of the North Carolinians had such poor muskets that a substantial number were discarded . Sumner saw action in the battles of Brandywine and Germantown , and spent the winter of 1777 to 1778 in Valley Forge with Washington ' s army . After the death at Germantown of General Francis Nash , then in command of the North Carolina Brigade , the regiments of that unit were left without a commanding general . Generals Alexander McDougall of New York and Lachlan McIntosh of Georgia were appointed in succession to temporary command of the North Carolinians while in winter quarters , although North Carolina , based on the number of soldiers it provided to the Continental Army , was due the appointment of two additional brigadier generals . At Valley Forge , the North Carolina brigade had a total present strength of 1 , 051 , but 353 were ill , and 164 lacked sufficient clothes to be fit for service . Sumner himself contracted an illness in the Spring of 1778 , and was forced to return home to recuperate , yet he continued to recruit soldiers in North Carolina during his recovery . Despite his efforts , in February 1778 , North Carolina ' s regiments were consolidated , and Sumner ' s 3rd Regiment absorbed the 5th North Carolina Regiment . Promotion and campaigning in the Carolinas . Although North Carolina was owed additional general officer positions , conflicts between members of the North Carolina General Assembly over who was to be considered for the positions , and the apparent disinterest of Thomas Burke , one of North Carolina ' s leading delegates to the Continental Congress , in any of the suggested candidates stalled the selection of officers to assume those positions . To complicate matters further , Alexander Martin , once a leading candidate for generalship , resigned after charges of cowardice were leveled against him , and Martin was no longer seen as an appropriate candidate . The General Assembly deferred discussion of possible replacement generals for more than a month after convening on November 7 , 1777 . By December 15 , 1777 , the North Carolina General Assembly instructed its representatives in the Second Continental Congress to nominate Sumner for promotion to general . It was not until January 9 , 1779 , though , that the Continental Congress commissioned Sumner as brigadier - general ( along with fellow North Carolinian James Hogun ) , and ordered him to join General Benjamin Lincoln in South Carolina . Sumner received the highest number of congressional votes with thirteen to Hogun ' s nine , and Thomas Clark ' s four . On June 20 , 1779 , Sumner led a Continental Army brigade at the Battle of Stono Ferry , where he led the assault on the British right flank , and routed the Hessian von Trümbach Regiment . The Continentals and the Patriot militia began to run out of ammunition during the battle , and Lincoln was forced to order a general retreat . At least seven Continental officers under Sumner ' s command were wounded during the battle , and future United States President Andrew Jackson ' s brother Hugh was among ten North Carolinians killed . After the engagement at Stono Ferry , Sumner experienced another bout of poor health . He returned to North Carolina to recover , continuing to recruit troops during his convalescence . Despite being away from the rigors of camp life , he was left in an almost worse position , as a monetary crisis at the time rendered many officers in his position nearly unable to support themselves at home . Additionally , he was tasked by Lincoln with finding deserters in North Carolina and pressing them back into service . Sumner was on a leave of absence in September and October 1779 during the disastrous Siege of Savannah . Militia command . Between the Siege of Charleston in May 1780 and the Battle of Camden in August of that year , the North Carolina Line was virtually annihilated , suffering substantial casualties and the loss of many men as prisoners of war . Rather than rebuild the Line , the North Carolina General Assembly determined to rely on militia for the defense of the state . In September 1780 , Sumner temporarily transferred to command of the Hillsborough District militia , under the statewide command of Richard Caswell . As commander of a brigade of North Carolina militia , he was tasked with defending the state from the advances of British General Charles Cornwallis , but Sumner ' s men were poorly equipped and ill - trained . In late 1780 , the North Carolina Board of War removed Caswell from command of North Carolina ' s militia , and the General Assembly awarded command of the militia to Continental Army Brigadier General William Smallwood of Maryland , citing the Assembly ' s lack of confidence in their own state ' s military commanders . Sumner was further offended when command of the dwindling number of North Carolina continentals in the southern theater was given to Smallwood as well . Despite persistent urging from Alexander Martin and others , Sumner resigned from his militia command in October 1780 , and returned to the Continental service . A change in the political landscape would lead to the abolition of the Board of War by the General Assembly soon after Sumner ' s resignation , and men like Caswell and Martin would later come back to power on the Board ' s replacement organ , called the " Council Extraordinary " . Return to the Continental Army . Sumner next served under General Nathanael Greene , who arrived in the southern theater in December of 1780 . Greene ordered him to recruit further Continental soldiers from North Carolina . On June 2 , 1781 , Greene ordered Sumner to join him in South Carolina , which he did along with 350 new recruits on August 1 , 1781 . Despite the passage of a draft law in North Carolina , his command fluctuated from day to day because of both temporary and permanent desertions . These desertions eventually elicited his personal apology to Greene , as Sumner felt unable to control the ebb of soldiers in camp . On September 8 , his regiments were positioned on the right flank of the Continental Army at the Battle of Eutaw Springs , where his unit served a vital role in halting several British assaults . Greene commented on the North Carolinians ' actions at Eutaw Springs , stating that they " fought with a degree of obstinacy that would do honor to the best of veterans " . Following his success at Eutaw Springs , Sumner was appointed commanding officer of Continental Army forces in North Carolina by Greene in 1781 . Greene primarily wanted him to regain control of the military situation in the state , as then - Governor and former Continental Congress delegate Thomas Burke had been captured by David Fanning in a stunning daylight raid on Hillsborough , North Carolina on September 12 , 1781 . After the Continental Army ' s victory at the Siege of Yorktown , Sumner , who had once again fallen ill , failed to report to Greene for several months at a time . Post - war activities , death , and legacy . Following the war , Sumner returned to Bute County , which had been renamed Warren County after Joseph Warren , the hero of the Battle of Bunker Hill . It appears that Sumner ' s wife died at some point between 1781 and 1785 . For his service in the Continental Army , he received a land warrant on October 23 , 1783 , which represented compensation for 84 months of service . Sumner helped create North Carolina ' s chapter of the Society of the Cincinnati in October 1783 , serving as its first president . Sumner died in Warren County between March 15 and March 19 , 1785 at the age of 52 . When he died , he owned approximately 20 , 000 acres of land in North Carolina and Tennessee ( much of which in the latter were part of the Continental Army land warrant he received ) , as well as 35 slaves . He was originally buried approximately eight miles outside of Warrenton , but in 1891 , his remains were moved to the Guilford Courthouse Battlefield , where they were interred under a monument intended as part of a " shrine to patriots " . In March 2012 , a driver struck Sumner ' s monument after going off - road to avoid hitting a deer , nearly destroying the stone structure and the general ' s remains . The monument was restored by May 2012 , and Sumner was reburied in a public ceremony . Sumner County , Tennessee , originally in the western portion of North Carolina , was named for him , although Sumner never visited the county .