Present Greenville, North Carolina is founded in 1771 as "Martinsborough," after the Royal Governor Josiah Martin.

In 1774 the town will be moved to its present location on the south bank of the Tar River, three miles (five kilometers) west of its original site.

In 1786, the name will be changed to Greenesville in honor of General Nathanael Greene, the American Revolutionary War hero.

It will later be shortened to Greenville.

The North Carolina General Assembly had in 1771 passed an act establishing the town of Martinsborough, named for Royal Governor Josiah Martin, on the land of Richard Evans, to serve as the county seat of Pitt County.

The town is moved in 1774 to its present location on the south bank of the Tar River, three miles (five kilometers) west of its original site. (The name will be changed in 1786 to Greenesville to honor General Nathanael Greene, the American Revolutionary War hero, and later shortened to Greenville.)

The Loyalists, in the meeting of the morning of November 22, agree to withdraw across the Saluda River and the Patriots agree to destroy the fort.

Both sides are to return prisoners taken since November 2 and not interfere with each other's communications with their respective political leaders.

The Patriot leaders are also required to surrender their swivel guns, although they will be returned three days later.

The truce also includes reinforcements for both sides, terms that the Council of Safety claims do not apply to Colonel Richardson's force.

The reasons why the Loyalists had chosen to negotiate the truce are unknown.

Governor Campbell describes the Loyalists as lacking in effective leadership, and historian Martin Cann speculates that it may have been caused by Colonel Richardson's preparations or approach.

Richardson had mobilized twenty-five hundred men, which will grow by the end of November to more than four thousand.

This force will scour the back country, arresting or driving away most of the Loyalist leadership.

The campaign will effectively end on December 22, when fifteen inches (thirty-eight centimeters) of snow will fall on the area.

Richardson's men, unprepared for the snow, will make a difficult trek back to the lowlands.

Some of the Loyalist leaders who escape Richardson's expedition, including most notably Thomas Brown, will flee to West Florida where they will join regular and irregular forces serving with the British.

These events will result n the end of large-scale Loyalist activity in the southern Appalachians, although what is in many ways a civil war will become progressively more brutal in the following years.

Ninety Six will become a British outpost after the 1780 Siege of Charleston, and will be besieged in 1781 by forces under the command of Nathanael Greene.

Although Greene will be forced to lift that siege by the approach of a relief force, the British will abandon Ninety Six not long afterward.

The Battle of Long Island leads to British victory and the capture of New York City via a flanking move from Staten Island across Long Island.

Nathan Hale had volunteered on September 8, 1776, to go behind enemy lines and report on British troop movements.

He had been ferried across on September 12.

It is an act of spying that is immediately punishable by death and poses a great risk to Hale.

During his mission, New York City (at this time the area at the southern tip of Manhattan around Wall Street) has fallen to British forces on September 15 and Washington has been forced to retreat to the island's north in Harlem Heights (what is now Morningside Heights).

Several people, including General Nathanael Greene and New York's John Jay, had advocated burning the city down to deny its benefits to the British.

Washington had laid the question before the Second Continental Congress, which rejected the idea: "it should in no event be damaged."

Nathan Hal was born in Coventry, Connecticut, in 1755 to Richard Hale and Elizabeth Strong.

In 1768, when he was fourteen years old, he was sent with his brother Enoch, who was sixteen, to Yale College.

Nathan was a classmate of fellow patriot spy Benjamin Tallmadge.

The Hale brothers belonged to the Linonian Society of Yale, which debates topics in astronomy, mathematics, literature, and the ethics of slavery.

Nathan graduated with first-class honors in 1773 at age eighteen and became a teacher, first in East Haddam and later in New London.

After the Revolutionary War began in 1775, he had joined a Connecticut militia and was elected first lieutenant within five months.

His militia unit had participated in the Siege of Boston, but Hale had remained behind.

It has been suggested that he was unsure as to whether he wanted to fight, or whether he was hindered because his teaching contract in New London did not expire until several months later, in July 1775.

On July 4, 1775, Hale had received a letter from his classmate and friend Benjamin Tallmadge, who had gone to Boston to see the siege for himself.

He had written to Hale, "Was I in your condition, I think the more extensive service would be my choice. Our holy Religion, the honor of our God, a glorious country, & a happy constitution is what we have to defend."

Tallmadge's letter was so inspiring that, several days later, Hale had accepted a commission as first lieutenant in the 7th Connecticut Regiment under Colonel Charles Webb of Stamford.

In the following spring, the army had moved to Manhattan Island to prevent the British from taking over New York City.

In September, General Washingtonh ad been desperate to determine the location of the imminent British invasion of Manhattan Island.

To this end, Washington needed a spy behind enemy lines, and Hale was the only volunteer.

General Howe, deciding it will be better to retreat and land somewhere else, makes camp on Throgs Neck and remain here for six days while supplies and reinforcements, including seven thousand Hessian soldiers under the command of General Wilhelm von Knyphausen, are brought up from New York.

Howe embarks his army again just after midnight on October 18, and decide to land at Pell's Point near the town of Pelham, a few miles to the north.

After hearing of the landing on Throgs Neck, Washington had known he risks entrapment on Manhattan.

He had made the decision to move his army to White Plains, where he believes they will be safe.

By October 17, the Continental Army was on its way to White Plains, leaving behind two thousand men to garrison Fort Washington.

At dawn, the British begin to land on the shore, Clinton's advance guard of four thousand British light infantry and Hessian jägers landing first.

Inland, opposing them, is a brigade of some seven hundred and fifty men under the command of John Glover, commander of the 14th Continental Regiment.

Composed almost entirely of Massachusetts fishermen, this regiment has become known as the "amphibious regiment" for their vital nautical skills.

Glover is atop a hill with a telescope when he notices the British ships.

Glover sends an officer, Major William Lee, to report to Charles Lee, Washington's second in command, and ask for orders.

However, Lee doe not give any orders, and in the absence of orders Glover chooses to attack.

Glover turns out his brigade, which consists of the 14th, 13th, 3rd and the 26th Continental Regiments.

Glover leaves the 1one hundred fifty men  of the 14th Continentals behind in reserve.

He has not closed half the distance when he runs into approximately thirty skirmishers.

Glover orders a Captain and his forty-man company forward as an advance guard to hold the British in check, while Glover organized the rest of the force.

Glover prepares an ambush by placing the main body in staggered positions behind the stone walls that lined either side of the laneway leading from the beachhead to the interior.

Glover instructs each of the regiments to hold their position as long as they could and then to fall back to a position in the rear, while the next unit took up the fighting.

Glover then rides up to take command of the advance guard.

The advance guard and the British begin to engage each other, both sides taking casualties.

After a little while the British are reinforced, and Glover orders a retreat, which is done without confusion.

The British troops begin to advance at the retreating Americans.

However, the two hundred troops of the 13th Continentals that Glover has stationed behind the stone wall stand up and fire at the British when there  are only thirty yards yards away.

The ambush works, and the column of British troops takes heavy losses and falls back to the main body of the invading army.

The British wait half an hour before attacking again.

This time when they attack, they attack with all four thousand men and seven cannon.

The British bombard the American position behind the stone wall as their infantry advances.

The cannon fire is ineffective, and when the British are fifty yards away the Americans fire a volley that stops the British infantry.

The British return fire, and musket and rifle fire ensue for twenty minutes, the British supported by cannon, at which point the lead American regiment falls back under cover of the next reserve regiment.

The 3rd Continental Regiment is stationed behind the stone wall on the opposite side of the road.

The British attacks the position of the 3rd Continentals, and an engagement ensues.

Both sides keep up constant fire, the Americans breaking the British lines several times.

However, after seventeen volleys, the British numbers begin to overwhelm the Americans, and Glover orders a withdrawal to another stone wall on the crest of a hill while the next regiment in line, the 26th Continentals, engages the British.

A reconnaissance party of thirty men is sent out from behind the third stone wall to see if the British would try and flank the American position. The party runs into the British, who have continued to advance, and they fall back to the stone wall.

The Americans behind the wall fire one volley before Glover gives the order to retreat.

The Americans withdraw across a bridge over the Hutchinson stream, their retreat covered by the one hundred and fifty men of the 14th Continentals who engage in an artillery duel with the British.

Howe camps on a hill on the opposite side of the stream but makes no attempt to cross the stream

The Continental Army response is immediate; Washington sends a large force under Major General Nathanael Greene to reoccupy Bound Brook.

The British have already left by the time they arrive; Greene sends a detachment to harass their rear guard.

This detachment catches up with the British near Raritan Landing, where they kill eight and capture sixteen.

General Howe reports that about thirty Americans have been killed and eighty to ninety have been captured, while General Lincoln reports that sixty of his men have been killed or wounded.

Howe claims no deaths and seven wounded among the British and Hessians.

Washington reports that "[t]he enemy lost the post at Eleven O'Clock the same day, & our people took possession of it again", and that the army's losses were "trifling and not worth mentioning".

He did, however, also report that between thirty-five and forty killed or captured, and the loss of three field cannons.

In a report to the Board of War, Washington admits the capture of two cannons, two officers and twenty men from Colonel Proctor's Regiment.

General Greene reports to his wife, "The British Generals breakfasted and I [dined] at the same house that day".

Washington, concerned that the attack presages an early start to the campaign season, worries that his troops are not yet in place to deal with major British movements.

Two weeks later, after no further major activity, the Americans learn that "the Enemy are to take the field the first of June."

Washington had recognized that Bound Brook itself is a difficult place to defend.

On May 26 he had withdrawn the garrison, and on May 28, he moves part of his army from Morristown to a new entrenched camp near Middle Brook, just north of Bound Brook but well protected between the first and second Watchung Mountain ranges; other troops are stationed near Princeton.

From the top of the Watchung Mountains Washington monitors British movements while the two sides continue to skirmish.

Both sides also engage in intelligence gathering, each trying to determine the strength and intentions of the other.

Howe marches a significant force (more than eighteen thousand men) out of New Brunswick on June 12, through Bound Brook, and as far as Somerset, apparently in an attempt to draw Washington out of the hills.

Washington, aware that Howe has left the army's heavy baggage behind, is not fooled and refuses to move.

Howe now abruptly retreats back to Piscataway on June 19, upon which Washington has some of his troops give chase, and he moves down out of the hills.

A week later Howe tries to spring a trap on one of Washington's detachments that would have cut the American retreat into the hills off; this effort is repulsed in the Battle of Short Hills.

After this failure, Howe embarks his army on transports and sets sail for Chesapeake Bay, intending to take Philadelphia from the south.