| rdfs:comment | - 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.
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| abstract | - 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.
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