Thomas Eaton (general)

Service record:^[3]

• Halifax District Brigade of militia: 1779 to 1781
• Colonel over the Bute County Regiment of militia and the Warren County Regiment of militia
• Appointed 11/4/1779 as Brigadier Pro Tempore, to replace Allen Jones, away on business.
• Re-appointed as Brigadier Pro Tempore in early 1781.
• Returned to being Colonel over the Warren County Regiment of Militia.
• Engaged at the Battle of Guilford Court House

After his appointment as a colonel in 1776, Eaton was elected to the North Carolina Council of State, an executive body elected by the North Carolina General Assembly which assisted the governor in managing the state's affairs. Eaton served under Richard Caswell in that governor's terms as first and fifth governor of the post-Revolution state, and was re-elected to the Council in 1779 and 1784. In between his terms as a councillor, Eaton served with the militia in the southern theater against the British Army and its local Loyalist tributaries,^[1] but was primarily a politician, and had less military experience than many of his colleagues.^[4]

On March 3, 1779, Eaton was in command of a regiment of militia at the Patriot defeat at the Battle of Brier Creek in Georgia. At Brier Creek, the Patriot forces were forced to retreat, and Eaton lost a pair of distinctive riding boots, which were retrieved by Loyalist Colonel John Hamilton, who had commanded the Royal North Carolina Regiment. During a dinner party after the revolution, Hamilton reportedly attempted to return the boots to their owner, only to be rebuffed violently.^[5] In November 1779, he was promoted to the rank of brigadier general by the North Carolina Assembly. On March 15, 1781, Eaton commanded the Halifax District Brigade of the North Carolina militia at the Battle of Guilford Courthouse, where he was positioned beside the Hillsborough District Brigade of militia under Brigadier General John Butler.^[1] Commanding General Nathanael Greene considered the 1,000 North Carolina militiamen under Butler and Eaton's command to be his least-reliable troops.^[6] Eaton, as well as Butler, attempted to stop the men under their command from fleeing the field early during that battle, but could not prevent a large number of North Carolina militia from routing.^[1][7]

After the death of Anna in 1781, Eaton married his second wife, Anne Stith, with whom he had two sons. Eaton would find occasion to remarry for a final time with Elizabeth Jones, a cousin of Continental Congress delegates Willie and Allen Jones. According to the 1790 census, Eaton was one of the largest slaveholders in North Carolina, and his substantial landholdings in Bute County were a part of Warren County after Bute was divided in 1779. Eaton died in June 1809.^[1]

• Babits, Lawrence E.; Howard, Joshua B. (2009). Long, Obstinate, and Bloody: The Battle of Guilford Courthouse. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press. ISBN 9780807832660.
• Buchanan, John (1997). The Road to Guilford Courthouse: The American Revolution in the Carolinas. New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc. ISBN 047116402X.
• Connor, Robert D. W., ed. (1913). A Manual of North Carolina Issued by the North Carolina Historical Commission for the Use of Members of the General Assembly Session 1913. Raleigh, N.C.: North Carolina Historical Commission. OCLC 5057593.
• Rankin, Hugh F. (1971). The North Carolina Continentals. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press. ISBN 9780807811542.
• Smith, Claiborne T. Jr. (1986). "Eaton, Thomas". In Powell, William S (ed.). Dictionary of North Carolina Biography. Vol. 2 (D–G). Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. ISBN 9780807816561.