COLONEL _EDWARD BUNCOMBE_, FIFTH NORTH CAROLINA CONTINENTAL REGIMENT. [Illustration] HIS LIFE, MILITARY CAREER, AND DEATH WHILE A WOUNDED PRISONER IN PHILADELPHIA DURING THE WAR OF THE REVOLUTION. [Illustration] ADDRESS DELIVERED BEFORE THE NORTH CAROLINA SOCIETY OF THE CINCINNATI AT ITS MEETING HELD IN HILLSBOROUGH, JULY 4, 1901. BY MARSHALL DELANCEY HAYWOOD. [Illustration] PUBLISHED BY THE SOCIETY. RALEIGH: ALFORD, BYNUM & CHRISTOPHERS, PRINTERS, 1901. [Illustration] Author ADDRESS. MR. PRESIDENT AND GENTLEMEN OF THE SOCIETY: It is no small privilege which the North Carolina Society of the Cincinnati enjoys when it meets in this ancient Revolutionary capital, for here our organization was first brought into being. The year of grace 1783, which is the date of its birth, was one of mingled joy and depression to the people of America. The war, it is true, had been fought to a successful close; and, by a treaty wherein they were separately specified, King George had acknowledged the thirteen colonies to be “free, sovereign, and independent States.” But how changed was the order of things! The desolation following in the wake of war was scarcely less terrible than war itself, and no State had made greater sacrifices for the cause of liberty than North Carolina. Under daring partisan leaders at home, under Washington in the north, and Greene in the south, her sons had in countless fights lengthened the list of killed and wounded, while those who were spared came home to prove that-- “Peace hath her victories No less renown’d than war.” Yet many, so many, there were of the brave defenders of America who did not return, and their mortal remains still rest on and about the old battlefields made memorable by their valor. To this class belonged the good and gallant officer of whom I shall speak today. COLONEL EDWARD BUNCOMBE, of Buncombe Hall, in the Colony of North Carolina, was born in the year 1742, on the Island of St. Christopher, sometimes called St. Kitt’s, which is one of the Leeward group in the West Indies. The register of St. Ann’s Parish, in the above island, shows that: “Edward, son of Thomas and Esther Buncombe,” was baptized on the 23d of September in the above year. Thomas Buncombe, the father of Edward, was a gentleman of English birth and ancestry, and died in the Fall of 1747. He had four children: John, Edward (of whom this sketch treats), Sarah, who married first a Mr. Beach and then a Mr. Humbergen, and Ann, who married a Mr. Caines.