that he was planning to send boats carrying five
hundred men through Currituck Inlet, sweep the sound as high as Edenton,
destroy that town and its shipping, and then proceed to New Bern, which
he hoped to serve in like manner. Then he expected to post armed vessels
outside Currituck Inlet, distress the people of the coast country, and
thus keep the people of eastern Carolina so busy defending their own
homes that they would not be able to send men to interfere with the
plans of Cornwallis.

Arnold asked Clinton for 100 ship carpenters to build the vessels
necessary for the execution of his plans, but the traitor was not able
to carry out his designs against the eastern towns, for on arriving in
Virginia he found himself so hated and shunned by the British officers
over whom he was placed that he soon resigned his command of the
Virginia posts to General Phillips, of the British army, and instead of
proceeding against Edenton, he undertook another expedition up the James
River.

General Phillips, who now assumed command of the British in southeastern
Virginia, immediately began to plan to join Cornwallis, who in the
meantime had won the doubtful victory of Guilford Courthouse and had
retreated to Wilmington.

The situation in Edenton was now alarming in the extreme. Leslie had
3,500 men in Virginia, 2,500 of whom, General Gregory wrote Iredell, had
embarked at Kempe's Landing, supposedly for Edenton. Rumor had it that
there were seven British boats at North Landing, and some at Knott's
Island. Cornwallis' Army was marching northward from Wilmington, and
reports from nearby counties that lay in his path, told of the atrocious
crimes committed by his men against women and children, of devastated
fields and homes burned and ruined. Hundreds of negroes were foraging
for the British army, and the Tories everywhere were wreaking vengeance
upon their Whig neighbors.

The long dreaded day at last arrived. Edenton was raided, and the
vessels in her harbor burned and carried off. Eden House, some ten miles
from the town, the home of Robert Smith, a prominent merchant of
Edenton, was plundered, and valuable papers destroyed. Many of the
beautiful homes of the planters in the neighborhood were destroyed, and
a schooner belonging to Robert Smith, and one, the property of a Mr.
Littlejohn, were captured by the enemy and carried off down the sound.

The danger was so real that many families fled from the town and sought
refuge