Abstract:
On September 12, 1781, loyalist partisan Colonel David Fanning and his militia surrounded the temporary state capital, Hillsborough. The one-thousand-man force successfully captured state officers, army officials, and Governor Thomas Burke. While Fanning marched his men to loyalist stronghold Wilmington, Whig general John Butler quickly assembled 400 militia at the mill of Quaker Thomas Lindley to block Fanning. The Whigs were overpowered, however, and the loyalists were able to deliver their prisoners to Major James H. Craig in Wilmington.