Edward Buncombe (1742–1778) was a plantation owner from the Province of North Carolina who served as a colonel in the North Carolina militia and Continental Army (the army of the Patriot side) in the American Revolutionary War.
He immigrated to North Carolina in 1768 and settled at a plantation he had inherited[3] near the shore of Albemarle Sound on the Atlantic coast, in what is now Washington County.
[4] In 1774, as the independence movement of the Thirteen Colonies gathered steam, he took a leading role in convening proindependence meetings, especially the First Provincial Congress,[3] which is reportedly the first assembly anywhere in the Thirteen Colonies to defy a royal governor.
He was wounded and captured on October 4, 1777 at the Battle of Germantown, fought several miles outside of the rebel capital of Philadelphia, which the British had recently seized.
The following May 1778, Col. Buncombe fell down some stairs while sleepwalking and his wounds reopened, causing him to bleed to death.