On 7 May 1775 riders thundered down the colonial roadways, crossing the area of Camp Lejeune on the Lower Ferry (Sneads Ferry), and informed Onslow's excited citizenry that the American Revolution had begun. At the Battle of Moore's Creek Bridge on 27 February 1776 the Americans, with a sizeable contingent of Onslow County militiamen, decisively defeated the Loyalists (Tories) who had been directed by the colonial governor, Josiah Martin, to unite with a British force afloat in the Cape Fear River. This was the first significant American victory of the Revolution, which, along with the subsequent British failure to capture Charleston, meant that Onslow County and the southern colonies were free from British occupation and plundering until 1781.