On July 18, 1863, Union Gen. Edward E. Potter led infantry and cavalry from New Bern to destroy the Wilmington and Weldon Railroad bridge at Rocky Mount. He sent the infantry toward Kinston and part of the cavalry to Rocky Mount, while occupying Greenville and Tarboro with the rest. Before returning to New Bern on July 23, Potter's raiders damaged or destroyed bridges, trains, munitions, mills, the bridge across the Tar River at Greenville, and Confederate army supplies, although the Confederates restored rail service by Aug. 1. About 3 P.M. on Sunday, July 19, 1863, Potter's 800 cavalrymen entered Greenville unchallenged. Potter reported that the town was completely surrounded by a strong line of entrenchments, but had no troops except a few convalescents and sick in the hospital. Residents reported that the soldiers broke into bars and got drunk, looted shops, and robbed people in the streets. The raiders also entered the courthouse and jail and freed 25 negroes who, according to the New York Times, had been imprisoned while trying to get inside Union lines to join the colored regiment at New Bern. Such events were common in this part of North Carolina, where more than 5,000 former slaves from the eastern counties served in the U.S. Army and Navy, including many escaped Pitt County slaves who enlisted in the 1st North Carolina Colored Volunteers and other regiments of U.S. Colored Troops, while hundreds of other slaves left plantations to follow Union columns as refugees, as they did with Potter's raiders. Around 6 P.M., Potter's men left Greenville and rode west on the Tar River Road, halting at midnight at Sparta within 8 miles of Tarboro.