Greensboro, North Carolina

 city, county seat

City with a population of 258,671 C ounty seat of Guilford County. The town was designated in 1808. The early 1840s is when the railroad was built through the city. Briefly served as the state capital in 1865 when the government fled Raleigh in anticipation of attack by Sherman's men.
The city was named for Major General Nathanael Greene, commander of the American forces at the Battle of Guilford Court House on March 15, 1781. The Americans lost that battle but the Pyrrhic victory slowed Cornwallis's British forces enough to allow the Americans to prepare to defeat them at the Battle of Yorktown, where the British were forced to surrender on October 19, 1781, after a 20-day siege, thus ending the American Revolution. Historian David McCullough considers Nathanael Greene to be "the best general" in the American military during the Revolution, including George Washington. ¶