 In 1776, the Washington District sent a petition to the North Carolina Assembly asking to be annexed.In November of that year, North Carolina agreed, and the district was admitted to the state as Washington County.Washington County militiamen, who along with the Holston and Southwest Virginia militiamen comprised a frontier militia known as the Overmountain Men, took part in various engagements throughout the war, including the Siege of Charleston (historian Samuel Cole Williams dubbed the siege's Washington County participants the first "volunteers" of Tennessee) and the Battle of Musgrove Mill.