In the second week of September, when the heats of summer had abated, the earlier cereal grains had been harvested, and the maize was nearly ripe, Cornwallis began his projected march. He relied on the loyalists of North Carolina to recruit his army. On his left, Major Patrick Ferguson, the ablest British partisan, was sent with two hundred of the best troops to the uplands of South Carolina, where he enlisted young men of that country, loyalists who had fled to the mountains for security, and fugitives of the worst character who sought his standard for the chances of plundering with impunity.

The Cherokees had been encouraged during the summer to join in ravaging the American settlements west of the mountains as far as Chiswell's lead mines. Against this danger Jefferson organized, in the south-western counties of the state of which he was the governor, a regiment of four hundred backwoodsmen under the command of Colonel William Campbell, brother-in-law of Patrick Henry; in an interview with William Preston, the lieutenant of Washington county, as the south-west of Virginia was then called, he dwelt on the resources of the country, the spirit of congress, and the character of the people; and for himself and for his state would admit no doubt that, in spite of all disasters, a continued vigorous resistance would bring the war to a happy issue.

At Waxhaw, Cornwallis halted for a few days, and, that he might eradicate the spirit of patriotism from South Carolina before he passed beyond its borders, he, on the sixteenth day of September, sequestered by proclamation all estates belonging to the friends of America, and appointed a commissioner for the seizure of such estates both real and personal. The concealment, removal, or injury of property doomed to confiscation was punishable as an abetting of rebellion. The sequestration extended to debts due to the person whose possessions were confiscated; and, to prevent collusive practices, a great reward was offered to those who should make discovery of the concealment of negroes, horses, cattle, plate, household furniture, books, bonds, deeds, and other property. To patriots, no alternative was left but to fight against their country or to encounter exile and poverty.

The chiefs of the Cherokees were at that very time on their way to Augusta to receive the presents which were to stimulate their activity. Aware of their coming, Clark, a fugitive from Georgia, forced his way back with one hundred riflemen; having joined to them a body of woodsmen, he defeated the British garrison under Colonel Brown at Augusta, and captured the costly presents designed for the Cherokees. The moment was critical; for Cornwallis, in his eagerness to draw strength to his own army, had not left a post or a soldier between Augusta and Savannah, and the alienated people had returned most reluctantly to a state of obedience. With a corps of one hundred provincials and one hundred Cherokees, Brown maintained a position on Garden Hill for nearly a week, when he was rescued by Cruger from Ninety-Six. At his approach, the Americans retired. On the pursuit, some of them were scalped and some taken prisoners. Of the latter, Captain Ashby and twelve others were hanged under the eyes of Brown; thirteen who were delivered to the Cherokees were killed by tortures, or by the tomahawk, or were thrown into fires. Thirty in all were put to death by the orders of Brown.

Cruger desired to waylay and capture the retreating party, and Ferguson eagerly accepted his invitation to join in the enterprise. Cruger moved with circumspection, taking care not to be led too far from the fortress of Ninety-Six; Ferguson was more adventurous, having always the army of Cornwallis on his right. Near the Broad river his party encountered Macdowell with one hundred and sixty militia from Burk and Rutherford counties in North Carolina, pursued them to the foot of the mountains, and left them no chance of safety but by fleeing beyond the Alleghanies.

During these events Cornwallis encountered no serious impediment till he approached Charlotte. There his van was driven back by the fire of a small body of mounted men, commanded by Colonel William Richardson Davie of North Carolina. The general rode up in person, and the American party was dislodged by Webster's brigade; but not till the mounted Americans, scarcely forty in number, had for several minutes kept the British army at bay.

From Charlotte, Cornwallis pursued his course toward

Salisbury. Meantime, the fugitives under Macdowell recounted the sorrows of their families to the emigrant freemen on the Watauga, among whom slavery was scarcely known. The backwoodsmen, though remote from the world, love their fellow-men. In the pure air and life of the mountain and the forest they join serenity with courage. They felt for those who had fled to them; with one heart, they resolved to restore the suppliants to their homes, and for that purpose formed themselves into regiments under Isaac Shelby and John Sevier. Shelby despatched a messenger to William Campbell on the forks of Holston; and the field-officers of south-western Virginia unanimously invited him, with four hundred men, to join in the expedition. An express was sent to Colonel Cleaveland of North Carolina; and all were to meet at Burk county court-house, on the waters of the Catawba.

The three regiments from the west of the Alleghanies under Campbell, Shelby, and Sevier, and the North Carolina fugitives under Macdowell, assembled on the twenty-fifth of September at Watauga. On the next day, each man mounted on his own horse, armed with his own rifle, and carrying his own store of provisions, they began the ride over the mountains, where the passes through the Alleghanies are the highest. Not even a bridle-path led through the forest, nor was there a house for forty miles between the Watauga and the Catawba. The men left their families in secluded valleys, distant one from the other, exposed not only to parties of royalists, but of Indians. In the evening of the thirtieth they formed a junction with the regiment of Colonel Benjamin Cleaveland, consisting of three hundred and fifty men from the North Carolina counties of Wilkes and Surry. The next day Macdowell was despatched to request Gates to send them a general officer; "till he should arrive, Campbell was chosen to act as commandant."

Ferguson, who had pursued the party of Macdowell to the foot of the Alleghanies, and had spread the terror of invasion beyond them, moved eastwardly toward Cornwallis by a road from Buffalo ford to King's Mountain, which offered ground for a strong encampment. Of the parties against him he thus wrote to Cornwallis: "They are become an object of conse

quence. I should hope for success against them myself; but, numbers compared, that must be doubtful. Three or four hundred good soldiers, part dragoons, would finish the business. Something must be done soon. This is their last push

in this quarter."

On receiving the letter, Cornwallis ordered Tarleton to march with the light infantry, the British legion, and a threepounder to his assistance.

At that time Colonel James Williams was about seventy miles from Salisbury, in the forks of the Catawba, with nearly four hundred and fifty horsemen, in pursuit of Ferguson. Wise and vigilant, he kept out scouts on every side; and, on the second of October, one of them "rejoiced his heart" by bringing him the news that one half of the whole male adult population beyond the mountains were drawing near.

Following a path between King's Mountain and the main ridge of the Alleghanies, "the western army," so they called themselves, under Campbell, already more than thirteen hundred strong, marched to the Cowpens on Broad river, where, on the evening of the sixth, they were joined by Williams with four hundred men. From Williams they learned nearly where Ferguson's party was encamped; and a council of the principal officers decided to go that very night to strike them by surprise. For this end they picked out nine hundred of their best horsemen; at eight o'clock on that same evening the selected men began their march. Riding all night, with the moon two days past its first quarter, on the afternoon of the seventh they were at the foot of King's Mountain.

The little brook that ripples through the narrow valley flows in an easterly direction. The mountain, which rises a mile and a half south of the line of North Carolina, is the termination of a ridge that branches from the north-west to the south-east from a spur of the Alleghanies. The British, in number eleven hundred and twenty-five, of whom one hundred and twenty-five were regulars, were posted on its summit, "confident that they could not be forced from so advantageous a post," to which the approach was precipitously steep, the slaty rock cropping out in craggy cliffs and forming natural breast works along its sides and on its heights.

The Americans dismounted, and, though inferior in numbers, formed themselves into four columns. A part of Cleaveland's regiment, headed by Major Winston, and Colonel Sevier's regiment, formed a large column on the right. The other part of Cleaveland's regiment, headed by Cleaveland himself, and the regiment of Williams, composed the left wing. The post of extreme danger was assigned to the column formed by Campbell's regiment on the right centre, and Shelby's regiment on the left centre; so that Sevier's right nearly adjoined Shelby's left. The right and left wings were to pass the position of Ferguson, and from opposite sides climb the ridge in his rear, while the two central columns were to attack in front. In this order "the western army" advanced to within a quarter of a mile of the enemy before they were discovered.

The two centre columns, headed by Campbell and Shelby, climbing the mountain, began the attack. Shelby, a man of the hardiest make, stiff as iron, among the dauntless singled out for dauntlessness, went right onward and upward like a man who had but one thing to do, and but the one thought-to do it. The British regulars with fixed bayonets charged Campbell; and his riflemen, who had no bayonets, were obliged to give way for a short distance; but "they were soon rallied by their gallant commander and some of his active officers," and "returned to the attack with additional ardor."

The two columns, with no aid but from a part of Sevier's regiment, kept up a furious and bloody battle with the British for ten minutes, when the right and left wings of the Americans advancing upon their flank and rear, "the fire became general all around." For fifty-five minutes longer the fire on both sides was heavy and almost incessant. The regulars with bayonets could only make a momentary impression. At last the American right wing gained the summit of the eminence, and the position of the British was no longer tenable. Ferguson having been killed, the enemy attempted to retreat along the top of the ridge; but, finding themselves held in check by the brave men of Williams and Cleaveland, Captain Depeyster, the commanding officer of the British, hoisted a flag. The firing immediately ceased; the enemy laid