in Southern warfare.

Cornwallis decamped from Camden, and set out for North Carolina. In
the subjugation of that province, he counted on the co-operation of
the troops which Sir Henry Clinton was to send to the lower part of
Virginia, which, after reducing the Virginians to obedience, were to
join his lordship's standard on the confines of North Carolina.
Advancing into the latter province, he took post at Charlotte, where
he had given rendezvous to Ferguson. The surrounding country was wild
and rugged, covered with close and thick woods, and crossed in every
direction by narrow roads. The inhabitants were stanch whigs, with the
pugnacious spirit of the old Covenanters. Instead of remaining at home
and receiving the king's money in exchange for their produce, they
turned out with their rifles, stationed themselves in covert places,
and fired upon the foraging parties; convoys of provisions from Camden
had to fight their way, and expresses were shot down and their
despatches seized.

The capture of his expresses was a sore annoyance to Cornwallis,
depriving him of all intelligence concerning the movements of Colonel
Ferguson, whose arrival he was anxiously awaiting. The expedition of
that doughty partisan officer here calls for especial notice. He had
been chosen for this military tour as being calculated to gain friends
by his conciliating disposition and manners. He however, had a loyal
hatred of whigs, and to his standard flocked many rancorous tories,
besides outlaws and desperadoes, so that his progress through the
country was attended by many exasperating excesses.

He was on his way to join Cornwallis when a chance for a signal
exploit presented itself. An American force under Colonel Elijah
Clarke, of Georgia, was retreating to the mountain districts of North
Carolina, after an unsuccessful attack upon the British post at
Augusta. Ferguson resolved to cut off their retreat. Turning towards
the mountains, he made his way through a rugged wilderness and took
post at Gilbert-town, a small frontier village of log-houses. "All of
a sudden," say the British chroniclers just cited, "a numerous, fierce
and unexpected enemy sprung up in the depths of the desert. The
scattered inhabitants of the mountains assembled without noise or
warning, under the conduct of six or seven of their militia colonels,
to the number of six hundred strong, daring, well-mounted and
excellent horsemen."

These were the people of the mount