importance of their achievement. The battle
of King's Mountain, inconsiderable as it was in the numbers engaged,
turned the tide of Southern warfare. The destruction of Ferguson and
his corps gave a complete check to the expedition of Cornwallis. He
began to fear for the safety of South Carolina, liable to such sudden
irruptions from the mountains; lest, while he was facing to the north,
these hordes of stark-riding warriors might throw themselves behind
him, and produce a popular combustion in the province he had left. He
resolved, therefore, to return with all speed to that province and
provide for its security.

On the 14th of October he commenced his retrograde and mortifying
march, conducting it in the night, and with such hurry and confusion,
that nearly twenty wagons, laden with baggage and supplies, were lost.
As he proceeded, the rainy season set in; the brooks and rivers became
swollen, and almost impassable; the roads deep and miry; provisions
and forage scanty; the troops generally sickly, having no tents. At
length the army arrived at Winnsborough, in South Carolina. Hence, by
order of Cornwallis, Lord Rawdon wrote on the 24th October to
Brigadier-general Leslie, who was at that time in the Chesapeake, with
the force detached by Sir Henry Clinton for a descent upon Virginia,
suggesting the expediency of his advancing to North Carolina, for the
purpose of co-operation with Cornwallis, who feared to proceed far
from South Carolina, lest it should be again in insurrection.

The victory at King's Mountain had set the partisan spirit throughout
the country in a blaze. Francis Marion was soon in the field. He had
been made a brigadier-general by Governor Rutledge, but his brigade,
as it was called, was formed of neighbors and friends, and was
continually fluctuating in numbers. He was nearly fifty years of age,
and small of stature, but hardy, healthy and vigorous. He had his
haunts and strongholds in the morasses of the Pedee and Black River.
His men were hardy and abstemious as himself; they ate their meat
without salt, often subsisted on potatoes, were scantily clad, and
almost destitute of blankets. Marion was full of stratagems and
expedients. Sallying forth from his morasses, he would overrun the
lower districts, pass the Santee, beat up the small posts in the
vicinity of Charleston, cut up the communication between that city and
Camden; and having struck some signal blow, so as to rouse the
vengeance of