helby, on his part, insisted
that it was the duty of Colonel Bledsoe, whose family, relatives, and
defenceless neighbors looked to him for protection, to stay with the troops
at home for the purpose of repelling the expected Indian assault. For
himself, he urged, he had no family to guard, or who might mourn his loss,
and it was better that he should advance with the troops to join McDowell.
No one could tell where might be the post of danger and honor, at home or
on the other side of the mountain. The arguments he used no doubt
corresponded with his friend's own convictions, his sense of duty to his
family, and of true regard to the welfare of his country; and the
deliberation resulted in his relinquishment of the command to his junior
officer. It was thus that the conscientious, though not ambitious, patriot
lost the honor of commanding in one of the most distinguished actions of
the Revolutionary War.

Colonel Shelby took the command of those gallant mountaineers who
encountered the forces of Ferguson at King's Mountain on the 7th October,
1780. Three days after that splendid victory, Colonel Bledsoe received from
him an official dispatch giving an account of the battle. The daughter of
Colonel Bledsoe well remembers having heard this dispatch read by her
father, though it has probably long since shared the fate of other valuable
family papers.

When the hero of King's Mountain, wearing the victor's wreath, returned to
his friends, he found that his betrothed had departed with her father for
Kentucky, leaving for him no request to follow. Sarah, the above-mentioned
daughter of Colonel Bledsoe, often rallied the young officer, who spent
considerable time at her father's, upon this cruel desertion. He would
reply by expressing much indignation at the treatment he had received at
the hands of the fair coquette, and protesting that he would not follow her
to Kentucky, nor ask her of her father; he would wait for little Sarah
Bledsoe, a far prettier bird, he would aver, than the one that had flown
away. The maiden, then some twelve or thirteen years of age, would
laughingly return his bantering by saying he "had better wait, indeed, and
see if he could win Miss Bledsoe who could not win Miss Hart." The arch
damsel was not wholly in jest, for a youthful kinsman of the colonel--David
Shelby, a lad of seventeen or eighteen, who had fought by his side at
King's Mountain--had already gained her youthful affections. She remaine