,
and camped that night at the "Resting-Place," under Shelving Rock,
beyond Crab Orchard. Next morning they started late, and went up the
pass between Roan and Yellow mountains. The table-land on the top was
deep in snow. [Footnote: Diary of Ensign Robert Campbell.] Here two
tories who were in Sevier's band deserted and fled to warn Ferguson; and
the troops, on learning of the desertion, abandoned their purpose of
following the direct route, and turned to the left, taking a more
northerly trail. It was of so difficult a character that Shelby
afterwards described it as "the worst route ever followed by an army of
horsemen." [Footnote: Shelby MS.] That afternoon they partly descended
the east side of the range, camping in Elk Hollow, near Roaring Run. The
following day they went down through the ravines and across the spurs by
a stony and precipitous path, in the midst of magnificent scenery, and
camped at the mouth of Grassy Creek. On the 29th they crossed the Blue
Ridge at Gillespie's Gap, and saw afar off, in the mountain coves and
rich valleys of the upper Catawba, the advanced settlements of the
Carolina pioneers,--for hitherto they had gone through an uninhabited
waste. The mountaineers, fresh from their bleak and rugged hills, gazed
with delight on the soft and fertile beauty of the landscape. That night
they camped on the North Fork of the Catawba, and next day they went
down the river to Quaker Meadows, McDowell's home.

At this point they were joined by three hundred and fifty North Carolina
militia from the counties of Wilkes and Surrey, who were creeping along
through the woods hoping to fall in with some party going to harass the
enemy. [Footnote: Shelby MS. Autobiography. See also Gates MSS. Letter
of Wm. Davidson, Sept. 14, 1780. Davidson had foreseen that there would
be a fight between the western militia and Ferguson, and he had sent
word to his militia subordinates to join any force--as McDowell's--that
might go against the British leader. The alarm caused by the latter had
prevented the militia from joining Davidson himself.] They were under
Col. Benjamin Cleavland, a mighty hunter and Indian fighter, and an
adventurous wanderer in the wilderness. He was an uneducated
backwoodsman, famous for his great size, and his skill with the rifle,
no less than for the curious mixture of courage, rough good humor, and
brutality in his character. He bore a ferocious hatred to the royalists,
and in the course of the