eas, by the official report of October 4th, Campbell's
party only numbered fifteen hundred, and Williams, Lacey, etc., had but
four hundred, or nineteen hundred in all; says that sixteen hundred good
horses were chosen out, evidently confusing this with the number at
Gilbert Town; credits Ferguson with fourteen hundred men, and puts the
American loss at only twenty killed.] For some days the men had been
living on the ears of green corn which they plucked from the fields, but
at this camping-place they slaughtered some beeves and made a feast.

The mountaineers had hoped to catch Ferguson at Gilbert Town, but they
found that he had fled towards the northeast, so they followed after
him. Many of their horses were crippled and exhausted, and many of the
footmen footsore and weary; and the next day they were able to go but a
dozen miles to the ford of Green River.

That evening Campbell and his fellow-officers held a council to decide
what course was best to follow. Lacey, riding over from the militia
companies who were marching from Flint Hill, had just reached their
camp; he told them the direction in which Ferguson had fled, and at the
same time appointed the Cowpens as the meeting-place for their
respective forces. Their whole army was so jaded that the leaders knew
they could not possibly urge it on fast enough to overtake Ferguson, and
the flight of the latter made them feel all the more confident that they
could beat him, and extremely reluctant that he should get away. In
consequence they determined to take seven or eight hundred of the least
tired, best armed, and best mounted men, and push rapidly after their
foe, picking up on the way any militia they met, and leaving the other
half of their army to follow as fast as it could.

At daybreak on the morning of the sixth the picked men set out, about
seven hundred and fifty in number. [Footnote: MS. narrative of Ensign
Robert Campbell (see also Draper, 221) says seven hundred; and about
fifty of the footmen who were in good training followed so quickly after
them that they were able to take part in the battle. Lenoir says the
number was only five or six hundred. The modern accounts generally fail
to notice this Green River weeding out of the weak men, or confuse it
with what took place at the Cowpens; hence many of them greatly
exaggerate the number of Americans who fought in the battle.] In the
afternoon they passed by several large bands of tories, who had
assem