ardice; but his account of how De
Peyster counselled and planned all sorts of expedients that might have
saved the loyalists is decidedly mythical.] It is said that he himself
led one of the charges which were at this time made on Cleavland's line;
the "South Fork" men from the Catawba, under Hambright and Chronicle,
being forced back, Chronicle being killed and Hambright wounded. When
the Americans fled they were scarcely a gun's length ahead of their
foes; and the instant the latter faced about, the former were rallied by
their officers, and again went up the hill. One of the backwoodsmen was
in the act of cocking his rifle when a loyalist, dashing at him with the
bayonet, pinned his hand to his thigh; the rifle went off, the ball
going through the loyalist's body, and the two men fell together.
Hambright, though wounded, was able to sit in the saddle, and continued
in the battle. Cleavland had his horse shot under him, and then led his
men on foot. As the lines came close together, many of the whigs
recognized in the tory ranks their former neighbors, friends, or
relatives; and the men taunted and jeered one another with bitter
hatred. In more than one instance brother was slain by brother or cousin
by cousin. The lowland tories felt an especial dread of the
mountaineers; looking with awe and hatred on their tall, gaunt, rawboned
figures, their long, matted hair and wild faces. One wounded tory, as he
lay watching them, noticed their deadly accuracy of aim, and saw also
that the loyalists, firing from the summit, continually overshot their
foes.

The British regulars had lost half their number; the remainder had been
scattered and exhausted in their successive charges. The bayonet
companies of the loyalist militia were in the same plight; and the North
Carolina tories, the least disciplined, could no longer be held to their
work. Sevier's men gained the summit at the same time with Campbell's
and part of Shelby's. The three colonels were heading their troops; and
as Sevier saw Shelby, he swore, by God, the British had burned off part
of his hair; for it was singed on one side of his head.

When the Holston and Watauga men gained the crest the loyalists broke
and fled to the east end of the mountain, among the tents and baggage
wagons, where they again formed. But they were huddled together, while
their foes surrounded them on every hand. The fighting had lasted an
hour; all hope was gone; and De Peyster hoisted a wh