nd its immediate effect was to cause Cornwallis to
retreat from North Carolina, abandoning his first invasion of that
State. [Footnote: "Tarleton's Campaigns," p. 166.]

The expedition offered a striking example of the individual initiative
so characteristic of the backwoodsmen. It was not ordered by any one
authority; it was not even sanctioned by the central or State
governments. Shelby and Sevier were the two prime movers in getting it
up; Campbell exercised the chief command; and the various other leaders,
with their men, simply joined the mountaineers, as they happened to hear
of them and come across their path. The ties of discipline were of the
slightest. The commanders elected their own chief without regard to rank
or seniority; in fact the officer [Footnote: Williams.] who was by rank
entitled to the place was hardly given any share in the conduct of the
campaign. The authority of the commandant over the other officers, and
of the various colonels over their troops, resembled rather the control
exercised by Indian chiefs over their warriors than the discipline
obtaining in a regular army. But the men were splendid individual
fighters, who liked and trusted their leaders; and the latter were bold,
resolute, energetic, and intelligent.

Cornwallis feared that the mountain men would push on and attack his
flank; but there was no such danger. By themselves they were as little
likely to assail him in force in the open as Andreas Hofer's
Tyrolese--with whom they had many points in common--were to threaten
Napoleon on the Danubian plains. Had they been Continental troops, the
British would have had to deal with a permanent army. But they were only
militia [Footnote: The striking nature of the victory and its important
consequences must not blind us to the manifold shortcomings of the
Revolutionary militia. The mountaineers did well in spite of being
militia; but they would have done far better under another system. The
numerous failures of the militia as a whole must be balanced against the
few successes of a portion of them. If the States had possessed wisdom
enough to back Washington with Continentals, or with volunteers such as
those who fought in the Civil War, the Revolutionary contest would have
been over in three years. The trust in militia was a perfect curse. Many
of the backwoods leaders knew this. The old Indian fighter, Andrew
Lewis, about this time wrote to Gates (see Gates MSS., Sept. 30, 1780),
speakin