The War in the Northwest 327 



certainly making their "last push in this quarter." 40 

 He was not willing to leave the many loyal inhab- 

 itants of the district to the vengeance of the whigs 41 ; 

 and his hopes of reinforcements were well founded. 

 Every day furloughed men rejoined him, and bands 

 of loyalists came into camp ; and he was in momen- 

 tary expectation of help from Cornwallis or Cruger. 

 It will be remembered that the mountaineers on their 

 last march passed several tory bands. One of these 

 alone, near the Cowpens, was said to have contained 

 six hundred men; and in a day or two they would 

 all have joined Ferguson. If the whigs had come 

 on in a body, as there was every reason to expect, 

 Ferguson would have been given the one thing he 

 needed- 1 time ; and he would certainly have been too 

 strong for his opponents. His defeat was due to 

 the sudden push of the mountain chieftains ; to their 

 long, swift ride from the ford of Green River, at 

 the head of their picked horse-riflemen. 



The British were still in the dark as to the exact 

 neighborhood from which their foes the "swarm 

 of backwoodsmen," as Tarleton called them 42 real- 

 ly came. It was generally supposed that they were 

 in part from Kentucky, and that Boone himself was 

 among the number. 43 However, Ferguson proba- 



40 See letter quoted by Tarleton. 



41 Ferguson's "Memoir," p. 32. 



42 "Tarleton's Campaigns," p. 169. 



43 British historians to the present day repeat this. Even 

 Lecky, in his "History of England," speaks of the back- 

 woodsmen as in part from Kentucky. Having pointed out 

 this trivial fault in Lecky's work, it would be ungracious not 



