The War in the Northwest 329 



saulted with the rifle than defended with the bay- 

 onet. 



The backwoodsmen, on leaving the camp at the 

 Cowpens, marched slowly through the night, which 

 was dark and drizzly ; many of the men got scattered 

 in the woods, but joined their commands in the 

 morning the morning of October 7th. The troops 

 bore down to the southward, a little out of the 

 straight route, to avoid any patrol parties; and at 

 sunrise they splashed across the Cherokee Ford. 44 

 Throughout the forenoon the rain continued but the 

 troops pushed steadily onward without halting, 45 

 wrapping their blankets and the skirts of their hunt- 

 ing-shirts round their gun-locks, to keep them dry. 

 Some horses gave out, but their riders, like the thirty 

 or forty footmen who had followed from the Cow- 

 pens, struggled onward and were in time for the 

 battle. When near King's Mountain they captured 

 two tories, and from them learned Ferguson's exact 

 position; that "he was on a ridge between two 

 branches," 46 where some deer hunters had camped 

 the previous fall. These deer hunters were now 

 with the oncoming backwoodsmen, and declared that 

 they knew the ground well. Without halting, Camp- 



44 "Am. Pioneer," II, 67. An account of one of the sol- 

 diers, Benj. Sharp, written in his old age; full of contradic- 

 tions of every kind (he for instance forgets they joined 

 Williams at the Cowpens) ; it can not be taken as an author- 

 ity, but supplies some interesting details. 



45 Late in life Shelby asserted that this steadiness in push- 

 ing on was due to his own influence. The other accounts do 

 not bear him out. 



46 /. e., brooks. 



