Every day furloughed men rejoined him, and bands of loyalists came into camp; and he was in momentary 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--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 [Footnote: "Tarleton's Campaigns," p.