Ferguson promptly charged his new foes and drove them down the hill-side; but the instant he stopped, Shelby, who had been in the thick of the fight, closest to the British, brought his marksmen back, and they came up nearer than ever, and with a deadlier fire.

[Footnote: Shelby MS.] While Ferguson's bayonet-men--both regulars and militia--charged to and fro, the rest of the loyalists kept up a heavy fire from behind the rocks on the hill-top.

The battle raged in every part, for the Americans had by this time surrounded their foes, and they advanced rapidly under cover of the woods.

They inflicted much more damage than they suffered, for they were scattered out while the royalist troops were close together, and moreover, were continually taken in flank.

Ferguson, conspicuous from his hunting-shirt, [Footnote: The "Carolina Loyalist" speaks as if the hunting-shirt were put on for disguise; he says Ferguson was recognized, "although wearing a hunting-shirt."] rode hither and thither with reckless bravery, his sword in his left hand-for he had never entirely regained the use of his wounded right--while he made his presence known by the shrill, ear-piercing notes of a silver whistle which he always carried.