Notwithstanding this departure from orders, they continued to advance with intrepidity, and Greene entertained sanguine hopes of victory.

His prospects were blasted by one of those incidents against which military prudence can make no provision.
Captain Beaty, who commanded on the right of Gunby's regiment, was killed, upon which his company with that adjoining it got into confusion and dropped out of the line.

Gunby ordered the other companies, which were still advancing, to fall back, and form, with the two companies, behind the hill which the British were ascending.
This retrograde movement was mistaken for a retreat, and the regiment gave way.

Encouraged by this circumstance, the British pressed forward with increased ardour, and all the efforts of Colonel Williams, and of Gunby and Howard, to rally the regiment were, for a time, ineffectual.
This veteran regiment, distinguished alike for its discipline and courage, which with the cavalry of Washington, had won the battle of the Cowpens, and nearly won that at Guilford court house, was seized with an unaccountable panic which, for a time, resisted all the efforts of their officers.
The flight of the first Maryland regiment increased the confusion which the change of ground had produced in the second; and, in attempting to restore order, Colonel Ford was mortally wounded.

Lord Rawdon improved these advantages to the utmost.