In pursuance of this plan, the leaders on arriving at the ford of Green River chose out a force of six hundred men, with the best mounts and equipment; and at daybreak on October 6th this force of picked mounted riflemen, followed by some fifty "foot-cavalry" eager to join in the pursuit, pushed rapidly on to the Cowpens.
Here a second selection took place; and Colonel Campbell, was again elected commander of the detachment, now numbering some nine hundred and ten horsemen and eighty odd footmen, which dashed rapidly on in pursuit of Ferguson.
The British commander had been apprised of the coming of the over-mountain men.

Scorning to make a forced march and attempt to effect a junction with Cornwallis at Charlotte, Ferguson chose to make a stand and dispose once for all of the barbarian horde whom he denounced as mongrels and the dregs of mankind.

After despatching to Cornwallis a message asking for aid, Ferguson took up his camp on King's Mountain, just south of the North Carolina border line, in the present York County, South Carolina.

Here, after his pickets had been captured in silence, he was surprised by his opponents.

At three o'clock in the afternoon of October 7th the mountain hunters treed their game upon the heights.
The battle which ensued presents an extraordinary contrast in the character of the combatants and the nature of the strategy and tactics.