course from one State into the other.  The stony, half isolated ridge on which Ferguson camped was some six or seven hundred yards long and half as broad from base to base, or two thirds that distance on top.  The steep sides were clad with a growth of open woods, including both saplings and big timber.  Ferguson parked his baggage wagons along the northeastern part of the mountain.  The next day he did not move; he was as near to the army of Cornwallis at Charlotte as to the mountaineers, and he thought it safe to remain where he was.  He deemed the position one of great strength, as indeed it would have been, if assailed in the ordinary European fashion; and he was confident that even if the rebels attacked him, he could readily beat them back.  But as General Lee, “Light-Horse Harry,” afterwards remarked, the hill was much easier assaulted with the rifle than defended with the bayonet.

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. [Footnote:  “Am.  Pioneer,” II., 67.  An account of one of the soldiers, Benj.  Sharp, written in his old age; full of contradictions of every kind (he for instance forgets they joined Williams at the Cowpens); it cannot be taken as an authority, but supplies some interesting details.] Throughout the forenoon the rain continued but the troops pushed steadily onwards without halting, [Footnote:  Late in life Shelby asserted that this steadiness in pushing on was due to his own influence.  The other accounts do not bear him out.] wrapping their blankets and the skirts of their hunting-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 Cowpens, struggled onwards 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,” [Footnote:  I. e., brooks.] 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, Campbell and the other colonels rode forward together, and agreed to surround the hill, so that their men might fire upwards without risk of hurting one another.  It was a bold plan; for they knew their foes probably outnumbered them; but they were very confident of their own prowess, and were anxious to strike a crippling blow.  From one or two other captured tories, and from a staunch whig friend, they learned the exact disposition of the British and loyalist force, and were told that their noted leader wore a light, parti-colored hunting-shirt; and he was forthwith