Lord Cornwallis sorely felt the difficulties with which his position at Charlotte was surrounded, and, on hearing of the defeat and death of Colonel Ferguson, one of his favorite officers, he left that town late on the evening of the 14th of October, in great precipitation, recrossed the Catawba at Land’s Ford, and took position, for a few months, at Winnsboro, S.C.

The signal defeat of the British and Tories at King’s Mountain—­the conspicuous turning point of success in the American Revolution, and the retreat of Cornwallis, after his previous boast of soon having North Carolina under royal subjection, greatly revived the hopes of the patriots throughout the entire South.

General Smallwood, of Maryland, who had accompanied General Gates to the South, had his headquarters at Providence, and, in a short time, several thousand militia, under Generals Davidson, Sumner, and Jones, joined his camp.  Colonel Davie, with three hundred mounted infantry, occupied an advanced post at Land’s Ford.

When General Greene took command of the Southern Army in December, 1780, he and Colonel Davie met for the first time.  The Commissary Department having become vacant by the resignation of Colonel Thomas Polk, General Greene prevailed upon Colonel Davie to accept this troublesome and important office.  Although the duties of the office would prevent him from displaying that dashing patriotism so congenial to his chivalric spirit, yet he agreed to enter upon its arduous and unthankful responsibilities.

Colonel Davie accompanied General Greene in his rapid retreat from the Catawba to the Dan River.  He was present at the battle of Guilford, in March, 1781; at Hobkirk’s Hill, in April; at the evacuation of Camden, in May; and at the siege of Ninety-six, in June.

The war, having ended, Colonel Davie retired to private life and his professional pursuits.  He took his first circuit in February, 1783, and near this time he married Sarah, eldest daughter of General Allen Jones, of Northampton county, and located himself at Halifax Courthouse, where he soon rose to the highest eminence in his profession.

Colonel Davie was a member of the Convention which met at Philadelphia, in May, 1787, to form the Federal Constitution.  The late Judge Murphy, in speaking of Colonel Davie, bears this honorable testimony to his abilities: 

“I was present in the House of Commons, when Davie addressed that body (in 1789,) for a loan of money to erect the buildings of the University, and, although more than thirty years have elapsed, I have the most vivid recollections of the greatness of his manner and the power of his eloquence upon that occasion.  In the House of Commons he had no rival, and on all questions before that body his eloquence was irresistible.”

In December, 1798, he was elected Governor of the State.  After fulfilling other important National and State trusts, and losing his estimable wife in