The surprise at McIntyre’s compelled the British to move with greater forces in their foraging expeditions.  It is seldom, in the historic annals of any people, that we find it required “one half” of a large army, in a sparsely settled country, to “protect the foraging parties and cattle drivers.”  It indicated a spirit of determined resistance by the patriots of Mecklenburg and of the State generally, which can only be construed as a faithful maintenance of the principles of freedom proclaimed on the 20th of May, 1775.

After the victory of the Whigs at King’s Mountain, and the loss of Ferguson, one of his bravest officers, and his entire command, Cornwallis concluded to leave the rebellious post he then occupied.

William McCafferty, a resident Scotchman, and a man of considerable wealth, was employed as the guide to lead the British army by the nearest road to Winnsboro, S.C.  Tradition says, that after so bewildering the army in the swamps that much of their baggage was lost, he contrived to escape, and left them to find their way out, as best they could, by the returning light of day.  As the British army progressed, passing through the Steele Creek neighborhood, they encamped about three days on Spratt’s plantation, waiting to cross the swollen Catawba, and for the collection of additional supplies.  A guard was placed around the encampment, and one of the number assigned to a position between the Charlotte road and a neighboring cane-brake.  On the second or third day the sharp crack of a rifle was heard up the Charlotte road, and a small detachment of the British army was immediately dispatched to investigate its meaning.  When the detachment arrived at the position of the sentinel, he was found dead, at the foot of a black oak, against which it is supposed he was leaning at the time.  Captain William Alexander (better known as “Black Bill,”) one of the “terrible Mecklenburg Whigs,” fired the fatal shot from the adjoining cane-brake.  Many others of the Sugar Creek rebels were with Captain Alexander on this occasion, but he alone ventured within killing distance.  Long before Tarleton and his dragoons could reach the scene of action, Alexander and his party were entering the brushy woods of Steele Creek, on their way back to the Whig settlements of Upper Sugar Creek.  The associates of Alexander were the Taylors, Barnetts, Walkers, Polks, and other kindred spirits, who shot many of the sentries around the British encampment at Charlotte, and seriously annoyed or cut off the enemy’s foraging parties.  The last one of the Barnetts, belonging to this “terrible party,” died in 1829, at a good old age, within two miles of Cook’s mills, on Big Sugar Creek.

A singular incident, occurring at this period, is here deemed worthy of narration.  A relative of the Spratts, named Elliott, was living on the plantation at the time the British army arrived there from Charlotte.  Believing that they would capture him, if in their power, he broke and ran for the cane-brake, about a half or three-quarters of a mile below the spot where the sentinel was shot.  As soon as the alarm was given of his departure, Tarleton’s terrible dragoons pursued him, but he succeeded in making good his escape into the densest part of the cane-brake thicket.