His defense was that he "proceeded with all possible despatch,"which he certainly did, to the nearest point where he could reorganize his forces.His career was, however, ended.He was deprived of his command, and Washington appointed to succeed him General Nathanael Greene.
In spite of the headlong flight of Gates the disaster at Camden had only a transient effect.The war developed a number of irregular leaders on the American side who were never beaten beyond recovery, no matter what might be the reverses of the day.
The two most famous are Francis Marion and Thomas Sumter.Marion, descended from a family of Huguenot exiles, was slight in frame and courteous in manner; Sumter, tall, powerful, and rough, was the vigorous frontiersman in type.Threatened men live long:
Sumter died in 1832, at the age of ninety-six, the last surviving general of the Revolution.Both men had had prolonged experience in frontier fighting against the Indians.Tarleton called Marion the "old swamp fox" because he often escaped through using by-paths across the great swamps of the country.British communications were always in danger.A small British force might find itself in the midst of a host which had suddenly come together as an army, only to dissolve next day into its elements of hardy farmers, woodsmen, and mountaineers.
After the victory at Camden Cornwallis advanced into North Carolina, and sent Major Ferguson, one of his most trusted officers, with a force of about a thousand men, into the mountainous country lying westward, chiefly to secure Loyalist recruits.If attacked in force Ferguson was to retreat and rejoin his leader.The Battle of King's Mountain is hardly famous in the annals of the world, and yet, in some ways, it was a decisive event.Suddenly Ferguson found himself beset by hostile bands, coming from the north, the south, the east, and the west.When, in obedience to his orders, he tried to retreat he found the way blocked, and his messages were intercepted, so that Cornwallis was not aware of the peril.Ferguson, harassed, outnumbered, at last took refuge on King's Mountain, a stony ridge on the western border between the two Carolinas.The north side of the mountain was a sheer impassable cliff and, since the ridge was only half a mile long, Ferguson thought that his force could hold it securely.He was, however, fighting an enemy deadly with the rifle and accustomed to fire from cover.The sides and top of King's Mountain were wooded and strewn with boulders.The motley assailants crept up to the crest while pouring a deadly fire on any of the defenders who exposed themselves.Ferguson was killed and in the end his force surrendered, on October 7, 1780, with four hundred casualties and the loss of more than seven hundred prisoners.The American casualties were eighty-eight.In reprisal for earlier acts on the other side, the victors insulted the dead body of Ferguson and hanged nine of their prisoners on the limb of a great tulip tree.Then the improvised army scattered.** See Chapter IX, "Pioneers of the Old Southwest", by Constance Lindsay Skinner in "The Chronicles of America."While the conflict for supremacy in the South was still uncertain, in the Northwest the Americans made a stroke destined to have astounding results.Virginia had long coveted lands in the valleys of the Ohio and the Mississippi.It was in this region that Washington had first seen active service, helping to wrest that land from France.The country was wild.There was almost no settlement; but over a few forts on the upper Mississippi and in the regions lying eastward to the Detroit River there was that flicker of a red flag which meant that the Northwest was under British rule.George Rogers Clark, like Washington a Virginian land surveyor, was a strong, reckless, brave frontiersman.Early in 1778 Virginia gave him a small sum of money, made him a lieutenant colonel, and authorized him to raise troops for a western adventure.He had less than two hundred men when he appeared a little later at Kaskaskia near the Mississippi in what is now Illinois and captured the small British garrison, with the friendly consent of the French settlers about the fort.He did the same thing at Cahokia, farther up the river.The French scattered through the western country naturally sided with the Americans, fighting now in alliance with France.The British sent out a force from Detroit to try to check the efforts of Clark, but in February, 1779, the indomitable frontiersman surprised and captured this force at Vincennes on the Wabash.Thus did Clark's two hundred famished and ragged men take possession of the Northwest, and, when peace was made, this vast domain, an empire in extent, fell to the United States.Clark's exploit is one of the pregnant romances of history.** See Chapters III and IV in "The Old Northwest" by Frederic Austin Ogg in "The Chronicles of America".
