The power, valor and uncompromising conduct of these men is illustrated in their conduct at the battle of King's Mountain, fought October 7, 1780. It was totally unlike any other in American history, being the voluntary uprising of the people, rushing to arms to aid their distant kinsmen, when their own homes were menaced by savages. They served without pay and without the hope of reward. The defeat of Gates at Camden laid the whole of North Carolina at the feet of the British. Flushed with success, Colonel Furguson, of the 71st Regiment, at the head of eleven hundred men marched into North Carolina and took up his position at Gilbert Town, in order to intercept those retreating in that direction from Camden, and to crush out the spirit of the patriots in that region. Without any concert of action volunteers assembled simultaneously, and placed themselves under tried leaders. They were admirably fitted by their daily pursuits for the privations they were called upon to endure. They had no tents, baggage, bread or salt, but subsisted on potatoes, pumpkins and roasted corn, and such venison as their own rifles could procure. Their army consisted of four hundred men, under Colonel William Campbell, from Washington county, Virginia, two hundred and forty were under Colonel Isaac Shelby, from Sullivan county, North Carolina, and two hundred and forty men, from Washington county, same state, under John Sevier, which assembled at Watauga, September 25, where they were joined by Colonel Charles McDowell, with one hundred and sixty men, from the counties of Burke and Rutherford, who had fled before the enemy to the western waters. While McDowell, Shelby and Sevier were in consultation, two paroled prisoners arrived from Furguson with the message that if they did not "take protection under his standard, he would march his army over the mountains, hang their leaders, and lay waste their country with fire and sword." On their march to meet the army of Furguson they were for twenty-four hours in the saddle. They took that officer by surprise, killed him and one hundred and eighty of his men, after an engagement of one hour and five minutes, the greater part of which time a heavy and incessant fire was kept up on both sides, with a loss to themselves of only twenty killed and a few wounded. The remaining force of the enemy surrendered at discretion, giving up their camp equipage and fifteen hundred stand of arms. On the morning after the battle several of the Royalist (Tory) prisoners were found guilty of murder and other high crimes, and hanged. This was the closing scene of the battle of King's Mountain, an event which completely crushed the spirit of the Royalists, and weakened beyond recovery the power of the British in the Carolinas. The intelligence of Furguson's defeat destroyed all Cornwallis's hopes of aid from those who still remained loyal to Britain's interests. The men oppressed by British laws and Tryon's cruelty were not yet avenged, for