Down the Green River Road they galloped, sabers in hand. But Tarleton the cavalryman was not an easy man to catch. He rode at his usual horse-killing pace. A few miles above William Thompson’s plantation on Thicketty Creek, they found the expedition’s baggage wagons abandoned, 35 in all, most of them belonging to the 7th Regiment. The fleeing cavalry of the Legion had told the 100-man guard of the defeat. The officer in command had set fire to all the baggage that would burn, cut loose the wagon horses, mounted his infantry two to a horse, and ridden for the safety of Cornwallis’s army. Abandoned with the baggage were some 70 black slaves. A short time later, a party of loyalists, fugitives from the battlefield, reached the baggage train and began to loot it. They were not long at this work before Tarleton and his heartsick officers and troopers came pounding down the road. They did not ask questions about loyalty. They cut down the looters without mercy. Tarleton too was riding for Cornwallis’s camp, but he had more than safety on his mind. He assumed the British commander was just across the Broad River at Kings Mountain in a position to rescue the 500 or so men Morgan had taken prisoner. Perhaps Tarleton met a loyalist scout or messenger somewhere along the road. At any rate, he heard “with infinite grief and astonishment” that the main army was at least 35 miles away, at Turkey Creek. This news meant a change of route. The British decided they needed a guide. Near Thicketty Creek they stopped at the house of a man named Goudelock. He was known as a rebel. But Tarleton probably put a saber to his throat and told him he would be a dead man if he did not lead them to Hamiltons Ford across the Broad River, near the mouth of Bullocks Creek. Goudelock’s terrified wife watched this virtual kidnapping of her husband. About half an hour after Tarleton and his troopers departed to the southeast, Washington, Pickens, and their dragoons and militia troopers rode into Goudelock’s yard. They had stopped to extinguish the fires the British started in the baggage wagons and collect some of the slaves the enemy had abandoned. The Americans asked Mrs. Goudelock if she had seen the British fugitives. Yes, she said. What road did they take? She pointed down the Green River Road, which led to Grindal Shoals on the Pacolet. Like a great many people in every war, she was more interested in personal survival than national victory. If the Americans caught up to Tarleton, there was certain to be a bloody struggle, in which her husband might be killed. Mrs. Goudelock preferred a live husband to a dead or captured British commander. [Illustration: Congress awarded this silver sword to Colonel Pickens for his part in the battle.]