Cornwallis sent Major Patrick Ferguson and approximately a thousand Tories to threaten these mountain folk in North Carolina and Southwest Virginia to the extent of marching over their land, causing destruction and hanging their leaders unless they discontinued their past resistance to the British army. Two American military frontiersmen, Colonel John Sevier and Colonel Isaac Shelby, decided to organize a group of riflemen and attack Ferguson before he had the opportunity to cross the mountains and attack them. They contacted Colonel William Campbell whose duty had been to protect the lead mines in Wythe County whose resources were being mined and smelted for equipment for the American soldiers. Colonel Campbell was invited to join Colonel Sevier and Colonel Shelby in their attack against Ferguson. He accepted and later was selected by the officers as their commander. Ferguson heard of their plan and selected a wooded mountain ridge on the border between North Carolina and South Carolina, called King's Mountain, for his battlefield. Ferguson's troops far outnumbered Colonel Campbell's troops and were much better equipped with military supplies. Colonel Campbell's troops, however, defeated the British badly on October 7, 1780. Major Ferguson and two hundred other Britishers were killed in battle. This Battle of King's Mountain is often called the turning point of the Revolutionary War in the South because not only did it upset the military strategy of Cornwallis but it also encouraged the southern patriots at a time when the morale had been low. Colonel Campbell was promoted to a Brigadier-General as a direct result of this battle. The British in the meantime had sent General Alexander Leslie to Portsmouth with approximately 3,000 troops. After the severe British defeat at King's Mountain, he left Portsmouth and headed his troops south to join Cornwallis. Morale in Virginia at this time was very low because there was a great shortage of clothing, military equipment and supplies, there was a lack of money in the state treasury, Virginia soldiers were fighting outside their state and British soldiers in large numbers were stationed in eastern and central Virginia. General William Phillips and Cornwallis had seized and destroyed property valued at ten million dollars in eastern Virginia alone by the spring of 1781.