Such an opportunity soon presented itself. In the end of March (1780) Washington dispatched the troops of Maryland and Delaware, with a regiment of artillery, under the Baron de Kalb, to reinforce the southern army. That detachment met with many obstructions in its progress southward. Such was the deranged state of the American finances that it could not be put in motion when the order was given. After setting out it marched through Jersey and Pennsylvania, embarked at the head of Elk river, was conveyed by water to Petersburgh in Virginia, and proceeded thence towards the place of its destination. But as no magazines had been provided, and as provisions could with difficulty be obtained, the march of the detachment through North Carolina was greatly retarded. Instead of advancing rapidly, the troops were obliged to spread themselves over the country in small parties, in order to collect corn and to get it ground for their daily subsistence. In this way they proceeded slowly through the upper and more fertile parts of North Carolina to Hillsborough, and were preparing to march by Cross creek to Salisbury, where they expected to be joined by the militia of North Carolina. The approach of this detachment, together with information that great exertions were making to raise troops in Virginia, encouraged the irritation which the rigorous measures of the British officers had occasioned in South Carolina; and numbers of the inhabitants of that State, who had fled from their homes and taken refuge in North Carolina and Virginia, informed of the growing discontents in their native State, and relying on the support of regular troops, assembled on the frontier of North Carolina. About 200 of these refugees chose Colonel Sumter, an old Continental officer, called by his comrades the "Gamecock," as their leader. On the advance of the British into the upper parts of South Carolina, this gentleman had fled into North Carolina, but had left his family behind. Soon after his departure a British party arrived, turned his wife and family out of door, and burned his house and everything in it. This harsh and unfeeling treatment excited his bitterest resentment, which operated with the more virulence by being concealed under the fair veil of patriotism. At the head of his little band, without money or magazines, and but ill provided with arms and ammunition, Sumter made an irruption into South Carolina. Iron implements of husbandry were forged by common blacksmiths into rude weapons of war; and pewter dishes, procured from private families and melted down, furnished part of their supply of balls. This little band skirmished with the royal militia and with small parties of regular troops, sometimes successfully, and always with the active courage of men fighting for the recovery of their property.