On Davie's return from Charlotte he hastened to the general rendezvous of Gates' army at Rugely's Mills. On August 16th, while proceeding to join General Gates at Camden, and ten miles from the battle-field, Major Davie met the defeated army with the General leading the retreat. He ordered Davie to fall back on Charlotte, but he replied that his men had formed the acquaintance of Tarleton's Legion and did not fear to meet them again. He continued his course towards the battle-ground, meeting the flying fragments of the routed army. He secured several wagons loaded with clothing and medicine, which had been abandoned. With characteristic thoughtfulness he immediately sent an officer to notify Colonel Sumter of the great disaster which had befallen our arms. He reached Sumter that evening, who at once began his retreat along the west bank of the Catawba, towards the up-country. Not taking sufficient precaution, however, Sumter was surprised on the 18th by Tarleton at Fishing Creek, and his entire command of eight hundred men was captured or put to flight with the loss of all his artillery, arms, and baggage. Colonel Sumter himself, who was asleep under a wagon when the attack was made, barely escaped, and the next day reached Davie's camp at Charlotte alone, riding on horseback, without saddle or bridle. The tidings carried consternation into the fragments of Gates' army which had rallied there, and in a few moments Davie and his command were the only force left in front of the enemy. Instead of retiring, he boldly advanced to the Waxhaws, and found that the enemy had fallen back to Camden. On the 5th of September, 1780, Davie was appointed by Governor Nash Colonel Commandant of Cavalry in the Western District of North Carolina, with instructions to raise a regiment. When he had collected only about seventy men, with that force and two small companies of riflemen, commanded by Major George Davidson, he took post at Providence, twenty-five miles from the British camp. Cornwallis, after resting at Camden till the first week in September, had advanced to the Waxhaws, forty miles below Charlotte, while the fragments of the American army were slowly gathering at Hillsborough, two hundred miles distant. South Carolina was wholly subjugated, and North Carolina had not recovered from the shock of Gates' defeat. Under these circumstances, Colonel Davie, with unprecedented boldness, with a command not exceeding one hundred and fifty men all told, on the 20th of September, turning the right flank of the British army by a circuitous march, fell upon three or four hundred of the enemy at Wahab's plantation. The attack was made at daylight. The surprise was complete.