Sir Henry Clinton’s expedition of 1779 against Charleston, S. C., found Ferguson and a comparatively few of his rifles active in the depredations of several thousand Tories organized to terrorize the rebellious colonists of the Carolinas. They invaded the interior and operated on the very western border of the Carolinas. For 5 months he held sway over the upcountry, enticing or intimidating the young men of the region to enlist under the British flag. The local militia so formed in the wild back country were drilled by him in the ways of the British Army, and all other inhabitants, so far as possible, were pledged to faithful Royal service. The patriots of the interior settlements lay helpless. Any Carolinian found in arms against the King might be—and many were—hanged for treason. Finally, a British proclamation was issued requiring all inhabitants to take active part on the royalist side, which but served to bring about a notable uprising of the Whigs who, throughout the summer of 1780, engaged in fierce guerilla warfare against the organized Tories. [Illustration: _German Jäger rifle, used in America during the Revolution, above; as compared with the Kentucky rifle of the Revolutionary period, below._] Not only did the sparsely populated settlements on the headwaters of the Catawba, Broad, and Pacolet Rivers contribute to the force that opposed Ferguson, but the over-mountain settlements on the Watauga and Holston likewise sent their backwoodsmen, all of whom were well experienced in Indian warfare. The routes followed by these parties on their way to the Kings Mountain rendezvous cross the present Blue Ridge National Parkway in a number of places. The unmerciful treatment of Buford’s patriots at the hands of Tarleton had engendered savage fury on the part of the Whigs which was as bitterly reciprocated by the Tories. Utter refusal of quarter was usual in many battles. In the Carolinas, hand-to-hand encounters were common, and the contest became a war of ruthless extermination. General Greene, writing of this condition, said: “The animosity between the Whigs and Tories renders their situation truly deplorable.... The Whigs seem determined to extirpate the Tories, and the Tories the Whigs.... If a stop cannot be put to these massacres, the country will be depopulated in a few months more, as neither Whig nor Tory can live.”