On the 11th of May, Charleston was surrendered by General Lincoln to Sir Henry Clinton. Shortly afterwards the British power was so triumphantly extended over South Carolina as to rally to its support all timid, wavering and disaffected people. North Carolina was in danger of being conquered. Col. Ferguson, of the British army, was marching towards it and threatening it with invasion. Col. Charles McDowell, temporarily chief commander of the Whig forces in North Carolina, called on Colonels John Sevier and Isaac Shelby, of Washington District, for help, “as soon as possible,” against the invader. They promptly responded, and in July, Sevier, with two hundred mounted riflemen from Washington County, and Shelby, with an equal number from Sullivan County, joined McDowell’s camp on Broad River, South Carolina. They did good service in several conflicts with the enemy, in capturing the fort held by Col. Moore on the Pacolet River and its garrison, and in winning the battle at Musgrove’s Mill, where more than two hundred British prisoners were taken. Upon the heels of this victory came news to McDowell of Gen. Gates’ defeat at Camden and Sumter’s disaster. This disheartened the army; it was in a position of danger and could only withdraw. So great indeed were its apprehensions and sense of inability to hold its own in the field, that it fairly dissolved. Shelby and Sevier, with their regiments, returned at once to their distant homes, yet ready of mind soon to renew the warfare. Not long after, McDowell, with a company of several hundred men, sought refuge in the same hospitable region.