The next day, changing the direction of retreat, he went a few miles, watched all night for an attack, then marched twenty miles and halted forty-eight hours, with only thirty-five miles between him and Cornwallis. In a dispatch to that General, he spoke of his enemy as “of some consequence” by reinforcements, and of his hopefulness, yet doubt, of success. “Three or four hundred good soldiers--part dragoons,” he said, “would finish the business. Something must be done soon.” Sixteen miles more of travel brought him to King’s Mountain, a ridge sixty feet high, six hundred yards long by two hundred and fifty wide at its base, and from sixty to one hundred yards wide on top. Upon it he encamped, October the sixth. Without fortifying the position, he expressed entire confidence in maintaining it. Several Whig leaders in their narratives attribute sayings to him on the subject that are boastful and blasphemous. CHAPTER II. EARLY HISTORY--THE PURSUIT--THE BATTLE--THE VICTORY. “Hark to the trump and the drum, And the mournful sound of the barbarous horn, And the flap of the banners that flit as they’re borne, And the neigh of the steed, and the multitude’s hum, And the clash, and the shout, ‘They come! they come!’” LORD BYRON. Ferguson’s foes heard, on October 4, of his retreat, but were doubtful of its direction. Following his footsteps, they made little progress that day, for men and horses were weary. Maj. Candler, with thirty of Clarke’s refugees from Georgia, joined them; also, in the march on the 5th, Maj. Chronicle, with twenty men from the Catawba River. Col. Lacey arrived that night at their camp on Green River, from an encampment of four hundred and thirty Whigs, in Rutherford County, two hundred and seventy of whom were South Carolinians under Colonels Lacey and Hill, and one hundred and sixty were North Carolinians--one hundred commanded by Col. Williams, and sixty by Colonels Graham and Hambright. Lacey gave the mountaineers definite information concerning Ferguson, and it was agreed that they and the forces Lacey represented should meet at the Cowpens and combine. The same night, about seven hundred of the troops commanded by Col. Campbell and his compatriots, whose horses were in condition for rapid movement were selected, and on the next day they marched to the Cowpens, leaving seven hundred men under command of Maj. Herndon to follow more slowly.