At the Cowpens, a junction of forces as pre-arranged was made. The four hundred and thirty soldiers commanded by Lacey and others, were reduced by selection to two hundred and ten. These made the whole body of chosen cavalry, nine hundred and ten. At 9 P. M. October 6, they started and rode all night in a drizzling rain to overtake Ferguson, whose army, as a spy informed them, numbered fifteen hundred men. With the return of daylight, they made better speed, but still the rain fell and they could scarcely keep their guns dry. They forded the deep waters of Broad River at sunrise, halted a few minutes to breakfast from the scanty food they carried, and would have halted at noon, because of the stormy weather and their fatigue. Campbell, Sevier and Cleveland proposed to do so, but Shelby, with profane words, refused. He would brook no delay until night fell or Ferguson was found. A scout who had visited a Tory family, disguised as “a true King’s man,” brought them word that the British army was posted on King’s Mountain. When within a few miles of it, they captured from a courier a dispatch sent by Ferguson to Cornwallis, calling for help by reinforcement and declaring his purpose against the rebels in very uncourteous and profane language. It was told to the American troops, and only quickened their speed. With galloping horses they went forward in sight of the enemy’s camp. It was early in the afternoon of the seventh of October, 1780. The rain had ceased and the clouds were rolling away before the bright shining of the sun. This was auspicious. These plain men from west of the Alleghanies may not have understood how critical was that hour of the American Revolution, even as well as did the harried Whigs from the Carolinas who were their companions in arms; but they were wide awake to the value of the rights for which their countrymen contended, and of the opportunity at hand to help them. Not one of those who were about to go into battle for the Colonies saw, as the men of to-day can see, along with the greatness of the danger to the struggle for American independence, the important consequences of their own heroic conduct. Men engaged in war are intent upon present deeds rather than thoughtful of future results.