Troops had already commenced reporting to General Greene, and he decided to offer battle. The command consisted of only fourteen hundred and ninety regular infantry, one hundred and sixty-one cavalry, and twenty-seven hundred and fifty-four militia. The army of Cornwallis, which on the first of January numbered three thousand two hundred and twenty-four men, had fallen off, by March 1st, nearly one-third; and there was reason for Greene’s hope that, in case his militia held firmly to positions assigned them, victory might be realized. He felt the enemy with Lee’s and Campbell’s cavalry; disposed his troops in admirable form; and failed at last, only through the weakness of his raw troops. For the purposes of this narrative, only the result need be stated. The American army retired to the iron-works on Troublesome Creek, a distance of twelve miles, to rally forces and prepare for future action. “It is certain,” says Colonel Lee, “that if Greene had known the condition of the British forces, he need not have retreated, and the American victory would have been complete.” Tarleton, who was wounded in the action, after stating that “the British army lost one-third of its number in killed and wounded, during the two hours of battle,” said that “this victory was the pledge of ultimate defeat.” Greene, writing to Washington, said: “The enemy gained his cause, but is ruined by the success of it.” Fox, in the British House of Commons, said: “Another such victory would ruin the British army.” Pitt called it “the precursor of ruin to British supremacy at the South.” The casualties of the American army were, nominally, including missing, thirteen hundred and eleven; but so many of the missing immediately rallied, that the Virginia Brigade, after two days, reported as present for duty, seven hundred and fifty-two; and the Maryland Brigade mustered five hundred and fifty, showing a loss in action of only one hundred and eighty-eight men, instead of two hundred and sixty-one, reported on the seventeenth. Of one militia brigade, five hundred and fifty-two were missing. The British casualties were five hundred and forty-four, and of the general officers, only Cornwallis and Leslie escaped without wounds. Cornwallis, after providing for the wounded as well as possible, and leaving under a flag of truce those who could not march, immediately crossed the deep river as if moving to Salisbury; then recrossed it, lower down, and entered Wilmington on the seventh of April, with only fourteen hundred and forty-five men. He wrote to Lord Rawdon, that “Greene would probably invade South Carolina”; but the messenger failed to get through to Charleston. Greene was delayed after the battle, to send back to his supply-train for ammunition, lead and bullet-moulds; but he followed so closely after, that he reached Ramsour’s Mills the twenty-eighth, the very day on which Cornwallis had bridged the river and pushed on to Wilmington.