of a regular regiment that had been
recruited in this country, instead of in England. With his kind heart
and his winning manner, he was bold {92} and brave, and always ready
to take desperate chances in battle. He was noted for hard riding,
night attacks, and swift movements with his troopers; and as a
marksman he was unsurpassed. In short, Ferguson was just the leader
to win the respect and the admiration of the Tories; and they eagerly
enlisted in his service.

With a few regulars and a large force of loyalists, he pushed his
victories to the foot of the mountains, in the western borders of the
Carolinas. For the first time, he learned that over the high ranges
in front of him were the homes of the men who had been causing him
annoyance, and who were harboring those that had fled before his
advance.

The proud young Briton now made the mistake of his life. He sent a
prisoner, Samuel Phillips, over to the frontier settlements, to
Colonel Isaac Shelby, with the insolent message that, if the
"backwater" men did not quit resisting the royal arms, he would march
his army over the mountains, and would straightway lay waste their
homes with fire and sword, and hang their leaders.

He little knew what kind of men he had stirred to wrath. The frontier
settlers of Franklin and Holston, which grew into the great
commonwealth of Tennessee, were, for the most part, Scotch-Irish
people. They had grappled with the wilderness, and had hewn out homes
for themselves. Along with their log cabins they had built
meetinghouses and schoolhouses. Their life was {93} full of
ever-present peril and hardship; for they were engaged in a ceaseless
struggle with the Indians. The minister preached with his gun at his
side, and the men listened with their rifles within their grasp.

As we should expect, these hardy settlers were generally stanch
patriots. They believed in Washington and in the Continental
Congress. They knew that British gold bribed the Indians, and
furnished them with weapons to butcher their women and children. It
was British gold, too, that hired the wild and lawless among them to
enlist in the invading army; and it was British officers that drilled
them to become expert in killing their brethren of the lowlands.

At the time of the Revolution, these backwoodsmen were still fighting
with the savages, and so had not taken an active part in the war on
the seaboard. Like a rear guard of well-seasoned veterans, they stood
be