rdingly, about the middle of the second
day after leaving Drummond's habitation, before the troop arrived at the
term of their journey, a period that coincided with that of Cornwallis's
breaking ground from his late encampment at the Waxhaws, which we have
seen in the last chapter.

Ferguson was a stout, fearless, and bluff soldier, and instigated
by the most unsparing hatred against all who took up the Whig cause.
He had been promoted by Earl Cornwallis to the brevet rank of
lieutenant-colonel, a short time before the battle of Camden, and
despatched towards this wild and mountainous border to collect together
and organize the Tory inhabitants of the district. His zeal and
activity, no less than his peremptory bearing, had particularly
recommended him to the duty to be performed; and he is, at least,
entitled to the commendation of having acquitted himself with great
promptitude and efficiency in the principal objects of his appointment.
He was now at the head of between eleven and twelve hundred men, of
which about one hundred and fifty were regulars of the British line, the
remainder consisting of the disorderly and untamed population of the
frontier.

Gilbert-town was a small village, composed of a number of rather
well-built and comfortable log-houses. It was situated in a mountainous
but fertile district of North Carolina, about the centre of Rutherford
country. And I may venture to add (which I do upon report only), that
although its former name has faded from the maps of the present day,
under that reprehensible indifference to ancient associations, and that
pernicious love of change which have obliterated so many of the
landmarks of our revolutionary history, yet this village is still a
prosperous and pleasant community, known as the seat of justice to the
county to which it belongs.

When the troop having charge of Butler and his companions arrived, they
halted immediately in front of one of the largest buildings of the
village, and in a short time the prisoners were marched into the
presence of Ferguson. They were received in a common room of ample
dimensions, furnished with a table upon which was seen a confused array
of drinking vessels, and a number of half-emptied bottles of spirit
surrounding a wooden bucket filled with water. Immediately against one
of the posts of the door of the apartment, the carcass of a buck,
recently shot and now stripped of its skin, hung by the tendons of the
hinder feet; an