mmander. "Gentlemen, spring to your
horses, and sound the alarm through the camp--we are set upon by
Sumpter--it can be no other. Curry, take a few dragoons--follow the
prisoner--mount him behind one of your men, and retreat with him
instantly to Blackstock's!"

Having given these hasty orders, Innis, with the several officers who
happened to be at hand, ran to their horses, mounted, and pushed forward
to the camp. They had scarcely left their quarters before two dragoons,
in advance of a party of twenty or thirty men, rushed up to the door.

"Sarch the house!" shouted the leading soldier. "Three or four of you
dismount and sarch the house! Make sure of Major Butler, if he is there!
The rest of you forward with me!"

The delay before head-quarters scarcely occupied a moment, and in the
meantime the number of the assailants was increased by the squadrons
that poured in from the rear. These were led by a young officer of great
activity and courage, who, seeing the disordered condition of the
royalists, waved his sword in the air as he beckoned his men to follow
him in a charge upon the camp.

The advanced party, with the two dragoons, were already on the field
charging the first body that they found assembled; and, close behind
them, followed Colonel Williams--the officer of whom I have spoken--with
a large division of cavalry. At the same moment that Williams entered
upon the plain from this quarter, a second and third corps, led
respectively by Shelby and Clarke, were seen galloping upon the two
flanks of the encampment.

The plain was now occupied by about two hundred Whig cavalry. The
royalists, taken by surprise, over their cups it may be said, and in the
midst of a riotous festival, were everywhere thrown into the wildest
confusion. Such of them as succeeded in gaining their arms, took post
behind the trees, and kept up an irregular fire upon the assailants.
Colonel Innis had succeeded in getting together about a hundred men at a
remote corner of his camp, and had now formed them into a solid column
to resist the attack of the cavalry, whilst from this body he poured
forth a few desultory volleys of musketry, hoping to gain time to
collect the scattered forces that were in various points endeavoring to
find their proper station. Horse Shoe Robinson and John Ramsay--the two
foremost in the advance--were to be discovered pushing through the
sundered groups of the enemy with a restless and desperate valor that
no