ut to battle that they might keep the way of liberty
open not for men only but for women and children also. And the battle to
which the men were now going forth must be fought against Back Country
men of their own stripe under a leader who, in other circumstances,
might well have been one of themselves--a primitive spirit of hardy
mountain stock, who, having once taken his stand, would not barter and
would not retreat.

"With the Sword of the Lord and of Gideon!" cried their pastor, the
Reverend Samuel Doak, with upraised hands, as the mountaineers swung
into their saddles. And it is said that all the women took up his
words and cried again and again, "With the sword of the Lord and of our
Gideons!" To the shouts of their women, as bugles on the wind of dawn,
the buckskin-shirted army dashed out upon the mountain trail.

The warriors' equipment included rifles and ammunition, tomahawks,
knives, shot pouches, a knapsack, and a blanket for each man. Their
uniforms were leggings, breeches, and long loose shirts of gayly fringed
deerskin, or of the linsey-woolsey spun by their women. Their hunting
shirts were bound in at the waist by bright-colored linsey sashes tied
behind in a bow. They wore moccasins for footgear, and on their heads
high fur or deerskin caps trimmed with colored bands of raveled cloth.
Around their necks hung their powderhorns ornamented with their own rude
carvings.

On the first day they drove along with them a number of beeves but,
finding that the cattle impeded the march, they left them behind on the
mountain side. Their provisions thereafter were wild game and the small
supply each man carried of mixed corn meal and maple sugar. For drink,
they had the hill streams.

They passed upward between Roan and Yellow mountains to the top of
the range. Here, on the bald summit, where the loose snow lay to their
ankles, they halted for drill and rifle practice. When Sevier called up
his men, he discovered that two were missing. He suspected at once that
they had slipped away to carry warning to Ferguson, for Watauga was
known to be infested with Tories. Two problems now confronted the
mountaineers. They must increase the speed of their march, so that
Ferguson should not have time to get reinforcements from Cornwallis; and
they must make that extra speed by another trail than they had intended
taking so that they themselves could not be intercepted before they had
picked up the Back Country militia under