supposed that they were in part from Kentucky, and that Boon
himself was among the number. [Footnote: British historians to the
present day repeat this. Even Lecky, in his "History of England," speaks
of the backwoodsmen as in part from Kentucky. Having pointed out this
trivial fault in Lecky's work, it would be ungracious not to allude to
the general justice and impartiality of its accounts of these
revolutionary campaigns--they are very much more trustworthy than
Bancroft's, for instance. Lecky scarcely gives the right color to the
struggle in the south; but when Bancroft treats of it, it is not too
much to say that he puts the contest between the whigs and the British
and tories in a decidedly false light. Lecky fails to do justice to
Washington's military ability, however; and overrates the French
assistance.] However, Ferguson probably cared very little who they were;
and keeping, as he supposed, a safe distance away from them, he halted
at King's Mountain in South Carolina on the evening of October 6th,
pitching his camp on a steep, narrow hill just south of the North
Carolina boundary. The King's Mountain range itself is about sixteen
miles in length, extending in a southwesterly course from one State into
the other. The stony, half isolated ridge on which Ferguson camped was
some six or seven hundred yards long and half as broad from base to
base, or two thirds that distance on top. The steep sides were clad with
a growth of open woods, including both saplings and big timber. Ferguson
parked his baggage wagons along the northeastern part of the mountain.
The next day he did not move; he was as near to the army of Cornwallis
at Charlotte as to the mountaineers, and he thought it safe to remain
where he was. He deemed the position one of great strength, as indeed it
would have been, if assailed in the ordinary European fashion; and he
was confident that even if the rebels attacked him, he could readily
beat them back. But as General Lee, "Light-Horse Harry," afterwards
remarked, the hill was much easier assaulted with the rifle than
defended with the bayonet.

The backwoodsmen, on leaving the camp at the Cowpens, marched slowly
through the night, which was dark and drizzly; many of the men got
scattered in the woods, but joined their commands in the morning--the
morning of October 7th. The troops bore down to the southward, a little
out of the straight route, to avoid any patrol parties; and at sunrise
they splash