King's Mountain by Sharyn McCrumb

efficient, I fear.”
    â€œMy brother Valentine has said that the battle was a rout, but he gave me little of the particulars.”
    Shelby waved a hand dismissively. “Oh, they were outnumbered, sick from trying to eat green corn, and footsore from the long march. It is not the battle that I wished to speak of. It is the aftermath. They say that Gates left the battlefield at a gallop. Major Davie was on his way to the battle with a small group of reinforcements, when—ten miles from Camden—he encountered a rider in full flight, heading north. Davie says that Gates ordered him to turn back, to which the major replied that his men were ready to fight against Tarleton, despite his reputation as a butcher. General Gates looked back as if he expected to see all the devils of hell in pursuit of him, and then he spurred his horse and sped on northward.”
    â€œGates abandoned the army?”
    Shelby shrugged. “What was left of it. We had nearly four thousand men on the field at Camden, and General Cornwallis claimed that his men had killed a quarter of that number and wounded another quarter. Meanwhile, as these men lay maimed or dying at Camden, their illustrious commander rode more than a hundred and eighty miles in just three days, and fetched up in Hillsborough.”
    There were so many thoughts crowding my brain that I seized upon one at random and said it aloud. “General Gates … He is not a young man, is he?”
    â€œHe is past fifty. You may consider that ride an admirable feat for a man of his age, but as behavior for a general it is monstrous.”
    â€œAnd is he still in Hillsborough?”
    â€œThe last word that I had said he was there with the few hundred survivors of his folly at Camden, trying to reassemble an army. If you are thinking of appealing to Gates for help—”
    â€œNot after what you’ve said,” I assured him. “It sounds as if we are on our own. But we cannot do it alone, you know, Shelby. Not just with your militia and mine. We haven’t enough men.”
    â€œNo, but people look up to you, Colonel Sevier. If I can tell people that you are with us, then the rest will come. You can raise at least a hundred men or so, can’t you?”
    â€œYes, but you know it will take more than numbers. If you propose to march a few hundred men down to Ninety Six, or wherever the fight will be, then you’ll need powder and shot, rations, supplies … It takes a deal of money to grease the wheels of a war wagon.”
    â€œYes, it does indeed, but no one will give us the money until we have the army. We’ll cross that bridge farther along. What I need to know right now is—will you come?”
    I considered it. “So Ferguson threatens to bring the war to us.”
    â€œYes. That’s the nub of it. I do not think any of us has a choice of whether or not to fight. You can only decide whether you want to do it in the low country or”—he pointed to the sunlit lawn beyond the window—“there.”
    â€œWhere are the armies now? Do you know?”
    â€œLord Cornwallis and Banastre Tarleton are thought to be in Charlotte, but Major Ferguson was headed for Gilbert Town, and we deem it likely that he is still there in the foothills burning and thieving his way to converting the people to his side. I don’t want him here.”
    â€œNo. It was good of him to warn us, though. I wonder why he did.”
    â€œIt’s peculiar, isn’t it? I can only assume that he meant to frighten us into submission.”
    We looked at each other and laughed. “He doesn’t know us very well, does he?”

VIRGINIA SAL
    I joined up with him that summer, a week or so after Ramsour’s Mill. Some of the folk hereabouts would take umbrage at my doing that, for they were saying that the British were only trying to keep us from being free, but I never had any time for wrangling about politics. I