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 Colonels Cleveland, Hampbright,
Chronicle, and Williams, who were moving to join them.
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