As he passed through the Back Country he posted a
notice calling on the loyalists to join him. If the overmountain
men felt that they were out on a wolf hunt, Ferguson's
proclamation shows what the wolf thought of his hunters.
"To the Inhabitants of North Carolina.
"Gentlemen: Unless you wish to be eat up by an innundation of
barbarians, who have begun by murdering an unarmed son before the
aged father, and afterwards lopped off his arms, and who by their
shocking cruelties and irregularities give the best proof of
their cowardice and want of discipline: I say if you wish to be
pinioned, robbed and murdered, and see your wives and daughters
in four days, abused by the dregs of mankind--in short if you
wish to deserve to live and bear the name of men, grasp your arms
in a moment and run to camp.
"The Back Water men have crossed the mountains: McDowell,
Hampton, Shelby, and Cleveland are at their head, so that you
know what you have to depend upon. If you choose to be degraded
forever and ever by a set of mongrels, say so at once, and let
your women turn their backs upon you, and look out for real men
to protect them.
"Pat. Ferguson, Major 71st Regiment."*
* Draper, "King's Mountain and its Heroes," p. 204.
Ferguson's force has been estimated at about eleven hundred men,
but it is likely that this estimate does not take the absentees
into consideration.
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