Two days before Cane Creek, John Buchanan artfully described what would prove the beginning of the end for Major Ferguson and his command of Partisan and Loyalist Militia.
“On or about 10 September 1780, a lone rider headed west from Ferguson’s camp at Gilbert Town and began the long climb from the foothills up one of the steep trails that climbed the great mountains [Appalachians]… His name was Samuel Phillips. He was a Rebel who had been a British prisoner, but Patrick Ferguson had paroled him, for Samuel Phillips was a distant kinsman of Colonel Isaac Shelby, and he carried a message for Shelby and all the Over Mountain Men. Deadly in intent and import, the message had been given verbally to Phillips by Ferguson.
“If they did not desist from their opposition to the British arms, he would march over the mountain, hang their leaders, and lay their country waste with fire and sword.”
