Ramsay, in his history of South Carolina, says that a British party of exiles who had fled into NC as the British advanced, made choice of Colonel Thomas Sumter to be their leader and that he took the field against the victorious British at a time when the inhabitants had generally abandoned the idea of supporting their independence.

The British had burned Sumter's home and turned his family out of doors. They also burned the home and library of the local clergyman Rev. Mr. Simpson and all bibles which containes the Scots translation of Psalms. "The people... aranged themsleves under Sumter... with the enthusiasm of men called upon to defend not only their civil liberties but their Holy Religion.." These men were woodsmen of the frontier upcountry living mostly in the north eastern part of the state.

South Carolina was no longer in a position to pay, clothe, or feed troops, therefore Sumter's men furnished their own horses and brought along their muskets and rifles. Often "iron tools of neighboring farms were worked up by blacksmiths into rude weapons.. bullets were made by melting pewter... furnished by housekeepers. (In battles) some kept at a distance till by the fall of others, they were supplied with arms. When victorious, they rifled the dead..of weapons." General Sumter was so daring and fearless he was called "The Gamecock."

William Smith was a Captain under Colonel John Thomas Jr. in the Spartan Regiment of General Sumter's Brigade. He also served as a Major and was in the battles at Hanging Rock, Old Iron Works, Musgrove's Mills, Fish Dam Ford, Blackstock's Plantation, Cowan's Ford, Guilford Court House, Fort Granby, Quinby Bridge, and in numerous skirmishes. In July and August, 1782, he was Adjutant under Major John Ford of the Spartan Regiment.

John Morrow was a private with Captain Mills Company, Lacy's Regiment, Sumter's Brigade in Chester County SC.

John Forrester was in Captain Alexander's Company of Sumter's Brigade of Cavalry.

John Mayfield during the Revolutionary War was know as Captain John. He was a member of Peter Burns' Company, Sumter's Brigade.

Colonel Henderson, then in command of Sumter's Brigade, at Fridig's ferry, and the former to strike at the communication between the enemy and Charleston, and to cooperate with Marion and Mayham, in covering the lower Santee.

Andrew Baxter served in the Company of Captain Jacob Barnett of General Sumter's Brigade.

James McCracken (1750-1802) served as private in Colonel Polk's Regiment, General Sumter's Brigade.

Major General Nathanael Greene, reduced by wounds and sickness, could not muster one thousand fit for duty. His cavalry had been greatly thinned by the late battle, and it was not until the cavalry of Sumter's Brigade could be brought together with Marion's mounted infantry, and the horse of Horry and Mayham, that the superiority of the American General's forces could be restored.

PEE DEE, July 6, 1781.

Dear Sir:

I wrote you the 14th, which will be handed you by the bearer here, of our public business; and now have to address you, sir, on account of slaves of one Capt. Kinborough, who before Gates' defeat withdrew himself from his plantation in this State with part of his property and twenty-seven slaves to Camden, as did many others from this river, where he remained late after the defeat, when he returned home without his slaves; and about the twentieth of September, I, by order of Gov. Nash, took post on the Pee Dee to protect the inhabitants, and our scouts being constantly on duty, he could not get back if it was his choice, though he lay out till the 22d of November, when he surrendered himself to me a prisoner, subject to be tried by his country, and seemed to be very sorry for his past conducton which I promised to permit him or some other person to go to bring in his property; and I in December gave him a permit to send for his slaves home, on which he gave a bond payable to the Governor or his successors, for five hundred thousand pounds, with five able securities, for the producing the said slaves whenever the sense of the Legislature should be known; but he taking the Small Pox was not able to go after his property till the return of Gen'l. Greene to the siege of Camden, some of whose officers carried Mr. Kinborough to camp, and General Greene paroled him till called by the commanding officer of the Southern army, or the Legislature of this State. Now the Assembly of this State is setting, and Mr. Kinborough and others are called on in like circumstances, and will be judged guilty and their property confiscated or acquitted and restored to their privileges; and when Gen'l. Greene paroled him, he directed him to apply to me for a pass to Mr. Gaynor to go for his slaves, and I thought the negroes ought to be retained till the sense of the legislature should be known on Mr. Kinborough's case. When I gave the order, I should have addressed you, but expecting you then to be at George Town, and sundry persons of property being taken in the Congaree fort, who have withdrawn themselves from here, who were suffered to enlist out of custody in Gen'l. Sumter's Brigade, and then hired substitutes, and have not served two weeks and are come home here; and some of them the most inveterate tory officers we were troubled with, and have brought home their own slaves and no doubt some that they plundered from good men. Now Kinborough has hired a certain continental soldier during the war, and if Mr. Kinborough's estate should be confiscated, it's no doubt with me that he being an inhabitant of this State, that the personal estate will always go with the landed estate, and the commissioners of the confiscated estate have a right to collect the persons property that reside in their districts from any place in the United States, wherever it may be found, of which I am a Commissioner for the district of Salisbury, or would not have sent for them. So if you judge that the State have a right to retain the property of the inhabitants of the State without the Confiscation act, carried into it, they would lose in their accounts by it, as there are large numbers of slaves brought to this State from yours, the property of the disaffected judged when taken by plundering parties which our laws put in the power of the county sheriffs to take into their care for the benefit of your State, or the owners of good men. Now, sir, if you think proper to order those negroes into my possession out of the hands of the several persons hands that have them, I will employ them in the State of South Carolina, in the Commissary department, and be accountable for them to your State or ours as the case may be determined, as I am creditably informed they are all in bad hands, only a few in the hands of Capt. Spann, in whose hands if you don't choose to send them to me, I hope in justice to the public, you will order them, though I have sundry negroes in my care, that I took from people that plundered them from your State, as the Gov. Rutledge ordered me to take those kind of slaves till legally called for, which I have employed in beating out corn.

(From Documentary History of the American Revolution, by Gibbes, Volume 3, p. 103)