The stage for this battle was set when Lord Cornwallis, Lord Rawdon and Lt. Col. Tarleton defeated Gen. Horatio Gates and Gen. Baron de Kalb with the Virginia and Maryland troops in a battle near Camden. De Kalb was killed and the Patriots were defeated. About 150 Marylanders were taken prisoner taken by the British.

Gen. Francis Marion was ordered to roam the Santee River area burning boats so as to isolate Camden from Charleston. He was successfully engaged in this task when he learned of the defeat at Camden. He withheld this information from his sixty troops and continued to burn boats. He learned from a deserter that the British had just burned his own home, 'Pond Bluff.'

Capt. Roberts with an escort of ninety troops was holding the 150 Maryland prisoners at Gen. Thomas Sumter’s home, on the north savannah of the Santee River near Nelson’s Ferry. Marion attacked after dark and killed or captured twenty-three of the escorts and released all the prisoners. This is thought to be the first time Cornwallis heard of Gen. Francis Marion.