After the British captured Charleston in May 1780, the Watauga country became a base from which Patriots marched against the British and Loyalists in the east. Knowing he had to defeat these and other partisans, British General Lord Cornwallis on September 8, 1780, ordered Colonel Patrick Ferguson's Loyalist regiment to the base of the Blue Ridge while Cornwallis invaded North Carolina, with Ferguson assigned to guard his left flank, scatter Patriot partisans, and raise Tory recruits. After pursuing a partisan band to Gilbert Town in North Carolina, Ferguson sent the overmountain men a threat that if they did not stop opposing the King's arms, he would cross the mountains, hang their leaders, and lay waste their country with fire and sword. When Wataugan leaders learned of this threat, they ordered their militia companies to muster at Sycamore Shoals, where on September 25, 1780, 1,100 militiamen from western North Carolina and Virginia gathered. The next day, leaving about 200 behind to guard against the Cherokee, the rest marched up Gap Creek, through Yellow Mountain Gap, and over the Blue Ridge to confront Ferguson, swearing to wield the Sword of the Lord and of Gideon. Joined along the way by other militia units from the Carolinas and Georgia, the growing Patriot army chased Ferguson, who had failed to attract many Loyalists, to Kings Mountain. There 900 of the ablest frontiersmen surrounded and decisively defeated Ferguson's army of 1,100 men in 65 minutes, and Ferguson was killed. After this defeat, Cornwallis was forced to postpone his North Carolina campaign and return to South Carolina for the winter, and the Patriot victory at Kings Mountain became a significant turning point in the Revolutionary War.