When the militia fled before the initial British charge, Gates tried to rally them, but the panicked mass swept him up in their flight north. Far from the battlefield, he concluded that his army had been defeated and decided to go to Charlotte to regroup. Finding neither troops nor supplies there, he rode on to Hillsborough, NC, to seek help from North Carolina’s state legislature. Although the Continental Congress initially supported him, his political enemies used his three-day journey from the battlefield as evidence of cowardice. He was removed from command, and his reputation never recovered.