On September 24, 1780, determined men on horseback filled this muster ground to hunt down British Major Patrick Ferguson and his 1,000 loyalist soldiers. Called to action by American Colonel William Campbell, 400 men from the surrounding area joined the patriots and began their march south from here. The patriots prevailed when they battled Ferguson's loyalist troops atop Kings Mountain in South Carolina, and that victory prompted British General Sir Henry Clinton to call it “the first link in a chain of evils that … ended in the total loss of America.” An account by an unknown member of Campbell's force says that after news of a large body of British and Tories assembled in North Carolina under Ferguson and threatening to visit Holston river, the militia of Washington County, Virginia, were ordered out under Campbell's command on September 22, 1780.