On July 11, 1780, Martha Bratton, wife of Colonel William Bratton, was harvesting wheat with her children and a neighbor when she learned that British soldiers led by Captain Christian Huck were marching toward the Bratton plantation. She sent the family's trusted African American slave, Watt, to carry a message to her husband twenty miles away at General Sumter's camp. That afternoon, Huck arrived at the Bratton home with forty British Legion cavalry, twenty New York Volunteer infantry, and six hundred Loyalist militiamen. After Martha refused to assist the British cause, Huck locked the Bratton family in their house and then rode to the James Williamson plantation to camp for the night.