In the month of December a part of the Continental Army, now under the command of Gen. Greene, was sent forward into South Carolina, while the main body took post on the Peedee in North Carolina.  The detachment pushed forward into South Carolina was placed under the immediate command of Gen. Daniel Morgan, recently arrived from the main army at the North.  The principal object of this expedition was to enable the Whigs in the northwestern part of the state to embody, for since the affair at Blackstock's the army then under the command of Gen. Sumter had been dispersed in small squads, both to acquire a subsistence and for the want of a leader in whose talents and courage they had confidence.

After executing various movements the detachment under Morgan encamped at the Grindal Shoals on Pacolet River, about Christmas.  It was soon joined by a body of militia from North Carolina, as the writer supposes from the region of Burke, and under the immediate command of Major Joseph McDowell.  The regiments of Brandon and Thomas took post in the immediate vicinity of Morgan's camp.  At the same time the regiment of McCall, a part of the brigade of Gen. Pickens, joined his standard.  A corps of Georgians under Majors Jackson and Cunningham also came up.  Pickens was approaching with the residue of his force from the region of Long Cane, in what is now Abbeville. Among other objects of importance which pressed upon the attention of the enterprising general was the means of subsisting his army, for small as it was its stores of provisions were much smaller.  Its position was in the midst of a country which had within a few months been ravaged successively by the armies of Ferguson and Tarleton.  And in addition to the supplies levied by these commanders and their subordinate officers, bands of Tories had visited every house owned by a Whig, with desolation in the whole region round about.

Mrs. Angelia Nott, widow of the late Judge Nott, lived in this vicinity at the time and states that the family with which she lived had nothing to eat but roasting ears during a considerable portion of the summer and autumn preceding, that every comfort in the shape of bedding was taken from them, that salt a great deal of the time was out of the question and that leather shoes was a luxury that no Whig family enjoyed that winter.