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Updated: June 6, 2025
But far-seeing, prudent, and looking more to future results than present triumphs, General Greene, on the 19th, commenced retreating toward the Saluda, which river he passed in safety, and moved forward with all possible despatch for the Enoree. Before his rear-guard had left the south side of this river, the van of Lord Rawdon's army appeared in pursuit.
He was soon again at the head of a considerable band and had frequent skirmishes with his adversaries. Always changing his position about Enoree, Broad, and Tiger rivers, he often assailed the British posts in that quarter. On the 12th of November he was attacked at Broad river by Major Wemyss, but repulsed the party and made the major prisoner.
Neither side could claim the mastery. In a minor engagement fought at Musgrove's Mill on the Enoree, Shelby's command came off victor and was about to pursue the enemy towards Ninety-Six when a messenger from McDowell galloped madly into camp with word of General Gates's crushing defeat at Camden.
On learning that a body of five hundred Tories had assembled on the south side of Enoree river, near Musgrove's Mill, Colonel McDowell detached Colonels Shelby, Williams and Clarke to attack them. Colonel Ferguson, with his whole force, lay encamped between them.
But the British commander hesitated to make an attack upon Greene's cavalry, which was under the command of Lee and Colonel Washington, and was a brave, well-disciplined, and superior troop, and so permitted them to pass the Enoree unmolested.
Advance was hopeless, and retreat impossible. But Shelby was equal to the emergency. He immediately commenced forming a breast-work of brush and old logs, while he detailed twenty-five tried men to reconnoiter and skirmish with the enemy as soon as they crossed the Enoree river. The drums and bugles of the enemy were soon heard marching upon this devoted band.
Ferguson's army was encamped southwest of them, at Fair Forest Shoals; they marched round him, and went straight on, leaving him in their rear. Sometimes they rode through open forest, more often they followed the dim wood roads; their horses pacing or cantering steadily through the night. As the day dawned they reached Musgrove's Ford, on the Enoree, having gone forty miles.
Shelby's memory when he was old was certainly very treacherous; in similar fashion he, as has been seen, exaggerated greatly his numbers at the Enoree. On the other hand, Robert Campbell puts the number at only seven hundred, and Lenoir between six and seven hundred.
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