Messengers were sent to Colonel William Campbell of the Virginia settlements on the Clinch, asking his aid.

Campbell at first refused, thinking it better to fortify the positions they held and let Ferguson come and put the mountains between himself and Cornwallis.
On receipt of a second message, however, he concurred.

The call to arms was heard up and down the valleys, and the frontiersmen poured into Watauga.

The overhill men were augmented by McDowell's troops from Burke County, who had dashed over the mountains a few weeks before in their escape from Ferguson.
At daybreak on the 26th of September they mustered at the Sycamore Shoals on the Watauga, over a thousand strong.

It was a different picture they made from that other great gathering at the same spot when Henderson had made his purchase in money of the Dark and Bloody Ground, and Sevier and Robertson had bought for the Wataugans this strip of Tennessee.