Leaving our partisan, with his little squad, to make his way cautiously through a country infested with Tories, we follow for the present the progress of the Continental army.

On the night of the fifteenth of August, 1780, the Americans moved from Rugely's Mills.

At midnight, without dreaming of an enemy, they encountered him.

The first intelligence communicated to either army of the presence of the other, was from the fire of the British advance upon the Americans.

The two armies recoiled and lay upon their arms the rest of the night.