De Kalb had fallen under eleven wounds, and nothing remained, but flight, to save this gallant body from the mortification of surrender on the field of battle.

It was no consolation to Gates, while fleeing to North Carolina, to be overtaken by messengers from Sumter, announcing a gallant achievement of that brave partisan, by which forty wagons of booty and nearly three hundred prisoners had fallen into his hands.

Such tidings only mocked his own disaster.

He could only, in reply, relate his own irretrievable defeat, point to his fugitives, and counsel Sumter to immediate retreat from his triumphant and now returning enemy.

Unhappily, ignorant of Gates' disaster, and of a bold, incautious temper, Sumter was approaching, rather than hastening from, danger.