Shelby found a commission from the Virginia Committee of Safety appointing him captain of a company of Minutemen. In 1777, Virginia governor Patrick Henry appointed Shelby to a position securing provisions for the army on the frontier. He served a similar role for units in the Continental Army in 1778 and 1779. With his money, Shelby purchased provisions for John Sevier's 1779 expedition against the Chickamauga, a band of Cherokees who were resisting colonial expansion. Shelby was elected to represent Washington County in the Virginia House of Delegates in 1779. Later that year, he was commissioned a major by Governor Thomas Jefferson and charged with escorting a group of commissioners to establish a frontier boundary line between Virginia and North Carolina. Shortly after his arrival in the region, North Carolina Governor Richard Caswell made him magistrate of newly formed Sullivan County and elevated him to the rank of colonel of the Sullivan County Regiment. Shelby was surveying lands in Kentucky in 1780 when he heard of the colonists' defeat at Charleston. He hurried to North Carolina, where he found a request for aid from General Charles McDowell to defend the borders of North Carolina from the British. Shelby assembled three hundred militiamen and joined McDowell at Cherokee Ford in South Carolina. On the morning of July 31, 1780, he surrounded the British stronghold at Thickety Fort on the Pacolet River with 600 men. He immediately demanded a surrender, but the British refused. Shelby brought his men within musket range and again demanded surrender. Though the fort likely would have withstood the attack, the British commander lost his nerve and capitulated. Without firing a shot, Shelby's men captured 94 prisoners. Following the surrender of Thickety Fort, Shelby joined a band of partisans under Lieutenant Elijah Clarke. This unit was pursued by British Major Patrick Ferguson. On the morning of August 8, 1780, some of Shelby's men were gathering peaches from an orchard when they were surprised by some of Ferguson's men on a reconnaissance mission. Shelby's men quickly readied their arms and drove back the British patrol. Soon, however, the British were reinforced and the colonists fell back. The pattern continued, with one side being reinforced and gaining an advantage, followed by the other. Shelby's men were winning the battle when Ferguson's main force of 1,000 men arrived. Outmanned, they retreated to a nearby hill where British musket fire could not