 During this march, Cornwallis dispatched a band of Loyalists under the command of Major Patrick Ferguson to raid Western Carolina.To counter Ferguson's threat, a group of frontiersmen from the mountains of what is now East Tennessee, North Carolina and Virginia assembled at Fort Watauga, located in present-day Elizabethton.This rallied force of frontiersmen — known as the Overmountain Men — crossed the Roan Highlands en route to the other side of the Blue Ridge Mountains, where they engaged and defeated Ferguson's forces at the Battle of Kings Mountain.