 The British camp at Winnsboro was not particularly comfortable , and the men were often sick , living in crude accommodations not unlike those that Washington 's men had erected at Valley Forge in 1777 . The army suffered from a general lack of supplies , but wagons and horses were in particularly short supply , and the earl discovered that his quartermasters were profiteering on the provisioning of those items . The methods by which horses were acquired also served to alienate their Loyalist friends , since the quartermasters were sometimes indiscriminate , seizing horses from Patriots and Loyalists alike . His supply lines were also continually harassed , particularly by Francis Marion . In November he ordered Tarleton out to capture Marion ; the two commanders successfully maneuvered themselves out of entrapments laid by the other . Tarleton eventually returned to Cornwallis , reporting that Marion 's force had been broken up ; several days later , Marion resumed his guerrilla war . 
