The Regiment von Bose wore blue coats, similar to those of the Continental foot. ‘Moffitt’ is Colonel George Moffett who commanded the Augusta contingent of Campbell’s men. It was Major Alex Stuart that Houston says was lost, caught in a little clearing by Tarleton’s dragoons. They made the Major take off his boots and pants, stand there in epauletted coat and cocked hat only, while they beat the surrounding bushes for his riflemen. He was taken prisoner unhurt, and exchanged after a few months. In James Tate’s hard luck company from south Augusta, two who were chased were the Steeles, Samuel and David. Sam shot one dragoon during the rout, but was later captured by two of them before he could reload. When they commanded him to hand over his rifle, he just kept repeating: ‘O I couldn’t do that. I can’t do that.’ They let him keep it and a little later, while their attention was directed elsewhere, he loaded the weapon. And when they looked at him again, he brandished it at them. They fled. David was sabered about the head, his skull splintered. He was left for dead in the woods, but eventually revived and returned hom where the splinters were removed and a silver plate inserted. Both men lived into old age.
Also lost in the chase, from the Rockbridge Battalion, was Captain John Paxton, with a badly wounded foot which never completely healed. Presumably he lay in the woods overnight without help in cold downpour which began that evening. So did all the American wounded. The British had not even enough men left on their feet to tend all their own until next day. They lay down exhausted, without tents or rations, on bloody, rainsoaked Guilford battlefield. They slept amid hundreds of unburied dead, the cries and moans of hundreds more mangled and dying.
Sam Houston continues: Friday, 16th–As soon as day appeared (being wet) we decamped, and marched through the rain to Speedwell furnace, where Green had retreated from Guilfordtown, where the battle was fought, sixteen miles distant; there we met many of our company with great joy, in particular Colonel M’Dowell; where we learned that we lost four pieces of cannon after having retaken them, also the 71st regiment we had captured. After visiting the tents we eat and hung about in the tents and rain, when frequently we were rejoiced by men coming in we had given out for lost. In the evening we struck tents and encamped on the left, when the orders were read to draw provisions and ammunition, which order struck a panic in the minds of many. Our march five miles.
