Loyalist Lt. Allaire, re: Cane Creek

Tuesday, 12th [September 1780]. Maj. Ferguson, with forty American Volunteers and one hundred militia, got in motion at two o'clock in the morning, and marched fourteen miles through the mountains to the head of Cane creek, in Burke County, in order to surprise a party of Rebels we heard lay there. Unfortunately for us, they had by some means got intelligence of our coming, in consequence of which, Mr. McDowell, with three hundred infamous villains like himself, thought it highly necessary to remove their quarters. However, we were lucky enough to take a different route from what they expected, and met them on their way, and to appearance one would have thought they meant sincerely to fight us, as they drew up on an eminence for action. On our approach they fired and gave way. We totally routed them, killed one private, wounded a Capt. White, took seventeen prisoners, twelve horses, all their ammunition, which was only twenty pounds of powder, after which we marched to their encampment, and found it abandoned by those Congress heroes. Our loss was two wounded and one killed. Among the wounded was Capt. Dunlap, who received two slight wounds. After the skirmish we returned to one Allen's to refresh ourselves. We got in motion about four o'clock in the afternoon, and countermarched about six miles to a Rebel Mr. Jones', where we halted all night.

(Source: Diary of Lieut. Anthony Allaire, of Ferguson's Corps. Memorandum of Occurrences During the Campaign of 1780.) 

Cane Creek: Prelude to Kings Mountain

From Biographical History of North Carolina, by Samuel A'Court Ashe, published 1908, C.L. Van Noppen, North Carolina, pg. 302:

On August 29th [1780] Cornwallis wrote to Sir Henry Clinton that Ferguson was to move into Tryon, now Lincoln County, with what the latter thought was a reliable body of militia. Ferguson accordingly advanced to Gilbert-town, three miles north of the present village of Rutherfordton, where he issued a proclamation to the citizens to renew their allegiance and join the king's army. Learning that McDowell had retired, and that the Watauga leaders had crossed the mountains to their homes, Ferguson began to send out parties of foragers to ravage the county of Burke. This aroused Colonel Charles McDowell, and learning that he was again mustering his men, Ferguson sent out a detachment in search of him. But he again failed to surprise McDowell, who was lying in ambuscade for him at Bedford Hill, three miles southwest of Brindletown and near Cowan's Ford of Cane Creek. On the [12 September 1780, per Lt. Anthony Allaire’s diary] approach of Ferguson's men, McDowell's men fired upon them, killing many of the Tories and wounding Major Dunlap, the trusted lieutenant of Ferguson. Ferguson was forced to retire hastily to Gilbert-town.