Battle of Musgrove Mill The Battle of Musgrove Mill , August 19 , 1780 , occurred near a ford of the Enoree River , near the present - day border between Spartanburg , Laurens and Union Counties in South Carolina . During the course of the battle , 200 Patriot militiamen defeated a combined force of approximately 300 Loyalist militiamen and 200 provincial regulars . Background . By the summer of 1780 , the war that raged in the backcountry of South Carolina had effectively become America ’ s first civil war . Few men engaged on either side had ever seen Great Britain , and backcountry fighting tended to be especially brutal and retaliatory . Battle . On the evening of August 18 , two hundred mounted Patriot partisans under joint command of Colonels Isaac Shelby , James Williams , and Elijah Clarke prepared to raid a Loyalist camp at Musgrove ’ s Mill , which controlled the local grain supply and guarded a ford of the Enoree River . The Patriots anticipated surprising a garrison of about an equal number of Loyalists , but a local farmer informed them that the Tories had recently been reinforced by about a hundred Loyalist militia and two hundred provincial regulars on their way to join British Major Patrick Ferguson . With their position compromised by an enemy patrol and horses unable to go on without rest , the Patriots understood that they must stand and fight despite being outnumbered better than two to one . At the top of a ridge across the road leading down to Musgrove Mill , the partisans quickly formed a semicircular breastwork of brush and fallen timber about three hundred yards long . In the best tradition of guerrilla tactics , a band of about twenty men under the leadership of Captain Shadrach Inman crossed the Enoree and engaged the enemy . Feigning confusion they retreated back toward the line of ambush until the Loyalists were nearly on the Patriot line . When the Loyalists spotted the Patriot line , they fired too early . The Patriots , however , held their fire until the Loyalists got within killing range of their muskets . Patriot musket fire operated “ with devastating effect . ” Nonetheless , the Tory regulars were well disciplined and nearly overwhelmed the Patriot right flank with a bayonet charge . ( Frontiersmen had no bayonets . ) Isaac Shelby ordered his reserve of “ Overmountain Men ” to support him , and they rushed into the battle shrieking Indian war cries . The Tories wavered , and when a number of their officers went down , they broke — although not before Captain Inman , who had a key role in implementing the Patriot strategy , was killed on the battlefield . Patriots ran from their positions “ yelling , shooting , and slashing on every hand . ” The whole battle took perhaps an hour . Within that period , sixty - three Tories were killed , an unknown number wounded , and seventy were taken prisoner . The Patriots lost only about four dead and twelve wounded . Aftermath . Some Whig leaders briefly considered attacking the Tory stronghold at Ninety Six , South Carolina ; but they hurriedly dispersed after learning that a large Patriot army had been defeated at Camden three days previous . Shelby ’ s forces covered sixty miles with Ferguson in hot pursuit before making good their escape . In the wake of General Horatio Gates ’ blundering defeat at Camden , the victory at Musgrove Mill heartened the Patriots and served as further evidence that the South Carolina backcountry could not be held by the Tories . Shelby and his Overmountain Men crossed back over the Appalachian Mountains and into the territory of the Watauga Association at Sycamore Shoals in present day Elizabethton , Tennessee , and by the next month on September 25 , 1780 , Colonels Shelby , John Sevier , and Charles McDowell and their 600 Overmountain Men had combined forces with Col . William Campbell and his 400 Virginia men at the Sycamore Shoals muster in advance of the October 7 , 1780 Battle of Kings Mountain near present day Blacksburg , South Carolina . The Musgrove Mill battlefield has been preserved at the Musgrove Mill State Historic Site , as the newest unit of the South Carolina park system . It is listed on the National Register of Historic Places .