Scrounging for food and awaiting a new commanding general.

From The Road to Guilford Courthouse by John Buchanan. Page 129.

The dangers and privations of those who served in the American Revolution, both militia and Line, are almost impossible to comprehend. The only recompense for most was a promise of a better future.

The march south was not easy. The column left Morristown, New Jersey, on 16 April 1780. It reached Hillsborough in the northern reaches of North Carolina on 22 June. It was slow going because the men had to forage for food along the way, and there was little of it, as the corn crop was not yet harvested. They had only enough wagons to hold their tents; the rest of the baggage was carried on the soldiers’ backs. De Kalb expected reinforcements from the state militias along the way. He received none. After resting a week at Hillsborough, he decided to press on. One of the soldiers wrote: “We marched from Hillsborough about the first of July, without an ounce of provision being laid up at any one point, often fasting for several days together, and subsisting frequently upon green apples and peaches; sometimes by detaching parties we thought ourselves feasted, when by violence we seized a little fresh beef and cut and threshed out a little wheat; yet, under all these difficulties, we had to go forward.” At Buffalo Ford on Deep River, approximately thirty miles south of modern Greensboro, North Carolina, they had to stop. There was no more food, a not uncommon condition with the Continental Army, but that was of little consolation to hungry troops, many of whom were ill. At Deep River they remained, scrounging for food and awaiting a new commanding general.