Hessians but they did not render any special service, and Greene found
he could place no reliance on them for the actual stubborn campaigns
that broke the strength of the king's armies. They enlisted for very
short periods, and when their time was up promptly returned to their
mountains, for they were sure to get home-sick and uneasy about their
families; and neither the officers nor the soldiers had any proper idea
of the value of obedience. Among their own hills and forests and for
their own work, they were literally unequalled; and they were ready
enough to swoop down from their strongholds, strike some definite blow,
or do some single piece of valiant fighting in the low country, and then
fall back as quickly as they had come. But they were not particularly
suited for a pitched battle in the open, and were quite unfitted to
carry on a long campaign. [Footnote: Shelby MSS. Of course Shelby paints
these skirmishes in very strong colors. Haywood and Ramsey base their
accounts purely on his papers.]; [Footnote: Ramsey and his followers
endeavor to prove that the mountain men did excellently in these 1781
campaigns; but the endeavor is futile. They were good for some one
definite stroke, but their shortcomings were manifest the instant a long
campaign was attempted; and the comments of the South Carolina
historians upon their willingness to leave at unfortunate moments are on
the whole just. They behaved somewhat as Stark and the victors at
Bennington did when they left the American army before Saratoga;
although their conduct was on the whole better than that of Stark's men.
They were a brave, hardy, warlike band of irregulars, probably better
fighters than any similar force on this continent or elsewhere; but
occasional brilliant exceptions must not blind us to the general
inefficiency of the Revolutionary militia, and their great inferiority
to the Continentals of Washington, Greene, and Wayne. See Appendix.]

In one respect the mountain men deserve great credit for their conduct