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followed each other in regular succession until they at last ended in the total loss of America’. 88 The next day, Cornwallis issued a proclamation that those who reported to British posts and who would ‘faithfully deliver up their arms and give a Military parole to remain thenceforth peaceable at home doing no offense against His Majesty’s government will be protected in their persons and properties’. 89 Josiah Martin, accompanying Cornwallis’s army, issued his own proclamation on 3 October asking for Loyalists to rise under him as ‘Governor of the Province’. 90 For the purpose of raising loyal Militia forces or discouraging enemy attacks, these proclamations had little or no effect, as Charlotte and the surrounding area were largely deserted. Hanger recalled that ‘not above three or four men remained in the whole town’. 91 One man who did stay and ‘took protection’, either by choice or coercion, to ‘save his substantial property in land, crops, slaves, and tavern’ was American Colonel Ezekiel Polk, brother of Colonel Thomas Polk and grandfather of future president James K. Polk . 92 Davidson and Davie, after their initial retreat, had assembled enough men to familiarise themselves with and implement the irregular tactics practised throughout the summer: utilising well-led, mounted infantry to ambush British patrols; attack outposts, pickets, and foraging parties; and intercept supplies and communications. By October, Davie’s command had grown to 400 men, and they engaged in numerous attacks on British detachments around Charlotte. 93 On 3 or 4 October at McIntyre’s farm northwest of the town, 14 men attacked a foraging party of 200–300 men under Major Doyle and sent them retreating back to Charlotte . 94 On 7 October, Davidson’s men infiltrated to the south of Charlotte and began to intercept British lines of communication. Another American detachment of 120 men attacked British troops at Polk’s Mill, taking eight Loyalists prisoner and capturing 50 horses. 95 Lieutenant Stephen Guyon of the 23rd Regiment, stationed at the mill with only 30 men, successfully fought off the attack. 96 In another action, American Militia killed two men and captured two wagons loaded with officers’ baggage, then marched all night back to Davidson’s camp. 97 A few days later, Davidson reported his men had secured 29 kegs of 88 Hagist, British Soldiers, American War, p. 34. Henry Clinton quoted in W.B. Wilcox (ed.), American Rebellion: Sir Henry Clinton’s Narrative of His Campaigns, 1775-1782, with an Appendix of Original Documents, (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1954), p. 226. 89 Lt. John Money’s Journal, 27 Sept. 1780, Cornwallis Papers, II, pp. 365-366. 90 DeMond, Loyalists of North Carolina , pp. 129-130. 91 G. Hanger, An Address to the Army: In Reply to Strictures by Roderick McKenzie on Tarleton’s History of the Campaigns of 1780 and 1781 (London: Printed for James Ridgway, York Street, Saint James Square, 1789), p. 70. 92 C.G. Sellers, ‘Colonel Ezekiel Polk: Pioneer and Patriarch’, William and Mary Quarterly, 3rd Series, vol. X, no. 1., (January 1953), pp. 86, 98 . 93 Davidson to Gates, 7 Oct. 1780, CSRNC , XIV, p. 677. 94 Graham, General Joseph Graham, pp. 258-263. 95 Davidson to Sumner, 8 Oct. 1780, CSRNC XIV, p. 679. 96 Hanger, An Address to the Army , p. 68. 97 Pension Statements and Rosters, Pension application of Michael McLeary (McCleary), S8886. See https://revwarapps.org/ Also noted in Sumner to Gates, 10 Oct. 1780, CSRNC , XV, p. 114. 198 Davidson to Gates, 10 Oct. 1780, CSRNC , XIV, p. 683.