Patriot leaders also sent word to a Virginia militia leader, William Campbell, asking him to join them at Sycamore Shoals. Campbell called on Benjamin Cleveland to bring his Wilkes County, North Carolina militia to the rendezvous. The detachments of Shelby, Sevier and Campbell were met by 160 North Carolina militiamen led by Charles McDowell and his brother Joseph. Campbell's cousin, Arthur Campbell, brought 200 more Virginians. About 1,100 volunteers from southwest Virginia and today's northeast Tennessee, known as the "Overmountain Men" because they had settled into the wilderness west of the Appalachian Mountains ridgeline, mustered at the rendezvous on September 25, 1780, at Sycamore Shoals near the modern city of Elizabethton, Tennessee. Their movement had been made possible by easing tensions with the Cherokee, thanks to diplomacy by Benjamin Cleveland's brother-in-law, Indian agent Joseph Martin. The Overmountain Men crossed Roan Mountain the next day, and proceeded in a southerly direction for about thirteen days in anticipation of fighting the British Loyalist forces. By September 30, they had reached Quaker Meadows in Burke County, North Carolina, the home of the McDowell brothers, where they united with Benjamin Cleveland and 350 men. Now 1400 strong, the Patriots marched to South Mountain, North Carolina. The five colonels leading the Patriot force (Shelby, Sevier, William Campbell, Joseph McDowell and Cleveland) chose William Campbell as the nominal commander, but they agreed that all five would act in council to command their combined army.