Dabney became a soldier in Lieutenant Colonel Elijah Clarke's unit. Shot in the thigh during the Battle of Kettle Creek on February 14, 1779, he recovered, but was crippled for life.
Then on February 14, 1779, as a lieutenant colonel of militia, Clarke led a charge in the rebel victory at Kettle Creek<span>, Georgia. All of Georgia and most of South Carolina fell to the British in 1780. Elijah Clarke and thirty men passed through the Native American lands to continue the fight in the Carolinas
