He quickly organized a company of minutemen upon the outbreak of the American revolution in 1775, eventually rising to the rank of colonel by May 1778.

Buford's men were on the north side of the Santee River, unable to help during the Battle of Lenud's Ferry.

This gave the loyalist cavalrymen the impression that the rebels had shot at their commander while asking for mercy, and thus engaged in what Tarleton later described as "a vindictive asperity not easily restrained"; many American soldiers were sabred to death as they attempted to give up.

Escaping on horseback with his remaining men, Buford was not found culpable for the action and continued to serve as an officer in the Continental Army through the Siege of Yorktown.

He eventually settled in the Bluegrass region of Kentucky, on military bounty lands in excess of several thousand acres, where he helped found that state's horseracing industry and where he lived until his death at his home, which he called "Richland" (National Register of Historic Places) in Scott County, Kentucky on June 30, 1833.