By the fall of 1780, the American Revolution was in real trouble. Charleston had fallen, American forces had been crushed at Camden, and British commander Charles Cornwallis believed victory in the South could open the road into North Carolina and perhaps break rebellion from below.
The British Major Patrick Ferguson sent a warning into the mountains.
Ferguson commanded Loyalist forces protecting Cornwallis’ western flank. He demanded that settlers beyond the Appalachians stop opposing the Crown. If they refused, he threatened to cross the mountains, “hang their leaders, and lay waste to the land with fire and sword.”
He probably expected fear; instead, he got riders.
Men gathered from the backcountry of Virginia, North Carolina, what is now Tennessee, and eventually South Carolina and Georgia. Many were farmers and frontiersmen; they weren’t a polished Continental Army formation, and many brought their own horses, rifles, clothing, food, and experience surviving country that could punish an army before an enemy ever fired a shot.
From the National Park Service:
The Overmountain Men were originally reluctant to pick up arms for the Patriot cause. But when British Major Ferguson threatened to bring his army across the mountain to "hang their leaders, and lay waste to the land with fire and sword" if they did not swear allegiance to the King, the Overmountain Men were outraged.
They decided to organize an attack against Major Ferguson. Troops were gathered in Sycamore Shoals, Tennessee, an outpost on the Watauga River, near present day Elizabethton, Tennessee. They then rode to the mountains of North Carolina.
On the evening of September 28th, nearly 1,000 rifle-armed, mounted militiamen reached the fields along Grassy Creek, North Carolina. These Overmountain soldiers were under the command of Colonel Isaac Shelby, Colonel John Sevier, Colonel William Campbell and Colonel Charles McDowell. They had completed a hard 20-mile ride that day from the top of snow-covered Yellow Mountain, following Bright’s Trace along the North Toe River to the mouth of Grassy Creek, near the modern-day town of Spruce Pine, North Carolina.
They crossed the Blue Ridge in miserable weather. Snow lay several inches deep at Yellow Mountain Gap. Rain later slowed the march for two days. Ferguson learned they were coming and began moving east toward the protection of Cornwallis’ larger army, but the mountain men kept following.
By October. 6, the Patriot force reached Cowpens, S.C.. From the larger group, roughly 900 of the best-mounted and best-armed men were chosen to continue the pursuit. They ate quickly, rested their horses, and rode through the night in the rain.
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By 8:00 the next morning, they were crossing a flooded Broad River.
Around 3 p.m. on October 7, 1780, they found Ferguson’s force on Kings Mountain.
The name creates the wrong picture. Kings Mountain was a wooded ridge, and Ferguson believed its high ground gave him an advantage. Patriot militia surrounded the position and began climbing upward, using rocks and trees for cover. Ferguson’s Loyalists repeatedly charged downhill with bayonets, forcing the riflemen back before they regrouped and climbed again.
The battle was also painfully American. Most of Ferguson’s troops were Loyalists, colonists who had chosen the Crown. The men climbing toward them were Patriots who had chosen independence.
On that ridge, neighbors and countrymen shot at one another over what America would become.
Ferguson rode through the fighting, trying to rally his men. He was shot and killed. After a little more than an hour, the Loyalist position collapsed. National Park Service accounts list 28 Patriots killed and 62 wounded. Ferguson and about 120 Loyalists were killed, while nearly all the surviving Loyalist force was wounded or captured.
From the National Park Service:
Half the men rode with Colonel Campbell across the Blue Ridge through Gillespie and Lynn Gaps into Turkey Cove to seek out intelligence from suspected Loyalist Henry Gillespie. They crossed the crest of the Blue Ridge Mountains near the town of Spruce Pine, North Carolina.
On the night of September 29, they camped near the present-day site of the Museum of North Carolina Minerals (Milepost 331) on the Blue Ridge Parkway.
The other half of the men, under Colonel Shelby and Colonel Sevier, returned to the North Toe River and followed Roses Creek to Hefner Gap, where they crossed the Blue Ridge and descended into North Cove.
The battle between Major Ferguson's British troops and the Overmountain Men took place on October 7, 1780 at King’s Mountain, South Carolina.The Overmountain Men used silence and stealth as they ascended the ridge of King’s Mountain to surprise the enemy. The battle lasted only an hour. Afterwards, over 200 British soldiers lay dead, including Major Ferguson. Another 160 were wounded and roughly 700 prisoners had been taken.
Victory carried its own ugliness. A week later, Patriot forces held rushed trials of Loyalist prisoners at Biggerstaff’s Old Fields. Nine were hanged. The Revolution could produce courage and cruelty within the same few miles, and Kings Mountain deserves to be remembered with both truths intact.
The military consequence was enormous. Cornwallis abandoned his immediate push into North Carolina and retreated south. The defeat weakened British hopes of drawing large numbers of Southern Loyalists into the war and gave exhausted Patriots proof that the southern campaign could still be won.
Thomas Jefferson later called Kings Mountain “the turn of the tide of success.” Within months, Nathanael Greene had taken command in the South, and the British found themselves fighting a campaign that kept bleeding men and momentum.
One year after Kings Mountain, Cornwallis surrendered at Yorktown.
Patrick Ferguson had tried to frighten the mountain settlements into obedience. Instead, his threat traveled across the frontier until men saddled horses, picked up rifles, crossed mountains, and came looking for him.
Two hundred forty-six years later, the lesson remains remarkably simple.
Sometimes history turns because someone refuses to be intimidated.
