#One true king under the mountain crack

Their success encourages other patriot revolutionaries. I could not help turning away from the scene before me, with horror, and though exalting in the victory, could not refrain from shedding tears.”Īt Kings Mountain the Backcountry militiamen demonstrate that they can coordinate and execute a battle plan. One young Overmountain man later recalled, “The dead lay in heaps on all sides, while the groans of the wounded were heard in every direction. The American riflemen are victorious but there is a cost. Shortly after Ferguson’s death, the Loyalists surrender. He is hit multiple times, his body hanging from his horse as his mount flees down the hill.

#One true king under the mountain crack

Mounted on his horse, he proves the perfect target for his crack shot opponents. With his defensive perimeter shrinking, Ferguson tries to lead his men past the onslaught.

The Overmountain men continue their yelling and whooping as they gain ground. One Loyalist later recalled that the Overmountain men looked “like devils from the infernal regions… tall, raw-boned, sinewy with long matted hair.” Ferguson and his men are surrounded, and their additional counterattacks fail to stop the Americans. But it is only on one side of the hill and the Overmountain men continue unabated to attack from the other sides using the undergrowth and woods to their advantage. After firing a volley and fixing bayonets, Ferguson’s men blunt the Overmountain men’s advance. He remains mounted and personally leads the counterattack against the patriots surging from the southwest. Ferguson deploys his Loyalist militia in the center of the hilltop. When the first shot rings out the Americans attack en masse from all sides. In the early afternoon, the Overmountain men creep quietly toward Ferguson’s position. The rout of the Loyalists there was the first major setback for Britain's southern strategy and started a chain of events that culminated in Cornwallis's surrender at Yorktown. It took place on a rocky hilltop in Western South Carolina called Kings Mountain. On October 7, 1780, Ferguson and the Overmountain men met in a small but significant battle in the War for Independence. American cavalry commander “Light Horse” Harry Lee called them, “A race of hardy men who were familiar with the use of the horse and the rifle, stout, active, patient under privation, and brave.” To the British, however, they were “more savage than the Indians.” From the start Ferguson miscalculated his potential foes, brazenly issuing a proclamation for the local patriots to “desist from their opposition to British arms” or he would “march over the mountains, hang their leaders, and lay their country to waste with fire and sword.” His scare tactics backfired. Nicknamed Bull Dog by his men, Ferguson soon came up against the Overmountain men, residents of the Carolina Backcountry and the Appalachian mountain range, and from places that would later become the states of Tennessee and Kentucky. Ferguson had two tasks: recruit members to fight for the Loyalist militia and protect the Cornwallis’s left flank as he attempted to move through the Carolinas. British general Charles Lord Cornwallis dispatched Major Patrick Ferguson to North Carolina in early September 1780. Another British victory, in the Battle of Camden, followed in August 1780. The siege of Charleston in May 1780 was one of the worst American defeats of the Revolutionary War. Thomas Jefferson called the battle 'The turn of the tide of success.' In context The British effort to secure Loyalist support in the South was a failure. The fierce firefight at Kings Mountain pitted Loyalist militia elements under the command of British major Patrick Ferguson against 900 patriots. The Revolutionary War battle of Kings Mountain in South Carolina proved to be a stinging defeat in the British attempt to secure control of the Southern colonies. Saved Land Browse Interactive Map View active campaigns.Speak Out to Protect Wyse Fork Battlefield.

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