Battle of Kings Mountain (1780): Patriot Militia Turn the South

The Battle of Kings Mountain was fought on 7 October 1780 on a wooded ridge in South Carolina, just south of the North Carolina border, during the American Revolutionary War. Patriot militia, many of them frontiersmen from beyond the Appalachian Mountains, surrounded and destroyed a Loyalist force under Major Patrick Ferguson. The battle was fought almost entirely between Americans, and it marked a turning point in the war in the South.

Background

After capturing Charleston in May 1780 and routing an American army at Camden in August, the British under Lord Cornwallis set out to secure the Carolinas with the help of Loyalists, colonists who remained loyal to the Crown. In September Cornwallis advanced into North Carolina and occupied Charlotte.

Covering his western flank was Major Patrick Ferguson, a Scottish officer known for designing a breech-loading rifle. As inspector of militia, Ferguson recruited and trained Loyalist volunteers. He sent a paroled prisoner across the mountains with a message warning the frontier settlers that if they did not stop resisting he would march over the mountains and lay waste their country.

The Overmountain Men gather

The threat had the opposite effect. On 25 September 1780 about 1,000 militiamen gathered at Sycamore Shoals on the Watauga River, in present-day Tennessee, led by Isaac Shelby, John Sevier and Charles McDowell, with William Campbell bringing Virginians. Further militia under Benjamin Cleveland and others joined them as they crossed the mountains into the Carolinas.

Learning that he was being pursued, Ferguson fell back towards Cornwallis’s main army and took up a position on Kings Mountain, a narrow, rocky and wooded ridge with a bare, open crest. He is said to have believed the position was too strong to be taken. The Patriots chose some 900 of their best mounted riflemen and rode through the night and a rainy morning to catch him.

The battle

On the afternoon of 7 October the Patriots surrounded the ridge and attacked from several sides. Using the trees for cover, they fired their long rifles uphill, while the ridge’s crest left Ferguson’s men exposed. Ferguson ordered bayonet charges that drove some attackers down the slopes, but each time the militia regrouped and returned.

After about an hour Ferguson, conspicuous on horseback and using a silver whistle to signal his men, was shot from his horse and killed. His second in command, Captain Abraham DePeyster, surrendered. In the confusion some Patriots kept firing on men trying to surrender, and officers struggled to restore order.

Key people

Patrick Ferguson (1744–1780) was a Scottish regular officer and one of the few British soldiers who had seriously studied rifle warfare. His aggressive style made him effective at rallying Loyalists but also provoked the frontier communities.

Isaac Shelby and John Sevier were frontier militia colonels who organised the expedition. Shelby later became the first governor of Kentucky, and Sevier the first governor of Tennessee.

William Campbell, a Virginian colonel, was chosen by the other commanders to serve as overall leader on the day of the battle. Benjamin Cleveland led militia from the Wilkes County area of North Carolina.

By the numbers

Aftermath

The victors marched their prisoners away, and on 14 October a hastily convened court at Biggerstaff’s Old Fields in North Carolina condemned some Loyalists for earlier crimes; nine were hanged. Many prisoners later escaped during the march. Ferguson was buried on the battlefield, where a cairn still marks his grave.

The militia soon dispersed to their homes, but the effect was lasting. With his left wing destroyed and the countryside hostile, Cornwallis abandoned Charlotte and withdrew to Winnsboro, South Carolina, delaying his invasion of North Carolina for months.

Legacy

Kings Mountain revived Patriot morale after a year of disasters and discouraged Loyalist recruitment in the South. Together with the Battle of Cowpens in January 1781, it helped set in motion the chain of events that led Cornwallis north to Virginia and eventually to Yorktown. Thomas Jefferson later described the victory as the turn of the tide of success in the war.

The battlefield became Kings Mountain National Military Park in 1931, and the Overmountain Victory National Historic Trail follows the route of the Patriot militia.

Timeline

• 1780, 12 May: British capture Charleston.
• 1780, 16 August: Americans are defeated at Camden.
• 1780, September: Ferguson threatens the frontier settlements.
• 1780, 25 September: Overmountain Men assemble at Sycamore Shoals.
• 1780, 7 October: Battle of Kings Mountain; Ferguson is killed.
• 1780, 14 October: Nine Loyalist prisoners are hanged at Biggerstaff’s Old Fields.
• 1780, mid-October: Cornwallis withdraws from Charlotte to Winnsboro.

Why it matters

Kings Mountain showed that the British strategy of relying on Loyalists in the South could be defeated by local militia. It was a civil war in miniature between Americans, and its outcome turned the momentum of the southern campaign against Britain.