KINGS MOUNTAIN
Another group of American rebels had by now come into the picture. These were the Overmountain Men, so named because they lived largely on the western side of the Blue Ridge Mountains, which were themselves part of the far larger Appalachian mountain range. They had mounted several raids against British forces in the Carolinas after the fall of Charleston, answering a call put out by Colonel Charles Mcdowell, a North Carolinian militia commander.
The mountainmen’s leader was Colonel Isaac Shelby, a Kentucky surveyor who had taken up arms to fight the British. He came down from the mountains bringing 200 horsemen with rifles, and together with 300 Georgia militia, led by Colonel Elijah Clarke, captured Thicketty Fort on 30 July 1780. After an inconclusive clash at Cedar Spring on 8 August, Shelby and Clarke, with the aid of Colonel James Williams, inflicted heavy losses on a Loyalist force at Musgrove’s Mill on 18 August. When word of the Camden fiasco reached them, they headed home back over the mountains, with Ferguson trying but failing to catch up with them.
On 10 September Ferguson released from captivity a rebel by the name of Samuel Philips, who carried a threatening message from Ferguson to Shelby. The Scottish officer had said that if Shelby and the rest did not "desist from their opposition to British arms and take protection under his standard, he [Ferguson] would march his army over the mountains, hang their leader, and lay their country waste with fire and sword." If Major Ferguson believed that he could somehow intimidate these Overmountain Men with threats then he gravely miscalculated.
Ferguson’s warning failed to have the intended effect. Instead, he handed a propaganda coup to the rebels. The ‘fire and sword’ message quickly made the rounds of the Overmountain folk, who were mostly of Scotch-irish descent. They came to the conclusion that the best way to defend what mattered to them – hearth, home, and loved ones – was to take on Ferguson before he could move against them as he had threatened. So a call was made by Patriot
“IF MAJOR FERGUSON BELIEVED THAT HE COULD SOMEHOW INTIMIDATE THESE OVERMOUNTAIN MEN WITH THREATS THEN HE GRAVELY MISCALCULATED”
leaders to men on either side of the Blue Ridge Mountains to meet at Sycamore Shoals on the Watauga River by 25 September, in what is today the state of Tennessee.
in pursuit of Major Ferguson
The summons brought forth hundreds of hardened frontier men willing to fight the British. Shelby had 240 with him; William Mcdowell delivered 160 militiamen from North Carolina; John Sevier came with 240 riflemen, while from Virginia came 400 men under William Campbell. Not all of them, of course, were true Overmountain Men, contrary to legend, but the mountaineers formed the hard core of the miniature army. With the battle cry of "The sword of the Lord and of Gideon!", this force of 1,040 riflemen rode off on 26 September from Sycamore Shoals to find Major Ferguson and his Loyalist militia.
The first waypoint was Quaker Meadows in modern North Carolina. Slowed by deep snow as they crossed the Blue Ridge Mountains, they reached it on 30 September, and picked up several hundred reinforcements from North and South Carolina. But two of their original number had gone missing and had likely deserted to the British. Ferguson was thus bound to know that they were coming. They also knew that they needed an overall commander, and elected William Campbell, an enormous red-haired man of Scottish descent, who stood 1.98 metres (6.5 feet) tall, to be their general. The other captains present were all experienced fighters too, many having battled Native Americans before the war.
On 3 October the Patriots reached Gilbert Town, where Ferguson had earlier released Samuel Philips. Ferguson was long gone, having left on 27 September, and he knew that the Overmountain Men, who he called "Back Water men", and even less flatteringly "mongrels", were on the way. On 30 September he was visited by the two deserters from the pursuit force, who gave him valuable intelligence about the enemy force seeking him out. Ferguson sent messengers to his commander, Lord
“FERGUSON REJECTS SURRENDER, AND LAUNCHES A HOPELESS CHARGE AGAINST THE PATRIOT RIFLEMEN. HE IS RIDDLED WITH BULLETS AND SLAIN”
Cornwallis, at Charlotte, North Carolina, asking him to send reinforcements immediately.
Ferguson stayed a step ahead of those following him, going with his men to encamp on 4 October at the plantation of a friendly Loyalist. The leaders of the Overmountain
Men were dismayed at having lost the scent of their quarry, and decided to take a gamble to catch the elusive major. They took just 700 of their number and mounted them on the best horses. These would ride hard for Cowpens, 34 kilometres (21 miles) to the southeast. They would either run into Ferguson or obtain solid intelligence as to his whereabouts. They could also swing northeast and continue their search.
Coming to Cowpens on 6 October, they ransacked the home of a local Loyalist farmsteader for food, but the man had no knowledge of Ferguson’s location. Of some consolation was the arrival of 400 trailing men under Colonel James Williams. Ferguson’s heading was, however, revealed when a Patriot spy, a crippled man named Joseph Kerr, appeared. Kerr had used his disability to obtain entry into the Loyalist camp under the pretence of finding shelter. Kerr had only recently been with Ferguson’s troops, and he knew that they were headed for a 550-metre (600-yard) long, 18-metre (60-foot) high ridge named Kings Mountain, where they planned to make camp.
The Loyalists had done just as Kerr had said, and had camped atop the foot-shaped ridge. The day before the battle, Ferguson sent another message to Cornwallis requesting reinforcements. "Three or four hundred good soldiers, part dragoons, would finish the business," he assured. Those reinforcements would never come.
Battle of Kings Mountain
To catch up with Ferguson, the Overmountain Men again reduced their force in size, this time to 940, and put them on their best horses.
In this band were 200 riflemen under William Campbell, with another 120 riding with Isaac Shelby; 120 came with John Sevier; 100 with Benjamin Cleveland; 90 followers rode beside Joseph Mcdowell; and 60 men were with frontiersman Joseph Winston. In addition, there were 100 South Carolinians led by Edward Lacey and William Hill. This conglomerate force was rounded out by men from Georgia and elsewhere.
Ferguson’s force on Kings Mountain was of roughly the same size. He had a small corps of provincial Loyalist regulars, his American Volunteer regiment. It was composed of picked men drawn from other Loyalist regiments, such as the King’s American Rangers, the Queen’s Rangers and the New Jersey Volunteers. These were comparable in quality to British regular troops. The bulk of his force, however, was made up of 800 militiamen from across the Carolinas. All present, Patriot and Loyalist alike, were from the Colonies, and Ferguson would be the only Briton to take part in the battle.
There was, however, one major difference between the Patriots and the Loyalists, and that was in how they were armed. Ferguson’s men carried the ubiquitous ‘Brown Bess’ smoothbore musket. For close quarters, their muskets were fitted with bayonets. The Overmountain Men and their comrades, in contrast, were equipped with the accurate American frontier rifle, which could not accept a bayonet.
The Patriots began their approach march to Kings Mountain at 8.00pm, and rode through the night and the rain-soaked morning. They arrived at their destination at 3.00pm on 7 October, the sound of their march muffled by the sodden leaves that lay on the damp earth. The Patriots came up from the direction of the 55-metre (60-yard) wide southeastern heel of the foot-shaped ridge, and closed within half a kilometre before they were spotted. Colonel Shelby’s men formed a column in the centre. On their immediate right were the men with Campbell and Sevier. Further to the right were Winston and Mcdowell’s militia. To the left of Shelby came a long column of militia, with men following Major William Chronicle in the lead, and those of Cleveland and Williams behind. Shelby, Campbell and Sevier took up position at the southeastern end of the ridge, while the rest of the men went around the sides and surrounded the Loyalist position.
The Patriots began their climb up the slopes of the ridge, with each group going for the top as best as they were able. Though Ferguson’s troops on top of Kings Mountain had the advantage of higher ground, he had not ordered them to improve their position with field fortifications. This was a terrible oversight, since the existence of even elementary defences would have made the Patriots' task all the harder. Campbell’s men were the first to the summit. "Here they are!" Campbell shouted. "Shoot like hell and fight like devils!"
The Overmountain Men began their warwhoop, which they had learned from the Native Americans they so often fought. The Loyalists, with their main camp at the 110-metre (120yard) wide northwestern end of the ridge, were now alert, and drums called the men to arms. Ferguson and Captain Abraham de Peyster, a New Yorker of Huguenot ancestry and the second-in-command, set about putting their men into fighting formation. "This is ominous," de Peyster said to Ferguson, noting the unsettling rebel war cries. Ferguson ordered some of his men to form a three-sided square at the southeastern heel of the ridge, and they unloaded volleys into the oncoming Patriots.
The Overmountain Men were not easily turned aside, and used their frontier-honed skills to hide behind rocks, ravines and trees. With their rifles and superb marksmanship, they returned fire with lethal effect. Ferguson had his men launch a bayonet charge, and the bayonet-less Patriots gave way, heading back down the slope of the ridge.
Campbell rallied his men, and they fired on the Loyalists as they made their way back up the slope. Shelby rallied his militia also, and these too fired on the Loyalists on their march up. Three bayonet charges were made against the Patriots, each successfully knocking them
“CAMPBELL’S MEN WERE THE FIRST TO THE SUMMIT. ‘HERE THEY ARE!’ CAMPBELL SHOUTED. ‘SHOOT LIKE HELL AND FIGHT LIKE DEVILS!’”
down the slopes. But on each occasion, the Patriots returned to the fight, shooting at the Loyalists as they retreated. Ferguson’s decision not to build earthworks to protect his troops had come back to haunt him. Perhaps he had trusted the trees to provide protection, but these ironically provided excellent cover to the skirmishing Patriot militiamen as they swarmed up the slope. The Patriots held one other advantage. The Loyalists were on higher ground, and so their shots tended to miss high as they fired down upon the advancing Patriots.
Ferguson raced from position to position on the ridgetop, guiding his soldiers about with blasts on his silver whistle. His task was nearly hopeless, as he was being assailed from as many as eight different directions. While Campbell, Shelby and Sevier’s men held his attention in the southeast, the other Patriot groups under Cleveland, Chronicle, Mcdowell, Winston and Williams had worked their way around and begun their own attacks uphill.
The pattern of charge and counterattack repeated itself on all sides of Kings Mountain. Captain Alexander Chesney, a Loyalist officer from South Carolina, would write afterwards that this sequence continued "for near an hour, the mountaineers flying when there was danger of being charged by the bayonet, and returning again as soon as the British detachment had faced about to repel another of their parties."
By now the Patriots held the heel of the ridge fast. In a last-ditch defence of his camp on the opposite, northwestern end, Ferguson had his remaining men form a square. These were hammered by the fire of the surging American riflemen, and their ranks began to falter. Ferguson refused even the thought of capitulation. When two of his units raised flags of surrender, he cut them down immediately with his sword. He would never "yield to such damned banditti", he cried. With a handful of men and his sword in hand, he made a hopeless charge into the teeth of the Patriot riflemen. He was hit several times and fell dead from his white charger, but was pulled away from the continuing carnage, his foot caught in his stirrup. With Ferguson dead, Captain de Peyster raised a white flag to signal his surrender
and asked for quarter for his men. For a
“FERGUSON RACED FROM POSITION TO POSITION ON THE RIDGETOP, GUIDING HIS SOLDIERS ABOUT WITH BLASTS ON HIS SILVER WHISTLE”
while the Patriots, their blood up, vented their hatred and anger on the battered Loyalists, yelling, "Tarleton’s quarter" as they took their vengeance. It required some effort on the part of the rebel captains to stop their men from butchering the defeated enemy.
"Ferguson and his party are no more in circumstances to injure the citizens of America," William Campbell would report days later. Loyalist losses were far heavier than those incurred by the Patriots. Including their commander, they suffered 157 killed and 163 wounded. 698 were taken prisoner. Of the Patriots, 28 were slain, including Colonel James Williams and Major William Chronicle, and 64 were wounded. In an ugly denouement, nine of the Loyalists were hanged after a hurried trial by vindictive Patriots. Many of the prisoners would escape the custody of their captors not long after the battle.
Notwithstanding Major Ferguson himself, the Battle of Kings Mountain was the largest all-american engagement of the war, and the ferocity with which it was fought was a testament to the hard feelings unleashed when neighbour fought against neighbour in the civil war-like conditions in the Carolinas.
Though the forces involved were tiny, the outcome had an outsized impact on the larger war. It lifted Patriot morale enormously after the dark months following Charleston, and it was also the end for the Loyalist cause in the Back Country. Strategically, it forced Lord Cornwallis to halt his move into North Carolina and march back to South Carolina. When he returned to North Carolina months later, the Continental Army had recovered, and the campaign would be much harder for him, ending in Cornwallis's defeat at Yorktown in 1781.