Kings Mountain: Americans Against Americans

Weeks after the disaster at Camden, frontier militia from beyond the Appalachian Mountains marched east in response to a British threat to burn their homes, hunted down a Loyalist force under Major Patrick Ferguson, and destroyed it in just over an hour of fighting on October 7, 1780. Kings Mountain was unusual among Revolutionary War battles: Ferguson was the only British regular present on either side. Everyone else fighting that day, Patriot and Loyalist alike, was American. Lieutenant Anthony Allaire, a Loyalist officer who survived the battle, kept a diary that was later published in full as part of the most thorough 19th-century history of the engagement, itself a documented case study in how difficult it remains to pin down exact numbers from this fight.

Major Patrick Ferguson, tasked with protecting Cornwallis's left flank and recruiting Loyalist militia in the Carolina backcountry, sent a message to the frontier settlers living beyond the Appalachian ridgeline, in territory that would later become Tennessee, warning them to cease their opposition to British authority. Multiple sources record the substance of his warning consistently: if they did not desist, he would march his army over the mountains and lay their country to waste with fire and sword.

The threat did not intimidate the Overmountain Men. It mobilized them. Roughly 1,000 militia gathered at Sycamore Shoals in late September under commanders including Isaac Shelby, John Sevier, and William Campbell, crossed the mountains, and set out to find Ferguson before he could carry out his threat.

Learning of the approaching militia, Ferguson positioned his force atop a sixty-foot rocky ridge called Kings Mountain, believing the high ground gave him a defensible position. He did not fortify the camp. The Overmountain Men surrounded the hill and attacked from multiple directions simultaneously, using the tree cover their opponents lacked to advance under fire that, on the steep slopes, often flew over their heads.

Ferguson remained mounted throughout the fighting, personally leading counterattacks against the advancing militia. He was killed by multiple rifle shots while attempting to break through the American lines, his body left hanging from the stirrups as his horse fled down the hill. His second in command, Captain Abraham de Peyster, surrendered shortly afterward. The entire engagement lasted just over an hour.

Lieutenant Anthony Allaire, an officer serving under Ferguson, survived the battle and kept a diary of the 1780 campaign that was later published in full within the most extensive 19th-century history of the battle, compiled by historian Lyman Draper in 1881. Allaire's account is one of the few surviving firsthand records from inside the Loyalist force itself, rather than from the victorious Patriot side.

News of Ferguson's death and the destruction of his force reached Cornwallis as he prepared to push north into North Carolina. With his left flank gone and the premise that Loyalist sentiment could secure the backcountry now in serious doubt, Cornwallis abandoned the advance and withdrew his main army back into South Carolina. Thomas Jefferson later described Kings Mountain as the turn of the tide of success. The battle did not end the war in the South, but it reversed the momentum that had carried the British from Charleston through Camden, and set the stage for the campaign that would culminate, fifteen months later, at Yorktown.