Battle of Kings Mountain

The Battle of Kings Mountain was one of the most significant Patriot victories of the war and marked the beginning of the end of British power in the South. British Major Patrick Ferguson, the only British regular on the field, had made the fatal mistake of sending a provocative message to the Over-Mountain Men — frontier settlers in present-day Tennessee and southwest Virginia — threatening to 'hang their leaders and lay waste to their country with fire and sword.'

The Over-Mountain Men responded by mobilizing the largest force the frontier had ever produced. More than 1,400 mounted riflemen from Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and what would become Tennessee converged under the overall command of William Campbell of Virginia. They were farmers, hunters, and frontiersmen — not soldiers in any formal sense — but each man was skilled with a rifle and motivated by fury at Ferguson's threats.

Ferguson chose Kings Mountain as his defensive position, a narrow ridge less than a mile long with steep, wooded sides. He considered it impregnable. The Patriot commanders surrounded the mountain completely and attacked simultaneously from all sides. The American riflemen used the trees for cover and fired upward into the British position. Ferguson's men were exposed on the open ridge. Ferguson led several desperate counter-charges, his silver whistle blown to direct his men, his horse shot out from under him. He was finally shot out of the saddle attempting a final escape and died immediately.

Thomas Jefferson called Kings Mountain 'the turn of the tide of success.' The battle halted Cornwallis's first invasion of North Carolina, demonstrated that Loyalism in the backcountry was far weaker than British estimates, and began a chain of defeats — Cowpens, Guilford Courthouse, and ultimately Yorktown — that destroyed British power in America. It remains one of the most celebrated partisan victories in American military history.