King's Mountain

Our fortress is the good greenwood,

Our tent the cypress tree;

We know the forest round us

As seamen know the sea.

We know its walls of thorny vines,

Its glades of reedy grass,

Its safe and silent islands

Within the dark morass.

--Bryant.





The close of the year 1780 was, in the Southern States, t e darkest time

of the Revolutionary struggle. Cornwallis had just destroyed the army of

Gates at Camden, and his two formidable lieutenants, Tarlton the light

horseman, and Ferguson the skilled rifleman, had destroyed or scattered

all the smaller bands that had been fighting for the patriot cause. The

red dragoons rode hither and thither, and all through Georgia and

South Carolina none dared lift their heads to oppose them, while North

Carolina lay at the feet of Cornwallis, as he started through it with

his army to march into Virginia. There was no organized force against

him, and the cause of the patriots seemed hopeless. It was at this hour

that the wild backwoodsmen of the western border gathered to strike a

blow for liberty.



When Cornwallis invaded North Carolina he sent Ferguson into the western

part of the State to crush out any of the patriot forces that might

still be lingering among the foot-hills. Ferguson was a very gallant and

able officer, and a man of much influence with the people wherever

he went, so that he was peculiarly fitted for this scrambling border

warfare. He had under him a battalion of regular troops and several

other battalions of Tory militia, in all eleven or twelve hundred men.

He shattered and drove the small bands of Whigs that were yet in arms,

and finally pushed to the foot of the mountain wall, till he could see

in his front the high ranges of the Great Smokies. Here he learned for

the first time that beyond the mountains there lay a few hamlets of

frontiersmen, whose homes were on what were then called the Western

Waters, that is, the waters which flowed into the Mississippi. To these

he sent word that if they did not prove loyal to the king, he would

cross their mountains, hang their leaders, and burn their villages.



Beyond the, mountains, in the valleys of the Holston and Watauga, dwelt

men who were stout of heart and mighty in battle, and when they heard

the threats of Ferguson they burned with a sullen flame of anger.

Hitherto the foes against whom they had warred had been not the British,

but the Indian allies of the British, Creek, and Cherokee, and Shawnee.

Now that the army of the king had come to their thresholds, they turned

to meet it as fiercely as they had met his Indian allies. Among the

backwoodsmen of this region there were at that time three men of special

note: Sevier, who afterward became governor of Tennessee; Shelby, who

afterward became governor of Kentucky; and Campbell, the Virginian, who

died in the Revolutionary War. Sevier had given a great barbecue, where

oxen and deer were roasted whole, while horseraces were run, and the

backwoodsmen tried their skill as marksmen and wrestlers. In the midst

of the feasting Shelby appeared, hot with hard riding, to tell of the

approach of Ferguson and the British. Immediately the feasting was

stopped, and the feasters made ready for war. Sevier and Shelby sent

word to Campbell to rouse the men of his own district and come without

delay, and they sent messengers to and fro in their own neighborhood to

summon the settlers from their log huts on the stump-dotted clearings

and the hunters from their smoky cabins in the deep woods.



The meeting-place was at the Sycamore Shoals. On the appointed day the

backwoodsmen gathered sixteen hundred strong, each man carrying a long

rifle, and mounted on a tough, shaggy horse. They were a wild and fierce

people, accustomed to the chase and to warfare with the Indians. Their

hunting-shirts of buckskin or homespun were girded in by bead-worked

belts, and the trappings of their horses were stained red and yellow.

At the gathering there was a black-frocked Presbyterian preacher, and

before they started he addressed the tall riflemen in words of burning

zeal, urging them to stand stoutly in the battle, and to smite with the

sword of the Lord and of Gideon. Then the army started, the backwoods

colonels riding in front. Two or three days later, word was brought to

Ferguson that the Back-water men had come over the mountains; that the

Indian-fighters of the frontier, leaving unguarded their homes on the

Western Waters, had crossed by wooded and precipitous defiles to the

help of the beaten men of the plains. Ferguson at once fell back,

sending out messengers for help. When he came to King's Mountain,

a wooded, hog-back hill on the border line between North and South

Carolina, he camped on its top, deeming that there he was safe, for he

supposed that before the backwoodsmen could come near enough to attack

him help would reach him. But the backwoods leaders felt as keenly as

he the need of haste, and choosing out nine hundred picked men, the best

warriors of their force, and the best mounted and armed, they made a

long forced march to assail Ferguson before help could come to him. All

night long they rode the dim forest trails and splashed across the fords

of the rushing rivers. All the next day, October 16, they rode, until in

mid-afternoon, just as a heavy shower cleared away, they came in sight

of King's Mountain. The little armies were about equal in numbers.

Ferguson's regulars were armed with the bayonet, and so were some of his

Tory militia, whereas the Americans had not a bayonet among them; but

they were picked men, confident in their skill as riflemen, and they

were so sure of victory that their aim was not only to defeat the

British but to capture their whole force. The backwoods colonels,

counseling together as they rode at the head of the column, decided to

surround the mountain and assail it on all sides. Accordingly the bands

of frontiersmen split one from the other, and soon circled the craggy

hill where Ferguson's forces were encamped. They left their horses in

the rear and immediately began the battle, swarming forward on foot,

their commanders leading the attack.



The march had been so quick and the attack so sudden that Ferguson had

barely time to marshal his men before the assault was made. Most of

his militia he scattered around the top of the hill to fire down at the

Americans as they came up, while with his regulars and with a few picked

militia he charged with the bayonet in person, first down one side of

the mountain and then down the other. Sevier, Shelby, Campbell, and

the other colonels of the frontiersmen, led each his force of riflemen

straight toward the summit. Each body in turn when charged by the

regulars was forced to give way, for there were no bayonets wherewith to

meet the foe; but the backwoodsmen retreated only so long as the charge

lasted, and the minute that it stopped they stopped too, and came

back ever closer to the ridge and ever with a deadlier fire. Ferguson,

blowing a silver whistle as a signal to his men, led these charges,

sword in hand, on horseback. At last, just as he was once again rallying

his men, the riflemen of Sevier and Shelby crowned the top of the ridge.

The gallant British commander became a fair target for the backwoodsmen,

and as for the last time he led his men against them, seven bullets

entered his body and he fell dead. With his fall resistance ceased.

The regulars and Tories huddled together in a confused mass, while the

exultant Americans rushed forward. A flag of truce was hoisted, and all

the British who were not dead surrendered.



The victory was complete, and the backwoodsmen at once started to return

to their log hamlets and rough, lonely farms. They could not stay, for

they dared not leave their homes at the mercy of the Indians. They had

rendered a great service; for Cornwallis, when he heard of the disaster

to his trusted lieutenant, abandoned his march northward, and retired to

South Carolina. When he again resumed the offensive, he found his path

barred by stubborn General Greene and his troops of the Continental

line.