The hill the Patriots had to run up to capture the British and loyalist forces.
The forest service burns off the area every 3-years.
Monument to the battle 10-7-1870
Plaque on the monument4/21 Saturday We visited Kings Mountain, SC National Park where the Revolutionary battle of Kings Mountain took place October 7. 1780. This battle took about one hour to fight with the British forces and those loyal to the Crown fighting from the top of Kings Mountain, a bald mountaintop against the Patriot forces of the Americans who were hunters and farmers hailing from North and South Carolina and Virginia. The smooth barrel guns used by the British forces were very inaccurate and those forces consistently fired over the heads of the Patriots because they were not trained to fire from the top of a mountain against forces coming up a hillside. The Patriots, on the other hand, being accomplished, hearty, self-reliant hunters of Scots-Irish ancestry, knew how to stock game in the woods and applied the same techniques against the British troupes.
This mountaintop was only about 150’ higher than the surrounding ground. The treeless top had a plateau about 600 yards long by 60 yards at one end and 120 yards at the other. Major Ferguson commanded about 1000 Loyalists and 100 Redcoats. He was convinced that this position and troupe numbers would easily make him victorious. He had underestimated the anger the Patriots held for him, the British troupes and the Loyalists who had chosen to side with the British. Ferguson believed there were many Loyalists living in the Carolinas who would come to fight the “back-water men” also known as the over-mountain patriots, but these Loyalists never came.
Ferguson commanded about 1,100, but Col. Campbell from Virginia with Col. Shelby led 900 of the best marksmen from the region. The British loses were significant, dead, injured and dying as compared to the Patriot forces. The Patriots (a.k.a. whigs) took about 700 prisoners from the estimated 1,100 British and Loyalists (a.k.a. tories) troupes. Some of these escaped but most were taken to prisons where they were traded for prisoners captured by the British. In addition to Cols Campbell and Shelby, Cols. McDowell and Sevier were leaders in this battle. Areas now bear the names of these leaders.
A driving force for the Patriots was the killing of Patriots who were over run by British troupes in other battles and were waiving white flags, yet the British Major had his men follow his example as he went about killing those who had surrendered and were unarmed. In addition, Ferguson has threatened to kill every back-water man who did not support the British King. As the Patriots attacked the British at Kings Mountain, they kept chanting the Major’s name. It took three charges up the hill for the Patriots to finally defeat the British. It is interesting that the British rifles were so ineffective that British and Loyalists had to fight the Patriots with their bayonets.
Major Ferguson, age 28 had two mistresses – being the commander had its perks. It is reported that during the battle, one of the mistresses rode down the hill through the battle to escape. Before riding off she stopped and told the Patriots that Major Ferguson was riding a horse and wearing a red and white checkered shirt over his red British coat to avoid recognition. Given this information, nine excellent Patriot marksmen all took aim on the person described and the impact of the musket balls hitting the Major was so great it knocked him off his horse.
The end of the war came about a year later and General George Washington signed the truce for the Americans. It is reported that before the battle of Kings Mountain, Major Ferguson, an excellent marksman who was trying to win approval of a new rifle that was more accurate, three times faster to load than the muskets of the Patriots, as well as being a rifle that could be fired and loaded in a prone or kneeling position, had General George Washington in his rifle sights. Washington looked at Ferguson and then turned his back on Ferguson. Major Ferguson did not want to shoot a person in the back so he held his fire. It is unknown if Ferguson ever knew who Washington was.
Monuments have been erected acknowledging the leaders on both sides who were killed in this battle in memory of the times America was fighting for its freedom from the British Crown and for the special bonds we still have for each other’s nation today.
Talking with one of the rangers, the park is subjected to a controlled burn about every 3-years. When we were there they had just completed a burn about 2-weeks before. He could not explain why this was done with such frequency. To us, it appeared there was nothing for animals to live on, so they had all left the area making it a little less ‘woodsy’. One advantage is the possible safety elimination of the ground clutter someone might ignite while touring the area in very dry or windy conditions that could cause a major forest fire that was very difficult to extinguish. There was a fire about 3 years ago in a park close by that was started by an unattended campfire when the winds kicked up. It took firefighters from multiple areas in North and South Carolina 20 days to finally extinguish.
The pictures do not really reflect the steep inclines where the fighting took place, nor the massive hardwood trees that existed in those days that were large enough to afford protection for the Patriot fighters. The top of the mountain is now covered with trees where it was a bald top at the time of the battle leaving the British silhouetted against the clear sky with nothing to hide behind.
