University of Virginia Library

CHAPTER XVIII

KING'S MOUNTAIN

SO thoroughly had the Cherokees been subdued
by the devastations of the campaign
of 1776 that for several years thereafter they
were unable to organize for a new campaign
against the backwoodsmen along the frontiers
of North Carolina and Tennessee. During
these years the Holston settlers principally
busied themselves in making their position secure,
as well as in setting their house in order
by severely punishing the lawless Tory element
among them. In 1779 the Chickamaugas,

with whom The Dragging Canoe and his irreconcilable
followers among the Cherokees
had joined hands after the campaign of 1776,
grew so bold in their bloody forays upon small
exposed settlements that North Carolina and
Virginia in conjunction despatched a strong
expedition against them. Embarking on
April 10th at the mouth of Big Creek near
the present Rogersville, Tennessee, three hundred
and fifty men led by Colonel Evan Shelby
descended the Tennessee to the fastnesses of
the Chickamaugas. Meeting with no resistance
from the astonished Indians, who fled to
the shelter of the densely wooded hills, they
laid waste the Indian towns and destroyed the
immense stores of goods collected by the British
agents for distribution among the red men.
The Chickamaugas were completely quelled;
and during the period of great stress through
which the Tennessee frontiersmen were soon
to pass, the Cherokees were restrained through
the wise diplomacy of Joseph Martin, Superintendent
of Indian affairs for Virginia.

The great British offensive against the

Southern colonies, which were regarded as the
vulnerable point in the American Confederacy,
was fully launched upon the fall of Charleston
in May, 1780. Cornwallis established his
headquarters at Camden; and one of his lieutenants,
the persuasive and brilliant Ferguson,
soon rallied thousands of Loyalists in
South Carolina to the British standard.
When Cornwallis inaugurated his campaign
for cutting Washington wholly off from the
Southern colonies by invading North Carolina,
the men upon the western waters realized that
the time had come to rise, in defense of their
state and in protection of their homes. Two
hundred Tennessee riflemen from Sullivan
County, under Colonel Isaac Shelby, were engaged
in minor operations in South Carolina
conducted by Colonel Charles McDowell; and
conspicuous among these engagements was the
affair at Musgrove's Mill on August 18th
when three hundred horsemen led by Colonel
James Williams, a native of Granville County,
North Carolina, Colonel Isaac Shelby, and
Lieutenant-Colonel Clark of Georgia repulsed
with heavy loss a British force of between
four and five hundred.

These minor successes availed nothing in
face of the disastrous defeat of Gates by Cornwallis
at Camden on August 16th and the
humiliating blow to Sumter at Rocky Mount
on the following day. Ferguson hotly pursued
the frontiersmen, who then retreated over
the mountains; and from his camp at Gilbert
Town he despatched a threatening message to
the Western leaders, declaring that if they did
not desist from their opposition to the British
arms and take protection under his standard,
he would march his army over the mountains
and lay their country waste with fire and
sword. Stung to action, Shelby hastily rode
off to consult with Sevier at his log castle near
Jonesboro; and together they matured a plan
to arouse the mountain men and attack Ferguson
by surprise. In the event of failure, these
wilderness free-lances planned to leave the
country and find a home with the Spaniards
in Louisiana.[1]

At the original place of rendezvous, the

Sycamore Shoals of the Watauga, the over-mountain
men gathered on September 25th.
There an eloquent sermon was preached to
them by that fiery man of God, the Reverend
Samuel Doak, who concluded his discourse
with a stirring invocation to the sword of the
Lord and of Gideon—a sentiment greeted with
the loud applause of the militant frontiersmen.
Here and at various places along the
march they were joined by detachments of border
fighters summoned to join the expedition
—Colonel William Campbell, who with some
reluctance had abandoned his own plans in response
to Shelby's urgent and repeated message,
in command of four hundred hardy frontiersmen
from Washington County, Virginia;
Colonel Benjamin Cleveland, with the wild
fighters of Wilkes known as "Cleveland's
Bulldogs"; Colonel Andrew Hampton, with
the stalwart riflemen of Rutherford; Major
Joseph Winston, the cousin of Patrick Henry,
with the flower of the citizenry of Surry; the
McDowells, Charles and Joseph, with the bold
borderers of Burke; Colonels Lacy and Hill,
with well-trained soldiers of South Carolina;
and Brigadier-General James Williams, leading
the intrepid Rowan volunteers.

Before breaking camp at Quaker Meadows,
the leading officers in conference chose Colonel
William Campbell as temporary officer of the
day, until they could secure a general officer
from headquarters as commander-in-chief.
The object of the mountaineers and big-game
hunters was, in their own terms, to pursue Ferguson,
to run him down, and to capture him.
In pursuance of this plan, the leaders on arriving
at the ford of Green River chose out
a force of six hundred men, with the best
mounts and equipment; and at daybreak on
October 6th this force of picked mounted riflemen,
followed by some fifty "foot-cavalry"
eager to join in the pursuit, pushed rapidly on
to the Cowpens. Here a second selection took
place; and Colonel Campbell was again elected
commander of the detachment, now numbering
some nine hundred and ten horsemen and
eighty odd footmen, which dashed rapidly on
in pursuit of Ferguson.

The British commander had been apprised
of the coming of the over-mountain men.
Scorning to make a forced march and attempt
to effect a junction with Cornwallis at Charlotte,
Ferguson chose to make a stand and dispose
once for all of the barbarian horde whom
he denounced as mongrels and the dregs of
mankind. After despatching to Cornwallis a
message asking for aid, Ferguson took up his
camp on King's Mountain, just south of the
North Carolina border line, in the present
York County, South Carolina. Here, after
his pickets had been captured in silence, he
was surprised by his opponents. At three
o'clock in the afternoon of October 7th the
mountain hunters treed their game upon the
heights.

The battle which ensued presents an extraordinary
contrast in the character of the combatants
and the nature of the strategy and
tactics.[2] Each party ran true to form—Ferguson
repeating Braddock's suicidal policy of
opposing bayonet charges to the deadly fusillade
of riflemen, who in Indian fashion were

carefully posted behind trees and every shelter
afforded by the natural inequalities of the
ground. In the army of the Carolina and
Virginia frontiersmen, composed of independent
detachments recruited from many sources
and solicitous for their own individual credit,
each command was directed in the battle by
its own leader. Campbell—like Cleveland,
Winston, Williams, Lacey, Shelby, McDowell,
Sevier, and Hambright—personally led
his own division; but the nature of the fighting
and the peculiarity of the terrain made it
impossible for him, though the chosen commander
of the expedition, actually to play that
rôle in the battle. The plan agreed upon in
advance by the frontier leaders was simple
enough—to surround and capture Ferguson's
camp on the high plateau. The more experienced
Indian fighters, Sevier and Shelby, unquestionably
suggested the general scheme
which in any case would doubtless have been
employed by the frontiersmen; it was to give
the British "Indian play"—namely to take
cover everywhere and to fire from natural shelter.
Cleveland, a Hercules in strength and
courage who had fought the Indians and recognized
the wisdom of Indian tactics, ordered
his men, as did some of the other leaders, to
give way before a bayonet charge, but to return
to the attack after the charge had spent
its force.

The plateau upon which Ferguson was encamped
was the top of an eminence some six
hundred yards long and about two hundred
and fifty yards from one base across to the
other; and its shape was that of an Indian
paddle, varying from one hundred and twenty
yards at the blade to sixty yards at the handle
in width. Outcropping boulders upon the

outer edge of the plateau afforded some slight
shelter for Ferguson's force; but, unsuspicious
of attack, Ferguson had made no abatis to
protect his camp from the assault to which it
was so vulnerable because of the protection
of the timber surrounding it on all sides. As
to the disposition of the attacking force, the
center to the northeast was occupied by Cleveland
with his "Bulldogs," Hambright with his
South Fork Boys from the Catawba (now
Lincoln County, North Carolina), and Winston
with his Surry riflemen; to the south were
the divisions of Joseph McDowell, Sevier, and
Campbell; while Lacey's South Carolinians,
the Rowan levies under Williams, and the
Watauga borderers under Shelby were stationed
upon the north side. Ferguson's forces
consisted of Provincial Rangers, one hundred
and fifty strong, and other well-drilled Loyalists,
between eight and nine hundred in number;
but his strength was seriously weakened
by the absence of a foraging party of between
one and two hundred who had gone off on the
morning the battle occurred. Shelby's men,
before getting into position, received a hot fire,
the opening shots of the engagement. This
inspired Campbell, who now threw off his coat,
to shout encouraging orders to his men posted
on the side of the mountain opposite to Shelby's
force. When Campbell's Virginians uttered
a series of piercing shouts, the British
officer, De Peyster, second in command, remarked
to his chief: "These things are ominous—these
are the damned yelling boys."

The battle, which lasted some minutes short
of an hour, was waged with terrific ferocity.
The Loyalist militia, whenever possible, fired
from the shelter of the rocks; while the Provincial
Corps, with fixed bayonets, steadily
charged the frontiersmen, who fired at close
range and then rapidly withdrew to the very
base of the mountain. After each bayonet
charge the Provincials coolly withdrew to the
summit, under the accumulating fire of the returning
mountaineers, who quickly gathered in
their rear. Owing to their elevated location,
the British, although using the rapid-fire
breech-loading rifle invented by Ferguson

himself, found their vision deflected, and continually
fired high, thus suffering from nature's
handicap, refraction.[3] The militia, using
sharpened butcher-knives which Ferguson
had taught them to utilize as bayonets, charged
against the mountaineers; but their fire, in answer
to the deadly fusillade of the expert
squirrel-shooters, was belated, owing to the
fact that they could not fire while the crudely
improvised bayonets remained inserted in their
pieces. The Americans, continually firing upward,
found ready marks for their aim in the
clearly delineated outlines of their adversaries,
and felt the fierce exultation which animates
the hunter who has tracked to its lair and surrounded
wild game at bay.

The leaders of the various divisions of the
mountaineers bore themselves with impetuous
bravery, recklessly rushing between the lines
of fire and with native eloquence, interspersed
with profanity, rallying their individual commands
again and again to the attack. The
valiant Campbell scaled the rugged heights,
loudly encouraging his men to the ascent.

Cleveland, resolutely facing the foe, urged on
his Bulldogs with the inspiriting words:
"Come, boys; let's try 'em again. We 'll have
better luck next time." No sooner did Shelby's
men reach the bottom of the hill, in retreating
before a charge, than their commander,
fiery and strenuous, ardently shouted:
"Now boys, quickly reload your rifles, and
let's advance upon them, and give them another
hell of a fire." The most deadly charge,
led by De Peyster himself, fell upon Hambright's
South Fork boys; and one of their
gallant officers, Major Chronicle, waving his
military hat, was mortally wounded, the command,
"Face to the hill!", dying on his lips.
These veteran soldiers, unlike the mountaineers,
firmly met the shock of the charge, and a
number of their men were shot down or transfixed;
but the remainder, reserving their fire
until the charging column was only a few feet
away, poured in a deadly volley before retiring.
The gallant William Lenoir, whose
reckless bravery made him a conspicuous target
for the enemy, received several wounds
and emerged from the battle with his hair and
clothes torn by balls. The ranking American
officer, Brigadier-General James Williams
was mortally wounded while "on the very top
of the mountain, in the thickest of the fight"
and as he momentarily revived, his first words
were: "For God's sake, boys, don't give up
the hill."[4] Hambright, sorely wounded, his
boot overflowing with blood and his hat riddled
with three bullet holes, declined to dismount,
but pressed gallantly forward, exclaiming in
his "Pennsylvania Dutch": "Huzza, my
prave poys, fight on a few minutes more, and
the pattle will be over!" On the British side,
Ferguson was supremely valorous, rapidly
dashing from one point to another, rallying his
men, oblivious to all danger. Wherever the
shrill note of his silver whistle sounded, there
the fighting was hottest and the British resistance
the most stubborn. His officers fought
with the characteristic steadiness of the British
soldier; and again and again his men charged
headlong against the wavering and fiery circle
of the frontiersmen.[5]

ISAAC SHELBY

From a painting by Matthew Harris Jouett in the possession of William
R. Shelby, Esq., Grand Rapids, Mich.

Ferguson's boast that "he was on King's
Mountain, that he was king of the Mountain,
and God Almighty could not drive him from
it" was doubtless prompted, less by a belief
in the impregnability of his position, than by
a desperate desire to inspire confidence in his
men. His location was admirably chosen for
defense against attack by troops employing
regulation tactics; but, never dreaming of the
possibility of sudden investment; Ferguson
had erected no fortifications for his encampment.
His frenzied efforts on the battle-field
seem like a mad rush against fate; for the place
was indefensible against the peculiar tactics
of the frontiersmen. While the mountain
flamed like a volcano and resounded with the
thunder of the guns, a steady stricture was in
progress. The lines were drawn tighter and
tighter around the trapped and frantically
struggling army; and at last the fall of their
commander, riddled with bullets, proved the
tragic futility of further resistance. The
game was caught and bagged to a man.
When Winston, with his fox-hunters of Surry,

dashed recklessly through the woods, says a
chronicler of the battle, and the last to come
into position,

then

The battle was decisive in its effect—shattering
the plans of Cornwallis, which till then
appeared certain of success. The victory put
a full stop to the invasion of North Carolina,
which was then well under way. Cornwallis
abandoned his carefully prepared campaign
and immediately left the state. After ruthlessly
hanging nine prisoners, an action which
had an effectively deterrent effect upon future
Tory murders and depredations, the patriot
force quietly disbanded. The brilliant
initiative of the buckskin-clad borderers, the
strenuous energy of their pursuit, the perfection
of their surprise—all reinforced by the
employment of ideal tactics for meeting the
given situation—were the controlling factors

in this overwhelming victory of the Revolution.
The pioneers of the Old Southwest—
the independent and aggressive yeomanry of
North Carolina, Virginia, and South Carolina
—had risen in their might. Without the aid
or authority of blundering state governments
they had created an army of frontiersmen, Indian-fighters,
and big-game hunters which had
found no parallel or equal on the continent
since the Battle of the Great Kanawha.