The FReeper Foxhole Revisits The Battle of Kings Mountain (10/7/1780) - January 76th, 2005

http://www.co.cleveland.nc.us/battle_of_kings_mountain.htm ^ | 1997 | Peggy Beach

[snippy_about_it]

Lord,

Keep our Troops forever in Your care

Give them victory over the enemy...

Grant them a safe and swift return...

Bless those who mourn the lost.
.

FReepers from the Foxhole join in prayer
for all those serving their country at this time.


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The FReeper Foxhole Revisits

Battle of Kings Mountain

October 7, 1780, near the North and South Carolina border

Historians consider the Battle of Kings Mountain to be the "turning point in the South" in America's War for Independence. The victory of Patriots over Loyalist troops destroyed the left wing of Cornwallis' army. The battle also effectively ended, at least temporarily, the British advance into North Carolina. Lord Cornwallis was forced to retreat from Charlotte into South Carolina to wait for reinforcements. The victory of the Overmountain Men allowed General Nathaniel Greene the opportunity to reorganize the American Army.



When British General Henry Clinton learned of his men's defeat at Kings Mountain, he is reported to have called it "the first link of a chain of evils" that he feared might lead to the collapse of the British plans to quash the Patriot rebellion. He was right. American forces went on to defeat the British at Cowpens. A little more than a year after Kings Mountain, Washington accepted Cornwallis's surrender at Yorktown, Virginia.

Prelude To Battle

The leader of the Loyalist troops was Major Patrick Ferguson. Ferguson would be the only British regular to serve at Kings Mountain. All other soldiers were Americans -- Patriot and Loyalist.

During the summer of 1780, Ferguson and his provincial corps of 150 traveled through South Carolina and into North Carolina gathering support for His Majesty's cause. While marching through the upcountry of South Carolina, the Loyalists engaged in minor skirmishes with militia regiments. Some of those small battles happened at places like Wofford's Iron Works, Musgrove's Mill, Thicketty Fort, and Cedar Spring. However in August, after the Americans lost at the Battle of Camden, the Over Mountain Men retired to their homes in western North Carolina to rest before going after Ferguson again.

The March To Kings Mountain

Meanwhile in September, Cornwallis invaded North Carolina. His final objective was to march into Virginia. To protect his troops from guerilla attack, Cornwallis ordered Ferguson to move northward into western North Carolina before joining the main British Army in Charlotte.


Isaac Shelby

In late September, Ferguson camped at Gilbert Town (near present day Rutherfordton). He sent a message to Colonel Isaac Shelby, whom he considered to be the leader of the "backwater men." The message said that if Shelby and his men did not stop their opposition to the British, Ferguson would march his army over the mountains, hang their leaders and "lay the country waste with fire and sword." The Patriots would have none of it.

On September 25, Patriot leaders and Colonels Charles McDowell, John Sevier, Isaac Shelby and William Campbell gathered at Sycamore Shoals on the Watauga River (near present day Tennessee). They marched five days over the snow covered mountains to the Quaker Meadows Plantation owned by McDowell's family (in present day Morganton). There, they were joined by more frontiersmen including those serving under Benjamin Cleveland and Joseph Winston. The troops marched toward Gilbert Town and Ferguson.

Spies told Ferguson the Patriots were on their way. Ferguson had stayed at Gilbert Town hoping to intercept another Patriot force, heading northward. Calling in reinforcements, the Scot began to march toward Charlotte to receive the protection of Cornwallis' main army. He sent an appeal to loyal North Carolinians -- for them to save themselves from the "backwater men...a set of mongrels." Late on October 6, Ferguson received word from his spies that the Americans were close behind him. Camping at Kings Mountain, near the North Carolina border, he sent a message to Cornwallis requesting reinforcements. "Three or four hundred good soldiers," he wrote, "would finish the business. Something must be done soon." Desperately short of provisions, Ferguson sent out a foraging party of 150 men. He then organized a defense and prepared to meet the enemy.


William Campbell

When the Patriots realized that Ferguson was not at Gilbert Town, they became determined to pursue and fight him. The soldiers followed Ferguson, leaving their weak comrades and horses at Gilbert Town. On October 6 at Cowpens in South Carolina, the Over Mountain Men were joined by 400 South Carolinians under Colonel James Williams and others. The soldiers learned from spy Joseph Kerr that Ferguson was definitely camped about 30 miles ahead in the vicinity of Kings Mountain. Shelby was especially pleased to learn that Ferguson was quoted as saying, that he "was on Kings Mountain, that he was king of that mountain and that God Almighty and all the Rebels of hell could not drive him from it."

The seven colonels chose Campbell as their officer of the day to carry out the plans they adopted collectively. Fearing Ferguson would escape, the colonels selected 900 of their best men to pursue the Loyalists.

The Patriots marched through the night and the next day, through pouring rain and intermittent showers. They reached Kings Mountain the next day, Saturday October 7 just after noon.


John Sevier

Kings Mountain is an outlying portion of the Blue Ridge Mountains. A heavily rocky and wooded area, the mountain rises 60 feet above the plain surrounding it. The campsite was supposedly an ideal place for Ferguson to camp because the mountain has a plateau at its summit. The plateau is 600 yards long and 70 feet wide at one end and 120 feet wide at the other. The Scot considered the summit too steep to be scaled.

The Battle Begins

Upon arriving at Kings Mountain, the Patriot soldiers dismounted. After tying up the horses, the soldiers formed in a horseshoe around the base of the mountain behind their leaders, who remained on horseback.

Ferguson was right in believing that his would be attackers would expose themselves to musket fire if they attempted to scale the summit. But Ferguson did not realize his men could only fire if they went out into the open, exposing themselves to musket fire. Most of the Patriot troops were skilled hunters who routinely killed fast moving animals. On this day, Ferguson's men would not find escape an easy task.



The fighting began around 3 p.m. when some of Ferguson's men noticed the Patriot soldiers surrounding the mountain. After a brief skirmish, the shooting began in earnest when two of the Patriot regiments opened fire on the Loyalists simultaneously. The Loyalists fired back but the Patriots were protected by the heavily wooded area.

The regiments commanded by Colonels Isaac Shelby and William Campbell marched toward Ferguson's men but were driven back twice by Loyalist fire. But as one regiment was driven back, another would advance. Ferguson had to shift his reserves from one place to another while continuing to take heavy losses from the concealed American sharpshooters in the trees. Eventually, other Patriot troops provided enough support that Shelby and Campbell's regiments reached the summit.

During the battle, Patrick Ferguson commanded his men with the use of a silver whistle. Many Patriot fighters later recalled hearing the sound of Ferguson's whistle over the sound of the rifle fire. The whistle and the checkered hunting shirt he wore over his uniform made the Scottish commander quite noticeable on the battlefield.

After nearly an hour of fighting, Ferguson suddenly fell from his horse. One foot was hanging in his stirrup -- several, perhaps as many as eight bullets were in his body. Some accounts say he died before he hit the ground. Other accounts say that his men propped him against a tree, where he died. Ferguson was the only British soldier killed in the battle -- all others were Americans, either Loyalist or Patriot.



Ferguson's second in command then ordered that a white flag of surrender be hoisted.

Despite the call for surrender by the Loyalists, the Patriots could not immediately stop their men from shooting. Many Patriots remembered that the infamous Colonel Tarleton had mowed down Patriot troops at Waxhaw despite the fact that the troops were trying to surrender. Eventually, the fighting at Kings Mountain stopped.

In all, 225 Loyalists were killed, 163 were wounded, 716 were taken prisoner. 28 Patriots were killed and 68 were wounded. Among the Patriot dead: Colonel James Williams of South Carolina.

Battle Ends:
Patriots March Prisoners To Hillsborough

After the battle, the victorious Patriots and the captured Loyalists had to camp together. Soon it became dark and the cries of the wounded were heard and often unheeded.

The next morning, the sun came out for the first time in days. Fearing that Cornwallis would soon be upon them, many of the Patriot militia left for their homes. A contingent of Patriots took the prisoners northward to the Continental Army jurisdiction in Hillsborough.



During the journey, a number of prisoners were brutally beaten and some prisoners were hacked with swords. A number of unjust murders took place -- not the Patriots finest hour. The injustices continued a week later when a committee of Patriots appointed a jury to try some of the so-called "obnoxious" Loyalists. 36 Loyalists were found guilty of breaking open houses, burning houses and killing citizens. Nine were hanged.

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FReeper Foxhole Armed Services Links

[snippy_about_it]

Cute picture. Good evening Victoria.

[snippy_about_it]

LOL. Reminds me of that old commercial for "Shake and Bake Chicken"...(in my best hillbilly voice), "An' I helped".

[snippy_about_it]

He isn't?

I guess the cat is out of the bag.

[Victoria Delsoul]

Hi Snippy, thanks.

[Victoria Delsoul]

Hi Sam. Thank God it's Friday, but I'm feeling tired today. Too much work and not enough time to play.

[PhilDragoo]

During the invasion of that city, Ferguson worked with the legendary Banastre Tarleton, who had angered many Patriots after his massacre of soldiers trying to surrender to him at Waxhaw. Author Washington Irving later wrote that Ferguson and Tarleton were "equally intrepid and determined but Ferguson is cooler, and more open to the impulses of humanity." In fact, some researchers believe that Ferguson despised Tarleton's methods.

Ferguson "despising" Tarleton's methods may be another Legend of Sleepy Hollow:

During the siege of Charleston, Pattie worked closely with Banastre Tarleton (1754-1833) and the Legion horse, under Lieut. Col. James Webster (1740-81), 33rd Foot, to cut off Rebel supply routes. Pattie and 'Ban' worked well together, and, contrary to myth, respected each other. Pattie regarded Tarleton, a Liverpool merchant-shipping magnate's son, as "a very active gallant young man", and the latter wrote well of him in his Campaigns. They defeated Huger at Monck's Corner on 14 April. But that night a couple of drunken Legion troopers, celebrating the victory, broke into Fair Lawn Plantation and terrorised Jane Giles - a young Englishwoman whose first husband had been Sir John Colleton, Bt. - and her 3 companions, of of whom, Anna Fayssoux, the wife of a Rebel army surgeon, was sexually assaulted. Pattie sent men to arrest the culprits, intending to execute them. Webster commuted the sentence to flogging - if 'commuted' is the phrase for a punishment which could kill more slowly. Ban supported the punishment of the offender. Mrs. Giles (still often called "Lady Colleton") was a Loyalist. Politically, it would have been damaging to let the incident go unpunished. But from this incident, which actually preceded Pattie's generous description of Ban, 19C American writers such as Washington Irving and Lyman C. Draper derived the myth of enmity between the two officers. This has been perpetuated by later writers.

From Major PATRICK FERGUSON, 71st Foot, Inspector of Militia 1744-80

~~~

In the immense collections of the Public Record Office in London is correspondence from Colonel Ferguson. In one of these letters he describes, in some detail, the encounter with General Washington, yet in another he admits he did not know it was Washington at the time.

Ferguson wrote that he and three of his Sharp Shooters were scouting the American lines near Chadd's Ford, along Brandywine Creek (hence the name of the ensuing battle). He and his men heard the approach of two horsemen. The first was a brilliantly clad Hussar and the second rider, a few paces behind, was wearing the traditional blue and buff uniform of an American Senior Officer, mounted on a bay horse and wearing "a remarkably large cocked hat". He also noted that the Officer was of "exceptional distinction". It is obvious that if Ferguson had indeed recognized General Washington he would have said so, and not take the time to describe him as he did. It is important to note that in the 18th century, there were few likenesses published, so Ferguson would have had to have met or at least seen Washington to have recognized him.

Ferguson continued: His first thought was to cut the two riders down where they sat, so he ordered his men "to steal near to them and fire at them". He then changed his mind and signaled his men to hold their fire. He thought his first impulse was "disgusting". He then stepped from his place of concealment and ordered the Hussar, the closest of the two, to step down from his mount. The hussar shouted an alarm. Wahington whirled his horse, Nelson, around and galloped off. Ferguson wrote "As I was with the distance, at which in the quickest firing, I could have lodged a half dozen balls in or about him before he was out of my reach, I had only to determine, but it was not pleasant to fire at the back of an unoffending individual who was acquitting himself coolly of his duty, and so I let him alone."

Four days later, the Battle of Brandywine took place. Major Patrick Ferguson fell when a musket ball struck his right elbow. He would never regain full use of the arm, but continued on active duty and actually learned to load his rifle with one hand!

While in the field hospital recovering from his wound he wrote (obviously with his left hand and with great difficulty) "One of the surgeons who had been dressing the wounded rebel officers came in and told me that they had been informed that General Washington was all that day, (7 September 1777) with the light troops and only attended by a French Officer in Hussar Dress, he himself, dressed and mounted in every point as described."

This letter reaffirms the theory that Ferguson did not know it was Washington he challenged. But, if he had known it was Washington himself, would he have cut him down? This writer thinks not. Shooting down enemy officers in cold blood was looked upon as dishonorable in the 18th century. Major Ferguson was a professional soldier, and an honorable one. He proved that when he and his Sharp Shooters were assigned to support the occupation of the South. In 1779 at Charlestown, South Carolina, Ferguson heard screaming from a "rebel" house. He rushed in immediately and found several of Colonel Banastre Tarleton's Dragoons molesting the women who lived there. He ordered the Dragoons arrested and hung! Tarleton intervened on their behalf and informed Ferguson that the men were entitled to a trial. No record has been found as to who prevailed.

We now turn our attention to confirming the letters of Major Ferguson. None of George Washington's biographers mention the Brandywine incident. Washington did not record the event, which is not surprising, as General Washington had no way of knowing how close to death he had been. However, in the Bicentennial Edition of "The Writings of George Washington" (1933) Volume. IX, Page 195, a letter from Washington's Aide-de-Camp, Robert Harrison, to the President of Congress, John Hancock, states: "Sir; His Excellency being out reconnoitring and busily engaged in the affairs of the Army, I have the honor of acknowledging his receipt of your letter of the 6th", dated on September 7th, 1777. This confirms that Washington was indeed out on a scouting mission.

The Count de Pulaski, a refugee from the Polish Army, was in Paris, France when it was suggested that he serve in the American Army against Britain, which he accepted. Armed with a letter from Benjamin Franklin and a cash advance from Silas Deane he sailed for America. In July of 1777, the 29 year old was accepted by the Congress and was assigned to General Washington as an Aide-de-Camp. We know Pulaski wore the uniform of a Hussar, but no detailed description has survived, we also know he was with Washington in late August and early September. It may well have been Pulaski that Ferguson saw with Washington that eventful day.

Casimir Pulaski went on to command a cavalry unit with great distinction. He was mortally wounded while leading a gallant, but foolhardy, cavalry charge at Savannah, Georgia on October 9th, 1779.

This article would not be complete without offering a word of praise about a gallant fallen enemy, Major Patrick Ferguson, whose code of honor spared the life of the Father of our Country. Patrick Ferguson was killed in action at the Battle of Kings Mountain on October 7th, 1780.

*At the time of the Battle of Brandywine, Ferguson held the rank of Captain. At the time of his death at Kings Mountain he was a Major, and his brevet to Lieutenant Colonel was in transit when he died. Since his name appears on the official rolls with the higher rank, most historians make reference to him as Colonel Ferguson, hence the seeming confusion between various commentators.

The foregoing article drew the following addendum from a historian in Scotland, Dr. Marianne Gilchrist

Dear friends,

I am a Scottish historian, writer and researcher. I have read Pat Ferguson's letter in which he describes the incident with Washington at Brandywine. It is archived in Edinburgh University Library, thanks to whom I quote from it. It was dictated, but signed and dated by himself (left-handedly), and concludes:

"I am not Sorry that I did not know all the time who it was

further this deponent saith not, as his bones were broke a few minutes after

I am yr most truely
P.F.
Philadelphia
Jan: 31 1778"

The identification of the "Huzzar" with Pulaski would make sense of the version of the story which was passed on at second or third hand in 19C which claimed that it was Pulaski, not Washington, whom Pat did not shoot. Pat's own comments make it perfectly clear that Mr. Moran is right in stating that he would not have shot him even if he had known his identity. He was, above all, a professional soldier and an honourable young gentleman.

Pat is not well-known here in his own country, save to a few weaponry-experts, but to those of us who have discovered him, he is a genuine hero. There are two other letters by him in Edinburgh University Library, written in his own handwriting after Brandywine, and detailing his four-month struggle to keep his right arm. The writing is heartbreakingly variable in quality and legibility, but the content shows his indomitable courage and wit, while facing suffering and the threat of amputation. He overcame his disability, only to fall gallantly at King's Mountain aged only 36.

I am deeply touched by the fine tribute paid to his memory by the descendants of former enemies. I hope to write an article or two to make him better known at home.

Sincerely,

Marianne McLeod Gilchrist, M.A. Hons, Ph.D.
St. Andrews,
Fife,
Scotland

From Major* Patrick Ferguson

~~~

Ferguson Rifle
1776
English
Major Patrick Ferguson patented this breech loading flintlock rifle in England, 1776. Only about 200 were made. The number '2' stamped on the trigger guard distinguishes this one from the others.
Walnut, iron, brass. L 124.5 cm, L (barrel) 86.4 cm
Morristown National Historical Park, MORR 2375

~~~

In late September, Ferguson camped at Gilbert Town (near present day Rutherfordton). He sent a message to Colonel Isaac Shelby, whom he considered to be the leader of the "backwater men." The message said that if Shelby and his men did not stop their opposition to the British, Ferguson would march his army over the mountains, hang their leaders and "lay the country waste with fire and sword." The Patriots would have none of it.

Shelby was especially pleased to learn that Ferguson was quoted as saying, that he "was on Kings Mountain, that he was king of that mountain and that God Almighty and all the Rebels of hell could not drive him from it."

He just would not shut up.

So those pesky rebels shot him. Dead.

Saddam Hussein is another one who just would not shut up.

So some more of the overmountain men marched over and tracked that rascal to his hole.

And now Ramsey Clarke and John Kerry want to bring him back to Ted Kennedy's bar in Highanus, but I say turn him over to Ann.

She knows how to talk to a terrorist--if you must.

[SAMWolf]

HEY, SNIPPY! Look over here.

Now you did it! ;-)

[SAMWolf]

Too much work and not enough time to play.

Boy! Do I know that feeling the last few months.

[SAMWolf]

Evening Phil Dragoo.

Thanks for all the interesting background on Major Patrick Ferguson.

With only 200 Ferguson Rifles made, I imaging the surviving ones are priceless.

[Humal]

"Now you did it! ;-)"

Snicker, snicker ---- :-))

[Humal]

Lyman C. Draper's "King's Mountain and Its Heroes: History of the Battle of King's Mountain, October 7th, 1780, and the Events Which Led To It" is a fascinating book about the era, the men, the planning, battles, and events of the Revolutionary War. Draper was a historian, but he sometimes writes like a gossip columnist. Very good reading.

[PhilDragoo]

King's Mountain and Its Heroes: History of the Battle of King's Mountain, October 7th, 1780, and the Events Which Led To It

[snippy_about_it]

A wealth of information. Thanks Phil.

Ann Coulter for President? ;-)

[E.G.C.]

BTTT!!!!!!

[stand watie]

!!!!!!!!!!!!

free dixie,sw

[bigalspal]

Hi,
My 5th ggrandfather Daniel Sisk was killed at the battle of King's Mountain.
My husband & I visited King's Mountain a couple of years ago.
I found my ancestors name on the monument to the brave men that served, & I cried.
How proud & sad I was!
It really brought home to me the sacrifices our brave patriots have made for me to live free.
I wish my grandpa Sisk could see my now. I think he would be proud.
Cindy

[stand watie]

HI, Cindy,

i too had an ancestor who died there. (at least i THINK so.) his name/unit is listed as "fell bravely fighting at King's Mountain".

William S. Bankhead was an "over the mountain lad".

i believe you ancestors are PROUD of YOU, too.

free dixie,sw