Existing comment:
From other signs:
Tighten the Noose
"Fire as quick as you can, and stand your ground as long as you can. When you can do no better, get behind trees, or retreat; but I beg you not to run quite off. If we are repulsed, let us make a point of returning and renewing the fight..." -- Benjamin Cleveland, North Carolina patriot leader
The hard morning rain had stopped, leaving the fallen leaves on the forest floor here sodden. But wet leaves, as a squirrel hunter knows, soak up sound, even the footsteps of hundreds of patriots moving fast. The North Carolinians who fought here had the farthest to go to tighten a noose around the Tories. Leaving their horses half a mile away to your right, they had to slog over swampy ground to reach this slope. Arriving ten minutes late, they saw loyalist pickets ahead. Then the din of war-whoops and rifle shots broke out.
North Carolina sent more patriots to fight here than any other state. Although the other mountain men from Virginia and Tennessee somehow gained greater fame for the Kings Mountain victory, the piedmont patriots out-numbered them two to one.
Shoot Tree to Tree
"Ben Hollingsworth and myself took right up the side of the mountain, and fought our way from tree to tree, up to the summit. I recollect I stood behind one tree and fired until the bark was nearly all knocked off, and my eyes pretty well filled with it. One fellow shaved me pretty close, for his button took a piece out of my gun stock. Before I was aware of it, I found myself apparently between my own regiment and the enemy, as I judged by seeing the paper the Whigs wore in their hats and the pine twigs the Tories wore in theirs..." -- Thomas Young, 16 years old, South Carolina patriot
Over 400 South Carolina patriots had joined the marched to Kings Mountain at the Cowpens, one day before the fight. In the summer of 1780, some of the bitterest fighting of the Revolution had raged around these men's homes and farms.
Be Your Own Officer
"When we encounter the enemy, don't wait for a word of command. Let each of you be your own officer, and do the very best you can... If in the woods, shelter yourselves and give them Indian play; advance from tree to tree... and killing and disabling all you can..." -- Isaac Shelby, Tennessee patriot leader
One by one, rough woodsmen from beyond the Blue Ridge plunged through the forest and up the slop you see before you as the shooting started. Life on the frontier and long experience in Indian warfare had hardened them into fierce individual fighters, not much prone to take directions from others. And like Indians, they hollered out loud as they aimed and fired, dashed and ducked.
Although their tiny farms were far away, seemingly deep in mountain strongholds, these Whigs took seriously Major Ferguson's threat to cross the mountains, hang their leaders, and lay waste their country with fire and sword -- enough to tramp over the Blue Ridge twice to stop him.
The Crown forces atop Kings Mountain knew this regiment of frontiersmen. Six weeks earlier, Shelby's men had ambushed and bloodied Ferguson's troops at Musgroves Mill. |