Battle of King's Mountain
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This Site:
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King's Mountain BattlefieldKing's Mountain, BATTLE
ON. Major Patrick Ferguson was sent by
Lord Cornwallis
to embody the Tory militia among the mountains west of the Broad
River. Many profligate men joined his standard, and he crossed the
river at the Cherokee Ford, October 1, 1780, and encamped among the
hills of King's Mountain, near the line between North and
South Carolina, with
1,500 men. Several corps of Whig militia, under Colonels Shelby,
Sevier, Campbell, and others, united to oppose Ferguson, and on
October 7 they fell upon his camp among a cluster of high, wooded,
gravelly hills of King's Mountain. A severe engagement ensued, and
the British forces were totally defeated. Ferguson was slain, and
300 of his men were killed or wounded. The spoils of victory were
800 prisoners and 1,500 stand of arms. The loss of the Americans was
twenty men. The event was to
Cornwallis what
the defeat of the British near
Bennington was to
Burgoyne. Among the prisoners were some of the most cruel Tories
of the western Carolinas, who had executed the severe orders of
Cornwallis. Ten of them, after a trial by "drumhead court-martial,"
were hung on the limb of a great tulip-tree. On the spot where
Ferguson fell, a small monument was erected to commemorate the
event, and to
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the
memory of some of the patriots killed in the battle. The defeat of
the British changed the aspects of the war in the South. It awed the
Tories and encouraged the Whigs. The mustering of forces beyond the
mountains to oppose his movements took Cornwallis by surprise. It
quickened the |
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