Maj. 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, Oct. 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 Oct. 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 “drum-head
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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 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
North Carolina legislature into more vigorous action, and it caused a general uprising of the patriots of the
South, and suddenly convinced their oppressor that his march through
North Carolina to the conquest of
Virginia was not to be a mere recreation.
Met by
North Carolinians at
Charlotte, he was compelled to fall back to the
Catawba, and his experience in that winter campaign was marked by great perplexities and disasters.
