KING'S MOUNTAIN

Our fortress is the good greenwood,
Our tent the cypress tree;
We know the forest round us
As seamen know the sea.
We know its walls of thorny vines,
Its glades of reedy grass,
Its safe and silent islands
Within the dark morass.
--Bryant.

KING'S MOUNTAIN

The close of the year 1780 was, in the Southern States, the
darkest time of the Revolutionary struggle. Cornwallis had just
destroyed the army of Gates at Camden, and his two formidable
lieutenants, Tarlton the light horseman, and Ferguson the skilled
rifleman, had destroyed or scattered all the smaller bands that
had been fighting for the patriot cause. The red dragoons rode
hither and thither, and all through Georgia and South Carolina
none dared lift their heads to oppose them, while North Carolina
lay at the feet of Cornwallis, as he started through it with his
army to march into Virginia. There was no organized force against
him, and the cause of the patriots seemed hopeless. It was at
this hour that the wild backwoodsmen of the western border
gathered to strike a blow for liberty.

When Cornwallis invaded North Carolina he sent Ferguson into the
western part of the State to crush out any of the patriot forces
that might still be lingering among the foot-hills. Ferguson was
a very gallant and able officer, and a man of much influence with
the people wherever he went, so that he was peculiarly fitted for
this scrambling border warfare. He had under him a battalion of
regular troops and several other battalions of Tory militia, in
all eleven or twelve hundred men. He shattered and drove the
small bands of Whigs that were yet in arms, and finally pushed to
the foot of the mountain wall, till he could see in his front the
high ranges of the Great Smokies. Here he learned for the first
time that beyond the mountains there lay a few hamlets of
frontiersmen, whose homes were on what were then called the
Western Waters, that is, the waters which flowed into the
Mississippi. To these he sent word that if they did not prove
loyal to the king, he would cross their mountains, hang their
leaders, and burn their villages.

Beyond the, mountains, in the valleys of the Holston and Watauga,
dwelt men who were stout of heart and mighty in battle, and when
they heard the threats of Ferguson they burned with a sullen
flame of anger. Hitherto the foes against whom they had warred
had been not the British, but the Indian allies of the British,
Creek, and Cherokee, and Shawnee. Now that the army of the king
had come to their thresholds, they turned to meet it as fiercely
as they had met his Indian allies. Among the backwoodsmen of this
region there were at that time three men of special note: Sevier,
who afterward became governor of Tennessee; Shelby, who afterward
became governor of Kentucky; and Campbell, the Virginian, who
died in the Revolutionary War. Sevier had given a great barbecue,
where oxen and deer were roasted whole, while horseraces were
run, and the backwoodsmen tried their skill as marksmen and
wrestlers. In the midst of the feasting Shelby appeared, hot with
hard riding, to tell of the approach of Ferguson and the British.
Immediately the feasting was stopped, and the feasters made ready
for war. Sevier and Shelby sent word to Campbell to rouse the men
of his own district and come without delay, and they sent
messengers to and fro in their own neighborhood to summon the
settlers from their log huts on the stump-dotted clearings and
the hunters from their smoky cabins in the deep woods.

The meeting-place was at the Sycamore Shoals. On the appointed
day the backwoodsmen gathered sixteen hundred strong, each man
carrying a long rifle, and mounted on a tough, shaggy horse. They
were a wild and fierce people, accustomed to the chase and to
warfare with the Indians. Their hunting-shirts of buckskin or
homespun were girded in by bead-worked belts, and the trappings
of their horses were stained red and yellow. At the gathering
there was a black-frocked Presbyterian preacher, and before they
started he addressed the tall riflemen in words of burning zeal,
urging them to stand stoutly in the battle, and to smite with the
sword of the Lord and of Gideon. Then the army started, the
backwoods colonels riding in front. Two or three days later, word
was brought to Ferguson that the Back-water men had come over the
mountains; that the Indian-fighters of the frontier, leaving
unguarded their homes on the Western Waters, had crossed by
wooded and precipitous defiles to the help of the beaten men of
the plains. Ferguson at once fell back, sending out messengers
for help. When he came to King's Mountain, a wooded, hog-back
hill on the border line between North and South Carolina, he
camped on its top, deeming that there he was safe, for he
supposed that before the backwoodsmen could come near enough to
attack him help would reach him. But the backwoods leaders felt
as keenly as he the need of haste, and choosing out nine hundred
picked men, the best warriors of their force, and the best
mounted and armed, they made a long forced march to assail
Ferguson before help could come to him. All night long they rode
the dim forest trails and splashed across the fords of the
rushing rivers. All the next day, October 16, they rode, until in
mid-afternoon, just as a heavy shower cleared away, they came in
sight of King's Mountain. The little armies were about equal in
numbers. Ferguson's regulars were armed with the bayonet, and so
were some of his Tory militia, whereas the Americans had not a
bayonet among them; but they were picked men, confident in their
skill as riflemen, and they were so sure of victory that their
aim was not only to defeat the British but to capture their whole
force. The backwoods colonels, counseling together as they rode
at the head of the column, decided to surround the mountain and
assail it on all sides. Accordingly the bands of frontiersmen
split one from the other, and soon circled the craggy hill where
Ferguson's forces were encamped. They left their horses in the
rear and immediately began the battle, swarming forward on foot,
their commanders leading the attack.

The march had been so quick and the attack so sudden that
Ferguson had barely time to marshal his men before the assault
was made. Most of his militia he scattered around the top of the
hill to fire down at the Americans as they came up, while with
his regulars and with a few picked militia he charged with the
bayonet in person, first down one side of the mountain and then
down the other. Sevier, Shelby, Campbell, and the other colonels
of the frontiersmen, led each his force of riflemen straight
toward the summit. Each body in turn when charged by the regulars
was forced to give way, for there were no bayonets wherewith to
meet the foe; but the backwoodsmen retreated only so long as the
charge lasted, and the minute that it stopped they stopped too,
and came back ever closer to the ridge and ever with a deadlier
fire. Ferguson, blowing a silver whistle as a signal to his men,
led these charges, sword in hand, on horseback. At last, just as
he was once again rallying his men, the riflemen of Sevier and
Shelby crowned the top of the ridge. The gallant British
commander became a fair target for the backwoodsmen, and as for
the last time he led his men against them, seven bullets entered
his body and he fell dead. With his fall resistance ceased. The
regulars and Tories huddled together in a confused mass, while
the exultant Americans rushed forward. A flag of truce was
hoisted, and all the British who were not dead surrendered.

The victory was complete, and the backwoodsmen at once started to
return to their log hamlets and rough, lonely farms. They could
not stay, for they dared not leave their homes at the mercy of
the Indians. They had rendered a great service; for Cornwallis,
when he heard of the disaster to his trusted lieutenant,
abandoned his march northward, and retired to South Carolina.
When he again resumed the offensive, he found his path barred by
stubborn General Greene and his troops of the Continental line.

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