At Kings Mountain on 7 October 17801, Patriot frontier militia known as the Overmountain Men surrounded and destroyed a Loyalist force under Major Patrick Ferguson, the only man present who was not American-born1. Ferguson was killed and most of his command killed or captured in about an hour. The victory broke Britain's plan to raise the Loyalist South and is often called the turn of the tide of the Revolution in the southern colonies.
In the autumn of 1780 the British seemed to be winning the war in the South. Then a Loyalist colonel threatened the frontier settlements, and the men beyond the mountains came for him. At Kings Mountain they wiped out his command in an hour.
Part of The greatest battles of the American Revolution · Before: The Battle of Monmouth · Next: Battle of Cowpens
The war moves south
By 1780 the British had taken Charleston and overrun much of the South, relying on local Loyalists to hold the country. Major Patrick Ferguson, commanding Loyalist militia, sent word threatening to march over the mountains and lay waste the frontier settlements2 if the backcountry men did not submit.
The Overmountain Men
The threat backfired. Frontier militia from the western settlements, the Overmountain Men, gathered and rode to find Ferguson, joined by militia from the Carolinas and Virginia. Ferguson took position on the wooded slopes of Kings Mountain, confident his ground was too strong to storm.
The fight on the ridge
The Patriots surrounded the hill and climbed it from all sides, fighting from tree to tree3 in the frontier style. Ferguson's men, drilled for the bayonet, drove charges down the slopes, but the attackers melted away and returned, closing the ring tighter with every rush.
Ferguson falls
Refusing to surrender, Ferguson was shot from his horse as he tried to break out1. With their commander dead and surrounded on all sides, the Loyalists gave up. Most of the force was killed, wounded or captured in roughly an hour4; nearly every man on both sides was American.
Why Kings Mountain mattered
Kings Mountain destroyed Loyalist strength in the backcountry and forced the British commander Cornwallis to pull back, buying time for the Continental Army to rebuild in the South. Thomas Jefferson called it the turn of the tide of success2, and it set up the Patriot revival that ran through Cowpens and Guilford Courthouse toward Yorktown.