Robert Henry with the South Fork boys

Impaled by bayonet and concealed by the powder smoke, Robert Henry, a mere 16 years of age, was forced to lay prostrate and helpless as the battle went back and forth at Kings Mountain on October 7, 1780.

 

The bayonet charges were a mainstay in the British army and Major Patrick Ferguson had taught his loyalist troops well.  With shouts of Huzzah to the King they fired their muskets at close range and charged down the rocky portions of Kings Mountain faster than the Mountain men could reload their rifles.

 

Through the understory of sourwood, dogwood and rhododendron the two armies sought out each other to kill. 

Robert Henry’s leader, Major Chronicle, fell mortally wounded at the head of his warriors.  He was heard yelling, "Face to the hill!" just before he was shot down. Several other men in Henry's militia from Lincoln County would meet a like fate as they turned upwards to meet the enemy.

They were nearing the top of the rise when Ferguson’s men surged towards them.

Robert Henry was able to kill the red coated soldier coming for him at the last moment, but not before the bayonet skewered him through his hand and into his thigh.  He was immobilized and helpless as the powder smoke hung heavy in the air. So, he waited in agony and feared that he might be discovered and finished off by another soldier of the realm.

 

The British charged down the rocky hillside with professional skill. Henry’s fellow Patriots would fire their rifles and race away only yards ahead of the cold steel; buying time to reload.

 

Once their rifles had been recharged, the South Fork boys returned and pursued the British back up the mountainside.

 

On the way back up Henry’s friend kicked him free of the bayonet- hurting more coming out than when it went in.  Henry grabbed his rifle and followed after them up the steep bank.

For over an hour the fighting raged up and down the mountain on all sides. Then the Patriots rolled up and over the mountain and pushed the red coats into a tight circle, east of their encampment. 

   

Lt. Hambright, who took command after Major Chronicle went down, was wounded a stone's throw away from where British Major Ferguson was killed. Within sight of each other, each had shouted "Huzzah!" as they urged their men to fight.  

 

The battle was won and the next day the prisoners were marched away.

Robert Henry stared down the Grim Reaper and shared in the glory of the victory that autumn day. He was carried to his nearby home to heal.  

At home, a day or so after the battle, Henry and his two escorts were visited by Tories in disguise.  These Tories immediately took information of the defeat of Major Ferguson to Lord Cornwallis and rumors of a mighty Patriot army in the west caused great concern.

Cornwallis retreated out of Charlotte. His troops spent restless nights on the road after being misdirected by local guides. He set up winter camp in Winnsboro, SC to lick his wounds.  

Here, at Kings Mountain, a lowly 16 year old private fought the greatest nation in the known world on some of the hottest contested ground in the war. He would turn with others to face a precipice fortified by one of the King's fittest soldiers.  Within an hour's time, he was charged in anger with bullet and blade and was impaled and left for dead.  He was then rescued and gave battle to the enemy until victory was won.

In a moment when a fledgling nation was only a hope and the life of a teenager was only fodder for tyranny's sake, Robert Henry measured up to his rite of passage.

Freedom Reigns!

King’s Mountain and Its Heroes: History of the Battle of Kings Mountain, October 7^th, 1780, and the Events Which Led to It, Lyman Draper

http://www.shelbystar.com/article/20150707/news/150709147

http://www.greatdreams.com/henry/robert-henry.htm

https://www.citizen-times.com/story/news/local/2018/02/18/visiting-our-past-revolutionary-boyhood-robert-henry/342500002/

Benjamin Cleveland

Colonel Benjamin Cleveland was of the same bold character as Daniel Boone and found his most delightful pleasure in hunting rather than plowing. As a young man he was often found in the woods hunting and gathering pelts.

Two of his childhood friends were Thomas Sumter and Joseph Martin.  Sumter would later be known as the “Gamecock” in the struggle for freedom in South Carolina.  Martin would become the Indian agent for the fledgling new nation trying to curtail the Cherokee uprisings caused by the British in the back country.

Cleveland trekked off to Kentucky after hearing Daniel Boone talk with great admiration of the hunting lands.  He and his friends were robbed by Indians and sent packing on foot, back to the Watauga region around Wilkes County, NC.  After recuperating from his journey he marched back over the mountains to retrieve the horses from the very Indians that had stolen them.  In a show-down with the main suspect Indian, Cleveland narrowly escapes a tomahawk and a gunshot from the enraged guilty party.  He was able to ride away with the property reacquired and a feather in his cap of self-confidence.(1)

Cleveland would brag that his ancestor was the Oliver Cromwell who was renowned for his leadership of England.  Benjamin owned a copy of  "The Life and Adventures of Mr. Cromwell, Natural Son of Oliver Cromwell” and would point to it when making this claim.(2)  If one can speak of something and thereby cause it to be, simply by applied belief, then it is probable Benjamin Cleveland identified with the "bigger than life" persona of Oliver Cromwell. Cleveland’s intrepid spirit certainly was as bold as Cromwell; or at least the character of the biography, Cromwell’s son.  At close to six feet in height and weighing in at a solid 300lbs of big muscle, few would wish to dispute Cleveland's force of nature.

Cleveland’s men were brutal and confident.  Ever portraying an aura of wildness, some would wear Scottish Tartans and Kilts that they had taken off dead Highland Scot Tories at the Battle of Moore’s Bridge in 1776.(3)  They were rough men who mirrored the personality of their leader and were known to the Tories as “Cleveland’s Devils”.(4)

During the Revolution, Benjamin Cleveland was busy running about the upcountry of North Carolina with his men chasing Tories.  It was in the midst of this action when the call went out from Isaac Shelby and John Sevier to rally and meet Major Ferguson’s threats head on.  

Prior to the Battle of King’s Mountain, Cleveland made an impassioned speech to his men who understood life and death in their extremities. Matter of fact in its delivery, it spoke to the unfettered resolve of the men under his command.  “My brave fellows!  We have beat the Tories before, and can beat them again.  They are all cowardly.  If they had the spirit of men they would have joined your fellow citizens in supporting the Independence of this Country.  When engaged, you are not to wait for the word of command from me.  I will show you how by my example on how to fight.  I can undertake no more.  Everyman must consider himself an officer, and act on their own judgement.  Fire as quick as you can, and stand as long as you can without tiring.  When you can do no better, get behind a tree or retreat.  I beg you not to run away, but if you do make it a point to return to battle as quickly as possible, and renew the fight.”(5)

Born and raised into a mindset of independence and self reliance, he bravely fought his way in and out of battle.  His exploits reverberate in Freedom's call even today. He was a feared and revered and was one of the heroes of King's Mountain. 

After the war he moved to Oconee County, SC and is buried on private property near Westminister, SC off of Hwy 123. In the Madison community, close to the Savannah River, an obelisk bearing his name can be found near the Madison Baptist Church. (6)

Freedom Reigns!

(1) Before They Were Heroes at King’s Mountain, Randell Jones

(2) http://www.ibiblio.org/mtnivy/BAJ/crouch.htm

(3) Ghosts of Yadkin Valley, R.G. Absher

(4) http://colbenjaminclevelandchapter.org/colonel-benjamin-cleveland/

(5) https://www.josephmartinchapter.org/smartin.html
(6) https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/31176869/benjamin-cleveland

Signal Fires

Signal Beacons of Gandor used in NC mountains during the revolution?

Local folklore in and around Wilkes and Caldwell Counties in NC reveal the story of Martin Gambill. His 100-mile journey to warn the Patriots of the British invasion into the mountains is the stuff of Legends.  The story goes that the watch fires that had been placed upon the top of the mountains as an early warning system did not reach into the Watauga area where a good portion of the Liberty men resided.  Thus he volunteered to ride with the news. (1)(2)

Historical record of watch fires in the North Carolina theater of operations is spotty at best.  It will take longer to research than this author has available as of this writing.  We find evidence of similar watch fires used in the northern theaters of operation as Washington ordered them placed in the Hudson Hills in New York and the Watchung Mountains of New Jersey.  The latter of these was memorialized in a Baron Dekalb report.

   

In the Watchung Mountains these fires of freedom had three main purposes: “to call out the militia, to indicate the approach direction of the British and to direct the subsequent movements of the militia.” There were also instructions on their construction and placements.  Twenty-three signal pyres were constructed in the New Jersey mountainsides and manned by close to two dozen soldiers each. (3)

Later, DeKalb fought and died at the Battle of Camden, SC in the Southern Theater of Operations months before Kings Mountain. General Gates, his commanding officer at Camden, was still around Hillsborough, NC and recognized by the Patriots there as having Continental authority.  It is not a hard leap to suspect that there is some truth to the legend of these watch-fires, even if they did not look quite as stately as the fictitious Gandor beacons.

Though the record is thin on these watch fires being a part of the Southern Continental strategy, it certainly causes this author to want to dig deeper. It is not hard to fathom signal fires on the top of Table Rock, Grandmother and Grandfather Mountains and the smaller precipices further down Highway 64, or even into the Pisgah National Forest. It harkens back to the warning fires of the Peel towers in Scottish castles. (4) 

And these Patriots were most definitely of the Scots Irish heritage.


Freedom Reigns!

(1)    http://revwarapps.org/w7504.pdf

(2)    https://www.nps.gov/parkhistory/online_books/symposia/newriver-84/sec23.htm

(3)    https://allthingsliberty.com/2015/04/the-blue-hills-beacons

(4)    http://www.castlestudiesgroup.org.uk/CSGJournal2011-12XAlastairMI.pdf

Isaac Shelby

Isaac Shelby was definitely not a “fence sitter” during the war with the mother country.  He was, as a son of his father Evan Shelby, a proponent by deed of the Fincastle Resolutions and had resolved to "live and die" while never surrendering his "inestimable privileges".(1)  He understood Freedom and slavery.  He understood the Quebec acts as intolerable to his Protestant background, his sense of justice and his rights as a citizen to have a say in how one is governed.

Later in life he would be called “Old King’s Mountain." 

He won that nickname at the age of 29 on the wet, steep hillsides of King’s Mountain. There, British Col. Patrick Ferguson waited for his approach. Along with Shelby came over a thousand Patriot warriors from Over the Mountain.  

Ferguson had a poor view of Shelby and the Over the Mountain men.  In his mind they had run from him at Wofford's Iron Works (Battle of Cedar Springs) in Spartanburg. The band of rugged Patriots had taunted the King's men from a hill and led them on a merry chase that left Ferguson frustrated.

The British leader also considered them a group of thieves who had settled in the lands off limits to British subjects.  

Having just missed Shelby and the others at the battle of Musgrove Mills on August 19th, 1780, he set out in pursuit towards Gilbert Town, near present day Rutherfordton, NC.  

Ferguson was seeking a fight and grew more confident as the Loyalist poured into his camp for safety.

His letter to Cornwallis revealed a positive attitude towards the number of loyalists coming into camp. Ferguson then made ready to gather more supplies and search for cattle to feed his growing army. (2)

But Ferguson was unaware that he was being tricked and was in a chess match with his betters. Shelby, along with his fellow leaders at Musgrove Mill, convinced the inhabitants of the mountain regions around Gilbert Town to take shelter under the King's protection. By doing this they would be able to save their cattle that they had hid away in the mountain passes for the Patriot cause.

Ferguson's soldiers sallied forth out of camp in search of beef among the Patriot farmers.  Finding a herd they began their work of preparing the meat for the meals.  As they were well into their work, Ferguson was informed that they had been decimating the herds of three of his own loyalist men.  Ferguson had been duped by Colonel Shelby and British influence in the area suffered even more.

About that same time, Colonel Ferguson paroled an Over the Mountain prisoner in his entourage and sent him with a message to Isaac Shelby in particular.  Samuel Philips found Shelby and relayed the message, "If they did not desist from their opposition to the British arms, he would march his army over the mountains, hang their leaders, and lay their country waste with fire and sword."  Philips, ever the soldier, then set about giving particulars on the makeup of Ferguson's army to Colonel Shelby.

Shelby and the leaders at Musgrove Mills had foreseen that Ferguson had plans for their mountain homeland even before he had left the South State.  They had agreed to begin recruiting an army to confront Ferguson as soon as the opportunity presented itself. Now was the time. 

Shelby would take the lead and find John Sevier and other leaders and start towards the invading army.  Dispatches and messengers were sent throughout the mountains.

They came in droves.  Hundreds from different counties and valleys converged on the meeting places in Morganton and Gilbert Town.  They came, on horseback and on foot, with a purpose to confront the threats of Colonel Ferguson and the British realm.  These were wild hunters of hearty stock who understood Freedom and self government.  They were armed with rifles and were expert marksmen. They came over the snow covered mountains and down through the valleys.  They forded mountain streams and rivers while keeping their powder dry.  They came on knowing that they might not come back.  They came in droves. With Colonel Shelby....They came for a Reckoning!

Ferguson, at first, did not comprehend his peril. He allowed his personal biases to not see his enemy for what it was...a battle-hardened foe led by Colonel Shelby (and others).  He either couldn't or wouldn't see that Shelby was neither awed by British might nor one to lose a fight.  Colonel Ferguson lingered, hoping to cut off Georgia Patriot Col. Elijah Clarke coming from Augusta, Ga. He would wind his way back down the mountain passes, stall for a little more time for Clarke to appear.  The Redcoats would then feint southwest towards Ninety Six and ultimately head east to draw on support from Lord Cornwallis. Clarke never showed, but Shelby and company came on with a purpose and closed the distance.

Cornwallis was easily within reach at Charlotte, NC had Ferguson simply been prudent. But Ferguson chose the small mountain spur of King's Mountain to make his stand.  He had trained and bragged about his group of Loyalists in his camp and now that confidence would be tested. Ferguson trusted in his position and his loyal troops numbering close to 1000 men at arms.  He would even boast about his chosen defensive position and swore it could not be taken.(3)  

After being on the march for 2 weeks, Colonel Shelby made sure the British threats were answered. On October 7, 1780 the Mountain men surrounded the summit and were urged to do their duty; and if they did, the day would be won.

Drawing on his experience fighting the Shawnee, Shelby would tell his men at King’s Mountain, “Be your own officer...If in the woods, shelter yourselves, and give them Indian play; advance from tree to tree, pressing the enemy and killing and disabling all you can.”(4) 

The battle raged for just over an hour and Ferguson was left dead on the field.  His words to Colonel Shelby had inflamed the Patriot zeal and left the British leader cold and prostrate.  Shelby, by contrast, stood erect, unscathed and was every bit in control of his men and his duty.

After the battle of Kings Mountain and before the march off the precipice, the prisoners were ordered to line up and shoulder rifles that were stacked. An elderly loyalist of King George feigned old age as a reason for not picking his up.  Shelby slapped him with the flat edge of his sword and said, that he(Shelby) had brought one so the tory could take one away.  The tory jumped to, grabbed a rifle and got into line.(5)

In 1781 Shelby would fight under Francis Marion and add more wins to his war record.

He would later become the first and fifth governor of Kentucky and serve in the War of 1812.(6)

Fearless, determined and able, Colonel Shelby was one of the many heroes of King's Mountain and the Revolution in the South.  He was followed and feared in the cause of Liberty all throughout his life and the Country owes him great respect and gratitude.

Many towns and counties were named in his honor, including the North Carolina city just north of Kings Mountain.  Freedom Reigns!

(1) http://www.holstonia.net/files/GlanvilleFR2010.pdf
(2) https://allthingsliberty.com/2018/08/skulking-shots-on-the-flank-the-skirmish-at-cane-creek/

(3) Before They Were HEroes at King's Mountain, Randell Jones
(4) The Battles of Kings Mountain and Cowpens: The American Revolution in the Southern Backcountry, Melissa A. Walker

(5) History of the Upper Country of SC, Logan

(6) https://www.battlefields.org/learn/biographies/isaac-shelby

Musgrove Mill

Ferguson was frustrated.

 

At the Battle of Wofford’s Iron Works (Spartanburg) on August 8, 1780 American Col. Isaac Shelby and his frontiersmen played cat and mouse with Cornwallis’ man and eluded his British force with taunts and jeers on a hillside out of musket range.(1)  This came just a little over a week after Loyalists surrendered to Col. Shelby’s Indian fighters at Thicketty Fort without firing a shot.

 

That frustration would mount as on August 19th the Patriot bands of warriors under Shelby, SC militia Col. James Williams and Patriot Col. Elijah Clarke slipped in behind Ferguson's lines during a night-time ride and engaged Loyalists at Musgrove Mill (present-day southern, Spartanburg County) that morning.  The American Revolutionaries numbered about 300 men at arms. 

After halting in an open Indian field about a mile from the Ford of the Enoree River, scouts were sent out to gain intelligence on the enemy just before dawn.  Shots were fired and the scouts, though some wounded, made it back to camp and reported enemy numbers to be over twice the anticipated force of 200.

Sometime during the night reinforcements, intended for Col. Ferguson, had arrived at the British camp and were anticipating joining up with the left wing of the Red Coat army on their march northward.  Among these in camp at Musgrove Mill were two hundred Provincials from New York under the command of Colonel Alexander Innes.  

Shelby was outnumbered, his horses were spent, and his enemy would be reinforced by Ferguson soon. 

Shelby needed to draw again from his tactical skills forged in the furnace of Indian wars.  He chose to fight. He ordered his men to build breastworks of fallen logs and brush across the expanse of the open field in a rough semi-circle.  His plan to use cover and concealment during the battle would equal the playing field to the benefit of his men, as the British would be attacking a more fortified position without cover of their own.  Shelby and his contingent of frontiersmen under the bold Josiah Culbertson were on the right. Williams and his South Carolina militia were in the center. Clarke’s courageous Georgia troops were on the left.  Reserve troops were within earshot and hidden nearby; while the horses were staged in the rear.

The trap was set.

Now for the bait.

Looking up towards the British encampment

British Colonel Innes urged his reluctant peers in the war council to make haste and give fight to the rebel band who he had little regard for.  Some in the council wished to finish their breakfast and wait for Ferguson, but Innes was insistent.  As they made ready, Patriot Captain Inman and 25 men sallied in towards the King's camp and fired at the British from across the river, enticing them to give chase.  Innes did not hesitate nor disappoint.  

Innes’s whole force, save one hundred in reserve at the house, followed down and then up the hill on the heels of Inman and his party of Whigs; whom they believed represented the whole of the rebel band.  Unknown to them, Josiah Culbertson's party were concealed on their flank as they moved up the hill.(2)  The loyalists, answering the bugle calls, drums and shouts of their leaders, formed up and advanced to within 70 yards of the breastworks, bayonets at the ready.

Looking up towards the Patriot breastworks

Suddenly a deadly accurate fire was unleashed at the British just when they had let out a “Huzzah for King George!”  The attacking British staggered but for a moment.  They checked their lines and resumed their march.  Disciplined and steady, they came on with bayonet and determination.  The Patriot riflemen were much slower in their reloads than the British soldiers and their muskets. To make matters worse, the British cold steel was pressing in.  These anxious moments were observed by Shelby and Clarke and orders were given with haste.

The forty men in reserve were called up and filled the ranks of the riflemen who were being pressed hard.  At this critical juncture, Colonel Innes was killed by one of the Over the Mountain men and in the ensuing moments the tide changed for the advancing British.  

The frontiersmen let out an Indian war cry and rushed into the fray of smoke and powder and into close quarter combat.  The screams, the gun fire and the battle yell of charging wild warriors were all mixed with the smoke that made it impossible to see beyond 20 yards.  

The loyalist militia in front of Clarke gave way and began to fall back. Soon it was a full-blown retreat as the British ran back down the road from which they had come.  The dead and wounded lay scattered along the route as the Patriots were in hot pursuit and continuing to engage their enemy, even into the river ford.

One of the Tories, still bold despite the retreat, decided to drop his trousers and show his mooned cheeks to his pursuers as he made his way up the opposite hill.  He was paid in full with a bullet to his pasty white backside and carried off in shame and discomfort.(3)

In just about an hour of heavy fighting the smoke clears, and Shelby is the victor.  He has now beat the enemy three times in the field under less than favorable conditions, all within 3 weeks time. 

The victory is short lived as an express rider comes in from Colonel Davie at the Waxhaws informing the victors of the defeat of Gates at Camden, SC. 

Davie, who was riding to help in the battle at Camden, had observed Gates fleeing northward. Davie adjusted his own orders and turned back. He then prudently sent out messages to leaders still in the field, to include Thomas Sumter and Shelby's command structure.  Sumter suffers defeat at Fishing Creek above Great Falls, SC and flees to Charlotte.  Shelby and his army dispersed and seemingly vaporize into the mountains with their prisoners above present day Rutherford, NC.  The reality is Shelby would not let them rest till they were safely in the mountain passes and many of his warriors were starving and fatigued when they got home.

 

As Ferguson arrives too late to assist in the battle it is evident that Shelby has eluded the British Colonel once again.  His subsequent pursuit into the North State is met with equal results.(3,4)

But South Carolina is without a formal army to oppose the British and Cornwallis has his sights set on Charlotte and beyond.  Cornwallis sends Ferguson into the mountains where he imprudently threatens to lay waste to Scots-Irish Patriot homes and hang their leaders.  

General Washington sends Nathaniel Greene and Daniel Morgan south to raise an army and continue the fight.  

The Over the Mountain men begin raising their own army and are helped in recruitment by the bold and aggressive talk of Ferguson.

A reckoning is coming! 

Freedom Reigns!

(1)King’s Mountain and It’s Heroes: History of the Battle of King’s Mountain, October 7^th, 1780, and the Events Which Led to It, Draper, Allaire
(2)http://sc_tories.tripod.com/battle_of_musgrove_mill.htm

(3)Before They Were Heroes at King’s Mountain, Randell Jones

(4)Parker’s Guide to the Revolutionary War in South Carolina, John C. Parker

Heroines of the Upstate Revolution

Perhaps the story of British occupation is best taught through the perils of the women on the home front, especially those of the frontier settlements.  Forced to reckon with Indian raids and bands of outlaws, these were not the women of the genteel plantations in the parishes outside of Charleston along the Cooper, Ashley, Stono, and Wando rivers.  These women grew up in households that had survived and flourished in that dangerous land of the upstate of South Carolina far away from law and order.  Their lives had been forged in the fire of threats and the cold reality of life and death struggles.  So, when the British came with more of the same, is it any wonder that these bold women answered in like manner?

Martha Bratton stared down a sickle meant for her head and calmly spoke in defiance as the Red Coats demanded information about her husband.  The farm estate located off Hwy 321 south of York, SC was situated in the rolling green hills of the piedmont. Forests and brooks were boundaries of fields and tilled soil.  The wagon road, strewn with pine needles and oak leaves, wound down and then up again, across a good creek to the front of her small house in the back country.  Foot paths were worn along deer trails through the lush green canopies to neighbors and friends in this hamlet of partisan families.  It was along one of these hidden trails that word got to her husband nearby and he, and his militia, ambushed Captain Christian Huck (The Swearing Captain) at the Williamson’ homestead and caused the British troop to regret their threats upon his wife.  This stand against Huck and his band put an end to a series of attacks in Chester and York counties where several homes were burned and many people from the community had been killed.  On another occasion it is said that she blew up gun powder stored on her property and boldly proclaimed to the British, who were riding up, that she had done it in defense of her country.

Martha Bratton

Kate Barry was said to have been flogged by a Tory named Elliott, for not revealing where her Patriot husband was.  On her family farm at Walnut Grove in Spartanburg County she was an accomplished rider of horse and a pious Presbyterian. Her maiden name of Moore is still a namesake in the community to this day.  She was married in 1767 at 15 years of age to Andrew Barry, who had been a community magistrate and Captain in the local militia before the war with England.  Legend has it that she rode as a scout on horseback and swam swollen rivers in the dark of night to carry word of British troop movements to the Colonials.  In her 20s during the time of the revolution, she was the darling of her husband’s band of Rangers. She was instrumental in rallying the Patriot militia to assist General Morgan at Cowpens where the battle was won.  At the end of the war her husband’s troop wanted justice for their lady of Liberty and urged Captain Barry to seek retribution against the man who had whipped her. He found Elliott hiding under a bed and, in the end, dropped him to the floor with a three-legged stool.  He then walked away proclaiming, “I am satisfied, I will not take his life.”  Kate and Captain Barry raised their children near her Walnut Grove after the war.  One of her descendants is Amanda Blake (Miss Kitty) from the TV show “Gunsmoke”.

Kate Barry

Mary Dillard, in like manner, is said to have swam the Enoree river to warn General Sumter of the British order of attack at the Battle of Blackstock’s.  This information came to her after she had been forced to feed the British troops invading her home. Perhaps because she was just a small woman who stayed in the background or because the British felt strength and security in their numbers, talk of the impending order of battle flowed freely at the table.  Realizing the information was vital and the lives of her family were in peril, she snuck away in the night from the farm and rode bareback on her horse to General Sumter’s camp, 20 miles away.  Her toddler child had to be tied to the bedpost while she ran off into the night.  During the battle it is reported that she untethered the British horses and marched them away from their masters and into the Patriot camp, thus further hampering the Red Coat plans.  After the defeat Tarleton believes the battle was lost because of a woman that was seen spying on them across the river.  Fearing for her children’s safety, she came home to find the house burned, though the children had been taken to the neighbor. The burned home was a scene that would repeat itself before the wars end and would place an exclamation point on the hardships of the times.

Mary Dillard

Dicey Langston,15 years of age, in the dead of night walked and ran five miles and crossed a swollen river to warn her brother’s Patriot band that Loyalist Bill Cunningham was in the area looking to kill them.  Laurens County was a loyalist stronghold and she and her aging father were surrounded by Tory neighbors always watchful for her Patriot brother.  Ever the fierce one, she was retrieving a gun hid for her brother when men showed up to the house claiming to be of his company.  When she brought the rifle, she demanded the countersign given by her brother to test the validity of the men’s claim.  When they dithered and made a comment that it was too late as she had the gun in hand, she quickly cocked the rifle and boldly threatened the men.  The countersign was given, and laughter washed away the tense and potentially deadly encounter.  Later she bravely stood in front of a British pistol that was meant for her ailing father and pled for her father’s life.  Honest and brave, she was protector and Patriot in a time when youth and adulthood mixed at an early age.

Dicey Langston

These women Patriots lived a life in the back country of the Upstate of South Carolina where their whole families could be snuffed out by the war.  They walked a delicate line as daughters, wives, mothers, house keepers, cooks and community members that, in many cases was as dangerous as their Patriot husbands and brothers faced on the field of battle.  At least their men-folk had a fighting chance without the encumbrances of toddlers at their feet, questionable neighbors and opposing armies that come to call.

 

In the bloody civil war of the Revolution in South Carolina, sides had to be chosen and the families at the homestead were often the victims.  These women, and the women like them whose stories were never told, chose not to play the victim.  They chose independence over servitude.  They chose to fight! Freedom Reigns!

http://www.womenhistoryblog.com/2010/10/martha-bratton

http://newacquisitionmilitia.com/christian-huck-biography/

Parker’s Guide to the Revolutionary War in South Carolina, John C. Parker Jr.

https://american-revolutionary-war-facts.com/American-Revolutionary-War-Women-Facts/Catherine-Moore-Barry-Facts.html

http://legendsofthefamily.blogspot.com/2017/08/mary-ramage-dillard-wife-mother-and.html

http://www.sarrettsofgeorgia.com/dillardhistory4.html

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/29696253/mary-dillard

King’s Mountain and Its Heroes: History of the Battle of King’s Mountain, October 7^th, 1780, and the Events Which Led to It, Lyman Draper and Anthony Allaire

http://www.womenhistoryblog.com/2009/04/dicey-langston-springfield.html

http://www.diceylangston.com/womenofrevolution.php

Thicketty Fort

Captain Johnson had a hard time wrestling Tory Captain Patrick Moore into submission.  Moore and his Loyalist sympathizers had been on the run from their defeat at Ramsour’s Mill near Lincolnton, NC for 12 days and were not too willing to fall into the hands of these Liberty Men. At six foot seven inches tall(1), Moore was giving his fair share and was able to open up multiple cuts on Johnson’s head and thumb. Despite it all, Captain Johnson was hauling him in towards the rest of the Patriot contingent.  The spilled blood; however, got into the Johnson’s powder and he misfired as reinforcements arrived for the Loyalist leader.  While Johnson retreats through the bushes, Captain Moore escapes and is able to make it home on Thicketty Creek, outside of Gaffney, SC. (2)

Captain Moore had reinforced a fort there and commanded a body of loyalist men with good stores of weaponry.  Undaunted by his near fatal encounter with Johnson, Moore’s command had become a staging point for the Tories to launch raiding parties on the Patriot homes and farms in the back country. So much so that it raised the ire of not only General Sumter in South Carolina, but also Col. McDowell from NC.  Both were in the area of conflict attempting to win and subdue the land for the cause. Independently they had both sent out warriors to attack Fort Thicketty.  Elijah Clarke, Isaac Shelby, Andrew Hampton and Charles Robertson met and combined their forces to put and end to the threat. 

The fort itself was surrounded by abatis that made it difficult to approach without impaling oneself on the pointed timbers.  Similar structures were used at the star fort at Ninety-Six and other conflict areas. Fort Thicketty sat upon a rise above the creek and had loopholes in the walls from which to fire at the enemy from cover. To overcome even a crude abatis takes coordination and firepower under extreme exposure.  To make offensive operations against the fort even worse, the fort had only one opening by which to enter the enclosure.  Moore’s men were more than confident that they could repel the forces that approached their bastion in the back country.(3)

Colonel Shelby and his men of daring were not ones to shrink from a fight.  Shelby arrived at the fort on July 26, 1780 and sent word to Moore to surrender at once.  Moore refused, and he and his Tory militia steeled their nerves for the fight. Col. Shelby then arrayed all 600 of his men into firing positions in a way that was meant to intimidate.  All along the wood line surrounding the fort, Moore and his militia observed the Liberty Men step out with their rifles and storied hunting shirts.  Certainly, they had the set jaws and determination of men used to conflict on the Indian frontier and mimicked their leader as they put on a show of force.  Shelby, again, called out for a parley with Moore.  Moore assured his men, as he left out for the discussion of terms, that he would not be surrendering and that he intended to fight.

Perhaps it was his recent brush with death at the hands of some of these same men outside of Lincolnton.  Or perhaps it was his subsequent near-death experience near the Wofford’s Iron works at the hands of Captain Johnson not 24 days removed.  Or perhaps it was a combination of so many seasoned fighting men standing before Moore’s little fort of friends and neighbors. Whatever the single or combination of reasons, Captain Moore agreed to surrender the fort if his men were spared and paroled.  To the dismay of his men, the Loyalist Captain walked back to the fort under Patriot escort and turned the fort over without firing a shot in defense.

 

Col. Shelby’s ruse worked, and the Sons of Liberty were fortunate, indeed.  Among the stores of weaponry were found ready muskets loaded with “buck and ball” at the gun ports of the fort.  Had Captain Moore fought it out, Colonel Shelby may have been hard pressed to win without cannon.  At the very least he would have paid dearly with the lives of his men to win the day.   Captain Moore’s capitulation without a fight saved many lives that day on both sides, but he held the title of coward in the eyes of his superiors in General Cornwallis’ camp.(2, Ibid)

The month was a sore one for the British in the upstate.  Having taken Charleston, the British had set their sights on the upcountry, but suffered some setbacks.  Lt. Col. Turnbull wrote Cornwallis about his Ramsour’s Mill investigation and chastised the Loyalist timing at Lincolnton.  He also warned of the Scots Irish,  "As for the majority Scots-Irish inhabitants of the Catawba River Valley," Turnbull wrote: "I wish I could say something in their favor. I believe them to be the worst of creation - and nothing will bring them to reason but severity.”(4)  

But Cornwallis did not understand what the threat in this quarter really was. He was on the move and was concentrated on the Continental army.  He had a destiny with Gates at Camden.  His response for the left flank of his army was to send Major Patrick Ferguson.  He would write later, after the blinders were off, "A numerous and unexpected enemy came from the mountains.  As they had good horses, their movements were rapid."(3,ibid)

 

A reckoning was coming!  And for the next 72 days Liberty was in question.  Freedom Reigns!

(1)      Kings Mountain and It’s Heroes:  The Battle of King’s Mountain, October 7^Th, 1780, and the Events Which Led to It, Lyman Copeland Draper, Anthony Allaire

(2)      Parker’s Guide to the Revolutionary War in South Carolina, John C. Parker Jr.

(3)      Before they were Heroes at King’s Mountain, Randell Jones

(4)      Neighborhood in Constant Alarm: The Battle of Ramsour’s Mill and Partisan Divisions in the Carolina Backcountry Communities During the American Revolution, Austin William Smith

The Ulster Scots of the Revolution in the Carolinas and Virginia.

They came in droves, as if the flood gates had opened on some Scots Irish dam across the sea. With their recent inclusion into the United Kingdom they sought freedom and land in the British colonies as new British subjects. They disembarked at New York, Philadelphia, Wilmington and Charleston. They pooled money and families together and set out on the Great Wagon Road in their Conestoga wagons. Different from the planters of the Pee Dee and Coastal regions, they preferred the Piedmont and Mountains of Virginia, North Carolina and South Carolina. Men of force and iron were needed in this wild unsettled region that was a buffer between the Indians of the upstate and the gentry of the sandy regions. The wilderness filled up with families of hardy stock, willing to forge a living in the outer territory of the new land. 

When the French and Indian War broke out in 1756, the British treated these stout immigrants with the same disdain that their grandparents and parents had been treated in Scotland and Ireland…not as equals, but as second-class citizens. All the while they were expected to die for the mother country in preservation of the empire. And they beat back the French and the Indians and forced their capitulation in the name of the Crown, but they did not win their full measure of citizenship.

By 1776 generations of Ulster Scots lived free and without encumbrances from the empire seat so far away. Petitions to government for redress against grievances were met with either unrighteous force or general apathy, and never timely. The Empire had stretched beyond the limits of the infrastructure of its government.  New Bern, Charleston and Williamsburg were a long way from the Holston river valley or the Yadkin, Broad and Catawba rivers in Virginia and the Carolinas. This distance only added to the bad experiences of the governed concerning the government. 

And grievance upon grievance mounted year after year until an enlightened leadership made a stand against the tyranny. Across the colonies the conversations turned to common rights and common ideas of government…self-government. And though it was based on a natural law known in the breasts of every free man, they were radical in terms of sitting governments in world history. The Scots Irish had learned to live and flourish on their own in terms of self-government with the moral compass of these natural laws. They, as a people, understood the building blocks of a civil society and recognized when a form of government was not working and had become tyrannical.  These, after-all, were the literate, pious and independent children of the great Scottish Enlightenment.

And all the remonstrations still could have been for naught, and these men and women of the empire would have stayed willingly as faithful subjects, had the King and his generals acted rightfully. Instead, the British came with threats to hang the leaders of the Ulster Scots and lay waste to their towns with fire and sword unless they came and took an oath to this King who was so far away. This same King that bribed the Cherokee to wage war on the settlements from Spartanburg to Nolichucky. The King’s men burned houses, arrested clergy, and confiscated livestock without due payment. British Officers enlisted the local thieves as soldiers and gave them authority to legally ply their formerly illegal trade. Chaos was fomented by the very government that wanted their allegiance.

So, they came in droves.  Not by the tens or dozens, but by the hundreds...each time they were called in from their fields for service. They chose to live life on their own terms and fight back. 

At Fort Thicketty, in the upstate of South Carolina, they rode with Colonel Isaac Shelby and their mere presence forced a capitulation without a shot being fired. At Musgrove Mill in Spartanburg County, South Carolina they combined forces and routed the British with ease. At Kings Mountain, near the North and South Carolina State line, they combined forces again with independent commands, surrounded and obliterated one third of the standing British army in the Carolinas. And at Cowpens they helped the Continental army win the day and decimate still more of Cornwallis’ standing army, thereby starting the chain of events that ended the war and established a new nation.

We can still walk where the intrepid heroes once raised rifle and saber in defense of Liberty. On the trails and roads of old we can stroll under the canopies of the white oak and tulip poplar while our ankles brush by the green ferns along the way. Squirrels and fox, deer and owl, all co-exist on these sacred grounds. The whispers of the wind are all that is left of those awful conflicts, save the man-made markers and graves that dot the anointed landscape. Thankfully we are fortunate to be able to reflect upon these noble deeds of men and women who may have been poor in terms of wealth, but were rich in their determination to live free.

Protected now from the conquest of civilization’s steady roll,

where man made monuments stand with the beauty of nature’s soul. 

Envision yourself amid the battle cries and smoke while charging into the fray…

but remember dear friend,

you do so with liberty won on that hallowed day. 

Eric K. Barnes

Sources for this article include:

The Winning of the West, Theodore Roosevelt

Pictorial Field-Book of the Revolution in the Carolinas and Georgia, Benson J. Lossing

King’s Mountain and It’s Heroes: History of the Battle of King’s Mountain, October 7^th, 1780, and the Events Which Led to It, Lyman C. Draper and Anthony Allaire

History of the Upper Country of S.C., John H. Logan

Before They Were Heroes at King’s Mountain, Randell Jones

Parker’s Guide to the Revolutionary War in South Carolina, John C. Parker Jr.