Kings Mountain, Battle of
Kings Mountain, Battle of (1780).The defeat of Maj. Patrick Ferguson's loyalist force at Kings Mountain in northwest South Carolina by a coalition of frontiersmen on 7 October 1780 marked the start of the American recovery in the South during the Revolutionary War and the beginning of the end for Britain's hopes of using loyalists to suppress the southern countryside. Following British victories at the siege of Charleston and the Battle of Camden in May and August 1780, strong British and loyalist forces roamed the backcountry, intimidating rebels and heartening those who favored royal government. Settlers on the North Carolina and Virginia frontier—mostly Scots‐Irish—feared that the British would unleash Indian attacks on their communities. On 26 September, a nucleus of “over‐the‐mountain men” gathered at Sycamore Shoals, near present‐day Johnson City, Tennessee, and resolved to defend their...
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