American Victory at King’s Mountain

In September 1780, Lord Charles Cornwallis ordered Major Patrick Ferguson to secure North Carolina. Ferguson, a very capable British officer, issued a proclamation to the Overmountain Men of the Watauga River Valley in present day Tennessee to “desist from their opposition to British arms” or he would “lay waste their country with fire and sword.” Isaac Shelby and John Sevier rallied 1,000 men in Sycamore Shoals and advanced through Yellow Mountain Gap to the east side of the Appalachians. Ferguson decided to confront the Tennesseans at King’s Mountain, just inside the South Carolina border. The fight raged for an hour, but Ferguson’s militia was no match for the Tennesseans.