The King of
King's Mountain
By EDWARD
И.
SMITH
One of (he most colorful, flamboy¬
ant and capable men ever to walk
the soil of North Carolina was a small,
thin, partly-crippled Scot named Pat¬
rick Ferguson who did his dead-level
best to conquer that soil, shoot up half
of its citizenry, and subject the re¬
mainder to a continuation of foreign
tyranny. All in all. it was not an am¬
bition calculated to make him many
friends in the Tar Heel state, or one
likely to endear his memory to suc¬
cessive generations, but it cannot be
said that the fiery man from Aber¬
deenshire wasn’t in there trying.
"We came not to make war on law-
abiding citizens, or women and chil¬
dren." he said, "but to relieve their
distresses and give them money." This
must have sounded mighty good to
the people of the war-torn colony, and
had he let it go at that, they probably
would have elected him Governor.
But Colonel Ferguson, of His Bri¬
tannic Majesty George the Third’s red-
coated Army, was not a man to do
things half way, and then it’s a fact
that he never did learn when to keep
his mouth shut or his mercurial temper
under control. He let loose a blast at
the over-mountain men of the western
frontier which stirred them into a boil¬
ing rage like nothing had ever done
before.
Talked Too Much
"If you do not desist from your op¬
position to British arms. I will march
my army over the mountains, hang
your leaders, and lay waste to your
country with fire and sword," Fergu¬
son told a captured backwoodsman at
Gilbert Town (near the present city
of Rutherfordton). Then the Colonel
turned the trembling man loose and
sent him scurrying across the moun¬
tains to John Sevier. Issac Shelby and
other frontier leaders.
Up to the time of Ferguson's mes¬
sage they had taken little organized
part in the war. They kept border
Tories subjected; shot up Ferguson's
patrols; gave shelter to all who chose
to flee behind the hills rather than
take the odious Oath of Allegiance.
But outside of whipping some of Fer¬
guson's troops in the well-fought little
battle of Musgrove’s Mill they had let
the war take its own course.
But their activities got under Col¬
onel Ferguson's skin. He angrily
chased the victors of Musgrove Mill
all the way to the Blue Ridges,
whipped them in a running battle, then
settled down at Gilbert Town to await
results. They were not long in coming.
Frontier Aroused
If the Colonel’s imperious words had
been meant to cower the frontiersmen
into submission they had exactly the
opposite effect. From all along the
frontier the mountain men gathered.
They caught Ferguson by surprise,
on October 7, atop one of the lesser
ridges of the King's Mountain range.
A brilliant tactician and military
leader, he had only a hundred sea¬
soned troops with him, and about eight
or nine hundred green Tory militia¬
men. He had been far out on the flank
of Lord Cornwallis' army, cut off from
reinforcements and almost destitute of
supplies. Yet so indomitable was the
Scot's spirit that he told the inex¬
perienced troops, "We arc on top of
King’s Mountain at MY command. By
His Majesty's authority I am KING
of this mountain and neither God Al¬
mighty nor all the rebels out of Hell
are going to drive me from it til I
am damned good and ready to go!"
His veterans did all they could, but
they were too few. The green Tories
were no match for the tough frontiers¬
men. The mountain men, armed with
Kentucky rifles, fought from tree to
tree like Indians, forced the Redcoats
into open ground along the crest of
the ridge, and slaughtered them. It is
said that Ferguson’s conduct was that
of a hero. He had two horses shot from
under him and hacked down several
surrender flags, but he had been a
marked man from the beginning. Near
the end of the hour-long battle he was
shot from his third horse. A total of
eight rifle balls had found their mark-
in him during the struggle. The fighting
came to a halt soon after his fall.
Turning Point
They called the Battle of King's
Mountain the "Turning Point of the
Revolution in the South.” It was one
of the bloodiest engagements of the
war, the entire British force was killed,
wounded or captured. Not a man es¬
caped. American casualties were: ap¬
proximately 30 killed, around 62
wounded.
It is ironical that Ferguson’s last
battle — and his first defeat — should
have been marred by the panic which
gripped his raw Tory militia near the
end of the struggle. Patrick Ferguson
had commanded some of the best
troops in the British Army in the past,
and every unit he ever led had been
marked by an almost fanatical loyalty
and esprit de corps. But the oddest
twist of all was that he had been killed
in the battle which military students
regard as the one which definitely
proved the superiority of the rifle over
to
THE STATE, October 23. 1954
