The Battle of Kings Mountain took place on October 7, 1780. The “mountain” is a sixteen-mile ridge that crosses the border of North and South Carolina.

About five miles from the battle is the town of Kings Mountain, in North Carolina. The town was named in honor of the revolutionary battle, which was a Patriot victory.

It was not only a Patriot victory, but an important turning point in the American Revolution.

However, this battle (like Moore’s Creek Bridge early in the war) was a fight between Patriots and Loyalists—a civil war, if you will. The only British soldier was Major Patrick Ferguson, the commander, who died in the conflict.

Major Patrick Ferguson, a respected and twice-wounded commander, had been tapped to go into the Carolinas, guarding the left flank of General Cornwallis’s army as it moved northwest.

The “Overmountain” militias (men from the west side of the Appalachians, located in what is now Tennessee and Kentucky as well as the Carolinas) were led by capable commanders such as Isaac Shelby and John Sevier. They decided to take on Ferguson’s troops.

Some of their soldiers were 100 miles away when the army was being gathered, but they rode overnight to reach the other Patriots.

They were farmers and hunters who used rifles rather than the muskets typically used by the British army.

Joined by Virginians as they responded to the call for Patriot soldiers, the militias added more soldiers as they crossed the mountains.

William S. Powell writes that when he heard about the Overmountain men, “Ferguson laughed at this ragtag band, which he pretended to despise—he called it ‘a set of mongrels.’”

The Battle of Kings Mountain ended a string of British wins as the British moved through the Carolinas. Making the battle a success for the Patriots. (Information here is from North Carolina History, the video is Kings Mountain: The Revolutionary War in Four Minutes posted on YouTube by American Battlefield Trust.)