British forces moved through the southern colonies with ease in the spring of 1780, building morale and lending a sense that the rebellion of these lucrative English holdings would soon end.
As the invading force moved northward, Scottish-born Maj. Patrick Ferguson recruited a sizable force of Tories. The predominant group in the western Carolinas and Virginia was Scots Highlanders. They generally stayed out of the conflict, ignoring calls from both British and Patriot recruiters. Many felt bound by their oath to Britain even if they didn’t care for the government’s tactics.
That would soon change.
Ferguson advanced toward Charlotte, then a small town, protecting Gen. Cornwallis’ left flank. A small North Carolina unit of mountain men harassed his men, fighting “Indian-style” from behind trees and boulders before disappearing into the forest. Ferguson called them “barbarians,” and “the dregs of mankind” for fighting without honor.
He sent a warning in September, “If you do not desist your opposition to the British Arms, I shall march this army over the mountains, hang your leaders, and lay waste your country with fire and sword.”
Their homes and families threatened, men from the western mountain regions (today called the Overmountain Men) mustered at Sycamore Shoals (now Tennessee). They traveled 330 miles, their ranks swelling as men journeyed in from Tennessee, Kentucky, Virginia and the Carolinas, including Surry Militia units.
By the time they arrived at King’s Mountain, just southwest of Charlotte in South Carolina, there were 1,800 Patriots. Ferguson made camp on Kings Mountain for its defensible terrain but it did them no good. His men were routed by a company half their size at the Battle of King’s Mountain on Oct. 7, 1780.
Afterwards, the threat neutralized, the frontiersmen melted back into the hollows and ridges of the mountains — but they had struck a blow from which King George’s army would not recover.
American history tends to focus on the more active Northern Campaigns of the Revolution: Boston, Bunker Hill, Valley Forge, Saratoga. We know about the Boston Tea Party and Washington’s crossing of the Delaware but less about the Southern Campaign and what motivated colonists far-removed from the cities and trade centers to break with a government they were so isolated from.
There were fewer newspapers in the South. Fewer collections of correspondence survive to tell the tales of those living in this region. But we are fortunate to have a long line of people dedicated to the preservation of history and who collect the fragments of personal and official paperwork, pension records, and the other bits scattered across time.
People such as Jesse Hollingsworth who wrote of the taxes levied by the North Carolian General Assembly to build the royal governor’s palace and of the “line of forts built from Smith River in Rockingham County to Long Island on the Holston River… Bethabara, Fort Waddell at the forks of the Yadkin, Fort Dobbs near the Catawba, Fort Chiswell on the New River and Fort Stalnecker or Crab Orchard near Roan Mountain.”
The forts were built in the 1760s to help garrison security forces along the frontier during the French and Indian War and the subsequent Cherokee War and to afford shelter to civilians threatened by decades of hostilities.
Families have preserved the stories passed through generations such as that of Samuel Freeman who charged up King’s Mountain as part of the “barbaric” Overmountain Men to defeat the greatest army of its time.
The rifle he carried that day is still in the keeping of his descendant Nick McMillan. It will be part of the new exhibits at the Mount Airy Museum of Regional History where we are working to expand the stories we share.
At the turn of the last century the Daughters of the American Revolution obtained the land where Fort Dobbs used to stand, beginning the process of preserving it and its history for future generations. The field they bought, where they began telling the histories of their ancestors, now boasts a replica of the blockhouse.
Individuals and organizations such as the county genealogical association and the historical society have researched for years and worked to preserve sites such as the Edwards-Franklin House in Franklin Township.
The task of preserving our history falls to each of us, whether it is our family history or a fort that served an entire region. Much like the nation we celebrate today it is ours if we can keep it.
Source: https://www.mtairynews.com
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