"The Blackwater Men Had Come Over the Mountain"

Viewing west towards marker. The Gillespie Gap Marker is located above.

Viewing west towards marker. This marker is located above the "The Blackwater Men Had Come Over the Mountain" Marker.

Gillespie Gap, the mountain pass visible from this museum, was shaped by geological forces. The gap, in turn, has shaped history—most notably during a single September day in 1780. Over the eons, the noticeable cut or gap through this particular part of the Blue Ridge Mountains has been chiseled and worn away by the relentless action of wind, rain, seasonal freezing and thawing, and gravity. Gillespie Gap, a naturally occuring break in the mountains, has long served as an east-west pass through the Appalachians. Deer, buffalo, and other migrating herds came through the pass. Native Americans ventured along the same well-worn paths in pursuit of game and trade goods. Still later, European-Americans traveled through the gap by wagon and on foot to begin new lives on the western frontier. However, the single most celebrated crossing occured on September 29, 1780, when hundreds of Patriot militiamen—colonists willing to fight for American independence—streamed through the pass. They were on their way to a battle that would, in the words of Thomas Jefferson, cause a distinct "turn of the tide" in the Revolutionary War.

As the summer of 1780 drew to a close, American hopes for independence was ebbing. Lord Cornwallis had just destroyed two American armies in South Carolina. Now the British general was poised to crush the American rebellion by invading North Carolina and sweeping north toward Virginia. As part of this campaign, British Major Patrick Ferguson headed for the Blue Ridge to suppress any possible resistance from western militia. With an army of 1,000 Americans loyal to the Crown, Ferguson threatened to unleash "fire and sword" upon all who refused to pledge allegiance to the King. Ferguson's threats backfired. Furious militiamen from "over the mountains" in North Carolina and southern Virginia set out after Ferguson, and were joined along their trek by militia from the Piedmont and from as far south as Georgia. Approximately 600 members of the growing Patriot army came through Gillespie Gap on September 29, 1780. Within days, they surrounded Ferguson and his troops at Kings Mountain, South Carolina and devastated the entire British command. Learning of Ferguson's terrible defeat, Cornwallis postponed his northern invasion. A year later, after a disastrous campaign in North Carolina, he surrendered to General Washington at Yorktown, effectively ending the American Revolution.