Muster of the Overmountain Men

Muster of the Overmountain Men. . After the British captured Charleston in May 1780, the Watauga country became a base from which the Patriots marched against the British and Loyalists in the east. British General Lord Cornwallis knew he must defeat these and other partisans and, on September 8, 1780, ordered Colonel Patrick Ferguson's regiment of Loyalists to the base of the Blue Ridge. While Cornwallis invaded North Carolina, Ferguson was to guard his left flank, scatter Patriot partisans, and raise Tory recruits. Ferguson pursued a partisan band to Gilbert Town (Rutherfordton, North Carolina) and sent the overmountain men a challenge: "If you do not desist from opposition to the King's arms, I will cross the mountains, hang your leaders, and lay waste your country with fire and sword!", When the Watuagan leaders learned of Ferguson's threat, they ordered their militia companies mustered at Sycamore Shoals. On September 25, 1780, 1,100 militiamen from westem North Carolina and Virginia gathered at the Shoals. The next day, leaving some 200 behind to guard against the Cherokee, the rest - swearing to "wield the Sword of the Lord and of Gideon" - marched up Gap Creek, through Yellow Mountain Gap, and over the Blue Ridge to confront Ferguson. Joined en route by other militia units from both the Carolinas and Georgia, the growing Patriot army chased Ferguson, who had failed to attract many Loyalists to his banner, to Kings Mountain. There 900 of the ablest frontiersmen surrounded and decisively defeated Ferguson's army of 1,100 men In 65 minutes. Ferguson was killed in the battle., "[These were] the most powerful men ever beheld, tall, rawboned, sinewy." "[They were]from the extreme backwoods... whom no labor could tire and whose rifles seldom missed their mark." Loyalist officers at Kings Mountain , "We were all of us blue hen's chickens, real fighters and no mistake." Robert Henry Patriot militiaman., "[Kings Mountain] was immediately productive of the worst consequences... And unhappily proved the link in a chain of evils that followed each other in regular succession until they at the last ended in the total loss of America." British General Sir Henry Clinton, (Map caption) , The historic route of the overmountain men to Kings Mountain. After Ferguson's defeat, Cornwallis was forced to postpone his North Carolina campaign and return to South Carolina for the winter. The Patriot victory at Kings Mountain was a significant turning point in the Revolutionary War. Exhibits designed and fabricated, copy researched and written, and maps drawn by SunSyne Graphics, Johnson city, Tennessee (423) 232-1455., (Photo caption) , On muster day, September 25, 1780, hundreds of men from the mountain valleys of western North Carolina and southwestern Virginia assembled at Sycamore Shoals. "Gathering of the Mountain Men at Sycamore Shoals", a painting by Lloyd Branson, Tennessee State Museum Collection.