Posted on 12/12/2019 12:13:09 PM PST by Perseverando
Americans won the Battle of Kings Mountain, October 7, 1780.
Where the Americans had 29 killed, the British suffered 668 captured, 163 wounded and 290 killed, including the feared British sharp shooter Major Patrick Ferguson.
Ferguson, earlier at the Battle of Brandywine, had the opportunity to sharp shoot in the back General Washington and Count Casimir Pulaski, "father of the American cavalry," but declined due to his code of honor.
The Battle of Kings Mountain was described by Thomas Jefferson as "the turn of the tide of success" in the War for Independence.
Theodore Roosevelt wrote of the Battle of Kings Mountain:
"This brilliant victory marked the turning point of the American Revolution."
Herbert Hoover stated at Kings Mountain:
"This is a place of inspiring memories. Here less than a thousand men, inspired by the urge of freedom, defeated a superior force intrenched in this strategic position.
This small band of Patriots turned back a dangerous invasion well designed to separate and dismember the united Colonies. It was a little army and a little battle, but it was of mighty portent.
History has done scant justice to its significance, which rightly should place it beside Lexington, Bunker Hill, Trenton and Yorktown."
A little over three months after the Battle of Kings Mountain, American General Daniel Morgan defeated the British at the Battle of Cowpens, January 17, 1781.
The British troops, under the command of 26-year-old Colonel Banastre Tarleton, suffered 110 killed, 229 wounded and 829 captured.
Captured British officer Maj. McArthur of the 71st Highlanders commented that "he was an officer before Tarleton was born; that the best troops in the service were put under 'that boy' to be sacrificed."
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Thanks to the treasonous actions of our present day demoKKKrat party (particularly Virginia, Pelosi, Nadler, Schiff come to mind), the Revolutionary War will be renamed Revolutionary War I.
bkmk
Been there. Where Ferguson fell.
I think about what my ancestors in that battle would have thought of the government we have now.
I can safely say the Overmountain Men with Col. Cleveland did not fight for a massive police state working day and night to overturn the will of the people and keep themselves luxuriating in undeserved power and wealth.
Had ancestors (father and son with his brothers) who were in the militia at Guilford Courthouse. They paid it forward. I hope I can do the same.
Kings Mountain was a good victory, so was the Battle of Cowpens.
We had 2 family members serving under General Morgan. Unlike the Brits these troops were all woodsmen and mountain men. They could subsist on acorns and tree bark.
Something that isn’t much discussed was the year after the battles. Nobody could go into these 2 battlefields for fear of their lives. The British dead were left on the ground and huge packs of wolves moved into the area to feast on the remains and they stayed for a several years.
Daniel Morgan’s victory over Tarleton at Cowpens was strategically more significant than just the loss of British troops. Tarleton’s Legion was Cornwallis’ main cavalry and thus his scouting unit. Loss of this made the British Army blind in enemy territory. While they won the ground at Guilford Courthouse (fighting Greene & Morgan), they lost more men and supplies. That drove them out to Yorktown to be resupplied by the Royal Navy. Oops!
The British army was not only defeated, they were humiliated.
They had a claim to being the greatest ground force on earth... next to the Prussians.
It was no small thing to defeat British infantry... but Colonials who had never been soldiers but had fought Indians and had hunted to put food on the table were expert marksmen.
For the Brits I think, fighting on Sunday, marching in rain, taking cover, etc. were not typical.... the Colonials took it in stride.
It’s said by some authors that Napoleon I wouldn’t have got such success in Europe if the British had not been so demoralized by losing their colonies and getting defeated BY ‘colonials’. That made something like a 15 year anti-military mentality in Parliament... no force would be sent into Europe to scrap with the French for about 12 years. The British Navy, however, kicked a%$.
My hometown. They changed the concept of war
I had an patriot ancestor die in a British prisoner of war prison in South Carolina
My 5th Great Grandfather, Major Joseph Dickson led the Lincoln County Militia at this battle. His plantation was a few miles away from the battlefield. Other ancestors were with the Overmountain men from Western North Carolina (now Tennessee) and from other North Carolina Militia units.
The British thought that the Southern States were full of Loyalists, that the Militia were untrained and poorly equipped. They believed that victory would be easy. It didn’t work out that way.
One of my ancestors was one of several who claimed to have been the one who shot Ferguson at King’s Mountain. And one of my other Revolutionary War veteran ancestors served at King’s Mountain as well according to a family bible, IIRC.
One of my ancestors was at the Battle of Guilford Courthouse, and I sometimes fly a Guilford Courthouse flag (none of my neighbors know what the flag signifies). My ancestor had been in a Guilford County Militia Unit and was credited with eight months service in General Greene’s army.
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