Civil War Today

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Blacksburg, SC Updated Thursday, July 29, 2010 8:00 PM Clear 90°F High: 96°F Low: 73°F Wind: 0 mph Humidity: 45% Friday 94° / 71° Saturday 90° / 74° Sunday 90° / 73° Monday 92° / 73° MSN Weather Data provided by iMap

The battle of Kings Mountain is important for three reasons:

First, the Patriots completely defeated a British force in the field.

Second, the heretofore unaffiliated Over the Mountain men aligned themselves with the Patriots.

Thirdly, Col. Patrick Ferguson, a key figure in the British command structure, was killed and a third of the total British force in America was destroyed.

To the first point, the Revolutionary War had been dragging on for years and the Patriots were losing. American Patriots could fight well as guerrillas but they couldn’t stand against British forces wielding bayonets. We forget now days that the decision to revolt against the crown was not universally supported by the Colonists. Public opinion roughly broke down into thirds, one third wanted to revolt, one third was loyalists, and the rest didn’t really care one way or another. Given the years of Patriot defeats public opinion was turning to surrender and ending the war. The victory at Kings Mountain gave the Patriots a shot in the arm just when they needed it most.

To the second point, the Scotch Irish Over the Mountain Men had stayed neutral for the duration of the war to this point. These were hard independent people from beyond the edge of civilization. They could travel fast in the wilderness, needed little to survive and could shoot accurately; now days we would call them Special Forces.

Lastly, Col. Ferguson was a force in his own right. On Kings Mountain he was leading a third of all the British forces available in the Americas. Ferguson was recognized as the best shot in the British Army and had defeated the Patriots on numerous occasions.

About the Names

American Revolutionaries were called:

Patriots; Wigs; Colonists; Yanks; Yankees; Rebels; Traitors.

American supporters of the Crown were called:

Loyalists; Tories; Royalists.

Why the Patriots Won

There was very few British Redcoats on Kings Mountain, outside of Ferguson the bulk of the British were trained militia. This militia had been trained by Ferguson himself, was armed with the Brown Bess musket, and was drilled in the use of the bayonet, so they were not some scratch undependable mob. They were a force to be reckoned with.

Ferguson took what appeared to be a very strong position on top of Kings Mountain and waited for the Patriots to attack. The landscape in those days was old growth forest, consequently there wasn’t any underbrush and visibility was quite good for both sides; but, there was also very good cover for an attacking army.

The Patriots surrounded the mountain and attacked from all sides, but they did not attack in line of battle. Rather, the Patriots maneuvered up independently, moving from tree to tree, and firing from cover. An interesting physical effect played a major role in the outcome of the battle, when firing down hill a shooter will tend to over shoot his target, while a shooter firing up hill will tend to shoot low. In a battle, most combatants aim for the chest, it’s a big target: High means head and shoulders, which are easy to miss; while low means stomach and pelvis which is just as good a target as the chest; advantage Patriots.

Ferguson conducted three bayonet charges to try and drive the Patriots way from his position. The Patriots fell back each time but did not break and run away as they usually did. The Tories couldn’t maintain their formation long running down hill in the trees and had to fall back to their position each time on the top of the ridge to regroup and the Patriots followed them back, maintaining their siege on the hill. As the Patriots moved up the British found themselves in crossfire between the various fronts surrounding them and were forced into an ever shrinking circle.

The Patriot marksmen, which were just about all of them, were focusing on officers and nine of them hit Ferguson, who was on horseback, at the same time. Ferguson was thrown from his saddle but his foot stuck in the stirrup and he was dragged through his lines down into Cleveland’s North Carolina position. Ferguson’s foot came free and fighting stopped temporarily in that area whiles both sides, in shock, watched him die.

By this point the British had been driven off the highpoint of the hill and were concentrated back in their camp located in a shallow saddle along the ridge. They tried to surrender but very few were allowed to. That night, six of the Tories were hanged by angry Patriots.

Why High? 

You might be wondering why a shooter firing down hill will overshoot his target, the same effect pops up a lot in the Civil War. I spent a lot of time wandering around the top of Kings Mountain thinking about it, and this is what I came up with. When sighting in a rifle, before the battle of course, a marksman sets up his weapon to hit a target at some distance like fifty yards, on a flat range. The back sight is adjusted to raise the front of the barrel to compensate for drop of the bullet due to gravity over the distance fired. When shooting down hill the rate of bullet drop changes, it gets less, the steeper the hill the less the drop and the higher the shooter will miss.