Blue Ridge Country Sept/Oct 2024 - 64

RIGHT: The roots of the park reach
back to 1815, when the first small
marker was placed to commemorate
the 1780 battle.
IF YOU
Kings Mountain National Military
Park is in Upstate South Carolina,
near Blacksburg.
The 1.5-mile self-guiding Battlefield
Trail walking trail starts below
the northern slope of the ridge,
where a portion of the supporters
of independence assaulted the
ridge top. The trail then turns back
and runs along the ridge where
the Loyalist forces surrendered.
The Centennial Monument, U.S.
Monument and Ferguson's Grave are
key features along the trail.
The trail is foot travel only,
but accommodates motorized
wheelchairs.
tain. Almost 700 were taken prisoner. Of
the 1,000 or so rebels who fought there,
only about 30 were killed and some 65
wounded.
Mission accomplished, the Overmountain
Men recrossed the mountains,
returning to their farms and their families,
leaving the rest of the war in the sure
hands of men like George Washington,
Nathanael Greene, Francis Marion and
Light-Horse Harry Lee and the Marquis
de Lafayette.
" No sooner had news of [Ferguson's
defeat] spread through the country, " Sir
Henry Clinton, the British commander
in chief, would recall, " than multitudes
of disaffected flew to arms from all parts
and menaced every British post on both
frontiers. "
convenient piles and covered with old
logs, the bark of old trees and rocks,
[which did not prevent] them from becoming
a prey to the beasts of the forest
or the vultures of the air; and the wolves
[later] became so plenty, that it was dangerous
for anyone to be out at night for
several miles around. "
Historians are always recalculating
these numbers, but of the 1,100 loyalists
in the fight, about 160 were killed and
the same number so badly wounded that
they could not be carried off the mounSomething
the redcoats' brain trust
had not imagined had happened. Outnumbered
and untrained volunteers-a
" swarm of backwoodsmen, " as Lt. Col.
Banastre Tarleton of the British Legion
called them-had soundly beaten welldisciplined,
well-supplied Tories under
one of Clinton and Cornwallis' most
experienced officers. In one afternoon,
with momentum in the war shifting from
the British to the rebellious colonists, a
new chapter the American Revolution
had opened.
Ferguson was buried on the mounIn
October 7, 1780, a makeshift army of 900 supporters
of independence attacked 1,200 loyalists who had staked
out a position at the top of the mountain , in an unlikely
but consequential battle that would, in significant ways,
change the course of the American Revolution.
64 BLUERIDGECOUNTRY.COM
taintop, and a handsome monument-
one of several as you approach the
ridgetop-was erected in 1931 to mark
the spot; a traditional Scottish stone
burial mound, called a cairn, also commemorates
his gravesite. Nearby is a
Centennial Monument, dedicated when
the park first opened in 1880, listing officers
and some of the Virginians who
died in the fighting. A U.S. Monument,
designed by the New York firm of McKim,
Mead and White, was erected by
the federal government in 1909 at the
site of Ferguson's camp, where most of
the loyalists surrendered.
A modest marker honors by name
" three known African-American patriots
and others who participated in the Battle
of Kings Mountain. " Placed on October
7, 2016, it is the only marker installed in
the park since 1949. Our understanding
of our nation's complicated past deepens
as the years go by, and each time we visit
these places, we should see them differently,
as with fresh eyes.
The stillness of Kings Mountain, after
all that happened here so long ago,
elicits a special reverence. The " beasts
of the forest, " as Collins called them-
the wolves and the vultures-no longer
menace the visitor, and except for the
birds (and school children), there is not
much in the way of wildlife to break the
silence. But there are black butterflies-a
species of swallowtail, apparently. They
don't make any noise, at least not audible
to humans. They flit about in the Kings
Mountain underbrush, which is almost
too conveniently symbolic: Black butterflies,
Wikipedia tells us, " represent the
cycle of life, death, and rebirth. " That
sounds about right. Look for them when
you make your visit.
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Blue Ridge Country Sept/Oct 2024

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