Backcountry Notes

A few winding miles from where I live is a tract of land which was homesteaded by Reese Thompson Bowen, a settler of Welsh descent who travelled down the Great Wagon Road from Maryland, crossed the mountains, and found a place where a great spring flowed from a limestone outcrop.  Bowen called the spot Maiden Spring.  To hold that place, he joined the Virginia militiamen who rallied in the fall of 1780 for a march to the south.  The British were coming, with the avowed purpose of defeating the Backcountry settlers, destroying their homes, forcing them and their families to flee or face death.  Lt. Reese T. Bowen, Virginia Militia, an unsung hero of the American Revolution, had an appointment with destiny that he meant to keep.  He reached his appointment on time, at King's Mountain in South Carolina, on October 7, 1780. 

By the summer of 1780, four years after the publication of the Declaration of Independence, the war of American Revolution was going badly for the patriot side and the mood of the Continental Congress in Philadelphia was dark.  Most of the conflict had been fought in the northern colonies, with some victories and some defeats and eventually a stalemate.  George Washington and the Continental Army had endured, but they had failed to move the British out of the mid-Atlantic and New England colonies.  Time did not favor either side; support for the war was flagging both in the colonies and in London.  The British had developed a plan to end the war:  beginning late in 1779, they made a move the the south, to the Carolinas and Georgia, where there were Tory militias and where the Continental Army was thin.  They came so close to winning the war with this strategy that the outcome came down to one place, one day, and a few hundred men.

The Southern Campaign began late in 1779, when the British transported the bulk of their forces south and lay siege to Charleston, S.C., beginning in March of 1780.  The British were led by Gen. Henry Clinton, the commander of the British forces, and his second-in-command, Gen.  George Cornwallis, son of the 5th Baron (and later 1st Earl) Cornwallis of Kent.  The siege of Charleston resulted in the surrender of the Continental forces under Gen. Benjamin Lincoln on May 12.  After the taking of Charleston and the Patriots' disastrous loss near Waxhaw in South Carolina, in which British forces under Colonel Banastre Tarleton decimated a contingent of the Continental Army, Clinton returned to New York and left Cornwallis in command in the South.

The warfare in the southern coastal plain and Piedmont areas had been especially bitter and brutal, and nowhere was the war fought more intensely than in South Carolina.  An estimated one-third of all engagements of the Revolution took place in South Carolina and with the coming of the Southern Campaign that colony became the focus of the war.  The Tories were well-represented in these regions and their militias had gained experience in many skirmishes with the Patriots.  The arrival of the British regular army had its intended effect - - it tipped the balance in favor of the Crown.  Cornwallis set Col. Tarleton and his junior in command, Major Patrick Ferguson, to the task of subduing the rebels.  Tarleton and Ferguson applied themselves with ruthless determination, running rampant through South Carolina and Georgia.  Patriots and their sympathizers were killed or sent running, their houses burned, their lands turned over to Tories.  The situation became so dire that there was talk in the Continental Congress of conceding the colonies south of Virginia to the British.

In August of 1780, Cornwallis and Tarleton routed the Continental Army and its militia support at the Battle of Camden, N.C.  A number of Carolina militiamen fled "overmountain" to the upper Tennessee Valley, and thereafter were referred to by the British as the "Overmountain Men."  Cornwallis sent Maj. Ferguson with several hundred British regulars and a larger contingent of Tory militia - - some 1,500 soldiers in all - - to chastise the Overmountain Men.  Ferguson advanced to the west, sending out a written warning of his intention to march his army over the mountains, hang the leaders of the Overmountain Men, and lay their country to waste "with fire and sword."

The inventor of a breech-loading musket known as the Ferguson Rifle, a superior firearm which fortunately saw only limited use during the war, Patrick Ferguson was a bold, colorful Scotsman who took his two mistresses with him on his campaigns.  After his right arm was crippled at the Battle of Brandywine in 1777, Ferguson had learned to write, fence and shoot left-handed.  His written challenge was completely in keeping with his character; given his successes up to that point, he had no way to know that he had made a mistake of historic proportions. 

Accounts of what happened next differ widely, depending on the writer and the writer's side in the war.  There were no generals involved on the Patriot side; indeed, there were no regular army officers at all.  Generals have aides, keep diaries, are reported on by the press, and sometimes have biographers; they return home to write their memoirs.  Militiamen have family Bibles, sometimes write letters (if they can write), and return home to tend their farms and raise their children.  This is probably the main reason why King's Mountain was demoted to footnote status after the war ended - - no general was present to take credit for the result.  Nonetheless, the broad outlines of the King's Mountain campaign have been preserved in various letters, accounts, and reports, and enough of these survived to permit an accurate reconstruction of the order of battle. 

Once word of Ferguson's challenge reached them, the men of the upper Tennessee Valley - - located in what is now northeast Tennessee and Southwest Virginia - -  began to gather together and organize.  They mustered at Sycamore Shoals in (now) Washington County, Tennessee.  There were so many volunteers that some had to be ordered to remain to guard the settlements.  Together with the militiamen from the Carolinas, the Virginia and Tennessee volunteers set out to find Ferguson.  They gathered strength as they travelled through the Backcountry and by the time they neared the North Carolina-South Carolina border near Charlotte they numbered about 1,800.  This force was divided approximately in two, with one contingent assigned to flank and guard the main force which was searching for Ferguson's brigade.

Ferguson, meanwhile, was playing a bit of cat-and-mouse, veering from his original course into South Carolina.  He had heard that his welcoming party was sizable and evidently wanted a safe defensive position.  In the first week of October, he found a location that looked sound, from the point of view of a conventional soldier:  King's Mountain.  He made camp on an outlier called Little King's Mountain, which featured a relatively flat area along its crest, approached by a single trail.

Conventional warfare at the time dictated that infantry be arranged by ranks and files, standing shoulder to shoulder in order to deliver volleys of musket fire.  Cannons were used to blow gaps in the enemy ranks, just as the enemy was doing to one's own ranks.  Military muskets typically were short, to facilitate reloading, and therefore not very accurate, although sufficient for the stand-and-volley method of battle.  The men didn't need to choose targets and aim - - they simply shouldered the muskets and fired in the direction of the foe, depending on massed firepower to do the damage.  If the fighting became close, bayonets were affixed to the musket barrels, which featured an apparatus designed for this purpose.  Once a field of battle was chosen, maneuvers were adopted to "win the field" by causing the opponent to withdraw.  It was all very orderly.

Backcountry militiamen wanted no part of such fighting.  The settlers were spread thinly over the landscape; they didn't have men to spare for cannon-fodder.  The death or disability of a settler often meant the loss of a homestead, along with destitution for his wife and children.  Backcountry men carried long muskets, slow to reload and with no provision for holding a bayonet but having the accuracy needed for hunting deer and turkey and dispatching hostile neighbors.  So the men of the Backcountry had learned to fight from cover, firing and if need be withdrawing, then finding another place of cover - - trees, rocks, creekbeds, whatever the landscape provided.  Regular Continental Army officers despised the militiamen for these tactics, which they found dishonorable by conventional standards.  Militiamen found their way of fighting to be very effective, inflicting maximum damage on the opposing forces while minimizing their own losses.

Had the force pursuing him been a conventional army group, Ferguson might have chosen his promontory well.  The enemy, if it found him there, would have formed ranks and marched up the access road, to be met by volleys of musket balls and cannon fire.  But the Backcountry militiamen were no conventional army, and they had no intention of marching up the road in well-formed ranks.

MAP OF THE BATTLE OF KING'S MOUNTAIN

New York Public Library digital image. Click image to access NYPL thumbnail; click NYPL thumbnail to view larger size.

The men of the Backcountry located Ferguson's encampment on the morning of October 7, 1780.   The militia officers devised a simple plan - - they divided the men (variously estimated at 900 to 1,200 strong) into nine units, arrayed around the base of the mountain.  Beginning at about 3:00 in the afternoon, the militiamen began to advance up the slopes, using trees and rocks as cover.  There was no formal order to fire; as individual militiamen spotted pickets or reached the crest, they aimed, fired, and took cover to reload.  The British and Tory forces found themselves suddenly surrounded by long muskets and targeted by shots coming from every direction.   They fought back valiantly, but the outcome was never in doubt.  After slightly more than an hour, the British-Tory force surrendered.

For many of the Scotch-Irish (and Welsh, and Scots, and even yeoman English) in the Patriot militia, it was a day of retribution.  For centuries, they and their ancestors had been ill-treated by the Crown; for them, the British redcoats represented the very people that they had come to America to escape.

Patrick Ferguson remains on Little King's Mountain, having been buried there with one of his mistresses who was also killed in the crossfire.  There are conflicting reports of the numbers of dead and wounded, but there is no question about one thing:  Ferguson's command was a total loss.  The Battle of King's Mountain was, for the British, a humiliating defeat and, most importantly, the Backcountry militia inflicted a loss of personnel from which Cornwallis never recovered.  For the Patriots, it was the place, the day and the hour when the tide of war at last turned in their favor. 

Lt. Reese Bowen never saw Maiden Spring again; he was killed leading his Virginia militiamen into the fighting at King's Mountain.  His son was old enough to hold and defend the homestead.  Reese Bowen's  great-great-great-great-grandson is now the seventh generation to farm the land.

* * * 

"I never saw such fighting . . . " - - Gen. Lord Cornwallis, following the Battle of Guilford Court House, March 15, 1781.

In the months following the Battle of King's Mountain, the rebels had a new lease on life and they used it to good advantage.  Continental Army and militia units combined at the Battle of Cowpens in South Carolina to do serious damage to the British forces.   At the Battle of Guilford Court House in the backwoods of North Carolina, in March of 1781, a combination of Continental Army units and militia inflicted heavy losses on an army led by Cornwallis himself.  In conventional terms, Cornwallis "won the field" and claimed victory, but in reality Guilford Court House was another disaster, costing Cornwallis more than one-fourth of his men killed or disabled.  The Southern Campaign had failed.

It was a stunning turnaround.  Cornwallis saw the end coming and withdrew to the coast, hoping for reinforcements.  General Washington seized the moment, feinting an attack northward to keep Clinton in New York and then marching the main body of the Continental Army south to trap the British forces at Yorktown.  French warships blockaded the Yorktown harbor and loaned the Continentals a number of siege cannons which they happened to have on board.  After suffering bombardment for a time sufficient to satisfy duty and honor, Cornwallis surrendered and the Revolutionary War was won.

Links of interest:

King's Mountain National Military Park

Cowpens National Battlefield

Guilford Courthouse National Military Park

 Recommended reading:

The Overmountain Men, by Pat Alderman (The Overmountain Press, 1986)

The Uncivil War:  The Southern Backcountry During The American Revolution, Hoffman, Albert & Tate, editors (University of Virginia Press, 1985)

The Revolutionary War in the Southern Backcountry, by James K. Swisher (Pelican Publishing Co., 2007)

South Carolina and the American Revolution: A Battlefield History, by John W. Gordon and John Keegan (University of South Carolina Press, 2006)